Is the U.S. the World’s Largest State Sponsor of Terrorism?

George Washington's Blog | Friday, May 16, 2008

Preface: As someone who was born in America and has lived here my whole life, and who loves the ideals and Constitution our country was founded on, it has been a rude and painful awakening to learn about my government's terrorist acts.

I believe that, if the American public knew what crimes the government was carrying out, they would not stand for it.

Four headlines this week make it clear that America may be the world's largest sponsor of terrorism:

• "Iran ... to sue U.S. . . . over mosque blast"

• "Neo-Con General Calls For Terror Attacks In Iran"

• "Iran Intercepts U.S. Terrorists Plotting Attack on Russian Consulate"

• "Rumsfeld On Tape: Terror Attack Could Restore Neo-Con Agenda"

This is on top of previous stories showing that Cheney is directly funding terrorist groups out of his office, and that the U.S. is funding terrorists all over the world to promote its agenda. See also this, this and this.

And Americans dressed as Arabs have apparently been setting off car bombs in Iraq (when it was discovered that some of the cars used in Iraqi bombings recently came from the U.S., the cover story seemed to become that American cars were involved in car bombings only because they had recently been stolen from the U.S. and then shipped to Iraq -- but does it make sense that Iraqi insurgents would steal cars in the U.S. and ship them all the way to Iraq?)

Unfortunately, this involvement in terrorism is not unique to the Bush administration:

• As documented by the New York Times, Iranians working for the C.I.A. in the 1950's posed as Communists and staged bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president (see also this essay)

• As confirmed by a former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence, NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: "You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

No wonder the former director of the National Security Agency said "By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation"(the audio is here).

So next time the warmongers accuse a foreign country of sponsoring terrorism, remind them that - even if that is true - the U.S. is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.

In addition to being the leading sponsor of terrorism, the U.S. is also the largest purveyor of disinformation and propaganda in the world. Gangsters like Al Capone would be astonished at how successfully the American public has been fooled as to the nature of their government's actions.

As one of the leading American media critics says:

"Little has been done to address the astonishing ignorance of Americans regarding the US role in the world, [including] the extensive use of terrorism by the United States . . . ."

I Agree with Bush . . . Stop Appeasing the Terrorists!

George Washington's Blog | Thursday, May 15, 2008

A lot of people, including Senator Biden, are criticizing Bush's statement to the Israeli parliament that Democrats are like those who tried to appease the Nazis. Bush - apparently incensed that people are trying to frustrate the Neocon plan to bomb Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon in order to "protect" Israel and seize a little oil in the process - accused the Democrats of trying to negotiate with terrorists.

But who is really appeasing who?

It is Congress that is trying to appease the terrorists in the White House. After the 9/11 false flag attack, and the attack on Congress with U.S. military anthrax, and the attack on liberty and privacy, and the attack on the U.S. economy, Congress has done nothing but role over and play dead.

Instead of doing something to stop the terrorists in the White House, to stop their terrorist plans, to de-fund terrorist operations, to impeach the terrorists and try them for war crimes, Congress members and senators just make long speeches, hold endless "investigations", and write letters begging for the terrorists to consider talking to them.

The real terrorists are the anti-Americans who pulled a Reichstag-fire on 9/11 and the anthrax attacks soon after, who lied us into Iraq and are trying to lie us into Iran, who instituted torture policies which fly in the face of human rights and the safety of our military personnel, who authorized spying on all Americans and have stomped on our freedoms and privacies, and who have used the old trick of whipping the populace into a state of fear by exaggerating the danger from our supposed enemies (isn't that the very definition of terrorism?)

Indeed, the "appeasing Hitler" image is not just an analogy with the Bush family. His grandfather literally helped Hitler rise to power (he also plotted a coup against the sitting American president, FDR). And Cheney and the boys are now directly funding terrorist groups (see confirming articles here, here and here).

I agree with Bush . . . stop appeasing the terrorists!

Gladio: Nato-sponsored State Terrorism in Europe

On August 4, 1974, while I was travelling around Italy on an Interrail ticket, a bomb exploded in car 5 of the Italicus Express running from Rome to Brennero on the Florence-Bologna line as it left the tunnel of San Benedetto Val di Sambro. Twelve passengers were killed and 44 were wounded. Mario Tuti, Pietro Malentacchi, and Luciano Franci of the Revolutionary National Front were accused of the attack, though when they came to trial years later they were aquitted for lack of evidence.



