|
|
Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Report From the Afghan Front
|
home / subscribe / donate / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
Report From the Afghan Front
It's Obama's War and It's Going Very BadlyExclusively for CounterPunch subcribers, Patrick Cockburn files a special report from Kabul: the Taliban's tightening grip on most of the country; plumetting US popularity in a bankrupt country rotted by corruption. For fifty years, Seymour Melman waged intellectual war on Pentagon capitalism, making the case for peaceful conversion. David Price brings to light decades of FBI secret surveillance. Senator Jim Webb is launching the first determined bid in forty years to overhaul the US criminal justice system at whose call is the American gulag. Alexander Cockburn reports on the prospects for his success. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
Meet & Debate (Perhaps Even Date) CPers Online at CounterPunch's New Facebook Page!
|
Today's Stories June 30, 2009 Michael Hudson June 29, 2009 Ishmael Reed Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Conn Hallinan James G. Abourezk Ralph Nader Carol Miller Greg Moses Website of the Day June 26-28, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Doug Peacock Daniel Wolff Mike Whitney John Ross David Rosen Emily Ratner Gareth Porter Farid Marjai Nadia Hijab Paul Craig Roberts Fred Gardner Carl Ginsburg Paul Watson David Ker Thomson Farzana Versey Geoff Berne Todd Alan Price Ramzy Baroud Jeff Sher Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value? Glen Johnson Charlotte Laws Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 25, 2009 Kathy Kelly Jack Bratich Wendell Potter Charles R. Larson Alan Farago Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter Bitta Mostofi / David Macaray Mark Schuller Website of the Day June 24, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Dean Baker Andy Worthington James Bovard Diana Gibson / P. Sainath Gareth Porter Robert Alvarez Dave Lindorff Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi Website of the Day
June 23, 2009 David Price Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway / Dave Lindorff Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Gary Leupp Brian M. Downing Robert Bryce Nicholas Dearden Yousef Munayyer Website of the Day June 22, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Chris Floyd Jack Z. Bratich Atash Yaghmaian Laura Carlsen Paul Craig Roberts Vijay Prashad Fred Gardner Andy Thayer David Macaray Website of the Day
June 19 - 21, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Al Giordano Henry A. Giroux Anthony DiMaggio Paul Craig Roberts John Ross Gareth Porter Carl Ginsburg Tommi Avicolli Mecca Joe Bageant Serge Halimi P. Sainath Jim Goodman Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Robert Fantina Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 18, 2009 Uri Avnery Robert Sandels / Anthony DiMaggio Robert Weissman Joshua Frank Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Norman Solomon Ali Jawad James Ridgeway Website of the Day June 17, 2009 Carl Boggs Dr. Bryant Welch Winslow T. Wheeler Liaquat Ali Khan Jonathan Cook Binoy Kampmark Karim Makdisi Dave Lindorff David Swanson Gene Marx Website of the Day June 16, 2009 Patrick Cockburn John Ross Afshin Rattansi Marc Levy Paul Craig Roberts Behzad Yaghmaian Brian M. Downing Merle Lefkoff David Macaray Robert Jensen David Swanson Website of the Day June 15, 2009 Michael Hudson Reza Fiyouzat Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway Marjorie Cohn Rannie Amiri Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Leonard Schwartz Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day June 12-14, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Gareth Porter Mike Whitney Mark Ames Esam Al-Amin Franklin Lamb Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Heather Gray Felice Pace Ron Jacobs George Wuerthner Jeffrey Buchanan / David Ker Thomson Renaud Lambert Kevin Zeese David Macaray Evelyn Pringle Chris Genovali David Michael Green Brian J. Foley Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 11, 2009 Kathy Kelly / James Bovard Tristan de Bourbon Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Ralph Nader Harvey Wasserman Nicole Colson Mark Weisbrot Dan Bacher Website of the Day June 10, 2009 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Jennifer Van Bergen / Douglas Valentine Kathy Kelly Paul Craig Roberts Rev. William E. Alberts Peter Lee Carol Miller Emily Ratner Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day June 9, 2009 Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Stan Cox Sibel Edmonds Jonathan Cook David Macaray Robert Jensen Nadia Hijab Mark Weisbrot Website of the Day June 8, 2009 John Ross Paul Craig Roberts Franklin C. Spinney Franklin Lamb Uri Avnery Jonathan Cook Eric Toussaint Jim Goodman Norman Solomon Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day June 5 -7, 200 Alexander Cockburn George Galloway Paul Craig Roberts Jennifer Loewenstein Franklin Lamb Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Missy Comley Beattie Farzana Versey Stanley Heller John V. Whitbeck Robert Weissman Lee Sustar Dave Lindorff William Blum Ernest Callenbach / Greg Moses Ron Jacobs David Yearsley Tim Stelloh Belén Fernández David Ker Thomson Karyn Strickler Christopher Brauchli Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
|
