Israel Buys the U.S. Congress

The time to act is now.

It is time to stand up and expose the role played by the Israel Lobby in corrupting Congress and turning “our” elected representatives into flunkeys for Israel’s wars.

by Dr. James Petras

“Pro-Israel Policy groups such as AIPAC work with unlimited funding to divert US policy in the region (Middle East)” – Jack Straw, Member of Parliament and former Foreign Secretary of the British Labor Party

Jack Straw, Former British Foreign Secretary. Photo: REUTERS

“The United States should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran to spur the country to end its nuclear program”–  Sheldon Adelson, biggest donor to the Republican Party and major fundraiser for pro-Israel political action committees, speech at Yeshiva University, New York City, October 22, 2013.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson

Introduction

The question of war or peace with Iran rests with the policies adopted by the White House and the US Congress. The peace overtures by newly elected Iranian President Rohani have resonated favorably around the world, except with Israel and its Zionist acolytes in North America and Europe. 

The first negotiating session proceeded without recrimination and resulted in an optimistic assessment by both sides. Precisely because of the initial favorable response among the participants, the Israeli government escalated its propaganda war against Iran. Its agents in the US Congress, the mass media and in the Executive branch moved to undermine the peace process. What is at stake is Israel’s capacity to wage proxy wars using the US military and its NATO allies against any government challenging Israeli military supremacy in the Middle East, its violent annexation of Palestinian territory and its ability to attack any adversary with impunity.

To understand what is at stake in the current peace negotiations one must envision the consequences of failure: Under Israeli pressure, the US announced that its ‘military option’ could be activated – resulting in missile strikes and a bombing campaign against 76 million Iranians in order to destroy their government and economy. Tehran could retaliate against such aggression by targeting USmilitary bases in the region and Gulf oil installations resulting in a global crisis. This is what Israel wants.

We will begin by examining the context of Israel’s military supremacy in the Middle East. We will then proceed to analyze Israel’s incredible power over the US political process and how it shapes the negotiation process today, with special emphasis on Zionist power in the US Congress.

The Context of Israeli Military Supremacy in the Middle East

Since the end of World War II, Israel has bombed, invaded and occupied more countries in the Middle East and Africa than previous colonial powers, except the US. The list of Israel’s victims includes: Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Sudan and Yemen. If we include countries where Israel has launched quasi-clandestine terrorist attacks and assassinations, the list would be greatly expanded to include a dozen countries in Europe and Asia – including the US through its Zionist terror network.

Israel’s projection of military power, its capacity for waging offensive wars at will, is matched by its near-total impunity. Despite their repeated violations of international law, including war crimes, Israel has never been censored at an international tribunal or subjected to economic sanctions because the US government uses its position to veto UN Security Council resolutions and pressure its NATO-EU allies.

Israel’s military supremacy has less to do with the native techno-industrial ‘brilliance’ of its war-mongers and more to do with the transfers and outright theft of nuclear, chemical and biological technology and weapons from the US (Grant Smith “Ten Explosive US Government Secrets of Israel” IRMEP). Overseas Zionists in the US and France have played a strategic (and treasonous) role in stealing and illegally shipping nuclear technology and weapon components to Israel, according to an investigation by former CIA Director Richard Helms.

Israel maintains huge nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon stockpiles refusing any access to international arms inspectors and is not obliged to abide by the non-proliferation treaty, because of US diplomatic intervention. Under pressure from the local ‘Zionist power configuration’ (ZPC), the US government has blocked any action which might constrain Israel’s production of weapons of mass destruction. In fact the US continues to provide Israel with strategic weapons of mass destruction for use against its neighbors – in violation of international law.

US military aid and technology transfers to Israel exceed $100 billion dollars over the past half century. US diplomatic and military intervention was crucial in rescuing Israel from defeat during the 1973 war. US President Lyndon Johnson’s refusal to defend the unarmed intelligence ship, the USS Liberty in 1967, after it had been bombed and napalmed by Israeli fighter planes and warships in international waters, constituted a tremendous victory for Israel thanks to Johnson’s Zionist advisers. Because of its impunity, even in killing American servicemen, Israel has been given a free hand to wage aggressive wars to dominate its neighbors, commit acts of terrorism and assassinate its adversaries throughout the world without fear of retaliation.

Israel’s uncontested military superiority has converted several of its neighbors into quasi-client collaborators: Egypt and Jordan have served as de facto allies, along with the Gulf monarchies, helping Israel repress the region’s nationalist and pro-Palestinian movements.

The most decisive factor in the rise and consolidation of Israel’s power in the Middle East has not been its military prowess but its political reach and influence via its Zionist agents in the US. 

Washington’s wars against Iraq and Libya, and its current support of the mercenary assault against Syria, have destroyed three major secular nationalist opponents of Israel’s hegemonic ambitions.

As Israel accumulates more power in the region, expanding its colonization of Palestinian territory, it looks eastward toward destroying the last remaining obstacle to its colonial policies: Iran.

For at least two decades, Israel has directed its overseas agents – (the ZPC) – to destroy the government of Iran by destabilizing its society, assassinating its scientists, bombing its military establishments and laboratories and strangling its economy.

