(Arabs, Muslims Power Control & US foreign policy) Saudis have the US over a barrel of oil
By Ted Belman
In my article The Vast Power of the Saudi Lobby, which I urge you to read again. Here are a few extracts,
.. the U.S. ambassador to Riyahd, James Akins, did his best to placate King Faisal by urging the Saudi’s American-owned oil concessionaire ARAMCO to, in Akin’s words, “hammer home” to the White House that the embargo (seventies) wouldn’t be lifted unless
“the political struggle is settled in manner satisfactory to Arabs.”
Prince Bandar told Bush
Starting today, you go your way and we will go our way. From then on, the Saudis would look out for their own national interests.
It seemed the United States had made a strategic decision to adopt Sharon’s policy as American policy.
Within thirty-six hours, Bandar was on his way to Riyadh with a conciliatory response from Bush. When Bandar returned Powell cornered him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” witnesses recall Powell asking. “You’re putting the fear of God in everybody’s hearts here. We’ve all come rushing here to hear this revelation that you bring from Saudi Arabia. You scared the shit out of everybody.”
As a result of this power, I wrote Whatever Saudis Want Saudis Get.
Is America over a barrel of oil? Definitely.
And what Saudis want is al Quds with the Temple Mount and the greenline and G-d knows what else.
Technorati - ‘palestinian’ terrorism ‘palestinians’ Israel IDF ‘palestinian’ Apartheid Zionism Anti Israel bigotry Islamic Apartheid War on terror Terror victims ‘palestinian’ propaganda jihad Genocide bombing Anti Israel bias Arab racism Jews IDF Anti Israel racism Islamofacsism Conflict Israel “Palestine” “Palestinians” Israelis Civilwar Arabs MuslimsJihad Terrorism Fatah non-Muslims Christians Hamas Oil Saudi Arabia Oil lobby Islamic lobby Lobbies Arab lobby US Foreign policyGaza Terrorism Islamofascism Jerusalem Muslims
Labels: Arabs, Control, foreign policy, Lobbies, Lobby, Muslims, Oil, oil lobby, power, Saudi Arabia, US
What about the Arab lobby?
http://israeltheviewfromhere.blogspot.com/2007/10/israel-lobby-what-about-arab-lobby.html
Thursday, October 4, 2007
The Israel lobby? What about the Arab lobby?
With the publication of the book 'The Israel Lobby' by renowned academics Professors Mearsheimer and Walt the notion is out there that Israeli pressure groups have had a major effect in coloring American foreign policy to the detriment of the US.
The learned couple would have you believe that Israeli and Jewish lobbyists are the most powerful influence on the US Administration.My friend, Maurice Ostroff, has partially answered the claims made by these supposed researchers in a rebuttal entitled 'Academic Freedom and Sloppy Research'.
Mearsheimer and Walts findings fail on two counts. One of incorrect assertions. The other is the failure of what the did not include in their book. This, perhaps deliberate, omission is the most dangerous of their faults. It leaves the reader with the impression that Israeli and Jewish leaders have an unrivalled access to policy makers in Congress and in the State Department.
This is wrong. The biggest investment in lobbying power has, for a long time, been invested in the rich hands of the Arabs, led by the Saudis, and the other oil interests.
Against this powerful force Israel can never successfully compete.
However, the small voice of reason and democracy is trying to make itself heard.
ACADEMIC FREEDOM & SLOPPY RESEARCH
by Maurice Ostroff
The much discussed articles and latest book by Professors Mearsheimer and Walt, attacking the Israel Lobby, are glaring examples of misleading by omission of vital relevant data.
Of course there is no objection to academics expressing unpopular opinions, but it’s scary to realize that some university students are being taught by mentors who, in their public pronouncements and publications, exhibit shockingly low standards of scholarship and even ignorance. Even when they don’t write in the names of their universities, serious readers are entitled to expect a minimum standard of objectivity and intellectual honesty from tenured professors.
The website of Students for Academic Freedom pinpoints one of the most egregious sins of a growing number of academics in its slogan: "You can’t get a good education if they’re telling you only half the story".
Too many opinion-makers mislead by telling half the story; deliberately omitting all relevant information that may contradict their preconceived opinions. The much discussed articles and latest book by Professors Mearsheimer and Walt, attacking the Israel Lobby, are glaring examples of misleading by omission of vital relevant data.
