Kabir,

I saw through the lies.  Cornelius here thinks he is talking to fools. Problem is that there are not many people around anymore who will buy into this propaganda machinery. If you want to defend Zionism, go to Israel. 
J.Joh


 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Kabir Njaay <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Mon, 28 May 2007 3:49 pm
Subject: Re: Corneliuos and his zionist propaganda agenda









> 

> 

> 

> "...I was merely responding very mildly to these two anti-Semitic postings 

> and without rancour. 

> 

> "Palestine: Israeli Killing Fields" 

> "Bush authorises covert CIA operations to destabilise Iran"..." 
 

 

Jabou, 
 

I hope you noticed the lie buried in the above statement; there was nothing 

"anti-Semitic" in that posting and just for transparency sake, it's copied 

below. One must be hallucinating to call this "anti-Semitic": 
 


Bush authorises covert CIA operations to destabilise Iran 
 

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/iran-m25.shtml 
 

By Peter Symonds 
 

25 May 2007 
 

An ABC News report on Tuesday provided further evidence that the Bush 

administration is actively engaged in a covert campaign of destabilisation 

aimed at "regime change" in Iran. 
 

According to the American television network, Bush signed a formal 

"non-lethal presidential finding" earlier this year authorising "a CIA plan 

that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, 

disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international 

financial transactions". 
 

Based on information from unnamed former and current CIA officials, ABC News 

reported that Bush approved the plan "about the time that [Admiral William] 

Fallon took over [as head of the Pentagon's Central Command]"—that is, about 

mid-March. It also stated that National Security Adviser Steve Hadley and 

Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams both gave the green light 

for the operation. 
 

The timing of the plan coincides with a steady stream of articles, 

prominently placed in the media, highlighting Tehran's crackdown on women's 

dress, arrest of dissidents, alleged nuclear weapons programs and support 

for anti-occupation militia operating inside neighbouring Iraq. While it is 

impossible to know how many of these reports are direct CIA "plants," they 

point to a concerted campaign of propaganda and disinformation. Whatever the 

impact inside Iran, such stories serve to poison public opinion in the US 

and internationally in preparation for a possible military strike. 
 

ABC News was at pains to point out that "approval of the covert action means 

the Bush administration, for the time being, has decided not to pursue a 

military option against Iran". Retired CIA official Bruce Riedel said that 

in the internal White House debate, "Vice President [Dick] Cheney helped to 

lead the side favouring a military strike but I think they have come to the 

conclusion that a military strike has more downsides than upsides." 
 

These reassurances count for nothing. The US navy continues to maintain two 

aircraft carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf, which have the capacity 

to mount a sustained air assault on Iran. During his visit to the Middle 

East earlier this month, Cheney pointedly declared on the deck of the USS 

John C. Stennis, just 150 miles off the Iranian coast, "We'll stand with 

others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the 

region." 
 

The US fleet began extensive exercises in the Persian Gulf on Wednesday, in 

a move designed to intensify the pressure on Iran as a UN deadline passed 

for Tehran to shut down its uranium enrichment program. Bush has never 

withdrawn his menacing threat that "all options are on the table"—in other 

words, if diplomatic bullying and covert operations fail, the military 

option remains. 
 

It would also be wrong to conclude that covert operations are confined to 

the CIA. According to a number of media reports, including detailed articles 

from veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the Pentagon and other 

US agencies have been actively targetting Iran since at least 2004. Unlike 

the CIA, which—formally at least—requires a presidential finding to mount 

"black" operations, the US military has, under Bush, increasingly engaged in 

its own covert activities, including the dispatch of special forces units 

inside Iran, without any congressional oversight. 
 

There is nothing particularly secret about the Bush administration's 

campaign for "regime change". Last year Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice 

sought and received $75 million for anti-Iranian propaganda broadcasts and 

to fund opposition groups inside and outside Iran. In 2005, the figure was 

just $10 million. Rice also established an Iranian Affairs office last year, 

initially headed by Elizabeth Cheney, the vice president's daughter, to 

coordinate policy and provide "pro-democracy funding" for opponents of the 

regime. The *Boston Globe* reported in January that a team of top officials 

from the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, Treasury and National Security 

Council, known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG), had 

been working for some time to strengthen military alliances against Iran, 

finance Iranian dissidents and undermine the country economically. 
 

*US backing for anti-Iranian militias* 
 

While the approved CIA activities may at present be "non-lethal," the same 

cannot be said of all US activities inside Iran. In his article last 

November entitled "The Next Act: Is a damaged Administration less likely to 

attack Iran, or more?", Hersh provided evidence that the Pentagon was 

covertly supporting minority Kurdish, Azeri and Baluchi tribal groups as a 

means of undermining Tehran's authority in northern and southeastern Iran. 

In particular, the US military was collaborating with Israel in backing a 

Kurdish armed group—the Party for Free Life—based in northern Iraq to foment 

opposition inside the Kurdish regions of Iran and to spy on "targets inside 

Iran of interest to the US". 
 

A series of ABC News reports last month stated that the US was actively 

backing Jundullah, an armed Baluchi group based in Pakistan, to carry out 

cross-border attacks inside Iran. It reported on April 3 that the militia 

had been "secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005". 

The group was responsible for the bomb blasts in the southeastern city of 

Zahedran in February that killed 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary 

Guard. 
 

Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Centre, told 

ABC News that* *Jundullah leader Abd el Malik Regi "used to fight with the 

Taliban. He's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist." 

According to this week's report, US officials deny any "direct funding" of 

Jundullah but "say the leader of Jundullah was in regular contact with US 

officials." In other words, in its efforts to bring about "regime change" in 

Iran, the Bush administration is collaborating with Sunni extremists 

associated with the Taliban, which is the main target of the US "war on 

terror" in neighbouring Afghanistan. 
 

In his most recent article, in February, entitled "The Redirection," Hersh 

says the Bush administration has enlisted the support of the Saudi monarchy 

and other Sunni states such as Jordan in a bid to counter the influence of 

Shiite Iran across the Middle East. As the article points out, the US might 

not be "directly funding" groups like Jundullah and other Sunni extremist 

militia, but autocratic Saudi Arabia is able to secretly provide large 

amounts of money, as it did to Al Qaeda in the 1980s in the CIA's war 

against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. 
 

Hersh also highlighted the role of Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott 

Abrams, a prominent neo-conservative who was an active participant in the 

Reagan administration's illegal arming of the right-wing Nicaraguan contras 

through the covert sale of weapons to Iran in the 1980s. Abrams eventually 

pled guilty to lying under oath to cover up the Iran-contra scandal. His 

past crimes were no hindrance, however, to his appointment by Bush as deputy 

national security adviser with a special brief for "global democracy 

strategy"—that is, for undermining regimes targetted by the administration. 
 

According to Hersh's sources, Abrams has used his experiences to bypass 

congressional oversight of a series of clandestine operations, not only 

inside Iran, but directed against pro-Iranian groups such as Hezbollah in 

Lebanon. Access to funds appears to have been no problem, as a Pentagon 

consultant explained: "There are many, many pots of black money, scattered 

in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions." Other 

US officials pointed out that the billions of dollars unaccounted for during 

the first months of the US occupation of Iraq had been "a vehicle for such 

transactions". 
 

*Iran reacts* 
 

Commenting to ABC News about Bush's secret presidential finding, Vali Nasr, 

a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, warned: "I think 

everybody in the region knows that there is a proxy war already afoot with 

the United States supporting anti-Iranian elements in the region as well as 

opposition groups within Iran. And this covert action is now being escalated 

by the new US directive, and that can very quickly lead to Iranian 

retaliation and a cycle of escalation can follow." 
 

A senior US State Department official admitted to the *Washington Post* that 

the US was funding oppositionists, albeit indirectly. "We saw early on the 

problem we would pose if we tried to support them directly. We didn't want 

to get them into hot water. That's why we're doing it through third 

countries," he said. 
 

Already the Iranian government has seized on the US campaign to justify its 

own political witch-hunt, including the roundup of political opponents as 

"spies" and "US agents". US-based Human Rights Watch analyst Hadi Ghaemi 

told the *Washington Post* last month: "Dozens of Iranian activists are 

paying the price since the announcement of the $75 million and practically 

everyone who has been detained over the past year has been interrogated 

about receiving this money. They [the authorities] are obsessed with the 

perception that the US is fuelling a velvet revolution through this money." 
 

A broad range of activists have been detained and interrogated, including 

teachers, women's rights campaigners, labour organisers, students, 

journalists and intellectuals. "When the US announces its support for civil 

society movements, it becomes a ready tool for the Iranian government to use 

against independent activists. It's really been counterproductive," Fariba 

Davoodi Mohajer, a women's rights activist, told the newspaper. 
 

Several visiting foreign academics and journalists have also been caught up 

in the security dragnet, including Radio Farda correspondent Parnaz Azima 

and Haleh Esfandiari, from Washington's Woodrow Wilson Centre. Both hold 

dual US-Iranian citizenship and were visiting family members in Iran. 

Esfandiari, who has become something of a cause célèbre in American ruling 

circles, was formally detained on May 8, after being prevented from leaving 

the country, and has been accused of trying to foment a "soft revolution" 

and spying for the US and Israel. 
 

While the Iranian regime has offered no evidence to justify its repressive 

measures, the outrage expressed by the Bush administration and congressional 

Democrats is completely hypocritical. Secretary of State Rice declared last 

week that Esfandiari should be released immediately, saying her case 

demonstrated that the Iranian regime "does not treat its people... very 

well." State Department spokesman Sean McCormack dismissed Iranian 

accusations that the academic was seeking to overthrow the Iranian 

government as "poppycock" and "utter nonsense". 
 

Whether or not Esfandiari is involved, Rice's perspective is certainly 

"regime change" in Tehran. Moreover, with the complicity of the Democrats, 

the Bush administration has arbitrarily detained without trial, and in many 

cases tortured, thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US itself, 

including five Iranian officials seized from an Iranian liaison office in 

northern Iraq in January. 
 

The campaign for "regime change" in Iran has nothing to do with defending 

"democracy" or the political rights of the Iranian population. Its sole 

purpose is to advance US strategic and economic interests. Iran not only 

contains huge reserves of oil and gas, it sits at the strategic crossroads 

of the resource-rich regions of Central Asia and the Middle East. 
 

US and Iranian officials are due to meet next week in Baghdad to discuss the 

deteriorating security situation confronting American occupation forces in 

Iraq. The meeting is unlikely to ease the escalating tensions between the 

two countries. 
 

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