Wikileaks, Israel, and Iran

Secret US Embassy Cables, Wikileaks:

Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.

The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February this year, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified Secret.

The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.

The cables show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in "client states"; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.

This document release reveals the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors – and shows that if citizens in a democracy want their governments to reflect their wishes, they should ask to see what’s going on behind the scenes.

So far 278 of 251287 cables have been released.

How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked, guardian.co.uk:

What will emerge in the days and weeks ahead is an unprecedented picture of secret diplomacy as conducted by the planet's sole superpower. There are 251,287 dispatches in all, from more than 250 US embassies and consulates. They reveal how the US deals with both its allies and its enemies – negotiating, pressuring and sometimes brusquely denigrating foreign leaders, all behind the firewalls of ciphers and secrecy classifications that diplomats assume to be secure. The leaked cables range up to the "SECRET NOFORN" level, which means they are meant never to be shown to non-US citizens.

Or for that matter to citizens.

Although their contents are often startling and troubling, the cables are unlikely to gratify conspiracy theorists. They do not contain evidence of assassination plots, CIA bribery or such criminal enterprises as the Iran-Contra scandal in the Reagan years, when anti-Nicaraguan guerrillas were covertly financed.

One reason may be that America's most sensitive "top secret" and above foreign intelligence files cannot be accessed from Siprnet, the defence department network involved.

Nothing to see here "conspiracy theorists", only "an unprecedented picture of secret diplomacy as conducted by the planet's sole superpower".

WikiLeaks: Russians smell anti-Obama conspiracy - CSMonitor.com:

In Russian political culture, the secret services, Kremlin leaders, and business oligarchs have long practiced the dark arts of kompromat, spreading misinformation to blacken opponents’ reputations and influence public moods. So they suspect that there has to be something or someone with a hidden agenda standing behind WikiLeaks.

“I have no doubt that this was a prepared operation, probably by [the] US secret services," says Alexei Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow. “I find it improbable that US authorities couldn't deal with one guy (Mr. Assange) if they really wanted to. No, this is clearly being done as an instrument of destabilization," he says.

The most popular theory is that the massive outing of classified State Department communications is designed to make Obama look weak, inept, and unable to control his own government machinery.

“This will obviously damage Obama and his policies,” says Sergei Strokan, a foreign affairs columnist with the Moscow business daily Kommersant. “Obama made a strong emphasis on international affairs, outreach to the Muslim world, and resetting relations with Russia. These leaks show that many diplomats take a privately cynical view of those goals, or are actually working at cross purposes to them. All these disclosures will be a serious blow to America's new image in the world, and will only undercut Obama.”

The guardian.co.uk article above notes that they have had the diplomatic cable data since "earlier this year". I don't have time or inclination to read all 250K cables nor more than a little of the smokescreen of spin and misdirection thrown up around them. Instead I'd like to focus on what the cables reveal about "GOI" (government of Israel), its obsession with Iran, and its relations with "USG" (United States government), especially concerning attempts to justify and precipitate a USG attack on Iran.

In the misleadingly-titled article Saudi Arabia urges US attack on Iran to stop nuclear programme, guardian.co.uk, the authors write:

No US ally is keener on military action than Israel, and officials there have repeatedly warned that time is running out.

guardian.co.uk has so far placed 16 Israel-related cables online with their own title and highlighting. They do not link the corresponding Wikileaks pages.

The misleadingly-titled article links US embassy cables: Ehud Barak sets deadline to resolve Iran nuclear ambitions (02 June 2009):

When asked if the use of force on Iran might backfire with moderate Muslims in Pakistan, thereby exacerbating the situation, Barak acknowledged Iran and Pakistan are interconnected, but disagreed with a causal chain. To the contrary, he argued that if the United States had directly confronted North Korea in recent years, others would be less inclined to pursue nuclear weapons programs. By avoiding confrontation with Iran, Barak argued, the U.S. faces a perception of weakness in the region.

Another guardian.co.uk article, Israel primed to attack a nuclear Iran, links more cables which actually indicate GOI priming USG to attack Iran. These cables include US embassy cables: Israel sees Iran's uranium enrichment as 'point of no return' (17 March 2005) which refers to an "Israeli Preference for USG and UNSC Involvement" and US embassy cables: Mossad says US and Israel agree on Iran (17 March 2005):

Acknowledging that there are at times differences in analysis of the facts, [Mossad Chief Meir] Dagan stressed that it is similarities rather than differences that are at the heart of the GOI-U.S. intelligence relationship, particularly on Iran.

