W. Niederhut

It looks like Israel and the U.S. military-industry-media complex are now aggressively pushing their "ISIS Did It" narrative about the recent terrorist attack on the Soleimani memorial service in Iran.

Ben, Perhaps the Education Forum could hold a fund raiser to buy you a one-way ticket to Gaza. It would be an opportunity for you to report back to us about your Murdoch-media-based theory that Netanyahu is not guilty of genocide-- i.e., indiscriminate cluster bombing of a civilian population. If you go, watch out for white phosphorous, wear a red MAGA hat, and wave a white flag, so the IDF won't mistake you for Hamas, or a human shield. Waving a white flag might improve your chances of survival by 1 or 2%.

Sandy, This is a lot to lay on the forum this morning. But you seem interested in the subject. I should preface this by saying that I have been studying the hidden history of CIA Operation Timber Sycamore (in Syria) for almost a decade now. Most Americans still don't even know what it was. Based on a number of books and articles I have read, I have long believed that "ISIS" is a proxy front group run by the CIA, the Mossad, and the Saudis to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, and undermine the Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Hezbollah Axis in the post-Iraq War Middle East (since about 2012.) After the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq's government was, ultimately, taken over by Iranian-allied Iraqi Shiites-- who constitute two-thirds of Iraq's population. And the new Iranian-allied government in Baghdad is also aligned with Syria's Assad regime and Hezbollah. Bad news for Israel! Bush, Cheney, and Wolfowitz accidentally created a Shiite-Aligned Monster from Tehran to Lebanon! So the U.S., Israel, and the Saudis responded by creating and funding "ISIS" as a counterfoil to the new Shiite Axis (while also using Sunni proxy militias like "Al Qaeda," "Al Nusra," etc.) Hillary Clinton's hacked State Department Emails confirmed that the U.S. was arming Al Qaeda in Syria! As examples of the Obama era chicanery, whenever "ISIS" allegedly carried out a "terrorist" atrocity during the Obama years, Obama would immediately "respond" by attacking Syrian Army positions-- while claiming to attack "ISIS." It made no sense. Why bomb Assad when we were claiming to bomb his "ISIS" adversaries? Also, the grisly "ISIS" atrocities were usually graphically reported in the Western mainstream media-- by an Israeli source. Americans were horrified by these "ISIS" stories, just as they were horrified by the 9/11 op. The Israeli source would also report that "ISIS claimed responsibility" for the atrocity. But, in reality, ISIS was a CIA/Mossad/Saudi front group. Fast forward to this morning. The Biden administration claimed today that "ISIS" is most likely responsible for the recent terrorist attack in Iran! It confirmed my suspicion that the US and/or Mossad bombed the Soleimani ceremony in Iran. Why would Sunni Muslims ("ISIS") bomb Iran right now-- when the entire Muslim world is enraged about Netanyahu's Gaza genocide? That makes no sense at all. Next question. How stupid do the Biden and Netanyahu administrations think Americans are? And are they correct? 🙄 US says ISIS could have carried out Iran bombing | The Hill

Any theories about who committed this terrorist attack in Iran? Netanyahu? Sunni proxies of the Saudis? The CIA? It seems unlikely that Biden or the Saudis would choose to provoke Iran at present. And Israel has been bombing Iranians in Syria recently. Deadly explosions kill more than 100 at event honoring Iranian general killed by US (msn.com)

Kirk, I agree with most of your points here, except for the claim that the "gravy train funding of Israel started 60 years ago, under JFK." On the contrary, it looks like the U.S.-to-Israel gravy train started rolling, in earnest, during the Ford and Carter administrations. (See graph below)

Sandy, Are you aware that Netanyahu bombed southern Gaza after advising Palestinian refugees to evacuate to southern Gaza? I see no meaningful evidence that Biden's approach to Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing of Gaza -- including vetoing two UN cease-fire resolutions-- has resulted in any mitigation of Netanyahu's Gaza genocide. The densely populated Gaza strip has, essentially, been bombed back to the Stone Age, with 2 million war refugees now trapped in an area the size of Heathrow Airport. On the contrary, Biden's willingness to furnish bombs for the annihilation of residential communities in Gaza seems to confirm the opinion of Likud Party leaders-- including Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu-- that, "Israel controls America and the Americans know it." Bernie Sanders is one of the few American public officials, along with some foreign service experts in the U.S. State Department, who has been willing to openly criticize Netanyahu, and to call for conditional U.S. funding of Israel's war machine.