In response to a letter I sent criticizing their articles published last year, I received an 81-page paper from Professor Mearsheimer, titled "Setting the record straight: a response to critics of The Israel Lobby” (which I will refer to in this article as their response paper). In it, the authors admit that being fallible human beings, their work contained a few minor errors. Let’s take the example of one of their central claims – that pressure from Israel was critical in the US decision to attack Iraq in March 2003 and let the reader judge whether this is merely a minor error.
If they had done a modest amount of research they would have learned and disclosed that contrary to their allegation, Israeli officials had warned the Bush administration against destabilizing the region by invading Iraq.
This information was available to the professors. In an interview with the Mother Jones blog, Professor Walt emphasized that he and Mearsheimer relied heavily on both Israeli sources and Jewish newspapers like the Forward. And in the Forward of January 12, 2007, Yossi Alpher, an adviser to former PM Ehud Barak, confirmed that prior to March 2003, Israel PM Sharon advised Bush not to occupy Iraq and that AIPAC officials in Washington told visiting Arab intellectuals they would rather the United States deal militarily with Iran than with Iraq.
This refutation of the professors’ allegation has since been confirmed by Lawrence Wilkerson, a former member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff as reported by ISP.
Was this a minor error?
In the interview with Mother Jones, Professor Walt explained that as he and Mearsheimer aren't investigative reporters and have a day job, they weren't in a position to spend a lot of time interviewing people in Washington. This statement possibly encapsulates the underlying weakness of their publications. Far from being in-depth products of original research by academics from prestigious institutions, they are a rehash of carefully selected extracts from the writings of others, mainly new historians like Noam Chomsky and Benny Morris, whose methodologies have been severely criticized by authoritative historians.
It is almost amusing to note how in their response paper, the authors praise Benny Morris as a respected historian when he expresses views they accept, and then reject his views when they don’t serve their purpose. Having served in the Israel army during the 1948 war, I have challenged from personal knowledge some of the conclusions Morris derived from his interpretation of archived documents, and I absolutely challenge M & W’s third and possibly fourth-hand views on this subject.
In their March 2006 article, the professors wrote: "Contrary to popular belief, the Zionists had larger, better-equipped and better-led forces during the 1947-49 War of Independence." It is difficult to understand the reason for inserting this bit of totally irrelevant disinformation into a paper about the Israel Lobby.
Those of us who were there in 1948 know that Israel was invaded by five armies in a Holy War to drive us into the sea. The Arab armies included the British-trained Jordanian Legion, the well-equipped Egyptian army, navy and air force and the armies of Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. And we know how desperate and badly equipped we were. We remember how rickety old trucks were converted to homemade armored vehicles nicknamed sandwiches, because the armor comprised timber between two steel plates. (See photo.)
We know that our total population of only 600,000 included women, children and the elderly and that, tragically, 6,000 were killed in the War, not to mention the seriously wounded. We know that many of our troops were untrained newcomers, who had survived the death camps, only to be thrown directly into battle.
In their response paper, the professors go to great lengths elaborating on remarks by Ben Gurion and others indicating that they had hoped for a greater area than allocated under the 1947 partition plan. But they ignore the fact that Israel nevertheless reluctantly, but unconditionally, accepted the partition resolution while all Arab states rejected it outright. There would be no Palestinian refugees today if they had accepted instead of immediately declaring Holy War, with the publicly proclaimed intention of driving the Jews into the sea.
Arab League Secretary, General Azzam Pasha declared, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades," and the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini echoed, "I declare a holy war, my Moslem brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!"
The professors ignore how Israel reacted to Arabs who stayed neutral in 1948 – such as the village of Abu Ghosh. In an article in the Jerusalem Post in 1997, Sam Orbaum quoted Mohammed Abu Ghosh as saying, "What we did, we did for Abu Ghosh, for nobody else. Others who lost their land, hated us then, but now all over the Arab world, many people see we were right. If everyone did what we did, there'd be no refugee problem . . . And if we were traitors? Look where we are, look where they are."