June 30, 2009 Has the CIA Been Caught in Iran's Cookie Jar, Again?Iran and Washington's Hidden HandBy ESAM AL-AMIN Only weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist and mouthpiece of the neoconservatives, revealed the target list of the Bush administration as it set out on its post-9/11 war footing. The list included six nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, and the Palestinian Authority. While the priority allotted to Afghanistan and subsequently Iraq was not in dispute, the remaining order was in flux. Israel was given a free hand in dealing with the Palestinian Authority (PA). President George W. Bush completely shunned and isolated PA President Yasser Arafat, until he died under siege in November 2004. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was allowed to use brutal military tactics to crush the Al-Aqsa intifada, reoccupying much of the West Bank, and setting up hundreds of military checkpoints devastating Palestinian life and what remained of the PA. By January 2002, the Afghan campaign was over as far as Bush was concerned, and preparations for the invasion of Iraq had begun in earnest. Dozens of books have been written explaining in elaborate detail the schemes, plots and deceptions by the neocons for regime change in Iraq. In fact, Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward documented the events and the roles of senior administration officials in a series of books. As Libyan Leader Muammar Qadhafi watched the toppling of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, he initiated contact with London and then Washington, trying to identify the conditions needed, in an attempt to avoid Saddam’s fate. By January 2004, Libya agreed to all their conditions: accepting responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, paying over $3 billion in reparations, signing the Chemical Weapons Ban treaty, and perhaps most importantly, giving up its nuclear program, including handing over all equipment purchased over two decades to the U.S. On the other hand, Syria faced economic pressure and diplomatic isolation, coupled with veiled and direct threats. By April 2005, Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon after a 29-year presence. Although American pressure succeeded in forcing Damascus to withdraw from Lebanon, Syria remained a target for regime change within the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment. Its alleged role in supporting the Iraqi resistance against the American occupation, as well as hosting the headquarters of the major Palestinian resistance groups represented its major “sins.” But the toughest nut to crack among all these targets has always been Iran. Ironically, Iran’s strategic situation vastly improved following the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the overthrow of those regimes. By 2004, Iran’s Shiite allies in Iraq were in control of the government, even as the country was still under American occupation. Further, Iran exercised tremendous influence with Muqtada Sadr’s militia, the main Shiite opposition to the occupation in the streets. After Bush’s second inauguration in January 2005, the National Security Council had an intense internal debate regarding Iran. The conflict did not center on whether there should be a regime change in Iran, but rather, whether to employ soft or hard power to achieve it. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld advocated a series of escalating military strikes, while former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for the use of soft power. Eventually, the president’s military advisors ended the debate when they cautioned Bush that with the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, engaging Iran militarily would be highly risky and draining for the U.S. armed forces. Between 2005-2009, the U.S. Congress appropriated more than $400 million for State Department programs designed to “promote democracy,” among other means of employing soft power in Iran. This was implemented, in part, by funding the activities of Iranian dissident groups. By 2008, Congress included money in the budget that would specifically “go to software programmers to develop programs that thwart internet firewalls erected by the government of Iran, ” and for a program to “provide anti-censorship tools and services for the advancement of information freedom in closed societies.” On May 24, 2007, Brian Ross, ABC News’s Chief Investigative Correspondent broke a story about the elements of soft power utilized by the CIA and authorized by Bush. “Current and former intelligence officials told ABC News that the CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount what is known as a black or covert operations to destabilize the Iranian regime, and it is underway,” he reported. He then added, “Those officials describe the Iranian plan as non-lethal involving a campaign of coordinated propaganda broadcasts, placement of negative newspaper articles, the manipulation of Iran’s currency and international banking transactions.” The ABC correspondent stated, “Propaganda was one of the most important tools utilized by the CIA.” Three days later, the British Daily Telegraph, detailed CIA plans for “a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple” the regime. The report said that the presidential finding gave the U.S. spy agency, for the first time, “the right to collect intelligence domestically, an area that is usually the preserve of the FBI, from the many Iranian exiles and émigrés within the US.” In the report, an intelligence official was quoted as saying, "Iranians in America have links with their families at home, and