Days earlier I had travelled through the same tunnel on my way by train from Venice to Naples. A few days later, I would travel through the same tunnel on my way to Florence. Had my schedule been different, I may well have found myself a victim of the attack.

I became aware of the event through the lurid artist's reconstructions on the covers of Italian news magazines outside newsagents on Rome's Corso Vittorio Emanuele.

I was seventeen at the time.

On August 2, 1980, a bomb was planted in the waiting room of the Bologna railway station: 84 died and some 200 were injured. The act was ascribed to neo-Fascists.



A few weeks later, while travelling with a friend around Italy by train we passed through Bologna and noted the gap where the waiting room had been.

In March, 1982, I began to live and work in Italy. In the June of that year, the body of Italian banker, Roberto Calviwas found hanging from a noose under Blackfriars Bridge, London. In the next few years, the name of Banco Ambrosiano, the Propaganda Due (P2) Masonic Lodge, and Licio Gelli would become familiar.

In the winter of 1984/85, I was working in Pistoia, Tuscany, and I lived in a mansard directly under the rafters on the top floor of the medieval Casa del Capitano del Popolo (House of the Captain of the People). (See picture below.)



Shortly before Christmas, 1984, I travelled through the San Benedetto Val di Sambro tunnel where, ten years earlier, there had been a bomb explosion, on my way from Florence to Bologna and from Bologna to Padua to stay with the family of an Italian friend who lived in a house in the Veneto countryside, before flying from Treviso airport to London's Gatwick airport.

In the January 7, 1985, edition of Time Magazine, the article, "Italy Tunnel of Death", appeared. It began:

Stretching for 11 1/2 miles beneath central Italy's rugged Apennine mountains, it is one of Europe's longest railway tunnels and carries the nickname La Direttissima because it provides the most direct route between Florence and Bologna. Last week the Italian press renamed it the "Tunnel of Death."

Two days before Christmas, Train 904, an express bound from Naples to Milan with 700 holiday passengers aboard, was roaring through La Direttissima at 90 m.p.h. when a time bomb exploded in a second-class carriage. The force of the blast blew in the double-paned windows in most of the train's 14 cars. Antonio Algieri, 33, one of those wounded by the flying glass, described the scene as "a hurricane of slivers--and then so much terrible screaming in the dark." The train came to a stop, and thick smoke billowed through the tunnel, initially frustrating rescue attempts as dazed passengers stumbled around in the blackness.

When rescue teams eventually reached the wreckage, they found that the ninth car of the train had been demolished by the blast; at least 15 people were found dead and 80 were seriously injured. It was Italy's bloodiest terrorist act since the authorities began to gain the upper hand in the fight against political extremists two years ago.

Within hours, a number of outlawed groups of both the left and the right claimed responsibility for the blast. Official suspicion centered on neo- Fascist terrorists, since the Christmas attack took place in the same tunnel in which right-wing extremists bombed a train in 1974, killing twelve and wounding 48. In 1980 neo-Fascists planted a bomb in the waiting room of the Bologna railway station: 84 died and some 200 were injured.

I had travelled through this very tunnel only days before this second bomb attack.

After flying back to Italy, I returned by the same route to my mansard in Pistoia's Casa del Capitano del Popolo.

As the couple above whose flat I lived were out and I couldn't get in, a doctor who lived in a flat below theirs invited me in for a drink and a chat. Naturally, the conversation revolved around the recent bombing, and my own lucky escapes, both in 1974 and a few weeks earlier.

It was then that I became aware of the view, quite commonly held by all classes of people in Italy, including respectable middle class doctors, that the Italian government were somehow behind these attacks.

Over the next few years, the words Operazione Gladio (Operation Gladio), and strategia di tensione (strategy of tension), became increasingly familiar as these were increasingly talked about in the Italian press. These topics are too complicated to deal with in one article. But I leave the reader with a few links and the first of a three-part BBC programme on Operation Gladio.

And with one final thought. When, in 1990, Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, revealed the existence of Gladio (though he denied that it had anything to do with the bombings described above), then president of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, who had been involved in setting Gladio up, felt honor-bound to resign.

More recently, Senator Cossiga, who clearly has a deep roots in his country's intelligence service, has stated, in an interview with leading Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera: "It is common knowledge amongst global intelligence agencies that 9/11 was an inside job."