Incredibly, their strong prejudices prevent the professors from acknowledging not only Israel’s attempts to negotiate peace, but also the infamous three no's response of Arab leaders in Khartoum in August 1967: "no peace, no recognition of Israel and no negotiation.”
The professors’ claim that US policy towards Israel is a main contributor to America's terrorist problem deserves critical examination. In November 2002, Alex Alexiev, in an article published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL), pointed out that Riyadh, flush with oil money, became the paymaster of most of the militant Islamic movements, which advocated terror. In its aggressive support for radical Islam, even the most violent of Islamic groups, like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, receives Saudi largesse. He claims that official Saudi sources indicate that between 1975 and 1987, Riyadh's "overseas development aid" averaged $4 billion per year, of which at least $50 billion over two-and-a-half decades financed Islamic activities exclusively. The SAAR Foundation alone, which has been closed down since 9/11, received $1.7 billion in donations in 1998.
Compared to these numbers, the miniscule Israeli PR budget is laughable.
It is incredible that academics discussing external influences on USA policy ignore the dramatic stranglehold of OPEC, the blatantly monopolistic cartel which threatens not only the US, but the world economy. This stranglehold began with the Arab decision to use oil as a political weapon in 1973 when the price was $2.60 per barrel. After October 1973, when the Arab members of OPEC imposed their oil embargo against the West, the price quadrupled to about $12 by January 1974 and is now soaring to $80. All this, while, believe it or not, production costs average about $6 per barrel for non-OPEC producers and $1.50 per barrel for OPEC producers (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists May/June 2005).
By focusing on one lobby only without placing it in the context of the prevailing phenomenon of the numerous lobbies that are an essential part of the Washington scene, this work cannot be regarded as a scholarly study, but rather as a subjective, no-holds-barred political attack.
Dozens of interest groups spend billions to convince politicians to pass or oppose particular laws. Any study of the Jewish Lobby cannot avoid comparison with Arab influence on Washington, which is indeed harmful to American interests.
But the professors claim: “There is no well organized and politically potent Arab Lobby and little evidence that US politicians ever feel much pressure from pro-Arab groups.” This categorical statement in their response paper is mind-boggling. It indicates either inexcusable ignorance or deliberate suppression of information about the many Arab lobbyists who have had, and continue to have, intimate access to US presidents.
In an article in Harpers magazine of April 17, 2007, John R. MacArthur wrote about Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan:
When he wasn't entertaining congressmen and spreading good cheer through his highly paid lobbyist, Fred Dutton, Bandar was busy making friends with, at first vice president, and then president, George H.W. Bush, and by extension with Bush's son, the future president. This personal relationship with the Bush family has served Bandar and his family very well, as documented in Craig Unger's book, House of Bush, House of Saud.
Before he died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, the former FBI counterterrorism chief John O'Neill complained to French investigator Jean-Charles Brisard that Saudi pressure on the State Department had prevented him from fully investigating possible al-Qaida involvement in the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen, and of the destroyer Cole in 2000.
Now, according to Seymour Hersh, Bandar has virtually joined the Bush administration as a shadow cabinet member. In a March 5, 2007 New Yorker article, “The Redirection,” Hersh writes that Bandar, the Saudi national-security adviser, served as Ambassador to the United States for twenty-two years, until 2005, and has maintained a friendship with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. In his new post, he continues to meet privately with them.
The organization Axis Information and Analysis (AIA), which specializes in information about Asia and Eastern Europe, has rated Prince Bandar as the most influential foreigner in the USA. As head of the Saudi embassy in Washington in 1983, he was an important participant in backstage intrigues, clandestine negotiations, and billion-dollar deals relating to US interests in the Middle East, with broad links among high-ranking officials in the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA. Bandar's father, Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, was a leading figure in the ruling dynasty, which decides the extent of military cooperation with the United States. AIA has publicly stated that it was Bandar Bin Sultan who initiated the first Gulf War in 1990-91, by pushing President Bush the elder to start the military campaign against Iraq.
In an obituary to Clark Clifford (October 11, 1998), the New York Times spoke of him not only as a key adviser to four presidents, but also as a powerful lobbyist for Arab sources. In his memoir, Counsel to the President, Clifford wrote that he advised clients:
What we can offer you is an extensive knowledge of how to deal with the government on your problems. We will be able to give you advice on how best to present your position to the appropriate departments and agencies of the government.
