We Need to Get Back To Iraq? No Way

“The Western media have proved for all to see that the Western media comprises either a collection of ignorant and incompetent fools or a whorehouse that sells war for money.” Paul Craig Roberts

by Jonas E. Alexis

Former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made a stunning remark in 2011 that bears repeating here. He said:

“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”[1]

Gates was indirectly attacking the neoconservatives, who were and still are eager to see a mammoth of American troops in the Middle East.[2]

Most Americans, including this writer, would agree with Gates. In fact, “74% of Americans oppose sending U.S. troops to Iraq.” Moreover, “Most Americans say Iraq war wasn’t worth the costs.”

Poll after poll overwhelmingly shows that the vast majority of Americans simply want the United States to stop policing countries around the world because this messianic activity has bludgeoned America to death.

For example, last September, “six different polls from six different outlets” showed over and over that Americans did not want Washington to attack Syria.

Even with the current situation in Iraq, the New York Times itself tells us that “neither Obama nor Congress seems eager for a vote on military action in Iraq.”[3]

Yet, it is quite sad that one of our esteemed colleagues, Michael Shrimpton, has written with no substantial depth and referential argument that “we need to get back to Iraq.”

Who are we? The Americans or the Brits? If the Brits want to die for another lie, if they want to put another Tony Blair in power to do the neoconservatives’ dirty work, fine.

But the U.S. has had enough. Thousands upon thousands of U.S. soldiers have been dead in Iraq alone from 2003 to 2012; the war included more than 66,000 civilian lives and about 500,000 deaths.

And those people died not for a good cause but for a colossal lie imposed on them by the Dreadful Few. There certainly is something wrong with this picture. As retired Lieutenant Colonel William Astore has adequately put it,

“When you do something again and again, placing great faith in it, investing enormous amounts of money in it, only to see indifferent or even negative results, you wouldn’t be entirely surprised if a neutral observer questioned your sanity or asked you if you were part of some cult.

“Yet few Americans question the sanity or cult-like behavior of American presidents as they continue to seek solutions to complex issues by bombing Iraq (as well as numerous other countries across the globe)… ”[4]

Astore is not alone. Andrew J. Bacevich, a military historian of Boston University who spent years in the United States Army as a colonel and who lost his son in Iraq, writes,

“The fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq has exacted a huge price from the U.S. military—especially the army and the Marines.

“More than 6,700 soldiers have been killed so far in those two conflicts, and over fifty thousand have been wounded in action, about 22 percent with traumatic brain injuries.

“Furthermore, as always happens in war, many of the combatants are psychological casualties, as they return home with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs reported in the fall of 2012 that more than 247,000 veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have been diagnosed with PTSD. Many of those soldiers have served multiple combat tours.

“It is hardly surprising that the suicide rate in the U.S. military increased by 80 percent from 2002 to 2009, while the civilian rate increased only 15 percent. And in 2009, veterans of Iraq were twice as likely to be unemployed as the typical American.

“On top of all that, returning war veterans are roughly four times more likely to face family-related problems like divorce, domestic violence and child abuse than those who stayed out of harm’s way.”[5]

Political scientist John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago adds,

“The pursuit of global domination, however, has other costs that are far more daunting. The economic costs are huge—especially the wars—and there are significant human costs as well.

“After all, thousands of Americans have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, and many more have suffered egregious injuries that will haunt them for the rest of their lives…

“By backing the campaign against Assad, the Obama administration has helped turn Syria into a haven for terrorist groups. In fact, groups that loathe the United States dominate the armed opposition to Assad…

“Intervening in Syria will just make the terrorism problem there worse, unless, of course, Washington helps Assad defeat the rebels and return to the status quo ante. That is unlikely to happen, however, because Obama is committed to arming the rebels.

“But backing the rebels certainly does not solve the terrorism problem, as the most powerful groups are comprised of jihadists who hate America.

“[T]he economic costs of global dominance have been enormous. For starters, the United States has had to maintain a huge and sophisticated military with bases all over the world so that it can intervene anywhere on the planet.

“Not surprisingly, its defense budget dwarfs that of any other country; in 2012, for example, the United States spent more on defense ($682 billion) than the next ten countries combined ($652 billion).

“That enormous defense budget accounts for roughly 20 percent of U.S. government spending, which is almost as much as it spends on Social Security and about the same amount it spends on Medicare and Medicaid put together.

“And then there are the various wars America has fought since 2001, which will probably end up costing a staggering $4–6 trillion.

“The enormous amount of money spent on defense since September 11 has contributed significantly to America’s huge national debt, which is now well over $16 trillion. That debt has been a major drag on the American economy and promises to be so for a long time to come.

“Some of the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on preparing for and fighting unnecessary wars could have been spent instead on education, public health and transportation infrastructure, just to name a few areas on the home front where additional resources would have made the United States a more prosperous and livable country.”[6]

The U.S. will pay at least six trillion dollars for the Iraq war alone. It was reported that America was spending $720 million every day in Iraq. It was also reported that we could have built 84 new elementary schools with $720 million.