Operation Gladio: NATO Terrorists pt 1 of 15

part 2



part 3



part 4



part 5



part 6



part 7



part 8



part 9



part 10



part 11



part 12



part 13



part 14



part 15

The $3-Trillion War

By James Harris | truthdig, posted on Apr 16, 2008

Listen to this interview.

Transcript:

James Harris: This is Truthdig. James Harris here with Linda Bilmes. She is the co-author of the new book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War.” She’s also a Harvard economist, and she did serve in the Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration. As we watch the sensational news coverage of the governor of New York’s resignation, “The Three Trillion Dollar War” reminds us that nearly 4,000 American soldiers and more than half a million Iraqis have been killed in this war. And that spending will total more than $3 trillion. Linda, why is it important that we take this war, and our spending, more seriously?

Read more...

Alfred Kazin: A Biography

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com

Reviewed by Michael Dirda

For more than 50 years Alfred Kazin (1915-1998) was one of the best known critics in America. In 1934, at the age of 19, he started reviewing for the New Republic (under the literary editorship of Malcolm Cowley). In 1942, at only 27, Kazin published a masterly study of American literature, On Native Grounds. During the 1940s and '50s he contributed to Partisan Review, Commentary and the Reporter, as well as a host of other magazines. Just as important, throughout these years he steadily debated politics and literature with Philip Rahv, Irving Howe, Sidney Hook, Lionel Abel, Newton Arvin, Cleanth Brooks, R.P. Blackmur, Leslie Fiedler, Mark Van Doren, Harold Rosenberg, Allen Tate, Dwight Macdonald and Lionel Trilling. By the early 1960s he was, arguably, after Edmund Wilson, the country's leading man of letters.

And yet. Look at the names in that paragraph. How many do you recognize? If you are under 50, perhaps a couple. How many have you actually read? Probably just one: Edmund Wilson. It is a sad truth that almost any poet or novelist has a shot at immortality, but a critic lives only as long as he keeps writing, keeps in the thick of the action. A decade after his (or her) death, a loyal publisher may bring out a "selected essays" that will prompt a few reminiscences and reconsiderations. After another decade, nothing.

Kazin, however, is luckier than most. While he scratched out a living by writing book reviews, teaching at various colleges and universities, and snagging grants (four Guggenheims, numerous other fellowships and regular visits to the artist's retreat Yaddo), he also produced three wonderful works of autobiography, classics of the modern American experience:

A Walker in the City (1951) describes his childhood and education in New York's impoverished Brownsville neighborhood; it remains one of the great documents of Jewish-American immigrant life.

Starting Out in the Thirties (1965) recalls the ideological and literary battles of a decade racked by the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Hitler and the darkening shadow of Stalinism. Yet grim as they were, the 1930s were also as exhilarating as the 1960s, full of intellectual intensity and passion: Socialism would surely change the world.

New York Jew (1978) strikes a more elegiac tone, as Kazin offers pen portraits of many of the leading figures of the postwar cultural scene. But now the young rebels and hotshots have grown old, become the mainstays of the establishment, even turned to the right.

Read more...

Soros Says the Pain Has only just Begun

Louise Story | International Herald Tribune | Friday, April 11, 2008

George Soros will not go quietly.

At the age of 77, Soros, one the world's most successful investors and richest men, leapt out of retirement last summer to safeguard his fortune and legacy. Alarmed by the unfolding crisis in the financial markets, he once again began trading for his giant hedge fund and won big while so many others lost.

Soros has always been a controversial figure. But he is becoming more so with a new, dire forecast for the world economy. Last week he rushed out a book, his 10th, warning that the financial pain has only just begun.

"I consider this the biggest financial crisis of my lifetime," Soros said during an interview Monday in his office overlooking Central Park. A "superbubble" that has been swelling for a quarter of a century is finally bursting, he said.

Soros, whose daring, controversial trades came to symbolize global capitalism in the 1990s, is now busy promoting his book, "The New Paradigm for Financial Markets," which goes on sale next month.

Read more...

Alfred Kazin Book Carousel

The Solitary New York Jew

Geoffrey Wheatcroft | The Spectator | 8th April, 2008

Alfred Kazin by Richard M. Cook
Richard M. Cook
Yale, 452pp, £25,







In a recent review of They Knew They Were Right, Jacob Heilbrunn’s book about the neo-conservatives, Mark Lilla began by asking:

How many of you are sick to death of hearing about City College in the 1930s, Alcove One and Alcove Two, the prima donnas at Partisan Review, who stopped speaking to whom at which cocktail party . . .

and a good deal more besides? Well, the answer is that some of us can’t get enough of the extraordinary story of the ‘New York intellectuals’, from Starting Out in the Thirties, the title of one of the books by that New York Jew — the title of another — Alfred Kazin. He was not only an excellent writer, as critic and memoirist; his life illustrates a number of salient themes in mid-20th-century American social as well as literary history.

