LDS Freedom Forum

America's Complicity In Evil
By Paul Craig Roberts
6-3-10

As I write at 5pm on Monday, May 31, all day has passed since the early morning reports of the Israeli commando attack on the unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, and there has been no response from President Obama except to say that he needed to learn "all the facts about this morning's tragic events" and that Israeli prime minister Netanyahu had canceled his plans to meet with him at the White House.

Thus has Obama made America complicit once again in Israel's barbaric war crimes.

Just as the US Congress voted to deep-six Judge Goldstone's report on Israel's war crimes committed in Israel's January 2009 invasion of Gaza, Obama has deep-sixed Israel's latest act of barbarism by pretending that he doesn't know what has happened.

No one in the world will believe that Israel attacked ships in international waters carrying Israeli citizens, a Nobel Laureate, elected politicians, and noted humanitarians bringing medicines and building materials to Palestinians in Gaza, who have been living in the rubble of their homes without repairs or medicines since January 2009, without first clearing the crime with its American protector. Without America's protection, Israel, a totally artificial state, could not exist.

No one in the world will believe that America's spy apparatus did not detect the movement of the Israeli attack force toward the aid ships in international waters in an act of piracy, killing 20, wounding 50, and kidnapping the rest.

Obama's pretense at ignorance confirms his complicity.

Once again, the US government has permitted the Israeli state to murder good people known for their moral conscience. The Israeli state has declared that anyone with a moral conscience is an enemy of Israel, and every American president except Eisenhower and Carter has agreed.

Obama's 12-hour silence in the face of extreme barbarity is his signal to the controlled corporate media to remain on the sidelines until Israeli propaganda sets the story.

The Israeli story, preposterous as always, is that the humanitarians on one of the ships took two pistols from Israeli commandos, highly trained troops armed with automatic weapons, and fired on the attack force. The Israeli government claims that the commandos' response (70 casualties at last reporting) was justified self-defense. Israel was innocent. Israel did not do anything except drop commandos aboard from helicopters in order to intercept an arms shipment to Gazans being brought in by ships manned by terrorists.

Many Christian evangelicals, brainwashed by their pastors that it is God's will for Americans to protect Israel, will believe the Israeli story, especially when it is unlikely they will ever hear any other. Conservative Americans, especially on Memorial Day when they are celebrating feats of American arms, will admire Israel for its toughness.

Here in north Georgia, where I am at the moment, I have heard several say, admiringly, "Them Israelis, they don't put up with nuthin'."

Conservative Americans want the US to be like Israel. They do not understand why the US doesn't stop pissing around after nine years and just go ahead and defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. They don't understand why the US didn't defeat whoever was opposing American forces in Iraq. Conservatives are incensed that America had to "win" the war by buying off the Iraqis and putting them on the US payroll.

Israel murders people and then blames its victims. This appeals to American conservatives, who want the US to do the same.

It is likely that Americans will accept Israeli propagandist Mark Regev's story that Israelis were met by deadly fire when they tried to intercept an arms shipment to Palestinian terrorists from IHH, a radical Turkish Islamist organization hiding under the cover of humanitarian aid. This explanation is crafted to allow Americans to sink back into their stupor.

Americans will never hear from the US media that Turkey's prime minister Erdogan declared that the aid ships were carefully inspected before departure from Turkey and that there were no terrorists or arms aboard:

"I want to say to the world, to the heads of state and the governments, that these boats that left from Turkey and other countries were checked in a strict way under the framework of the rules of international navigation and were only loaded with humanitarian aid."

Turkey is a US ally, a member of NATO. Turkey's cooperation is important to American's plan for world hegemony. Turkey now realizes that the Israeli state is comprised of total evil. Erdogan must wonder about the morality of Israel's American protector. According to a report in Antiwar.com, the Turkish government declared that "future aid ships will be dispatched with a military escort so as to prevent future Israeli attacks."

Will the CIA assassinate Erdogan or pay the Turkish military to overthrow him?