After the ZPC successfully pushed the US into war against Iraq in 2003 – literally shredding its complex secular society and killing over a million Iraqis – it turned its sights on destroying Lebanon (Hezbollah) and the secular government of Syria as a way to isolate Iran and prepare for an attack. While thousands of Lebanese civilians were slaughtered in 2006, Israel’s attack of Lebanon failed, despite the support of the US government and the ZPC’s wild propaganda campaign. Hysterical at its failure and to ‘compensate’ for its defeat at the hands of Hezbollah and to ‘boost morale’, Israel invaded and destroyed much of Gaza (2008/9) – the world’s largest open air prison camp.

Lacking military capacity to attack Iran on its own, Israel directed its agents to manipulate the US government to start a war with Teheran. The militarist leaders in Tel Aviv have unleashed their political assets (ZPC) throughout the US to work to destroy Iran – the last formidable adversary to Israel supremacy in the Middle East.

The Israeli-ZPC strategy is designed to set the stage for a US confrontation with Iran, using its agents in the Executive branch as well as its ongoing corruption, bribery and control of the US Congress. ZPC control over the mass media enhances its propaganda campaign: Everyday the New York Times and the Washington Post publish articles and editorials promoting Israel’s war agenda. The ZPC uses the US State Department to force other NATO states to likewise confront Iran.

Israel’s Proxy War with Iran: US Political Pressure, Economic Sanctions and Military Threats

Alone, Israel’s ‘war’ with Iran would not amount to much more than its cyber sabotage, the periodical assassinations of Iranian scientists using its paid agents among Iranian terrorist groups and non-stop brow-beating from Israeli politicians and their ‘amen crowd’. Outside of Israel, this campaign has had little impact on public opinion. Israel’s ‘wars’ on Iran depends exclusively on its capacity to manipulate US policy using its local agents and groups who dominate the US Congress and through the appointments of officials in key positions in the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and Justice, and as Middle East ‘advisors’. Israel cannot organize an effective sanction campaign against Iran; nor could it influence any major power to abide by such a campaign. Only the US has that power. Israel’s dominance in the Middle East comes entirely from its capacity to mobilize its proxies in the United States who are assigned the task of securing total submission to Israel’s interests from elected and appointed government officials – especially in regard to Israel’s regional adversaries.

Strategically placed, ‘dual US-Israeli citizens’ have used their US citizenship to secure high security positions in the Government directly involved in policies affecting Israel. As Israelis, their activities are in line with the dictates of Tel Aviv. In the Bush administration (2001-2008) high placed ‘Israel Firsters’ dominated the Pentagon (Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith), Middle East Security (Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross), the Vice President’s office (‘Scooter’ Libby), Treasury (Levey) and Homeland Security (Michael Chertoff). In the Obama administration the ‘Israel Firsters’ include Dennis Ross, Rahm Emanuel, David Cohen, Secretary of Treasury Jack “Jake the Snake” Lew, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and Michael Froman as Trade Representative among others.

Israel’s Proxy Power within the Executive branch is matched by its dominance of the US Congress. Contrary to some critics, Israel is neither an ‘ally’ or ‘client’ of the US. Evidence of the gross asymmetry of the relation abounds over the past half century.

Because of these powerful proxies in Congress and the Executive branch, Israel has received over $100 billion dollar tribute from the US over the past 30 years, or $3 billion plus a year. The US Pentagon has transferred the most up-to-date military technology and engaged in several wars on Israel’s behalf. The US Treasury has imposed sanctions against potentially lucrative trading and investment partners in the Middle East (Iran, Iraq and Syria) depriving US agricultural and manufacturing exporters and oil companies of over $500 billion in revenues. The White House sacrificed the lives of over 4,400 US soldiers in the Iraq War – a war promoted by Israel’s proxies at the behest of Israel’s leaders.

The State Department has rejected friendly and profitable relations with over 1.5 billion Muslims by backing the illegal settlement of over half million Jewish colonists on military-occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The strategic question is how and why this one-sided relation between the US and Israel persists for so long, even as it goes counter to so many strategic and elite US interests? The more immediate and pressing question is how this historically lopsided relation effects contemporary US-Iran sanctions and nuclear negotiations?

Iran and the Peace Negotiations

Undoubtedly the newly elected Iranian President and his Foreign Minister are prepared to negotiate an end to hostilities with the US by making major concessions ensuring the peaceful use of nuclear energy. They have stated they are open to reducing or even ending the production of highly enriched uranium; reducing the number of centrifuges and even allowing intrusive, unannounced inspections, among other promising proposals. The Iranian government proposes a roadmap with end goals as part of the initial agreements. The European Union’s Foreign Secretary Lady Ashton has commented favorably on the initial meeting. 

The US Administration has given conflicting signals following the Iranian overtures and the opening meeting. Some individual comments are guardedly positive; others are less encouraging and rigid. Administration Zionists like Jack ‘Jake’ Lew, the Treasury Secretary, insists sanctions will remain until Iran meets all US (read ‘Israeli’) demands. The US Congress, bought and controlled by the ZPC, rejects the promising Iranian overtures and flexibility, insisting on military ‘options’ or the total dismantling of Iran’s legal and peaceful nuclear program – ZPC positions designed to sabotage the negotiations. To that end, Congress has passed new, more extreme, economic sanctions to strangle the Iran’s oil economy.