With the same amount of money, we could have hired 12,478 new teachers; with $720 million, 34,904 students could have attended a 4-year university; with $720 million, we could have funded 423,529 children with healthcare; with $720, we could have funded 1.2 million homes with renewable electricity.

And get this: America is still bleeding economically, despite the fact that we have given Israel more than we can bear. The LA Times has reported that “shoddy U.S. roads and bridges take a toll on the economy.”[7] Haaretz has recently reported that the “U.S. military aid to Israel exceeds $100 billion.”[8]

Yet, while Israel is having its cake and eating it, precious American lives are dying of starvation:

“One in seven Americans, more than 46 million people, including 12 million children, rely on food pantries and meal service programs to feed themselves and their families, according to a new study released today by Feeding America, the nation’s largest provider of charitable food assistance to low-income Americans.

“Hunger in America 2014 is the largest and most comprehensive study of people seeking food assistance in the United States ever conducted.”

Is that necessary? Imagine if we did not give Israel $100 billion to slaughter Palestinians in the Middle East? Would there be a massacre in Gaza?[9]

And what if we did use that money to create more jobs and decent livelihood for decent Americans who are still struggling to put food on the table?

The sad news is that Israel has such a Talmudic/diabolical power over the U.S. foreign policy that the Associated Press reported a few days ago:

“Israel secured supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon last month without the approval of the White House or the State Department…”

What would the Founding Fathers say about this covert activity? Furthermore, do we really need more dead soldiers, more individuals ready to be brutally raped, maimed and traumatized for messianic fabrications?[10]

What would Shrimpton say to at least 360,000 U.S. veterans who more than likely had brain injuries?[11] How about Thomas Young?

Or how about multiple and systemic birth defects after the war in Iraq?

And finally, how about the many U.S. veterans who ended up returning their medals because they finally woke up and realized that they have been thoroughly juiced by the powers that be, which invariably are under the guiding hands of the Dreadful Few?

The situation was so pathetic in 2008 that the Pentagon spent at least $300 million “on research for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury…”[12]

And then there was the suicide crisis among U.S. soldiers.[13] And then the rape and sodomy in places like Abu Ghraib. There is more.

From 2003 to 2012, over two thousand doctors and nurses, and over four hundred academics, were assassinated in Iraq. Others have emigrated due to violence in the region.

In 1990, there were about thirty thousand registered doctors in Iraq. By 2008, more than fifteen thousand had already left the country.

Then there is the high unemployment that has been ravaging virtually the entire region, combined with the fact that educational institutions have been in decline.[14]

Shrimpton magically ignores all these widely known facts. With an implicit neoconservative verve, he avers:

“We need to get boots back onto the ground in Iraq, and fast, and I don’t mean opening branches of Boots the Chemist. I am aware that the SAS has been deployed, but we need more than Special Forces. We need armor, anti-tank helos and a couple of infantry divisions…

“We also need more air power. So far we have just managed token strikes. A few captured Humvees here, the odd APC there. That’s not what Bomber Harris would call an airstrike! It doesn’t have to be a 1,000-bomber raid, just enough air-dropped munitions to take out ISIS’s captured armor and soft-skinned vehicles, and generally annoy them.”

And who is going to pay for that? Doesn’t Shrimpton know that the American economy is already a dismal failure? And if Shrimpton really wants to fight terrorism, why doesn’t he make the same argument about the Syrian rebels?

After the recent carnage in Gaza, the U.N. has declared that “400,000 Gaza children need psychological care.”[15]

So, which is more important: taking care of the 400,000 children in Gaza, or bombing ISIS, whose leader is none other than “Simon Elliot, aka Al-Baghdadi, son of Jewish parents, Mossad agent”?

If you continue to have spider web in your house and you intend to do something about it, which of the following two options would you choose: clean the house every single time the spider messes it up, or try to get rid of the spider that is creating the problem in the first place?

Well, this is a no-brainer: the second option is much more reasonable. Let us apply the same principle to ISIS. If the terrorist group is a Mossad operation or if it has been infected by the Mossad, shouldn’t we do something about the Mossad first? Why should the U.S. continue to support Israel, which created the Mossad? Shouldn’t the West have questions ready for the Israeli regime to answer?

And if Shrimpton is really attempting to make a serious case against terrorism, shouldn’t he tackle the Israeli regime as well, which has a history of terrorizing civilians[16] and even working with Nazis?

If the Zionists in Israel continue to commit genocide, shouldn’t the West put the regime on trial? Haaretz has recently reported,

“Israel has been refusing to allow employees of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to enter the Gaza Strip in order to conduct their own independent investigations into the fighting, using various bureaucratic excuses.”[17]

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi has recently reported the same thing. The inquiring mind certainly would like to know why Shrimpton does not address issues like this.