Clifford, a paid lobbyist, made about $6 million in profits from bank stock that he bought with an unsecured loan from the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
In an interview on Democracy Now, Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud, spoke of Bandar’s influence. Referring to the fact that the 9/11 Commission said it knew of six chartered flights with 142 people aboard, mostly Saudis, that left the United States between Sept. 14 and 24, 2001, Unger said that if you look at Prince Bandar’s body language in photos of him and President Bush, this is not a guy standing in awe of the President of the United States. This is a guy who is visiting his friend's son, and he’s sort of lounging on the arm of a big armchair by 9/13, two days after 9-11. And suddenly, flights began going out.
Unger tells of Saudis investing as much as $800 billion into American Equities, not only in massive blue chip companies but also into companies that weren't doing so well, but were linked to powerful politicians.
He also speaks of at least $1 million donated to each presidential library, emphasizing that the Saudis give to Democrats and Republicans alike:
Prince Bandar has been quite frank. If we give to our friends after they get out of office, the people in office will get the message.
The Saudis are fabulous at public relations. If you look at their whole campaign over the last 30 years, they spent $70 billion on propaganda. It's the biggest propaganda campaign in the history of the world, more than Soviet communism at the height of the Cold war. Immediately after 9-11, Bandar hired Burson Marsteller, the huge American public relations firm.
In the knowledge that the above information is readily available, would a first-year student, let alone a tenured professor, earn a passing mark for submitting a paper claiming that there is no well-organized and politically potent Arab Lobby and little evidence that US politicians ever feel much pressure from pro-Arab groups?
Technorati - 'palestinian' terrorism 'palestinians' Israel IDF 'palestinian' Apartheid Zionism Anti Israel bigotry Islamic Apartheid War on terror Terror victims 'palestinian' propaganda jihad Genocide bombing Anti Israel bias Arab racism Jews IDF Anti Israel racism Islamofacsism Conflict Israel "Palestine" "Palestinians" Israelis Civilwar Arabs MuslimsJihad Terrorism Fatah non-Muslims Christians Hamas Gaza Terrorism Islamofascism Jerusalem Muslims Oil lobby Islamic lobby Arab lobby Lobbies Lobby Wahabbi Lobby
Labels: AIPAC, Arab Lobby, cair, Islamo Arab lobby, Lobbies, Lobby, mpac, oil lobby, pac
Terror Friendly Lobby - CAIR - Underwrites Press Conference Using Academics Mearsheimer & Walt To Advance Islamist Cause
Terror Friendly Lobby - CAIR - Underwrites Press Conference Using Academics Mearsheimer & Walt To Advance Islamist Cause
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=cair82806%2Ehtm
August 28, 2006 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - The National Press Club was today the scene of a Wahhabist disinformation operation, finding CAIR the Saudi funded Council on American Islamic Relations underwriting a "discussion" of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's "The Israel Lobby" - a failed attempt to put a scholarly face on anti-Semitism.
While all eyes are focused on Islamist terrorism and the rising tide of fundamentalism which has threatened the West, CAIR has attempted to change the message to the old Nazi canard of "Die Juden Sind Unsere Ungluck" - "the Jews are our misfortune."
In what CAIR hopes will be a propaganda coup, today's dog and pony show enlisted the services of useful idiots Mearscheimer and Walt who set forth the proposition that Israel is to blame for the existence of terrorism and a closely held - and thoroughly nonsensical - corollary, that any strong response by the West to terror only makes it worse.
Of great note - neither of the presenters had the temerity to employ the term "Islamic terror," within earshot of their CAIR handlers who shared the dais with them.
This is one of the complications that arise when those funding your venue operate in such close proximity to the terrorists. Such conflicts of interest are what lead to Mearsheimer's intentional and profound mischaracterization of the terrorist threat against the West as only coming from al-Qaeda and therefore only requiring police level actions against the Saudi born bin-Laden's network.
The necessity of ignoring the much greater threat posed by Muslim fundamentalists - those underwriting Walt & Mearsheimer's road show - puts in rather obvious focus a fatal defect to any claims by these two of serious scholarship.