How Israel’s Political Action Committees Control the US Congress and Prepare War with Iran

The Zionist Power Configuration uses its financial firepower to dictate Congressional policy on the Middle East and to ensure that the US Congress and Senate do not stray one iota from serving Israel’s interests. The Zionist instrument used in the purchase of elected officials in the US is the political action committee (PAC).

Stop 30 Billion Taxpayers Dollars Billboard at Melrose and Walnut, Los Angeles.

Thanks to a 2010 US Supreme Court decision, Super PACs-linked to Israel spend enormous sums to elect or destroy candidates – depending on the candidate’s political work on behalf of Israel. As long as these funds do not go directly to the candidate, these Super PACs do not have to reveal how much they spend or how it is spent. Conservative estimates of ZPC- linked direct and indirect funds to US legislators run close to $100 million dollars over the past 30-year.

The ZPC channels these funds to legislative leaders and members of Congressional committees dealing with foreign policy, especially sub-committee chairpersons dealing with the Middle East. Unsurprisingly, the largest Congressional recipients of ZPC money are those who have aggressively promoted Israel’s hard-line policies. Elsewhere around the world, such large scale payoffs for legislative votes would be considered blatant bribery and subject to felony prosecution and imprisonment for both parties. In the US, the purchase and sale of a politician’s vote is called ‘lobbying’ and is legal and open. The legislative branch of the US government has come to resemble a high-price brothel or white slavers’ auction – but with the lives of thousands at stake.

The ZPC has purchased the alliance of US Congress people and Senators on a massive scale: Of 435 members of the US House of Representatives (sic), 219 have received payments from the ZPC in exchange for their votes on behalf of the state of Israel. Corruption is even more rampant among the 100 US Senators, 94 of whom have accepted pro-Israel PAC and Super PAC money for their loyalty to Israel.

The ZPC showers money on both Republicans and Democrats, thus securing incredible (in this era of Congressional deadlock), near unanimous (‘bipartisan’) votes in favor of the ‘Jewish State’, including its war crimes, like the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon as well as the annual $3 billion dollar plus US tax-payer tribute to Tel Aviv. At least 50 US Senators have each collected between $100 thousand and $1 million in ZPC money over the past decades.

In exchange, they have voted for over $100 billion in tribute payments to Israel … in addition to other ‘services and payments’. The members of the US Congress are cheaper: 25 legislators have received between $238,000 and $50,000, while the rest got peanuts. Regardless of the amount, the net result is the same: Congressional member pick up their script from their Zionist mentors in the PACs, Super PACs and AIPAC and back all of Israel’s wars in the Middle East and promote US aggression on behalf of Israel.

Sen. Mark Kirk — Illinois

The most outspoken and influential legislators get the biggest chunk of Zionist payola: Senator Mark Kirk (Bombs over Teheran!) tops the ‘pigs at the trough’ list with $925,000 in ZPC payoffs, followed by John McCain (Bombs over Damascus!) with $771,000, while Senators Mitch McConnell, Carl Levin, Robert Menendez, Richard Durban and other Zionophilic politicos are not shy about holding out their little begging bowls when the pro-Israel PAC bagmen arrive! Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen tops the ‘House’ list with $238,000 for her 100% pro-Israel record as well as for being more war-mongering than even Netanyahu! Eric Cantor got $209,000 for championing ‘wars for Israel’ with American lives while cutting Social Security payments to US seniors in order to increase military aid to Tel Aviv. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, got $144,000 for ‘whipping the few wobbly’ Democrats back into Israel’s ‘camp’. House Majority Leader John Boehner was paid $130,000 to do the same among the Republicans.

The ZPC has spent huge amounts to punish and destroy a dozen or so dissident legislators who had stood up to Israel’s wars and grotesque human rights record. The ZPC has poured millions into individual campaigns, not only financing opposition candidates who pledged allegiance to the Israel but mounting scurrilous character assassinations of Israel’s critics in office. These campaigns have been mounted in the most obscure parts of the US, including in majority African-American districts, where local Zionist interests and influence are otherwise absolutely nil.

There are no comparable PACs, Super PACs, party leaders, or civic organization that can contest the power of Israel’s Fifth Column. According to documents archived by the courageous researcher, Grant Smith of IRMEP, when it comes to Israel, the US Justice Department has adamantly refused to enforce its own federal laws requiring the prosecution of US citizens who fail to register as foreign agents while working for a foreign country – at least since 1963. On the other hand, the ZPC, through the so-call ‘Anti-Defamation League’, has successfully pressured the Justice Department, the FBI and NSA to investigate and prosecute law-abiding, patriotic US citizens critical of Israel’s land grabs in Palestine and the Zionist corruptors of the US political system on behalf of their foreign master.

The corruption and degradation of US democracy is made possible by the equally compromised and corrupted ‘respectable press’. Media critic, Steve Lendman, has pointed out the direct link between Israel and the mass media in his investigation of the New York Times. The leading (‘fair and balanced’) journalists reporting on Israel have strong family and political ties to that country and their articles have been little more than propaganda. Times reporter Ethan Bronner, whose son served in the Israel Defense Forces, is a long-time apologist for the Zionist state. Times reporter Isabel Kershner, whose ‘writing’ seem to come straight out of the Israeli Foreign Office, is married to Hirsh Goodman an adviser to the Netanyahu regime on ‘security affairs’. The Times bureau chief in Jerusalem, Jodi Rudoren, lives comfortably in the ancestral home of a Palestinian family dispossessed from that ancient city.