According to Shrimpton’s logic, they Syrian rebels are not terrorists. As he hubristically says, they are “moderate.” Yet Shrimpton does not seem to have the courage to tell his readers that those same “moderate” rebels and ISIS are almost two sides of the same coin. At least 6,300 men joined ISIS in Syria last July![18]

Whether Shrimpton likes it or not, this “moderate” argument is a quintessential product of the neoconservative ideology, which gives an obvious expression that Shrimpton is comfortably and ideologically at home with people like Max Boot and others, who have hopelessly tried to articulate that vacuous argument ad nauseam[19] and who indirectly passed it on to Washington and much of the media, which quickly began to use the same essentially messianic vocabulary.

The same vocabulary is being used to this very day by media outlets such as the Washington Post.[20]

The rebels themselves have been known to support “senseless destruction, criminal behavior, and the cold-blooded killing of prisoners.”[21] Yet if we follow the “moderate” argument to its logical conclusion, killing prisoners in cold blood is good.

But what if Assad happens to do the same thing? Oh, no. That is a code red!

Once again, Shrimpton’s statement here is the classical neoconservative version of the Syrian rebels—and it is demonstrably and categorically false. Here’s why.

By spring 2013, Israel’s defense minister Amos Gilad made it clear that there was a growing presence of al-Qaeda elements among the rebels, and those jihadists were “waiting for the opportunity to take over the state.”[22] The United States knew this as well.[23]

It has also been pointed out that the Muslim Brotherhood supported the Syrian rebels with cash.[24] Both the United States and Israel were supporting the rebels at the time.

But Gilad absolved himself from any moral responsibility by saying that this element is a very small price to pay “with the menace posed by the Iran-Syrian-Hezbollah axis before the Syrian civil war.”[25]

Gilad unapologetically said,

“With all due respect to that threat, [the al-Qaeda element] is not the same threat as one posed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah together, which is much more difficult.”[26]

When Assad is out of the equation, Gilad continued,

“You can look now and see al-Qaida in Syria, economic lows, instability, the lack of one address, huge refugee problems. This all presents new types of challenges that are not similar to the military challenge [Syria posed to Israel before the civil war]. In reality this is a blow to Iran and Hezbollah together.”[27]

The Syrian rebels/terrorists have been meeting with other Islamist terrorists since 2011.[28] The terrorist group al-Nusra for example attacked at least 600 major cities, causing the death of Syrian civilians during the war against Assad.[29]

The Obama administration labeled them terrorists, but the rebels resisted the label.[30] Obama declared that Americans still had to support this proxy war against the Syrian government,[31] even though Hilary Clinton herself admitted that jihadists were behind the Syrian rebels. It was the same thing with Libya, where NATO supported the rebels.[32]

Keep in mind that the rebels have also slaughtered Christians.[33] The situation got worse by December 2012 when Syrian rebels stormed two predominantly Christian towns and ordered the communities to either rise against Assad’s forces or face attack.[34] By the end of the month, it was reported that the rebels were beheading Christians and feeding them to dogs.[35]

Many of the rebels proved to be terrorists and have committed other terrorist acts,[36] and those rebels have come from at least twenty countries.[37]

By the end of January 2013, even civilian anti-government activists were upset because the rebels destroyed a milk factory and were disrespectful to residents.[38]

Jordan warned the West that supporting jihadists in the Syrian rebels would backfire very badly, since some jihadists had already made coup attempts in Jordan when they attacked Western embassies.[39]

For example, Abed Shidadeh, the leader of a jihadist group, declared in 2012 that once Assad has fallen, Tel Aviv would be next. “We tell Benjamin Netanyahu…get ready,” he said.

“The army of the Prophet Mohammad is coming your way. Those carrying explosives in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will find you, Allah, willing. The next fight is between us and you.”[40]

By December 2012, it was widely reported that the Obama administration continued to secretly support the Syrian rebels from Qatar.[41] During the same month, U.S. troops were stationed at Turkey’s Syrian border.[42]

It was reported by the Financial Times that Qatar has given the rebels at least $3 billion.[43] But then at the same time, the United States was labeling parties in the Syrian Rebels as terrorist groups because they were jihadists using suicide bombings and beheadings![44]

It was declared that there were 1,000 to 3,000 jihadists among the Syrian rebels.[45] The United States knew this for months.[46] For example, the group al-Nusra Front had committed terrorist acts by the summer of 2012,[47] and in January 2013, the group declared that they wanted “to give the tyrannical regime [Assad] a taste of violence.”[48] But the United States still did not get the memo.

In December 2012, the rebels smashed a school in Syria, taking the lives of twenty-eight children.[49] Then in the same month, the ethnic Kurds began to rise against the Syrian rebels.[50]

Once again, all of that analysis is ignored by Shrimpton. The inquiring mind would like to know what he thinks about one of the Syrian rebels cutting the liver out of a dead body and taking a bite.