US embassy cables: US pressed to maintain Israel's 'qualitative military edge' (30 July 2009) provides an example of less direct pressure whereby USG helps ensure GOI's political-military supremacy in the region:

A/S [US assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs Andrew] Shapiro stressed the importance of the U.S-Israeli political-military relationship, noting the significance of visiting Israel on his first overseas trip in his capacity as Assistant Secretary for the Political-Military Affairs Bureau.

GOI officials reiterated the importance of maintaining Israel's Qualitative Military Edge (QME).

[MFA's (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) Deputy Director General for Strategic Affairs Alon] Bar argued that a perceived closure in the capability gap between Israel and Arab states, coupled with a nuclear-armed Iran, could compel moderate Arab states to reassess the notion that Israel was a fixture in the region.

In contrast, Saudi efforts to influence USG contrast are direct. US embassy cables: Saudi king urges US strike on Iran (20 April 2008):

The King, Foreign Minister, Prince Muqrin, and Prince Nayif all agreed that the Kingdom needs to cooperate with the US on resisting and rolling back Iranian influence and subversion in Iraq. The King was particularly adamant on this point, and it was echoed by the senior princes as well. Al-Jubeir recalled the King's frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. "He told you to cut off the head of the snake," he recalled to the Charge', adding that working with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and his government.

GOI has responded to the leaked cables by spinning it as a good thing.

Israel greets WikiLeaks cables as vindication of its Iran policy, CSMonitor.com:

"I don't see any damage. Quite the opposite,'' said Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, in an interview with Israel Radio. "Maybe there's an indirect benefit that the truth is coming out, that the entire Middle East, including Arab states, are very fearful from the Iranian nuclear threat, and are calling on the West to be much more aggressive toward Iran.''

The revelation of regional support for Israel's hard-line approach to Iran was seen as such a boon that Sever Plocker, a columnist for the daily Yediot Ahronot newspaper, quipped, "If the WikiLeaks site did not exist, Israel would have to invent it.''

"The massive leak of American diplomatic telegrams indicates a single picture, sharp and clear," he added. "The entire world, not just Israel, is panicked over the Iranian nuclear program.''

Actually the sharp, clear picture is that GOI is more panicked than anyone else over Iran, and that they desperately want "the entire world", but especially USG, to serve Israeli interests under the misguided belief that we are serving our own.

Part of GOI's "Qualitative Military Edge" includes nuclear weapons. Part of what could be called GOI's "Qualitative Political Edge" is that these weapons are rarely mentioned or questioned, though when they are the picture comes through sharp and clear:

In 2003, Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel’s Hebrew University, thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence.[19] Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's "The Gun and the Olive Branch" (2003) as saying "I consider it all hopeless at this point. ... We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen, before Israel goes under." He quoted General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."

UPDATE, 1 Dec 2010: Wikileaks has dubbed this Cablegate. At the moment the Wikileak web server hosting the cables (cablegate.wikileaks.org AKA ec2-184-72-37-90.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com) is offline.

The Multicult Ideal for Canada

Zero Canadians.

Cast of Toronto’s Lake Shore even more despicable than cast of Jersey Shore. Go see the video. You'll want to have an empty stomach.

One of the producers describes the show as: "a peek into what Toronto is like as a multicultural city." That peek includes a jew, a Turk, an Albanian, a Lebanese, a Pole, an Italian, a Czech, and a Vietnamese, each loudly revelling in their alien identity. Seeing how they behave, it's no surprise none of them want to live among their own kind, or that they don't like each other either.

Somehow the producers got the strange idea they could sell this dystopian train wreck as a utopian sex party. Indeed, there's trouble in paradise - but it's not about any negative reflection on Toronto or the lack of people with northwest European heritage. Fast forward to 7:50 of the Lake Shore Sizzle Reel to see the real problem.

Anti-Jewish remark could stall show's start:

But while Lake Shore is poised to begin production as early as next week, media and advertising experts say the program's search for a major network backer could be in jeopardy thanks to a publicity-grabbing trailer posted on YouTube in which one of the show's characters expresses her hatred for Jews.

"It's already tough for Canadian productions to garner an audience so this one probably thought they could try something drastic," said Florence Ng, president of the broadcast video investment division at Toronto ad agency ZenithOptimedia.

"When something controversial happens, regardless of what it's about, it definitely would have some impact in terms of [advertisers'] intent to get involved. Nobody wants to get into any kind of controversial situation and I think for [the producers], they're probably pushing the envelope."

"I'm not racist because I hate everybody equally, especially Jewish people," professes Sibel Atlug, a 23-year-old loud-mouthed woman cast as "the Turk." The comments come during a mud-flinging free-for-all in which cast members share first impressions of their future housemates.