The Times unflinching pro-Israel posture provides a political cover and justification for the corrupted US politicians as they beat the war drums for Israel. It is no surprise that the New York Times, like the Washington Post, is deeply engaged in disparaging and denouncing the current US-Iran negotiations – and providing ample space for the one-sided rhetoric of Israeli politicians and their US mouthpieces, while studiously excluding the more rational, pro-rapprochement voices of experienced former US diplomats, war-weary military leaders and representatives of the US business and academic communities.

To understand Congress’ hostility to the nuclear negotiations with Iran and their efforts to scuttle them through the imposition of ridiculous new sanctions, it is important to get to the source of the problem, namely the statements of key Israeli politicians, who set the line of march for their US proxies.

In late October, 2013, Former Israeli Defense Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin spoke of ‘having to choose between ‘the bomb’ or the bombing’ – a message which immediately resonated with the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations (Daily Alert, October 24, 2013). On October 22, 2013, Israel’s Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, called for harsh new sanctions on Iran and insisted that the US use them as leverage to demand that Iran agree to entirely abandon its peaceful nuclear energy and enrichment program. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon affirmed that ‘Israel will not accept any deal that allows Iran to enrich uranium’. It is Israel’s position to threaten war (via the US) if Iran does not submit to unconditional surrender of its nuclear program. This defines the position of all the major pro-Israel PACs, Super PACs and AIPAC. They in turn proceed to dictate policy to their ‘lick-spittles’ in the US Congress. As a result, Congress passes even more extreme economic sanctions on Iran in order to sabotage the ongoing negotiations.

Those who have received the biggest Zionist pay-offs from the pro-Israel PACs are the most vociferous:Senator Mark Kirk ($925,379), author of a previous sanctions bill, demands that Iran end its entire nuclear and ballistic missile program (!) and declared that the US Senate “should immediately move forward with a new round of economic sanctions targeting all remaining Iranian government revenue and reserves” (Financial Times, 10/18/13, p. 6). The US House of Representatives (sic) has already passed a bill sharply limiting Iran’s ability to sell its main export, oil. Once again, the Israel- ZPC – Congressional axis seeks to impose Israel’s war agenda on the American people! In late October 2013, Secretary of State Kerry was ‘grilled’ for 7 hours by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with the craven Kerry promising to promote Israel’s agenda on dismantling Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

To counter the campaign to strangle Iran’s oil economy, promoted by Israel’s flunkeys in the Congress, the Iranian government has offered generous contracts to the US and EU oil companies (Financial Times 10/29/2013, p 1). Existing nationalist provisions are being removed. Under the new terms, foreign companies book reserves or take equity stakes in Iranian projects. Iran hopes to attract at least $100 billion dollars in investments over the next three years. This stable country boasts the world’s largest gas and the fourth largest oil reserves. Because of the current US (Israel)-imposed sanctions, production has fallen from 3.5 million barrels per day in 2011 to 2.58 million barrels per day in 2013. The question is whether ‘Big Oil’, the giant US and EU companies have to power to challenge the ZPC-stranglehold over US-EU sanction policy. So far, the ZPC has dominated this critical policy and marginalized ‘Big Oil’ using threats, blackmail and coercion against US policymakers. This has effectively shut out US companies from the lucrative Iranian market.

Conclusion 

As the US and the 5 other countries attempt to negotiate with Iran, they face enormous obstacles overcoming Israel’s power over the US Congress. Over past decades Israel’s agents have bought the loyalties of the vast majority of Congress people, training them to recognize and obey the whistles, signals and script from the war mongers in Tel Aviv.

This ‘Axis of War’, has inflicted enormous damage on the world resulting in the deaths of millions of victims of US wars in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and North Africa. The gross corruption and widely recognized bankruptcy of the US legislative system is due to its slavish submission to a foreign power. What remains in Washington is a debased vassal state despised by its own citizens. If the ZPC controlled Congress succeeds once again in destroying the negotiations between the US and Iran via new war-like resolutions, we, the American people, will have to pay an enormous price in lives and treasure.

The time to act is now. It is time to stand up and expose the role played by the Israeli PACs, Super PACs and the 52 Major American Jewish Organizations in corrupting Congress and turning “our” elected representatives into flunkeys for Israel’s wars.

There has been a deafening silence from our noted critics –few alternative media critics have attacked Israel’s power over the US Congress. The evidence is openly available, the crimes are undeniable. The American people need real political leaders with the courage to root out the corrupted and corruptors and force their elected members in the House and Senate to represent the interest of the American people. 

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 Dr. James Petras

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Obama with Israel and Against the World ~

"There are daily reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and all the major and minor television networks, which endlessly repeat the ‘need for war’ and ‘our humanitarian obligation to bomb Damascus ’ – to no avail.  The mass media and the high powered propaganda campaign, run by and for the war mongers in Washington and Tel Aviv, have failed to gain no more than 10% of the US citizenry – despite a near-total black-out of any alternative news or debate." "It is only in Israel a majority of Jewish Israelis support Obama’s push to war."