Shrimpton, instead of producing serious evidence for many of his brazenly vacuous assertions, congratulates himself by citing Harvey Feldman, who was a board member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Listen to the self-congratulation:

“As long ago as 2002, I had an article published in the Journal of International Security Affairs [JINSA], edited by that nice man Ambassador Harvey Feldman, late of the CIA, pointing out the need for a unifying figure in Afghanistan. Harvey was a great loss by the way. My argument, which I also extended to Iraq, was that we should restore the king.”

JINSA, ladies and gentlemen, is the “flagship publication of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs,” which is a hawkish neoconservative group

“that fervently believed the United States was a hair away from being militarily surpassed by the Soviet Union, and whose raison d’être was strident advocacy of bigger military budgets, near-fanatical opposition to any form of arms control and zealous championing of a Likudnik Israel.”[51]

JINSA’s advisory board members and leading neoconservatives include Stephen Bryen, “Prince of Darkness” Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Douglas Feith, Steve Israel, Dick Cheney, etc.

Michael Ledeen in particular wrote a book a few years back entitled The Iranian Time Bomb, in which he argues that Iran was responsible for 9/11. Not only that, Iran, says the legendary Ledeen, has always sought “to destroy or dominate” the United States![52] Moreover, for Ledeen, Iran is “the mother of modern terrorism.”[53]

Ledeen believes the best way to destroy “the mother of modern terrorism” is through war. In fact, Ledeen has been a proponent of the idea that peace can come through violent war. He declared,

“I don’t know of a case in history where peace has been accomplished in any way other than one side winning a war [and] imposing terms on the other side.”[54]

He also maintains that Iran was the chief mine of terrorism, proven, says Ledeen, by court documents (even though he never tells where to find the court documents or what they actually said); in the same article, Ledeen even implied that the quicker the U.S. invaded Iran, the better.[55]

By invading Iran, Ledeen argued, the U.S. would eventually bring down “the mullahcracy, for they will keep killing our people and our friends.”[56] It is not surprising that Ledeen has been described as “one of the most dishonest and ludicrous jokes on the political scene.”[57]

Although Ledeen admits that his theory “sounds fanciful, to be sure,” he was clear that if it happens to be correct,

“we will have to pursue the war against terror far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, into the heart of Western Europe. And there, as in the Middle East, our greatest weapons are political: the demonstrated desire for freedom of the peoples of the countries that oppose us.”[58]

But what about all the casualties of the Iraq war? Well, Ledeen tells us that they are

“secondary. It may sound like an odd thing to say. But all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war.”[59]

You see, American soldiers, civilian casualties in the Middle East, brain injuries, rape at Abu Ghraib, and fathers living their wives and precious children to die for the “Jewish neocons,” are all secondary to Ledeen. If messianic heaven on earth is not fully established, then Ledeen will not sleep well at night.

This is not the first time Ledeen had turned to blatant fabrication in order to promote an ideology—he was one of the people who promoted the falsehood that Saddam Hussein had bought uranium in Niger.[60] Ledeen later denied any involvement in the matter.[61]

Both Bryen and Ledeen were caught attempting to pass out classified information to Israel, and both got away with it. Bryen got into trouble in 1979, but “Prince of Darkness” Richard Perle actually bailed him out. Again, in 1988, Bryen attempted to do the same thing and was never prosecuted.[62]

Enough of Ledeen. Let us see what JINSA is actually all about:

“In 2002, JINSA initiated a program aimed at exchanging counter-terrorism experience and tactics between U.S. law enforcement agencies and their counterparts in the Israeli National Police.

“The primary focus of the program is to bring U.S. law enforcement executives (chiefs, sheriffs, deputies, etc.) to Israel for an intensive two-week program aimed at educating U.S. law enforcement officials on the possible threats posed by the specter of domestic terrorism in the United States.”

And here is the dreadful connection: Mondoweiss has recently published an article entitled, “Weapons fired in Ferguson come from companies supplying Israel, Bahrain and Egypt.” Hence: the Israelization of our police force.[63]

And think about the Ferguson debacle for example. The Israeli regime was in the middle of a worldwide backlash against the massacre in Gaza. In fact, anti-Zionism was and is still rising.

Things were so bad for Israel that Benjamin Netanyahu asked the United States “to help Israel avoid war crime charges.”[64]

Yet all of a sudden people began to devote their entire attention to the events that happened in Missouri and suspend their critiques of Israel’s war crimes.

It seems like the 1960s all over again when the Dreadful Few played a major role in the Civil Rights Movement and ended up manipulating people like Martin Luther King for messianic purposes.[65]

Let us be clear: I highly esteem fellow writers and this critique is in no way an ad hominem attack. An ad hominem attack is basically when you attack the person’s character rather than the arguments he presents.

This is a scholarly judgment, and in a scholarly discussion, serious evidence and rational inference should be highly pursued and revered. I am dealing with the arguments or statements that are being posited as arguments, not the person’s character.