Murat Mercan, head of Turkey's foreign relations committee, said that Israel's claim that there were terrorists aboard the aid ships was Israel's way of covering up its crime. Mercan declared:

"Any allegation that the members of this ship is attached to al-Qaeda is a big lie because there are Israeli civilians, Israeli authorities, Israeli parliamentarians on board the ship."

The criminal Israeli state does not deny its act of piracy. Israeli military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich confirmed that the attack took place in international waters: "This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves."

Americans, and their Western European puppet states and the puppet state in Canada, will be persuaded by the servile media to buy the story fabricated by Israeli propaganda that the humanitarian aid ships were manned by terrorists bringing weapons to the Palestinians in Gaza, and that the terrorists posing as humanitarians attacked the force of Israeli commandos with two pistols, clubs, and knives.

The ignorant Americans will swallow this story without a hiccup.

InfoWarrior82 wrote:My opinion is that our country and Israel will get their cleansing by fire separately. Our nation's law and order will probably collapse before we will know of anything going on in the middle east. The only way for the nations to mass an army to invade Israel is when the US is out of the way.

p51-mustang wrote:

InfoWarrior82 wrote:My opinion is that our country and Israel will get their cleansing by fire separately. Our nation's law and order will probably collapse before we will know of anything going on in the middle east. The only way for the nations to mass an army to invade Israel is when the US is out of the way.

Yes Info, this is correct. There are no scriptures that prophecy the rescue of Israel by another nation. Christ himself is the only salvation for them in that day.

natasha wrote:Thought this was appropriate for this thread. I don't know how many of you know Charles Krauthammer, but I find him quite interesting and most often just as factual.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10156/10 ... d=news.xml

This article was also on the editorial page yesterday of The News Herald, Orem, Utah

natasha wrote:Oh for crying out loud, Col....I post an article that I thought was an excellent one....to give a little balance....and you go into your regular diatribe that has become sooooo predictable. No government anywhere is 100% righteous....unless, of course, you know of one. But, just so you'll know....I have done quite a bit of reading over the years regarding Israel....and I think Charles Krauthammer is right on. My research takes me to all kinds of places....not just the mainstream media....but all forms of media. And somewhere amongst it all, you CAN find what's right or what's wrong. And I'm signing "your pie in the sky naive friend"......

natasha wrote:Oh for crying out loud, Col....I post an article that I thought was an excellent one....to give a little balance....and you go into your regular diatribe that has become sooooo predictable. No government anywhere is 100% righteous....unless, of course, you know of one. But, just so you'll know....I have done quite a bit of reading over the years regarding Israel....and I think Charles Krauthammer is right on. My research takes me to all kinds of places....not just the mainstream media....but all forms of media. And somewhere amongst it all, you CAN find what's right or what's wrong. And I'm signing "your pie in the sky naive friend"......

bobhenstra wrote:

natasha wrote:Oh for crying out loud, Col....I post an article that I thought was an excellent one....to give a little balance....and you go into your regular diatribe that has become sooooo predictable. No government anywhere is 100% righteous....unless, of course, you know of one. But, just so you'll know....I have done quite a bit of reading over the years regarding Israel....and I think Charles Krauthammer is right on. My research takes me to all kinds of places....not just the mainstream media....but all forms of media. And somewhere amongst it all, you CAN find what's right or what's wrong. And I'm signing "your pie in the sky naive friend"......

Lol, you go girl!!! Good job!