-  As President Obama announces plans for another war, adding Syria to the recent and ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere, a profound gap has emerged between the highly militarized state and US public opinion. A Reuters/IPSOS poll taken August 19-23 (2013) revealed that 60 percent of Americans surveyed were against the United States intervening in Syria, while 9 percent said President Obama should act.  Even when the question was ‘loaded’ to include Obama’s bogus and unsubstantiated claim that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces ‘used nerve gas to massacre civilians’, almost twice as many Americans oppose US military intervention (46 percent to 25 percent).  In panic several pro-Administration media outlets hastily conducted new polls to try to’ improve the results’ in ‘favor’ of the White House desire to attack Syria .  What is striking about these finding is that, despite the mass media and the Obama spokespeople’s saturation of the airwaves with lurid images of ‘victims’, the US public has become more vehemently opposed to another imperialist war.  Reuters/IPSOS poll of August 13 found 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if it were proved that nerve gas had been used by President Assad against civilians, while 41.6 percent wanted no part of the conflict.  In other words, as the Obama regime intensified its preparations for war, American public opposition increased by over 16 percent.               

A growing number of polls and studies show that a substantial well-entrenched majority of Americans are opposed to the current war in Afghanistan , even as the President and Congress continue to finance and dispatch US troops and engage in aerial assaults in Pakistan , Yemen and elsewhere.

Across the world huge majorities oppose Obama’s war:  Two thirds of the French and German public oppose the US bombing Syria ,  not to mention of the hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics responding to Pope Francis’s passionate anti-war message delivered on September 7 to over 100,000 worshipers in St. Peter’s Square.  It is only in Israel a majority of Jewish Israelis support Obama’s push to war.

If, as some scholars argue, militarism and ‘national security’ (and the police state) have become the secular religion of the State, it is clear that the majority of civil society are ‘non-believers’.  The ‘true believers’ of militarism as the road to empire building are firmly ensconced in Washington’s political establishment, especially among the powerful lobbies and propaganda mills known as ‘think tanks’.  Militarist beliefs are widely embraced by strategically-placed officials with deep and long-standing ties to the Israeli power structure. 

The two major myths, propagated by cynical political pundits, that “the US public opinion gets the elected officials it deserves” and that “Congress and the President reflect the values and sentiments of the electorate” are contradicted by the divergent attitudes and interests showing up in repeated public opinion polls.  The vast majority of Americas are concerned with domestic economic issues, such as unemployment, the steep decline in living standards, growing inequalities, the growing concentration of wealth (the ‘Wall Street 1% versus the 99%’ issue of the ‘Occupy Movement’), the grotesque and inescapable debt among students and graduates, the savage cuts in social programs (education, health, housing and infrastructure) in the face of soaring military expenditures and stratospheric government subsidies to bailout the banks and speculators.  In other words, the values, attitudes and interests of the vast majority of Americans diverge sharply from those of the Washington establishment, the mass media and the power brokers who penetrate and surround the political elite.

  War and Peace:  Oligarchy and Democracy

This divergence raises fundamental questions about the nature of the American political system, the role and influence of the mass media and the power of minorities against the interests of the majority.  Divergences and deep differences between rulers and ruled have become the norm in the United States on all the major domestic and foreign issues of our day.

As the differences accumulate, deepen and fester, they ‘grind’ on our public.  Political ‘differences’ turn into outright personal animosities, citizen disagreement is transformed into anger and even hatred of the ‘O-man’.  Obama’s deceptions, the very words he mouths, are repeated and mocked.  Nothing is more irritating than to have to listen to an unmasked confidence man as he still tries to bamboozle a disenchanted public.  Americans are not fooled anymore.  Obama’s newly recruited Cabinet members of all genders and ethnicities are viewed as mere peddlers of  toxic lies trying to justify ongoing war crimes via moral ejaculations that resonate in their own echo chambers and with their President, but not very far beyond the palace grounds.

Executive Prerogatives as Dictatorial Rule

The Presidential declarations of  war  against the will and opinion of the vast majority of citizens; the  decision to finance massive bank bailouts with public funds behind the backs of ‘the 99%’; the shallow proclamations  ‘ending’ ongoing wars which  still continue under other guises;  and the transparent fabrications serving as pretexts for dragging the country into new wars by trotting out the same lies recycled from the previous wars…all undermine any notion of a constitutional democracy in the United States.

It’s a dictatorship stupid!  There is nothing ‘constitutional’ here.  That abused document has become presidential toilet paper!  Legal hacks and whores scratch their backsides and regurgitate the previous illegal executive orders in order to ‘legitimize’ new arbitrary powers to declare war.

The voters of thousands of local, state and federal officials are ignored.  Who even bothers to describe the US as a democracy except during the theater of elections?  War has become the ‘prerogative’ of the President, we are told by the propagandists.  Waging sequential wars is the favored alternative to building a national health system for the scores of millions of Americans without access to adequate medical care. When the President mouths his moral platitudes most Americans ignore him, while others jeer, curse and wish he would choke on his rank hypocrisy.

The Case for Impeachment

When in the course of human history an elected US President perpetuates and extends his power beyond the restraints of the constitutional order, and willfully commits the American people to endless suffering, emptying the public treasury of its citizens’ wealth, the question of impeachment must be addressed.  And it ill behooves the ‘climbers and clamorers’  serving foreign lands, to flatter, manipulate and blackmail the President whose own imperial pretensions further fuel the ambitions of their ‘ Chosen State ’.