Furthermore, I particularly would be honored if a reader pointed out a specific error in one of my articles. If it turns out to be legitimate, I would certainly appreciate the correction. We certainly can make mistakes and we should be open to the possibility that errors do happen and we should be willing to change.

I was disappointed last year when Shrimpton was asserting in one article after another that the Assad government used chemical weapons on its own people, despite the fact that the evidence was pointing toward the Syrian rebels themselves.

By spring 2013, it was reported that the rebels were using chemical weapons.[66] The Telegraph came out with a report entitled, “Syria chemical weapons: finger pointed at jihadists,”[67] meaning the Syrian rebels. The attack killed twenty-five people.[68] Less than five days later, the rebels attacked the University of Damascus, killing fifteen students.[69]

Last December, Seymour Hersh blew everything out of proportion by documenting that the Syrian rebels were the culprits.[70] Previously, former war crimes prosecutor Carla de Ponte declared,

“According to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas.

“We still have to deepen our investigation, verify and confirm (the findings) through new witness testimony, but according to what we have established so far, it is at the moment opponents of the regime who are using sarin gas.”[71]

Other investigative journalists who interviewed even some rebels discovered that the rebels themselves bragged about how they used chemical weapons on civilians:

“As the machinery for a U.S.-led military intervention in Syria gathers pace following last week’s chemical weapons attack, the U.S. and its allies may be targeting the wrong culprit…

“ The U.S. and others are not interested in examining any contrary evidence, with U.S Secretary of State John Kerry saying Monday that Assad’s guilt was ‘a judgment … already clear to the world.’

“However, from numerous interviews with doctors, Ghouta residents, rebel fighters and their families, a different picture emerges. Many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out the dealing gas attack.

“‘My son came to me two weeks ago asking what I thought the weapons were that he had been asked to carry,’ said Abu Abdel-Moneim, the father of a rebel fighting to unseat Assad, who lives in Ghouta.

“Abdel-Moneim said his son and 12 other rebels were killed inside of a tunnel used to store weapons provided by a Saudi militant, known as Abu Ayesha, who was leading a fighting battalion. The father described the weapons as having a ‘tube-like structure’ while others were like a ‘huge gas bottle.’

“Ghouta townspeople said the rebels were using mosques and private houses to sleep while storing their weapons in tunnels.

“Abdel-Moneim said his son and the others died during the chemical weapons attack. That same day, the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, announced that it would similarly attack civilians in the Assad regime’s heartland of Latakia on Syria’s western coast, in purported retaliation.

“‘They didn’t tell us what these arms were or how to use them,’ complained a female fighter named ‘K.’ ‘We didn’t know they were chemical weapons. We never imagined they were chemical weapons.’

“‘When Saudi Prince Bandar gives such weapons to people, he must give them to those who know how to handle and use them,’ she warned. She, like other Syrians, do not want to use their full names for fear of retribution.”

These things were becoming so obvious that National Public Radio asked, “Is it possible the Syrian rebels (not Assad) used chemical weapons?”

That itself should have given Shrimpton a second thought, and Professor Jim Fetzer rightly pointed this out to him. But that was completely ignored. Fetzer cogently said then,

“The very idea that the government of Syria would launch a nerve agent attack as a UN inspection team is about to arrive to investigate previous gas attacks is politically absurd.”

In other words, Assad would have had to be one of the dumbest political persons on the planet to have ordered such an attack right before the U.N. investigation.

Yet despite all this, some continued to propound axiomatically and without serious backup that the Assad government was solely responsible for the act, an indication which basically meant then that some people simply were not interested in following evidence wherever it may lead.

And who were the first people who were beating much of the Western world over the head saying that they were “absolutely certain” that Assad killed his own people with chemical weapons?[72]

Our friendly neighborhood: the Israeli regime.[73] Caroline B. Glick of the Jerusalem Post declared that the source came directly from the IDF, the same Zionist military regime that wants to oust Assad![74] Israel declared that they got the “proof ” that Assad used chemical weapons, but they never told us what that proof was.[75]

On the contrary, senior analysts told us that it was extremely difficult to prove that the Syrian government had used such weapons because

“the areas where the weapons may have been used are hard to reach because of fighting and government restrictions on independent organizations that seek to enter the country.”[76]

The BBC declared that although there were claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, the “facts” were “unclear.”[77] Syria was even willing to allow the UN to investigate the claim of chemical weapons.[78]

One of the first people that Secretary of State John Kerry called to get some of his information was none other than Benjamin Netanyahu.[79]

Therefore, Shrimpton cannot use Kerry as one of his supporters to prove his point precisely because it is a circular argument: Kerry got his source from the Israelis. But as soon as Israel began to circulate the lie, the neoconservatives were mobilized as if they got electrified by light sockets.[80]

They were propounding this nonsense even though they refused to give the evidence for their assertions. The New York Times itself declared then:

“In a briefing in Tel Aviv, an Israeli military official was vague about the exact nature of the evidence, saying that it was drawn from an examination of photographs of victims and some ‘direct’ findings that he would not specify.”[81]

This was not the first time that they lied.[82] And you can be sure that more lies are coming to a city near you.