Bob

Col. Flagg wrote: Interesting piece. The mainstream media is out to portray Israel as the good guy, innocent victims... always. Paul Craig Roberts spent 8 years in the Reagan administration... he knows what goes on and what Israel is all about and capable of. He knows what the mainstream media is all about as well and its relationship to the federal mafia, so anything we hear or see on MSNBC, CNN, etc. is going to reflect a pro-Israeli bias, no matter what the truth is. Contrary to what others may think, Israel is not always the innocent victim and if anyone thinks their government is righteous or that their military consists of good guys who just want to defend Israel, reality is that is just pie in the sky thinking and shows naivety. For crying out loud, Israel's Mossad was directly involved in 9/11... all you have to do is look at what they stood to gain from the whole thing. In 99.9% of cases, just ask 'who benefits'?

natasha wrote:Thought this was appropriate for this thread. I don't know how many of you know Charles Krauthammer, but I find him quite interesting and most often just as factual.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10156/10 ... d=news.xml

This article was also on the editorial page yesterday of The News Herald, Orem, Utah

Col. Flagg wrote:

bobhenstra wrote:

natasha wrote:Oh for crying out loud, Col....I post an article that I thought was an excellent one....to give a little balance....and you go into your regular diatribe that has become sooooo predictable. No government anywhere is 100% righteous....unless, of course, you know of one. But, just so you'll know....I have done quite a bit of reading over the years regarding Israel....and I think Charles Krauthammer is right on. My research takes me to all kinds of places....not just the mainstream media....but all forms of media. And somewhere amongst it all, you CAN find what's right or what's wrong. And I'm signing "your pie in the sky naive friend"......

Lol, you go girl!!! Good job!

Bob

Bob, don't encourage her... I could get a knuckle sandwich over this!

Rensai wrote:

Col. Flagg wrote: Interesting piece. The mainstream media is out to portray Israel as the good guy, innocent victims... always. Paul Craig Roberts spent 8 years in the Reagan administration... he knows what goes on and what Israel is all about and capable of. He knows what the mainstream media is all about as well and its relationship to the federal mafia, so anything we hear or see on MSNBC, CNN, etc. is going to reflect a pro-Israeli bias, no matter what the truth is. Contrary to what others may think, Israel is not always the innocent victim and if anyone thinks their government is righteous or that their military consists of good guys who just want to defend Israel, reality is that is just pie in the sky thinking and shows naivety. For crying out loud, Israel's Mossad was directly involved in 9/11... all you have to do is look at what they stood to gain from the whole thing. In 99.9% of cases, just ask 'who benefits'?

I find this interesting. I watch the same mainstream media you do, but I reach the exact opposite conclusion. The mainstream media is generally far from friendly with Israel, they go out of their way to paint Israel in the worst light possible from my viewpoint. Take the 6-day war. Much of the blame for Israel's current problems date back to that, yet our media has never once given the full truth about that. If they did, Israel would be seen in a much better light than it is now.

I'm not saying Israel is perfect. Does Israel do some evil stuff? Yes, without a doubt. I don't think there are any actual good governments on earth right now. I know there are exceptions to how the media reports on Israel. When they are involved with our government on a joint project or when it serves our interests for example. For the most part though, historically our media has been unfavorable to Israel.

Mark wrote:Paul Roberts is a fool. He is so blinded by his hatred toward Israel that he can't see the forest between the trees. He sites in his article Turkeys assurances that this flotilla was completely harmless and only trying to do good humanitarian deeds. Bull crap. Turkey is currently in the process of forming an alliance with Iran and Russia in defiance of Western desires for tough sanctions on the Iranian Nuclear program. It is obvious to anyone who cares to look that Turkey is not going to back the United States but has shifted its allegience to those in the world who would love to see the West decapitated and left smoldering in a heap of ashes. I can easily see Turkey joining the SCO with China and Russia at its helm in order to further stick it to the US and Israel any way they can.

You people here may not like a lot of what Israel and the United States have done politically in certain situations and I would agree on some issues but there are elements of power currently forming that will make the actions of America and Israel seem like a picnic in the park compared to what these eastern alliances forming have in mind for the western world. I don't hear Roberts talking about these alliances and the dangers that they present to the west and particularly Israel and its right to survive. He is only focused on sins of the west and Israel and has no desire to address those like Putin and Ahmadinejad who would prefer to turn Israel and the US into a giant concentration camp modeled after Auschwitz. Those who scoff at that depiction will not be laughing when it all comes down. You will then see how a real NWO as administered and designed by communist regimes and Islamic radicals operates. Worried about FEMA camps? They will seem like Four Seasons resorts in comparison.

Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939, in Atlanta, Georgia) is an economist and a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics." He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. He has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy. His writings frequently appear on OpEdNews, Antiwar.com, VDARE.com. Lew Rockwell's web site, CounterPunch, and the American Free Press. Roberts is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds a PhD. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley and at Merton College, Oxford University.

In an article for Counterpunch magazine titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean", Roberts wrote that for 60 years, Israel has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated charges that Gaza is "the world largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that "Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department a "puppet" of the Israelis and the U.S. itself a "puppet state" of the Israelis. He concludes the article by claiming that "there’s no money for California, or for Americans’ health care, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."

Col. Flagg wrote:

Mark wrote:Paul Roberts is a fool. He is so blinded by his hatred toward Israel that he can't see the forest between the trees. He sites in his article Turkeys assurances that this flotilla was completely harmless and only trying to do good humanitarian deeds. Bull crap. Turkey is currently in the process of forming an alliance with Iran and Russia in defiance of Western desires for tough sanctions on the Iranian Nuclear program. It is obvious to anyone who cares to look that Turkey is not going to back the United States but has shifted its allegience to those in the world who would love to see the West decapitated and left smoldering in a heap of ashes. I can easily see Turkey joining the SCO with China and Russia at its helm in order to further stick it to the US and Israel any way they can.

You people here may not like a lot of what Israel and the United States have done politically in certain situations and I would agree on some issues but there are elements of power currently forming that will make the actions of America and Israel seem like a picnic in the park compared to what these eastern alliances forming have in mind for the western world. I don't hear Roberts talking about these alliances and the dangers that they present to the west and particularly Israel and its right to survive. He is only focused on sins of the west and Israel and has no desire to address those like Putin and Ahmadinejad who would prefer to turn Israel and the US into a giant concentration camp modeled after Auschwitz. Those who scoff at that depiction will not be laughing when it all comes down. You will then see how a real NWO as administered and designed by communist regimes and Islamic radicals operates. Worried about FEMA camps? They will seem like Four Seasons resorts in comparison.

Mark, I'm not going to argue with you over most of what you said, but Paul Craig Roberts is no fool and Israel is NOT an innocent victim. First, here's a little background on this 'fool':

Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939, in Atlanta, Georgia) is an economist and a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics." He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. He has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy. His writings frequently appear on OpEdNews, Antiwar.com, VDARE.com. Lew Rockwell's web site, CounterPunch, and the American Free Press. Roberts is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds a PhD. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley and at Merton College, Oxford University.

And why would he hate Israel so much to the point of spreading lies about it? Roberts has no history of being an anti-Semite.

In an article for Counterpunch magazine titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean", Roberts wrote that for 60 years, Israel has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated charges that Gaza is "the world largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that "Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department a "puppet" of the Israelis and the U.S. itself a "puppet state" of the Israelis. He concludes the article by claiming that "there’s no money for California, or for Americans’ health care, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."

Mark, the Israeli lobby in Washington has a stranglehold on DC politicos... this is well-known and has existed for a LONG TIME. As such, is it difficult to believe that Washington, DC is not going to do what's in Israel's best interest before its own people? Israel didn't get 500 nukes and its Air Force by itself. Israel, in many respects, dictates Washington's foreign policy. And, by the way, no weapons were discovered aboard the flotilla Israel raided... why do you think they were using pipes and other items to try and fend off Israeli soldiers?