People who haven't studied history in any depth often misinterpret actual Presidential policies on the basis of speeches made during political campaigns. That is, certainly, true of Ben Cole's lead post on this thread-- about a campaign speech that John F. Kenedy made during his 1960 Presidential campaign. To properly understand JFK's policy positions on Israel and the Palestinians, Ben should carefully study the history essays of James DiEugenio and Rick Sterling on the subject of JFK and Israel (in our two recent JFK and Gaza threads.) Perhaps the most well known example of the Presidential misinterpretation phenomenon is the misperception of Abraham Lincoln's longstanding, private opposition to slavery-- which he was careful to disguise for years, out of fear of antagonizing slave owners in the Border States, and bigots in the North. Abolitionists, including James Garfield, were angry at Lincoln for dragging his feet on implementation of the Abolitionist agenda-- but Lincoln was deliberately cautious, because he didn't want to sabotage the Union war effort, at home and "abroad" (i.e., in the CSA.) Columbia University historian Eric Foner published the definitive, accurate history of Lincoln's private opposition to slavery, and his cautious, step-wise approach to ending slavery in his book, The Fiery Trial. Amazon.com : the fiery trial abraham lincoln and american slavery Another example of the Presidential misinterpretation phenomenon is the longstanding misinterpretation of JFK's Vietnam policy. JFK was concerned in 1963 about alienating Cold War anti-communists, prior to the 1964 election, by advertising his policy goal of disengaging from Vietnam's anti-colonial war with the CIA. So, for years, people have misinterpreted JFK's true policy position on getting out of Vietnam on the basis of his public political discretion. Yet another famous example is President Woodrow Wilson history of successfully campaigning in 1916 with the slogan, "He Kept Us Out of the War," only to abruptly declare war on Germany in January of 1917.

Robert Reich nails it today. This is the same thing that happened in 2016-- something that puzzled me at the time, and afterward. Why did the corporate media--including NYT-- sabotage Hillary Clinton in 2016? My conclusion was that the corporations and CEOs wanted those multi-billion dollar 2017 Trump/GOP tax cuts. Opinion | Corporate Media Keeps Door Wide Open for Trump's Fascist Return | Common Dreams

Folks, Here's my original DADGAD guitar arrangement of an old New Year's/Yuletide English carol, The Derby Ram, which was, allegedly, sung by George Washington, himself, in the 18th century. The carol was part of a New Year's celebration of pagan Anglo-Saxon "hoodening." I used to sing this song to my daughters at bedtime when they were little tykes. https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14533870 The carol was part of a New Year's celebration of pagan Anglo-Saxon "hoodening." "The Derby Ram" or "As I was Going to Derby" is a traditional tall tale[1] English folk song (Roud 126) that tells the story of a ram of gargantuan proportions and the difficulties involved in butchering, tanning, and otherwise processing its carcass. The song is thought to have developed from ancient pagan rituals involving the worship of rams. In the local area, it was associated with the "Old Tup" custom, a form of hoodening. The song was extremely popular in Britain by the eighteenth century, and naturally travelled to North America with settlers where it was thought to have been sung by George Washington. Because of its popularity, the city of Derby has adopted ram imagery in its architecture and for its sports teams.

These poll numbers today have restored my faith in the people of Israel. Shalom aleichem! (Reuters.com won't let me post the link.) Only 15% of Israelis want Netanyahu to keep job after Gaza war, poll finds January 2, 2023

Incidentally, Sandy, you must surely know that I have been one of the most vocal critics of actual "anti-Biden propaganda" on this forum. What I post ain't it. It pains me to criticize Biden's conduct during the genocidal bombing of Gaza. I'm genuinely disappointed with the man, along with 37% of my fellow liberals who voted for Joe in 2020, and will probably vote for him again in 2024. My hunch is that we 37% are the Democratic Progressives-- the 21st century torch bearers of the liberal, Democratic legacy of JFK and RFK who haven't been hijacked by Wall Street, AIPAC, and the military industrial complex.

Sandy, Please stop posting this false trope about alleged "propaganda." I post facts and evidence-based hypotheses. You, yourself, have admitted on this thread that Netanyahu's bombing of Gaza constitutes genocide. And you have also admitted that Biden has furnished the bombs. So, it's a reductio ad absurdum for you to insist that Biden has not colluded in the genocide.