Twenty-eight-year CIA veteran Paul R. Pillar, who is now a senior fellow at Georgetown University, declared last year that Israel is an existential threat in the Middle East.[83]

In the same vein, former CIA officer Philip Giraldi adds that “Israel was also cited as a ‘leading threat’ to the infrastructure of U.S. financial institutions. This is not without evidence.

Israel does not comply with international rules of law to attack a sovereign nation. The regime invariably ended up exerting an enormously powerful influence on the United States.

And whenever the Zionist regime wants to spark a war, as we have seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and now in Syria, the pretense is always humanitarian causes or self-defense.[84]

When Kerry went to Russia to discuss the Syrian issue, he appealed to the “humanitarian” crisis in Syria in order to lull the Russian government.[85]

Shrimpton is basically doing the same thing, saying things like “The attempted genocide of the Yazidi was entirely predictable, ditto the attack on Iraq’s Christian minority.”

Why should that be a relevant argument now? For example, in October 2012, a bomb blasted a Beirut Christian community, and the New York Times was quick to jump to the conclusion that Al-Assad was behind it,[86] forgetting that Al-Assad has been friends with the Christian communities and that they too saw that if Al-Assad is overthrown, the Christian communities will have problems with the new regime.

According to the reasoning by the New York Times, Al-Assad was just dumb, killing his own allies for no reason. But only a week before the bombing, the Syrian rebels threatened to attack Beirut.[87] None of that was put into consideration by the New York Times.

Once again, Shrimpton cannot say the same thing about the Syrian rebels even though those rebels have slaughtered dozens of Christians.

To sum up: if Shrimpton is really interested in fighting terrorism, shouldn’t we attack the Mossad as well, since they are supporting terrorists? Shouldn’t we ask Israeli regime what it has been up to, since they collaborated with the Syrian rebels?[88]

And shouldn’t decent Americans ask U.S. officials what they were up to when they actually trained terrorists who ended up joining ISIS? Why can’t some people read Frankenstein properly?

CITATIONS

[1] Quoted in Thom Shanker, “Warning Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan,” NY Times, February 25, 2011; see also Walter Pincus, “Time to Take a Fresh Look at Trimming Defense,” Washington Post, November 11, 2013.

[2] Even as I write, those Neo-Bolsheviks still want Washington to attack ISIS. Geoffrey Norman, “ISIS: Fight Them Now, or Fight Them Later,” Weekly Standard, August 15, 2014; Joseph Klein, “Obama’s Indifference to the Islamic State Nightmare,” FrontPage.com, August 13, 2014; Max Boot, “U.S. Commitment Needed in Iraq,” Commentary, August 18, 2014.

[3] Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Neither Obama Nor Congress Seems Eager for a Vote on Military Action in Iraq,” NY Times, August 19, 2014.

[4] William J. Astore, “The American Cult of Bombing,” The Nation, August 19, 2014.

[5] John J. Mearsheimer, “America Unhinged,” National Interest, January 2, 2014.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Don Lee, “Shoddy U.S. Roads and Bridges Take a Toll on the Economy,” LA Times, August 14, 2014.

[8] Moti Bassok, “U.S. Military Aid to Israel Exceeds $100 Billion,” Haaretz, August 17, 2014.

[9] See for example Glenn Greenwald, “Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. Is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack,” The Intercept, August 4, 2014.

[10] For further study on this, see for example John Matson, “Legacy of Mental Health Problems from Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Will Be Long-Lived,” Scientific American, June 27, 2011.

[11] Gregg Zoroya, “360,000 Veterans May Have Brain Injuries,” USA Today, March 5, 2009.

[12] Gregg Zoroya, “Pentagon Spends $300M to Study Troops’ Stress, Trauma,” USA Today, August 8, 2008.

[13] Gregg Zoroya, “Army’s Suicide ‘Crisis’ Leads to Action,” USA Today, January 29, 2010.

[14] See Irena L. Sargsyan, “Iraq’s Endless Humanitarian Crisis,” National Interest, October 9, 2012.

[15] “Doctors Start Work as U.N. Estimates 400,000 Gaza Children Need Psychological Care,” Newsweek, August 15, 2014.

[16] See also Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger, Jewish Terrorism in Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).

[17] Amira Hass, “Israel Bars Amnesty, Human Rights Watch Workers from Gaza,” Haaretz, August 18, 2014.

[18] “Monitor: Islamic State Recruits at Record Pace in Syria,” Voice of America, August 19, 2014.

[19] Max Boot, “Washington Should Help Syrian Opposition,” Commentary, March 8, 2012.

[20] Liz Sly, “New U.S. help arrives for Syrian rebels as government, extremists gain,” Washington Post, July 27, 2014.

[21] Anne Barnard, “Missteps by Rebels Erode their Support among Syrians,” NY Times, November 8, 2012.