In a presentation, which five years ago would have had to have taken place in a clandestine gathering of Storm Front types - discussing Jewish plans for world domination - professors Walt and Mearscheimer put their anti-Semitic venom at the service of CAIR a group only a wink and a nod away from Hamas.
That such a gathering took place at DC's National Press Club is proof that anti-Semitism has become "salon fahig" in the U.S. It also demonstrates the degree to which the American left are willing be employed as part of a Wahhabist da'wa scam whose ultimate goal is the imposition of Sharia on the United States.
Today's event was part of an ambitious Wahhabist financed effort to sway public opinion at a time when Muslim terror plots are being uncovered at an alarming rate, CAIR serving as the bagman in a huge PR campaign financed by Arab fundamentalists.
"A US delegation led by CAIR officials yesterday held discussions with Al Habtoor group chairman Khalaf Al Habtoor and other businessmen in Dubai about a $50-million public relations campaign that the US group has launched in the US to change negative public perceptions about Islam.
'It is the most ambitious public relations campaign anywhere in the world that the Muslims have thought about to change perceptions about Islam,' Ahmad said, calling on Arab businesses to make contributions towards the campaign that will run for five years.
'Do not think about your contributions as donations. Think about it from the perspective of rate of return. The investment of $50 million will give you billions of dollars in return for 50 years,' the CAIR official said." Gulf News, Arabs urged to invest in image-building in US
Mearsheimer and Walt's work merely recapitulates the anti-Semitic rants of delusional moonbats like the above pictured Paul Findley who - not surprisingly - also waters at the trough of Middle Eastern Islamist funders and who dismissed and minimized the September 11 attack - "the real ground zero of terrorism is in Palestine, not Manhattan" - in the same manner Walt and Mearshimer ignore the danger of which al-Qaeda is only a figurehead.
Throughout the hour-long rambling press conference Mr. Walt and Mearsheimer suggested that Israel was a terrorist state, intentionally employed policies which resulted in atrocities and knowingly directed attacks against civilian population centers. Their conclusion being that Israel is an enterprise run - of, by and for war criminals.
They agreed with "studies" by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International claiming that Hezbollah did not place offensive weaponry among civilians in Lebanon and did not have a policy of using civilians as human shields for their operations - a bald-faced lie.
Walt claimed that though Israel did not act worse than terrorists "neither has it acted better" invoking a moral equivalency of pathological proportions.
The CAIR/Walt/Mearsheimer position is that terrorism exists as a legitimate and justifiable response to American support of Israel.
Taken to its logical extension, using the calculus advanced today at CAIR's mini-kristallnacht, Islamism is the antidote for Israel, take two and call me after the Holocaust.
©1999-2006 PipeLineNews.org, all rights reserved
Labels: anti Israel bigotry, anti Israel fascism, cair, islamo, Islamofascism, Lobbies, Lobby, Mearsheimer, Mearsheimer and Walt, Muslim lobby, oil lobby, war on terror
How much did the Islamic lobby pay Obama??? or How much does a pro-palestinian line cost?
How much did the Islamic lobby pay Obama??? or How much does a pro-palestinian line cost?
Let's make it clear, Arab Muslims' obsession with their 'palestinian brothers' was never about sympathy for them but about anti-Israel fascism.
No wonder why they never had any interest in changing their situation (which is only due to 'palestinians' putting violence over economy, Jihad over progress), they're a useful tool ONLY when being still on the bottom.
After the frustration by Arabs, Muslims on Obama's cold shoulder to the so called "palestinian". (Arab Obamania? El-Shorbagi thinks Arabs ought to pay attention to all presidential candidates http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/833/in2.htm), Something must have happend so that Brack Obama had to say something in sympathy for the self inflicted violence-obsessed death cult, knows as the 'palestinian people'.
Obama: Palestinians Matter, Too
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20070314/cm_thenation/1517517
Iowa Democrat troubled by Obama statement on Palestinians http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/politics/16897403.htm
The question is, How much did the Arab lobby, the Muslim lobby, the Arab-Oil lobby, or even the wahabbi lobby FINALLY pay the candidate.
Labels: American Muslims, anti Israel bigotry, anti Israel fascism, Arab Americans, Arab Lobby, Arabism, islamic lobby, Islamism, Israel, Lobbies, Lobby, Obama, Oil, palestinians