Profound and lasting divisions between the rulers and the ruled, burdened by long-standing hardships at a time when they lack redress in petition and protest, will eventually lead the American people to demand their President’s impeachment – for high crimes and misdemeanors against the constitution and citizenry.  What they demand would be a trial by jury, conviction and incarceration for multiple and grave violations against the constitutional order and dereliction of the President’s duty to safeguard the nation from enemies, foreign and domestic.  When the executive has usurped the constitutionally-guaranteed rights of the American people at the service of an empire and their foreign and domestic collaborators with traitorous intent, he must be impeached and brought to justice.

Why and How the American Public was Disenfranchised:  the Tyranny of the Minority

It is not the members of the US military who choose to disenfranchise and ignore the vast majority of Americans overwhelmingly opposed to new Middle East wars.  The usurpers are mostly civilians, some of whom had formerly carried weapons for a foreign nation and still carry dual citizenship while plying our President with calls for military expansionism.  Nor is the exclusion of the majority of Americans part of some hidden conspiracy by the oil companies; in fact, they have lost hundreds of billions of potential profits to wars, which were not of their making and which now disrupt access to oil fields, trade, production and shipping.

Idle chatter, flowing from ‘leftist’ or ‘progressive’ monthlies, liberal weeklies and a multitude of pundits, academics and ‘critical’ public intellectuals, decry the ‘military-industrial complex’ as the movers behind the wars in the Middle East.  True, their lobbyists seek fat military contracts, but they were not the ones to formulate ‘position papers’ for the invasion of Iraq , nor secure sanctions, and bellicose Congressional resolutions against Iran .

If we want to identify and understand the minority, which secures its own militarist agenda in the White House and Congress against the majority of Americans, it is clearly marked by its swaggering, consistent and intrusive presence.  It is a smaller, more cohesive new version of the’ 1%’– and best described as the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC).

One can be 99% sure that among the scant 11% of Americans who ‘support’ US military intervention in Syria , the ‘pro-Israel crowd and its acolytes’ are overwhelmingly represented.  The evidence is clear:  They are the most actively engaged in propagandizing and pushing for war with Syria at the national and local levels throughout the country.  They are the ever-present bullying pundits’ and news commentators  lying about the Syrian government’s exclusive use of chemical ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in a horrific civil war riddled by foreign mercenaries.  They and other mass media pimps, pundits and publishers have totally buried a major the Associated Press  report from Syria which quotes members of the armed Syrian  opposition who admit they had ‘accidentally released stores of chemical weapons, supplied by Saudi Arabia’ (their sponsor)..

Israel ’s semi-official web site,Ynet.com, published a lead article by Yitzhak Benhorin, entitled  “AIPAC to Lobby Congress for Syrian Strike”.  The article reveals the leading role of the Israeli-directed Zionist war effort:  “After  Israel ’s ambassador to Washington ,Michael Oren and AIPAC noted that military action would send a message to Assad’s supporters …some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists ..intend to storm the halls on Capital Hill beginning next week (September 9-13)to persuade(sic)lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution authorizing US strikes against Syria”(9/6/13). To counter Pope Francis’ plea to the world for peace and opposition to Obama’s threats to bomb Syria before 100,000 people of faith in front of St .Peter’s Basilica, the Cleveland Jewish News(9/6/13) reported that, “leading rabbis covering the religious and political spectrum (sic)urged lawmakers in Congress to support President Obama’s plans to strike Syria..”

Everyday since Obama called for a Congressional vote, the Daily Alert , publication of the 52 Presidents of the Leading American Jewish Organizations,  has published only articles and statements promoting war and urged its supporters to round up Congressional votes for Obama and counter and undermine the pro-peace sentiments of the majority of Americans.

To the degree that we have moved from democracy to oligarchy, from a democratic republic to a militarist empire engaged in foreign wars of occupation, the Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) has accumulated enormous influence in the government and, in turn, has furthered the tyranny of the minority over the majority.  They are not alone, but certainly domestic tyranny against the majority of the citizens has been to their advantage; the ZPC has marginalized Americans of all creeds, races and religions (including the majority of American Jews and seculars) – especially those who would oppose their agenda.

 The nature of oligarchy facilitates the minorities’ access to power against the majority of citizens:  it is far easier for them to buy and blackmail a handful of venal, wealthy legislators and a coterie of narcissistic senior administration officials, than peddle their agenda to the millions of citizens suffering the double onus of perpetual foreign wars and sharply declining domestic living standards.

Limits of Mass Media Manipulation

The arbitrary power of the oligarchy, with its domestic and foreign collaborators, and their growing distance from the ruled is no longer bridged by mass media propaganda.  The Obama regime and the Washington ‘think tanks’ have repeatedly saturated print and electronic media with the lurid images of little children suffering from the Syrian government’s ‘war crimes’ in order to browbeat the American people into supporting another US military intervention.  There are daily reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and all the major and minor television networks, which endlessly repeat the ‘need for war’ and ‘our humanitarian obligation to bomb Damascus ’ – to no avail.  The mass media and the high powered propaganda campaign, run by and for the war mongers in Washington and Tel Aviv, have failed to gain no more than 10% of the US citizenry – despite a near-total black-out of any alternative news or debate.

 For years we have been told by ‘media experts’ about the power of the mass media to manipulate the US public, as if the people were a blank sheet of paper with the media writing the script for the oligarchy and the masses repeating it on ‘blind faith and the flag’.  In fact, time and time again, a majority of US citizens have rejected ‘the line’ peddled by the mass media, especially on questions of peace and war, their living standards and the grotesque bankers’ bailouts.  The credibility of the US mass media is now minus zero!