The show is the brainchild of executive producer Maryam Rahimi and Toronto television personality George Tsioutsioulas. A scheduled interview with Mr. Tsioutsioulas was cancelled by the production's publicist yesterday. But in an e-mailed statement, the show's producers said the trailer is a small snippet of a show that exposes what happens when you put eight people from all walks of life into a house together. "A promo reel is not a true representation of the whole story and should not be interpreted that way," the statement said.

" Lake Shore will expose stereotypes in order to break them down, bridge relationships and show young Torontonians enjoying life and all the adventures that come their way."

Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said Ms. Atlug's comments perpetuate a pervasive sentiment that it is "still OK" for people to say openly that they hate Jews.

"We seem to have entered an epoch where basically anything goes," he said. "People are free to watch whatever they want, to be as stupid as they want, and as insensitive as they want. But we still have to live with each other.

"If you're going to make a show about outrageous people misbehaving, I suppose among the things people do when they're misbehaving is to say things that are racist, sexist or anti-Semitic," Prof. [Bob] Thompson [a popular culture professor at Syracuse University] said.

In a brief interview with Farber, The Trouble With LakeShore, via ShalomLife, we hear that:

Farber doesn’t think the show should be banned. However, he wonders if the comment would have been left in had it been about a different ethnic group, calling anti-Semitism “a longstanding virus that never seems to go away.”

He goes on to say that while he feels Canadians understand what the show is all about, he wants people to realize that the real issue is about a “producer who is trying to manipulate you using sex and racism and all that other kind of junk to attract an audience.”

The moral of the story is that anything goes, except for outrageous misbehavior that outrages jews. They won't call for anything to be banned or anyone to be fired - unless their condemnations and economic threats don't get results.

I'm wondering whether any other ethnic group so unselfconsciously projects their own nature by imagining their enemies as "a longstanding virus that never seems to go away."

Tim Wise Hates Whites

Tim Wise writes An Open Letter to the White Right, On the Occasion of Your Recent, Successful Temper Tantrum, dated 3 November 2010, reproduced here in it's entirety:

For all y’all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink.

And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever shitty ass beer you favor.

Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this…

You need to drink up.

And quickly.

And heavily.

Because your time is limited.

Real damned limited.

So party while you can, but mind the increasingly loud clock ticking away in the corners of your consciousness.

The clock that reminds you how little time you and yours have left.

Not much more now.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick.

Tock.

I know, you think you’ve taken “your country back” with this election — and of course you have always thought it was yours for the taking, cuz that’s what we white folks are bred to believe, that it’s ours, and how dare anyone else say otherwise — but you are wrong.

You have won a small battle in a larger war the meaning of which you do not remotely understand.

‘Cuz there is nothing even slightly original about you.

There have always been those who wanted to take the country back.

There were those who, in past years, wanted to take the country back to a time of enslavement and indentured servitude.

But they lost.

There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when children could be made to work in mines and factories, when workers had no legal rights to speak of, when the skies in every major city were heavy with industrial soot that would gather on sidewalks and windowsills like volcanic ash.

But they lost.

There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when women could not vote, or attend any but a few colleges, or get loans in their own names, or start their own businesses.

But they lost.

There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when blacks “had no rights that the white man was bound to respect,” – this being the official opinion of the Supreme Court before those awful days of judicial activism, now decried by the likes of you – and when people of color could legally be kept from voting solely because of race, or holding certain jobs, or living in certain neighborhoods, or run out of other towns altogether when the sun would go down, or be strung up from trees.

But they lost.

And you will lose.

So make a note of it.

Tweet it to yourself.

Put it on your Facebook wall and leave it there so you’ll remember that I told you so.

It is coming, and soon.

This isn’t hubris. It isn’t ideology. It is not wishful thinking.

It is math.

Not even advanced math. Just simple, basic, like 3rd grade math.

The kind of math that proves how your kind — mostly older white folks beholden to an absurd, inaccurate, nostalgic fantasy of what America used to be like — are dying.

You’re like the bad guy in every horror movie ever made, who gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass — even if it takes four sequels to make it happen — but who in the meantime keeps coming back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were finally dead this time.

Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends.

Our ankles survive.

You do not.

Michael Meyers, Freddie Kreuger, Jason, and that asshole husband in that movie with Julia Roberts who tracks her down after she runs away and changes her identity–they are all done. Even that crazy fucker in Saw is about to be finished off for good. Granted, he’s gonna be popping out in some 3-D shit to scare the kiddies, so he isn’t going quietly. But he’s going, as all bad guys eventually do.

And in the pantheon of American history, old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms.

Fine, keep it up. It doesn’t matter.

Because you’re on the endangered list.

And unlike, say, the bald eagle or some exotic species of muskrat, you are not worth saving.