Hamas, Israel, and the Gaza flotilla: seven facts you need to know
The Christian Science Monitor

By Nadav Tamir Nadav Tamir – Thu Jun 3, 4:55 pm ET

Boston – In the torrent of rage and confusion generated by the loss of life when the Israeli Navy enforced the embargo on the Gaza Strip this week, there has been a regrettable overlooking of certain fundamental facts. As is so frequently the case, these facts have gotten buried in the rubble of political rhetoric. In order to prevent this incident from having a deleterious effect on the peace process going forward, the following must be understood:

Fact 1: The Gaza Strip is an armed camp, ruled with an iron fist by a repressive Hamas regime that has not only repeatedly pledged itself to the annihilation of Israel and the torpedoing of any prospects for Middle East peace, but has made good on its pledges by firing approximately 10,000 missiles, rockets, and mortar bombs at Israeli civilians over the past several years for the express purpose of killing or wounding those civilians or, at a minimum, terrifying them.

Fact 2: The United States, the European Union, and the international community have recognized that Hamas is a terrorist enterprise, which surely is beyond dispute.

Fact 3: When faced with an armed enemy committed to its destruction, which has done its very best to make war against Israeli civilians, Israel has two choices: to try to protect its civilians from those attacks, or to simply shrug its shoulders and hope that the attacks stop. There is, quite simply, no nation on earth that would choose the latter course, and no reasonable and fair-minded person who would expect it to.

Fact 4: In an effort to stop the missiles from being manufactured and used against it, and only for that reason, Israel has been forced to try to keep the materials used for that purpose out of the Gaza Strip. This is an obvious step needed to prevent the kind of war that caused so much destruction in 2008, when the increase in attacks by Hamas and its allies against Israeli civilians eventually triggered an Israeli response to stop them. There can be no real doubt that Israel is entitled to keep weapons of war from being used against it.

Fact 5: Israel repeatedly, and expressly, made clear to those who organized the effort to break the embargo that it would willingly take all of the humanitarian aid that was on their boats and transfer it to Gaza, without delay. All that Israel wanted was to be able to ensure that materials were, in fact, humanitarian aid, rather than the sorts of materials used for launching attacks that are supplied to Hamas by the Iranians and others. The organizers of the flotilla refused because, of course, getting humanitarian aid to Gaza was not what their gambit was really about.

Fact 6: Israel regularly provides humanitarian aid to Gaza, and volunteering to get the humanitarian aid from the ships to Gaza was consistent with Israeli policy all along.

And Fact 7, which is now coming to light several days after the initial and predictable barrage of criticism of Israel: Those on at least one of the ships planned all along to attack Israelis when they sought to enforce the embargo, and indeed, their attack on the Israelis was brutal.

This fact has been starkly captured in video widely circulating around the Internet, showing the vicious beatings initiated by those on board one of the ships against Israelis, who for their part had been instructed to refrain from using any force if at all possible. Indeed, in Israel the military is being criticized for failing to adequately prepare its naval personnel to anticipate the attacks on them from the boats, and for being too passive, and too trusting, in its approach to the flotilla.

As for the evidence that certain individuals of those responsible for orchestrating this tragedy are linked to Al Qaeda and other representatives of the worst forces on the planet, the next days will likely yield more information.

But the larger issue is this: Has the desire to blame Israel in certain quarters reached such an irrational frenzy that the fundamental facts of any issue relating to the Middle East conflict will reliably be overlooked? Are those who are committed to a fair-minded and reasonable analysis of that conflict prepared to insist that others who like nothing more than jumping to conclusions stop, pause, think, and consider the actual evidence?

There will always be those who don’t let facts to get in the way of their biases. But fair-minded people examine the evidence before forming conclusions, especially when emotions run high. Israel – and the cause of peace in the Middle East – is counting on them to do just that.

Mark wrote:I am probable fighting a losing battle with you here Col. because you are already have formed solid opinions about the evils of the state of Israel as Roberts very clearly has as well. They are to blame for everything bad that happens. No blame goes to the real troublemakers in the region like Hamas or Hezbollah and terrorist nation states like Syria and Iran for all the middle eastern storms. Its always those Jews. They cause all the mischief and mayhem.