 The public’s rejection of the Obama’s push for war against Syria is another example of the growing limits of mass propaganda.  In the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the US public supported the invasion of Afghan and, to a less extent, the war in Iraq – once troops were sent.  But as the costly, endless wars and occupation ground on, and new wars spread; and as the police state (and abuses) expanded and domestic living standards plunged, the public drew back and became wary.  The domestic economic and social crisis drove the message home:  domestic decay results from imperial wars.  No amount of empty rhetoric or high powered Zionist lobbying for more wars on behalf of the state of Israel will convince Americans to continue sacrificing their lives and treasure and their children’s and grandchildren’s future living standards to this endless bloodletting, spiraling costs and devastating political and economic consequences.

 The Quiet Rebellion of the Democratic Majority

It has been hard to black out all the news:  Throughout Europe, vast majorities reject their rulers’ participation in more imperial wars, particularly the push for war in Syria .  Even the usually servile British Parliament rose up on its hind legs and bleated ‘no’ to bombing Damascus .  Only, the decrepit French regime under the ‘socialist-imperialist’  President Hollande, a most ‘humanitarian’ colonial whore master, has expressed unconditional  support Obama- at least for a few days until the French Parliament has a chance to finally bark out its disapproval.  The editorial writers of the imperial ‘mass media’ smell ‘trouble in the empire’.  They have started to quote skeptical military officers and experts… who have posed a few rather timid questions, including retired Generals who ask, “What will be the consequences of bombing the al-Assad government and aiding al Qaeda in the region?”.

Chastened by the opposition, Obama now has to face the jeers of his Zionist backers… “not to back down from the Administration’s ‘red line’ …”.  White House  Propaganda Office parrots Israeli reports of ‘intercepted Syrian military directives ordering the use of chemical weapons’ and those provided by  ‘rebel’ sources based in Turkey and Saudi Arabia – but no credible documents have been given to the UN or the skeptical world public.

 When Obama declares his ‘red line’: the American public senses the ‘big lie’!  Deception by the mass media and White House is losing its force.  The majority of Americans are fed up with the fabrication of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that provided a pretext for the invasion of Iraq, the phony ‘mass rapes (the obscene and racist reports of Gaddafi handing out tons of Viagra to his black “African mercenaries”) and other fake atrocities’ in Libya and the blatant cover-up of Israeli land grabs and ethnic cleansing against the native Palestinian population.

 The specter of economic insecurity, of life-long debts and precarious employment stalks the cities and towns of America .  A whole generation will be lost.  There is anger and fear at home directed against the current push for new wars abroad and their most visible propagandist: President Barack Obama.  The Obama regime is facing ‘a fall’ in this groundswell of disgust among the people. Will Obama’s handlers and willing accomplices crawl back to their Washington think tanks? Will the oligarchs decide the Obama ‘product’ has exceeded its ‘shelf life’, is no longer useful, has lost its appeal to the public, and is too narcissistic?  Will the oligarchs decide that there have been… one too many ‘wars for Israel ’? (Oh, my god, how did that one slip in?)  Will they realize that their puppet has not focused enough attention on ‘rebuilding America ’.?  Soon there will be a new election:  All aboard!  The people have spoken!  It’s time to trot out the special new presidential product – one less effusive and more mainstream – on order from the oligarch’s puppet factory!

 With Obama’s fall, we learn that the mass media are not all powerful and that Israel ’s smiling well-wishers among the elite will not cool their insatiable appetite for power even though they comprise a tiny 1% minority.  The majority can bring down the regime.  The question is: Can they create an alternative?

James Petras who wrote the above post  is a retired Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who has published prolifically on Latin American and Middle Eastern political issues.

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“Legal Imperialism” and International Law: Legal Foundations for War Crimes, Debt Collection and Colonization

This Article by:Prof. James Petras

By now we are familiar with imperial states using their military power to attack, destroy and occupy independent countries.  Boatloads of important studies have documented how imperial countries have seized and pillaged the resources of mineral-rich and agriculturally productive countries, in consort with multi-national corporations.  Financial critics have provided abundant data on the ways in which imperial creditors have extracted onerous rents, royalties and debt payments from indebted countries and their taxpayers, workers, employees and productive sectors.

What has not been examined fully is the over-arching legal architecture which informs, justifies and facilitates imperial wars, pillage and debt collection.

The Centrality of Imperial Law

While force and violence, especially through overt and covert military intervention, have always been an essential part of empire-building, it does not operate in a legal vacuum: Judicial institutions, rulings and legal precedents precede, accompany and follow the process of empire building.  The legality of imperial activity is based largely on the imperial state’s judicial system and its own legal experts.  Their legal theories and opinions are always presented as over-ruling international law as well as the laws of the countries targeted for imperial intervention.

Imperial law supersedes international law simply because imperial law is backed by brute force; it possesses imperial/colonial air, ground and naval armed forces to ensure the supremacy of imperial law.  In contrast, international law lacks an effective enforcement mechanism.