[22] Herb Keinon, “Gilad: Syria Poses New, ‘Difficult’ Challenges to Israel,” Jerusalem Post, Apr. 2, 2013.

[23] Phil Sands, “America’s Hidden Agenda in Syria,” National, May 9, 2013.

[24] Phil Sands, “Muslim Brotherhood Opens Direct Link to Rebels in Damascus,” National, May 6, 2013.

[25] Keinon, “New, ‘Difficult’ Challenges to Israel,” Jerusalem Post, Apr. 2, 2013.

[26] ibid.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ruth Sherlock, “Leading Libyan Islamist Met Free Syrian Army Opposition Group,” Telegraph, November 27, 2011.

[29] “US Recognizes Opposition as Representative of Syria,” Jerusalem Post, December 12, 2012.

[30] Paul Schemm, “US and Syrian Opposition Disagree at Conference,” Associated Press, Dec. 12, 2012.

[31] Mark Lander and Michael R. Gordon, “Obama Says US Will Recognize Syrian Rebels,” NY Times, Dec. 11, 2012; Nour Malas and Jay Solomon, “US Formally Recognizes Syria’s Main Rebel Group,” Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2012.

[32] Glenn Greenwald, “Cameron’s Attack on George Galloway Reflects the West’s Self-Delusions,” Guardian, January 31, 2013.

[33] See for example Cheryl L. Chumley, “Syrians Behead Christians for Helping Military, As CIA Ships in Arms,” Washington Times, June 27, 2013.

[34] “Russia Welcomes Any Offer to Give Assad Refuge,” Associated Press, December 22, 2012; “Syria Islamists Warn Christians as New Patriarch Urges peace,” Agence-France Press, December 22, 2012.

[35] Matthew Campbell, “Syrian Rebels ‘Beheaded Christian and Fed Him to Dogs,’” Australian, Dec. 30, 2012.

[36] David Enders, “Al Qaida-linked group Syria rebels once denied now key to anti-Assad victories,” McClatchy Newspaper, December 2, 2012.

[37] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign Fighters Fuel the Sectarian Flames in Syria,” Independent, December 20, 2012.

[38] Hania Mourtada and Anne Barnard, “Jihadists and Secularists Clash in Syria,” NY Times, January 26, 2013.

[39] Anshel Pfeffer, “Amman Warns: Jihadists Hijacking Syria Revolution, May Target Israel, Jordan Next,” Haaretz, December 20, 2012; Tom A. Peter, “Syrian Rebel Infighting Could Take Dangerous Turn if Assad Falls,” Christian Science Monitor, December 20, 2012; Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad, “No Easy Route if Assad Opts to Go, or to Stay, in Syria,” NY Times, December 24, 2012.

[40] Roi Kais, “Salafist Leader: First We Take Damascus, Ten Tel Aviv,” Y-Net News, December 16, 2012.

[41] James Risen, Mark Mazzeti, and Michael S. Schmidt, “U.S.-Approved Arms for Syria Rebels Fell into Jihadis’ Hands,” NY Times, December 5, 2012.

[42] “U.S. Troops Mass on Turkey’s Syrian Border,” Military.com, December 2, 2012; “Thousands of U.S. Troops Arrive near Syrian Shore on USS Eisenhower,” Russia Today, Dec. 6, 2012.

[43] Roula Khalaf and Abigail Fielding Smith, “Qatar Bankrolls Syrian Revolt with Cash and Arms,” Financial Times, May 16, 2013; Roula Khalaf and Abigail Fielding Smith, “How Qatar Seized Control of the Syrian Revolution,” Financial Times, May 17, 2013.

[44] Ruth Sherlock, “US to Ban Islamists Leading Rebel Fight in Syria,” Telegraph, December 5, 2012; Hilary Leila Krieger, “US Syria Envoy: Extremists Gaining in Opposition,” Jerusalem Post, December 7, 2012.

[45] Mona Alami, “Jihadists Answer the Call in Syria,” USA Today, December 4, 2012.

[46] Justin Vela and Liz Sly, “In Syria, Group Suspected of al-Qaeda Links Gaining Prominence in War to Topple Assad,” Washington Post, Aug. 19, 2012.

[47] Jason Ditz, “Terror Group Claims Syria Attacks, TV Station Murders,” Antiwar.com, July 4, 2012.

[48] “Syrian Troops Battle Rebels in Oil-Rich East,” Seattle Times, January 29, 2013; “Al-Qaeda-Linked Group Claims Responsibility for Syria Blast,” USA Today, January 28, 2013.

[49] “Syria: ‘28 Children Killed’ in Rebel Attack on Damascus School,” Telegraph, December 4, 2012.

[50] Tim Arango, “Wider Chaos Feared as Syrian Rebels Clash with Kurds,” NY Times, December 6, 2012.

[51] Jason Vest, “The Men from JINSA and CSP,” The Nation, September 2, 2002.

[52] Michael Ledeen, The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), 19.