they are a good two-way source of information." Part of the CIA program, as reported by ABC News and the Daily Telegraph, was “supplying money and weapons, to the militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan.” Since 2007, Iranian officials have announced the capture of dozens of members of violent groups, allegedly tied to the CIA, that carried out bombings around the nation including one that killed 20 people only two weeks prior to the recent elections, on May 30, 2009. The following day, another bombing took place at a campaign office of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Further, about two thousand militia members of the Mujahideen Khalq Organization, a violent group seeking to forcibly topple the Iranian regime, have been given sanctuary in Iraq by the American occupation authority, although the group has appeared on the State Department’s list of international terrorist organizations since 1997. The report also quoted Mark Fitzpatrick, a former senior State Department official, now with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, as saying that industrial sabotage was the strategy of choice to combat Iran's nuclear program "without military action, without fingerprints on the operation." The Telegraph report also stated that the CIA was allowed to supply “communications equipment which would enable opposition groups in Iran to work together and bypass Internet censorship” by the regime. The use of this equipment has surfaced prominently in the recent standoff between the government and the opposition in Iran. It should be noted though that this destabilization program by the CIA is totally separate from the State Department’s $400 million program, and is being funded through the CIA budget. Thus, since 2006, the total figure for Iran’s destabilization program could have easily exceeded $1 billion. During the 1980s, the U.S. Government, and particularly the CIA, was very active in fomenting rebellions, mass unrest and protest movements in Eastern Europe. These efforts have been documented in numerous books and biographies. Former National Security Advisor during the Carter Administration, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, admitted as much in a CNN interview on June 21, 2009. Commenting on the 1980 founding of the Solidarity movement during the Communist era in Poland, he told his host, “I was up to my ears in dealing with it and trying to steer it and manipulate it.” When asked about regime change in Iran, Brzezinski answered that regime change is desired because it would provide a “greater accommodation” to the U.S., but it requires, among other things, “intelligent manipulation.” On June 28, CNN program host Fareed Zakaria put a very telling question to Bob Baer, a retired twenty-one year CIA veteran, who served as the top operative in the Middle East for many years. He asked, “Isn’t it true that we do [try to destabilize the regime]? Don’t we fund various groups inside and outside Iran that do try to destabilize the government?” Baer answered, “ Oh absolutely,” then added, “There is a covert action program against Iran where the [U.S.] military is running; a covert action against Iran from Iraq and Afghanistan.” The overt involvement of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other U.S. Government-funded NGOs in supporting many of the groups and dissidents that led the colored and flowering “revolutions,” is also well documented. The Orange (Ukraine), Rose (Georgia), Tulip (Kyrgyzstan), Cedar (Lebanon), Saffron (Burma) and now Green (Iran) “revolutions” have involved mostly pro-Western groups or Western-favored individuals against nationalists. The Guardian claimed that USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and Freedom House were directly involved in supporting these revolutions. The Washington Post and the New York Times also reported substantial Western involvement in some of these events. According to Saeed Behbahani, a fierce critic of the current Iranian regime, and founder of Mihan TV outside Washington D.C., the American administration exchanged messages with the campaign of Mir Hossein Mousavi in early June. He claims that, at that time, an unidentified Iranian-American businessman, who is close to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, met with Mousavi’s campaign manager, Mehdi Khazali, in Dubai. The following day, Khazali was prominently interviewed and hailed by the Voice of America’s Persian language broadcast. The VOA claims that its broadcast reaches 15 million Iranians. Other Iranian opposition groups complained that the VOA had adopted a policy of supporting the reformist candidates, and had disregarded those who called for a boycott of the elections to deny the regime legitimacy. The role of the Western media in the few weeks before and in the aftermath of the elections is illuminating. These same outlets traditionally act as enablers to Washington’s agenda, a role notoriously on display in the lead-up to the Iraq war. In November 2005, Egypt held elections for its parliament. The elections were held in three stages so they could be easily managed by the regime. When the opposition led by the Kefaya (Enough) Movement and the Muslim Brotherhood scored impressive gains in the first stage, the government initiated a crackdown by beating and arresting the opposition candidates and organizers. Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets in protest of the government’s intimidation tactics and manipulation of the elections. Western TV networks provided scant coverage of these events, and never covered the massive protests or crackdown by government authorities. Furthermore, earlier this year, during Israel’s 22-day onslaught on Gaza, millions of people around the world, including tens of thousands in the U.S., protested daily the brutality of the Israeli military machine against the defenseless civilians. Despite the fact that over 1,400 people were killed and over 5,000 injured - one third of whom were children- there was hardly the wall-to-wall coverage given to the protests in Iran. The biased performance of the mainstream media in reporting the Iranian elections can be illustrated through the coverage of the over-votes. Soon after the elections, it was reported that a major proof of fraud was that the participation rate exceeded 100 percent in many districts. The clear implication was that the authorities were so sloppy in their election tampering that they simply stuffed the ballot boxes. Had media outlets consulted any experts on Iranian elections, they would have discovered the simple explanation. In Iran, there is no requirement to vote in a designated district. People do not carry a voter registration card like American citizens. Each voter has a voting book allowing him or her to vote anywhere in the country. After voting, the book is stamped and the index finger is inked to ensure that no one can vote more than once. This fact was not unique to this election. In many previous elections, many districts had a high turnout when compared to the number of registered voters in that district because many Iranians had voted there while traveling or during their summer vacations. The example of the over-votes, not only demonstrates gross negligence by the media, but also deliberate deception. On June 22, Abbas Kadkhodaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Guidance Council (GC), the official body in charge of investigating all 646 complaints filed by the defeated candidates, held a press conference. He gave details about the complaints under investigation by the Council. Kadkhodaei explained that the main complaint filed by Mousavi related to the elections was that the number of over-votes existed in as many as 170 cities, potentially affecting more votes than the margin between the top two candidates. Kadkhodaei then presented the GC’s preliminary findings, which showed that such over-votes existed (as they had existed in previous elections), but in no more than 50 cities across Iran, affecting no more than three million votes. In other words, there were no more than three million voters who had voted outside their districts. He emphasized that, with 11 million votes between the top two candidates, even if all three million votes were to be excluded (although there is no valid reason to do that), clearly the outcome of the elections would not be affected. But within minutes the German News Agency followed by Reuters, reported that the GC “admitted” that there were an excess of three million votes in 50 cities, leaving the listener and reader with the impression that these were fraudulent votes, rather than valid votes for people voting outside their districts like the spokesman explained. This report was instantly placed on the front pages of every major Western news media websites. The deception continued and made the front page of every major Western paper the following day. Opposition groups have relied on Internet communication technology such as text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and political blogs during their protests. In fact, Secretary Clinton took the unusual step in asking Twitter to change its maintenance schedule to accommodate Iran’s time zone and allow opposition groups the ability to utilize it. What is striking is that most of the postings were in English, not Persian, begging the question: who was the target audience of these tweets? Similarly, why were the protesters holding signs saying, “Where is my vote?” in English, rather than the language spoken by the voters of Iran? But a study by the website, www.chartingstocks.net, concluded that during three days after the election, the overwhelming majority of Tweets (over 30,000), were manipulated through a handful of accounts; all created within one day of the elections on June 13. It is interesting to note that only 0.6 percent of Twitter accounts are used by Iranians (as compared to 44 percent by Americans). In a recent interview with the BBC on June 19, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the foreign policy icon and ultimate insider, exposed Washington’s deep involvement in the Iranian affair. Dr. Kissinger said, “If it turns out that it is not possible for a government to emerge in Iran that can deal with itself as a nation rather than as a cause, then we have a different situation.” Translation: if our preferred candidate did not emerge a winner after using all our soft power… He continued, “Then we may conclude that we must work for regime change in Iran from the outside,” Translation: then the U.S. (or perhaps Israel) may have to resort to hard power, meaning military strikes. He then added, “But if I understand the president correctly, he does not want to do this as a visible intervention in the current crisis.” Translation: Whatever President Barack Obama is doing in Iran, he wants to make sure that Washington’s hand is invisible. Esam Al-Amin can be reached at: alamin1919@gmail.com
|
Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
Spell Albuquerque:
Waiting for
Lightning
|