Moreover, international law, to the extent that it is effective, is applied only to the weaker powers and to regimes designated by the imperial powers as ‘violators’. The very judicial processes, including the appointment of judges and prosecutors who interpret international law, investigate international crime and arrest, sentence and punish ‘guilty’ parties are under to the influence of the reigning imperial powers.  In other words, the application and jurisdiction of international law is selective and subject to constraints imposed by the configurations of imperial and national power.

International law, at best, can provide a ‘moral’ judgment, a not insignificant basis for strengthening the political claims of countries, regimes and people seeking redress from imperial war crimes and economic pillage. To counter the claims and judgments pertaining to international law, especially in the area of the Geneva protocols such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, imperial legal experts, scholars and judges have elaborated a legal framework to justify or exempt imperial-state activity.

The Uses of Imperial Law

Empire-building throughout history is the result of conquest – the use or threat of superior military force.  The US global empire is no exception.  Where compliant rulers ‘invite’ or ‘submit’ to imperial domination, such acts of treason on the part of ‘puppet’ or ‘client’ rulers usually precipitate popular rebellions, which are then suppressed by joint imperial and collaborator armies.  They cite imperial legal doctrine to justify their intervention to repress a subject people in revolt.  While empires arose through the direct or indirect use of unbridled force, the maintenance and consolidation of empires requires a legal framework.  Legal doctrines precede, accompany and follow the expansion and consolidation of empire for several reasons.

Legality is really an extension of imperial conquest by other means.  A state of constant warfare raises the cost of imperial maintenance. Force, especially in imperial democracies undermines the sense of civic virtue, which the rulers and citizens claim to uphold.  Maintaining ‘law and order’ in the conquered nations requires a legal system and doctrine to uphold imperial rule, giving the facade of legitimacy to the outside world , attracting collaborator classes and individuals and providing the basis for the recruitment of local military, judicial and police officials.

Imperial legal pronouncements, whether issued directly by executive, judicial, military or administrative bodies, are deemed the ‘supreme law of the universe’, superior to international law and protocols fashioned by non-imperial authorities and legal experts.  This does not imply that imperial rulers totally discard international law: they just apply it selectively to their adversaries, especially against independent nations and rulers, in order to justify imperial intervention and aggression – Hence the ‘legal bases’ for dismantling Yugoslavia or invading Iraq and assassinating its rulers.

Legal rulings are issued by the imperial judiciary to force states to comply with the economic demands of multi-national corporations, banks, creditors and speculators, even after the local or national courts have ruled such claims unlawful.  Imperial law protects and provides sanctuary and financial protection to convicted former collaborator-rulers charged with human rights crimes, pillage of public treasury and destruction of democratic institutions.  Imperial judicial and administrative agencies selectively investigate, prosecute and levy severe fines and even jail sentences on banks, individuals and financial institutions of their competitor imperial countries, thereby strengthening the economic position of their own ‘national’ imperial firms.

Judicial officials are not only ‘instruments’ of closely related imperial political and economic powers; they also instrumentalize and, in some cases, override officials from other branches of their own imperial government and economic sectors.  Judges, with ties to particular financial sectors, may rule in favor of one group of creditors thereby prejudicing others.  In a recent ruling,  a New York judge ruled in favor of the demands by minority creditors that the Argentine government make ‘full payment’ on long-standing national debt in, prejudicing already agreed upon payments to the majority of creditors who had negotiated an earlier debt-restructuring arrangement.

Imperial legal doctrine has played a central role in justifying and providing a basis for the exercise of international terrorism.  Executives, such as US Presidents Bush and Obama, have been provided with the legal power to undertake cross-national ‘targeted’ assassinations of opponents using predator drones and ordering military intervention, in clear violation of international law and national sovereignty.  Imperial law, above all else, ‘legalizes’ aggression and economic pillage and undermines the laws of targeted countries, creating lawlessness and chaos among its victims.

Imperial law and judicial rulings form the basis for imperial subjugation on the assumption that the world legal systems are multi-tiered:  Imperial-centered legal systems supersede those of less powerful states.  Within each ‘tier’ there are further refinements: Competing imperial legal systems adjudicate in favor of their partisan political and economic elites.  Imperial clients who obey their imperial overlords are favored by imperial laws while imperial laws are applied against their adversaries.

Conclusion

Clearly in a world imperial system there can be no independent judicial bodies who abide by universally accepted legal codes.  Each set of judicial authorities reflect and actively promote policies favoring and extending their imperial prerogatives. There are rare exceptions where a judge will rule against a particular imperial policy but over the long run imperial law guides judicial opinions

Imperial legal doctrines and judicial decisions set the groundwork for imperial wars and economic pillage.  The empire’s legal experts redefine assassinations, coercion, torture and arbitrary arrests as compatible with the ‘constitutional order’ by claiming imminent and constant threats to the security of the imperial state.

Law is not simply part of the superstructure “reflecting” the power of economic or political institutions:  it also guides and directs political and economic institutions committing material resources to implement imperial doctrines.

In this sense, imperial rulers are not ‘lawless’ as some liberal critics would argue; they function in accordance with ‘imperial jurisprudence’ and are faithful to the legal doctrines of empire building.  It is pointless to argue that most imperial leaders trample on constitutional guarantees and international laws.  If an imperial ruler pursued a “constitutional agenda” eroding imperial prerogatives or, even worse, applied international law to prosecute those carrying out brutal imperial policy, he would be quickly condemned for dereliction of duty and/or immoral behavior and impeached or overthrown.

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