[53] Michael Leeden, “Faster, Please,” National Review, April 1, 2002.

[54] Jim Lobe, “Veteran Neo-Con Advisor Moves to Iran,” Asia Times, June 26, 2003.

[55] Michael Ledeen, “Iran Connects the Dots: The Mullahs and the Global War on Terror,” National Review, June 9, 2006.

[56] Ibid.

[57] Glenn Greenwald, “Stephanopolous and Ledeen: Together in the Most Accountability-free Profession,” Salon.com, November 4, 2009.

[58] Michael Ledeen, “A Theory,” National Review, March 10, 2003.

[59] “Iraq: What Lies Ahead,” American Enterprise Institute, March 25, 2003.

[60] Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rosen, and Paul Grastris, “Iran-Contra II?,” Washington Monthly, September 2004.

[61] Philip Giraldi, “Forging the Case for War,” American Conservative, November 21, 2005.

[62] Stephen Green, “Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration,” Counter Punch, February 28-March 2, 2004.

[63] I don’t believe for a second that Darren Wilson did what he did because he was really an evil man. Too much evidence to the contrary and too much to detail here. But the situation so far has been in Israel’s favor

[64] Geoff Earle, “Netanyahu Asks US to Help Israel Avoid War Crime Charges,” NY Post, August 6, 2014.

[65] We will address this issue next year.

[66] Raven Clabough, “Evidence Shows Syrian Rebels Behind Chemical Attack,” New American, March 27, 2013.

[67] Alex Thompson, “Syria Chemical Weapons: Finger Pointed at Jihadists,” Telegraph, March 23, 2013.

[68] Oliver Holmes and Erika Solomon, “Alleged Chemical Attack Kills 25 in Northern Syria,” Reuters.com, March 19, 2013.

[69] “Syria Crisis: University of Damascus Hit by Mortars,” BBC, March 28, 2013.

[70] Seymour M. Hersh, “Whose Sarin?,” London Review of Books, Vol. 35 No. 24, December 19, 2013.

[71] Quoted in Damien McElroy, “UN Accuses Syrian Rebels of Chemical Weapons Use,” The Telegraph, May 6, 2013.

[72] Mitch Ginsburg, “Israel: We’ve been ‘absolutely certain’ for months Assad using nerve gas,” Times of Israel, September 14, 2013.

[73] Stuart Winer, “Assad Using Chemical Weapons Again, Israeli Official Says,” Times of Israel, April 7, 2013.

[74] Caroline B. Glick, “Column One: Time to Confront Obama,” Jerusalem Post, April 25, 2013.

[75] David E. Sanger and Jodi Rudoren, “Israel Says It Has Proof That Syria Used Chemical Weapons,” NY Times, April 23, 2013; “Syria Has Used Chemical Weapons, Israeli Military Says,” BBC, April 23, 2013.

[76] Anne Barnard, “Key Step in Checking Chemical-Arms Use Is Also Hardest,” NY Times, April 23, 2013.

[77] “Syria Has Used Chemical Weapons, Israeli Military Says,” BBC, April 23, 2013.

[78] Alistair Dawber and Richard Hall, “Syria ‘Is Ready’ to Let in UN Chemical Experts,” Independent, May 9, 2013.

[79] “Syria Has Used Chemical Weaponss,” BBC, April 23, 2013.

[80] Jonathan S. Tobin, “Chemicals Mean Obama Must Act on Syria,” Commentary, April 25, 2013; Lee Smith, “Obama’s Meaningless ‘Red Line’?,” Weekly Standard, April 25, 2013.

[81] David E. Sanger and Jodi Rudoren, “Israel Says It Has Proof That Syria Has Used Chemical Weapons,” NY Times, April 23, 2013.

[82] See for example Scott Peterson, “Imminent Iran Nuclear Threat? A Timeline of Warnings Since 1979,” Christian Science Monitor, November 8, 2011.

[83] Paul R. Pillar, “Syria and WMD Inconsistency in the Middle East,” National Interest, April 30, 2013.

[84] Conor Friedersdorf “The Flaw in Many Humanitarian Arguments for War,” Atlantic, May 20, 2013

[85] Steven Lee Myers and Rick Gladstone, “New Diplomatic Push to End Civil War in Syria,” NY Times, May 8, 2013.

[86] Anne Barnard, “Bomb Blast Kills at Least 8 Including Top Security Official,” NY Times, October 19, 2012.

[87] Jason Ditz, “Syria Rebels Threaten Attacks in Lebanese Capital,” Antiwar.com, October 9, 2012.

[88] Elhanan Miller, “Syrian Rebel Commander Says He Collaborated with Israel,” Times of Israel, August 13, 2014.

Jonas E. Alexis, Assistant Editor

Jonas E. Alexis has degrees in mathematics and philosophy. He studied education at the graduate level. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy, the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the history of ideas. He is the author of the new book Zionism vs. the West: How Talmudic Ideology is Undermining Western Culture. He teaches mathematics in South Korea.

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