In forty years or so, maybe fewer, there won’t be any more white people around who actually remember that Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Opie-Taylor-Down-at-the-Fishing Hole cornpone bullshit that you hold so near and dear to your heart.

There won’t be any more white folks around who think the 1950s were the good old days, because there won’t be any more white folks around who actually remember them, and so therefore, we’ll be able to teach about them accurately and honestly, without hurting your precious feelings, or those of the so-called “greatest generation” — a bunch whose white members were by and large a gaggle of miscreants who helped save the world from fascism only to return home and oppose the ending of it here, by doing nothing to lift a finger on behalf of the civil rights struggle.

So to hell with you and all who revere you.

By then, half the country will be black or brown. And there is nothing you can do about it.

Nothing, Senõr Tancredo.

Nothing, Senõra Angle, or Senõra Brewer, or Senõr Beck.

Loy tiene muy mal, hijo de Puta.

And by then you will have gone all in as a white nationalist movement — hell you’ve all but done that now — thus guaranteeing that the folks of color, and even a decent size minority of us white folks will be able to crush you, election after election, from the Presidency on down to the 8th grade student council.

Like I said, this shit is math, baby. And numbers don’t lie.

Bottom line, this too shall pass.

So enjoy your tax cuts a while longer.

Go buy whatever you people buy when your taxes get cut: a new car or two, a bigger house, an island. Whatever.

Go back to trading your derivatives, engaging in rampant financial speculation that produces nothing of value, that turns the whole world into your personal casino. Whatever.

Play your hand, and for the love of God play it big. Real big. As in, shoot for the moon big. As in, try to privatize Social Security, and health care, and everything else. Whatever.

At least that way everyone will be able to see what you’re really about.

We’ve been trying to tell them, but nothing beats seeing it with your own eyes, so “Go big or go home,” Bubba.

“Git ‘er Done.”

“Cowboy up,” or whatever other stupid-ass catch phrase strikes your fancy.

Just promise you’ll do more than talk this time.

Please, or as one of your celluloid heroes might put it, “make my day.”

Do whatever you gotta do, but remember that those who are the victims of your greed and indifference take the long view.

They know, but you do not, that justice is not for the sprinters, but rather for the long distance runners who will be hitting their second wind, right about the time that you collapse from exhaustion.

They are like the tortoise to your hare.

They are like the San Francisco Giants, to your New York Yankees: a bunch that loses year after year after year, until they finally win.

You have had this confidence before, remember?

You thought you had secured your position permanently after the overthrow of reconstruction in the wake of the civil war, after the elimination of the New Deal, after the Reagan revolution, after the Republican electoral victory of 1994. And yet, they who refuse to die are still here.

Because those who have lived on the margins, who have been abused, maligned, targeted by austerity measures and budget cuts, subjected to racism, classism, sexism, straight supremacy and every other form of oppression always know more about their abusers than the abusers know about their victims.

They have to study you, to pay careful attention, to adjust their body armor accordingly, and to memorize your sleep patterns.

You, on the other hand, need know nothing whatsoever about them. And this, will surely prove fatal to you in the end. For it means you will not know their resolve. Will not fear it, as you should.

It means you will take their greatest strength — perseverance — and make of it a weakness, called losing.

But what you forget, or more to the point never knew, is that those who lose know how to lose, which is to say they know how to lose with dignity.

And those who suffer know how to suffer, which is to say they know how to survive: a skill that is in short supply amid the likes of you.

You, who could not survive the thought of minimal health care reform, or financial regulation, or a marginal tax rate equal to that which you paid just 10 years earlier, perhaps are under the illusion that everyone is as weak as you, as soft as you, as akin to petulant children as you are, as unable to cope with the smallest setback, the slightest challenge to the way you think your country should look and feel, and operate.

But, surprise…they are not.

And they know how to regroup, and plot, and plan, and they are planning even now — we are — your destruction.

And I do not mean by that your physical destruction. We don’t play those games. We’re not into the whole “Second Amendment remedies, militia, armed resistance” bullshit that your side fetishizes, cuz, see, we don’t have to be. We don’t need guns.

We just have to be patient.

And wait for your hearts to stop beating.

And stop they will.

And for some of you, real damned soon, truth be told.

Do you hear it?

The sound of your empire dying? Your nation, as you knew it, ending, permanently?

Because I do, and the sound of its demise is beautiful.

So know this.

If you thought this election was payback for 2008, remember…

Payback, thy name is…

Temporary.

It's plain from this spittle-flecked rant that Wise doesn't just hate old, rich, Tea Party, right-wing, or White nationalist White people. His snide little cultural references and celebration of our demographic demise make it clear that he hates Whites, period. He's telling us, truth be told, that anti-"racism" means anti-White.