I mentioned to Sandy in November (at the Water Cooler) that Biden's support for Operation Bomb-a-Baby-for-Bibi was only the second time I have been disappointed with Biden's Presidential decisions-- the first being his appalling refusal to release the JFK records. So, count me among the 30% or more of Democrats (the Progressives) who are disappointed with Biden for colluding in Netanyahu's Gaza genocide. It's an historic disgrace. Bernie Sanders and the Progressives are the only people (other than Muslims) in the U.S. who have been willing to honestly criticize what Netanyahu and the Likudniks are doing in Gaza and the West Bank. It has validated my support for Bernie in our past two Democratic primaries here in Colorado. Here's Mehdi Hasan's accurate counter-argument to the above claim that Biden has cleverly manipulated Netanyahu since October 7th -- rather than functioning as Israel's latest POTUS puppet. Biden Ukraine Statement Highlights Hypocrisy on Gaza (commondreams.org)

Sandy, The U.S.-supplied weapons are also being used to kill civilians, and to destroy apartments, schools, and hospitals in Gaza, aren't they? Here's a discussion of the case recently filed at the International Court of Justice by the government of South Africa against the Netanyahu regime, for genocide.* The South African plaintiffs, like most of the international community, don't share your view of the IDF's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza's civilian population, residential buildings, schools, hospitals, doctors, and journalists as a mere "war against Hamas." It, certainly, looks more like genocidal ethnic cleansing. For example, are the 8,000+ slain children in Gaza Hamas combatants? How about the slain women and elderly? And let's not forget that some of Netanyahu's associates have openly called for the extermination and/or expulsion of the Palestinians in Gaza. * South Africa Charges Israel with Genocide at Int'l Court of Justice, as Global South charges West with Hypocrisy (juancole.com) Excerpt In international law, genocide is not the same as annihilation. As defined in contemporary treaties such as the Rome Statute, it can involve killing relatively few individuals, but doing it in such a way as to deliberately cripple their ability to survive as a people. The key elements are intentionally targeting a people because of its ethnic identity and attempting to wipe out its peoplehood. Israel’s destruction of all Gaza universities and many other schools, and its killing of so many professors and journalists in what looks like a campaign of targeted assassinations, looks genocidal, since schools and universities and the press carry a people’s identity.

Biden has, basically, functioned as a Likud Party puppet-- as has the U.S. Congress. Trump did the same thing-- moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and formally recognizing Syria's Golan Heights as Israeli territory. It's political suicide for U.S. politicians to criticize the Netanyahu administration. The few members of Congress who have criticized Netanyahu for killing thousands of civilians in Gaza have already been explicitly targeted for retaliation in the U.S. As Ariel Sharon said in 2000, "Israel controls America, and the Americans know it." Netanyahu said the same thing in a videotaped meeting posted on Professor Juan Cole's Informed Comment website recently.

Has anyone ever done business with Donald Trump without regretting it-- aside from Putin's oligarchs using Trump to launder money and cultivate the Kremlin's favorite Orange Asset?

Sandy, C'mon, man. Conscientious State Department officials have protested against Biden and Blinken's bizarre complicity in Netanyahu's Gaza genocide. Are you aware that the Biden administration has unilaterally vetoed otherwise unanimous UN resolutions for humanitarian cease-fires in Gaza? That Biden and Blinken just by-passed Congress in order to rush "emergency" military supplies to Netanyahu for his ongoing, indiscriminate bombing of residential neighborhoods in Gaza-- apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, and even refugee camps? * That more than 56,000 residential buildings have been bombed in Gaza, along with the massacre of 21,000+ civilians (and 8,000+ children?) That the trapped civilians in Gaza are on the brink of starvation? These are facts-- not propaganda. IMO, there's no way that JFK and RFK would have participated in, or tolerated, these Israeli war crimes. Pray tell, what have Biden and Blinken done to prevent the truly shocking "ethnic cleansing" of Gaza during the past several weeks? I'm all ears. * Once Again, Biden Bypasses Congress to Approve Arms Sale to Israel (commondreams.org)

The Sterling article (above) is probably the most informative thing I've ever read on the subject of JFK's perspective on Israel and the indigenous Palestinians-- which was based on JFK's direct observations of Palestine in 1939. Kennedy supported Palestinian Rights A third difference is regarding Palestinian rights. Although he was only 44 when he became president, Kennedy had more international experience than most US presidents. In 1939 he spent two weeks in Palestine. In a lengthy letter to his father, he described the situation and difficulties. He wrote, “The sympathy of the people on the spot seems to be with the Arabs. This is not only because the Jews have had, at least some of their leaders, an unfortunately arrogant, uncompromising attitude, but they feel that after all, the country has been Arabic for the last few hundred years …. Palestine was hardly Britain’s to give away.” Kennedy remarks how the Jewish residents are divided between “strongly Orthodox Jewish group, unwilling to make any compromise” and a “liberal Jewish element composed of the younger group who fear these reactionaries”. Another important aspect of the Sterling article (above) is the discussion of JFK and RFK's policy toward Israeli lobbyists in the U.S. Has anyone ever posted any material here on the JFKA forum about JFK and RFK's efforts to properly register Israeli lobbyists in the U.S. as agents of a foreign government? I was unfamiliar with that history. And, as we know, the Israeli lobby, in the decades following the assassinations of JFK and RFK, has become a driving force in U.S. foreign policy. By 2000, Ariel Sharon correctly stated that, "Israel controls America, and the Americans know it." That control is largely exerted by AIPAC. We have all witnessed this phenomenon most profoundly during the post-9/11 Bush/Cheney/Neocon "War on Terror" -- and in 2023, with Congress, Biden and Blinken's multi-billion dollar support for Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing of Gaza. It's the diametric opposite of what the U.S. and NATO did in the case of the Belgrade government's war against the KLA in Kosovo. At the time, the U.S. and NATO bombed Serbia severely to prevent the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovar Albanians by the Milosevic regime. Does anyone think that JFK would have vetoed UN cease-fire resolutions for Gaza, or by-passed Congress to ship emergency military supplies to Israel for the bombing of residential communities in Gaza? The truth is that the U.S. Congress and White House in the 21st century have functioned, essentially as Likud Party puppets, as Ariel Sharon said. They have completely abandoned JFK's balanced approach to mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Happy New Year, folks! This has been my favorite high-speed downhill skiing song (on headphones) for the past 40 years. I first saw and heard it on a rock video at a club in Greenwich Village in the winter of (?) 1982-83. I went out and bought the War album 40 years ago after seeing this video in NYC.

Agreed. It's similar to the way the indigenous Native Americans here in Colorado-- mostly Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Kiowa-- felt about white European settlers moving in and seizing their land in the 1860s. And, IMO, what Netanyahu is doing to women and children in Gaza right now is similar to what Chivington did at the Sand Creek Massacre during the Colorado Indian War-- on a much bigger scale.

Sandy, I intended no disrespect toward the disabled. I only responded to Ron's post about Trump's alleged incontinence problem because I've been angry about the constant denigration of Biden by the MAGA media-- i.e., claims that Biden is demented, feeble, etc.

I agree, Steve. I'm repeating myself, but the single most shocking story that emerged during Cassidy Hutchinson's Congressional J6 testimony was the bit about Trump being told, before his Ellipse speech, that his J6 mob had guns! His response was, "Take down the magnetometers! They're not here to harm me!" Then he told his armed mob to, "March down to the Capitol and fight like hell, or you won't have a country anymore!"

Yes, Paul, I read that lone straw man propaganda response, which had very little to do with the substance of Sterling's article about JFK's disagreements with Ben Gurion and the militant right wing Zionists in Palestine. It reminded me of Michael Griffith's standard, misleading straw man arguments in our debates on this forum. The technique is, "Hey, look at this straw man over here! If the author didn't describe this little straw man quite correctly, all of his work must be inaccurate," etc.

James DiEugenio's recent Substack essay about Gaza and JFK has inspired me to study the history of U.S. relations with Israel during the past 60 years. Last night, I discovered this interesting essay, From Dallas to Gaza, at a website called LA Progressive. The author, Rick Sterling, is a Canadian American from Berkeley, California. Probably no accident that a Canadian has a more accurate perspective on U.S. history than most Americans. Rather than focusing on JFK's relationship with Nasser, Sterling's essay focuses more on JFK's relationship with David Ben Gurion and right wing Zionists in Israel and the U.S. It also discusses RFK's efforts as Attorney General to accurately register Israeli lobbyists in the U.S. as agents of a foreign government. Sterling also describes the disagreements that many liberal Jewish intellectuals in the U.S.-- including Albert Einstein-- had with militant, right wing Zionists in the JFK era, a subject that Robert Burrows has mentioned in our discussion on the Gaza and JFK thread. Needless to say, the U.S. military industrial complex and the right wing Israeli military complex (and Israeli lobby in the U.S.) have emerged victorious following the assassinations of JFK and RFK. This article is worth reading. From Dallas to Gaza: How JFK’s Assassination Was Good for Zionist Israel Kennedy wanted to steer the Jewish Zionists away from the racist, militaristic and ultra-nationalistic impulses which have led to where we are today. https://www.laprogressive.com/the-middle-east/from-dallas-to-gaza December 15, 2023

BTW, Ron, I was just contemplating a related question. Why is it that the mainstream U.S. media has been so eager to publish graphic stories about the private sex lives of Bill Clinton and Hunter Biden, while remaining silent about Trump wearing a diaper and shitting in his pants in public? Talk about a double standard! Can you imagine the 24/7 Fox News coverage if Joe Biden had a habit of shitting in his pants? 😲