Born in 1915 the son of semi-literate Yiddish-speaking immigrants, Kazin grew up in Brownsville, a quarter of Brooklyn then as Jewish as the Polish or Russian shtetls from which its inhabitants had fled. He went to City College, geographically not many blocks from Columbia on the Upper West Side of Manhattan but a world apart. Some of its alumni who would become famous, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe and Bernard Malamud, remembered ‘CCNY’ with affection, but Kazin hated it. He was never as politicised as many of his contemporaries, and the radical atmosphere at the college, with those famous competitive Stalinist and Trotskyist alcoves in the cafeteria, seemed to him odiously ‘fanatical’, for him the harshest term of abuse.

On the other hand, he followed so many other children of the immigration when he chose English as his academic subject. The implications of this were obvious, in terms of the urge to assimilate: Kazin said that he fell in love with American literature because ‘this literature was mine — I felt a part of it and at home with it’. He made his name with On Native Grounds, his study of American writing from the late 19th century to the 1930s, published while he was still in his twenties, and he was unmistakably claiming a place for himself and those like him on those native grounds.

Read more...

Steve Wasserman on Fidel Castro

By Steve Wasserman | Truthdig | Posted on Apr 10, 2008

Fifty years ago, Herbert Matthews of The New York Times interviewed a rebel-with-a-cause most people thought was dead. Matthews’ scoop in the tangled jungle of Cuba’s Sierra Maestra proved the man was alive. His name (which in its entirety was but four syllables) would soon come to be known the world over. To his followers, the first two syllables would suffice: “Fi-del.” Castro’s quest to topple Cuba’s strongman, Fulgencio Batista, captured the imagination of millions. Victory, secured after only two years of urban insurrection and guerrilla warfare, catapulted the 32-year-old former lawyer and son of a wealthy landowner into the ranks of revolutionary stardom. After the catastrophes and crimes that had befallen the 1917 Bolshevik project, Castro seemed at first to herald something new. His was the first socialist revolution, after all, to have been made without the central participation of the Communist Party (and even, it appeared, against the party). (Six years before, in the aftermath of Castro’s failed attack on the military barracks of Moncada in Santiago de Cuba on July 26, 1953, its apparatchiks had denounced him as a “putschist” and an “adventurist.") All previous socialist revolutionaries had seemed grimly puritanical; by contrast, Castro’s barbudos appeared almost to be bohemians with guns. Democracy and radical reform were poised to replace dictatorship and social misery.

Read more...

“Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics”

(updated below)

My new book -- Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics -- is available for online ordering now. It will be available in book stores beginning April 15. Ordering now can help increase visibility for the book and its arguments.

Writing a book enables a much different type of analysis and discussion than the type one is able to pursue in a daily column or blog. The day-to-day focus here is typically on a discrete event -- the latest act of government lawlessness, Congressional complicity, media deceit or pundit propaganda. A book is a more deliberative process. It therefore allows one to take several steps back and think about the underlying causes of those events, identify what they have in common, and consider ways they can be changed.

From the time I began blogging in October, 2005, I've written about many different topics, but almost all have a similar undercurrent: the Limbaugh/Kristol/Fox-News right-wing faction that controls the Republican Party and has dominated our political life for the last 15 years, and the multiple ways that our political institutions -- and particularly the Drudgified establishment press -- enable them. Marketing packages aside, this book is about them; how they function; the weakness-driven bloodthirstiness, dishonesty and sleaze which defines them; the indispensable eagerness of the establishment media to be used by them; and what can be done by those opposed to them to change all of that.

All of the radical and reprehensible events of the last eight years -- the commencement and endless prosecution of an indescribably disastrous war, the accelerated dismantling of our Constitutional framework, the creation of a lawless Surveillance State and a virtually omnipotent President, the legitimization of truly grotesque torture and detention regimes, the complete corruption of our political discourse -- have individuals and a political movement behind them, causing all of that to happen. They have cultivated the ability to manipulate media behavior, largely as a result of a media eager to help. But what they do not have is popular support for virtually anything they are doing. And yet they continue to win elections.

How and why that happens -- the deceitful electoral tactics and manipulative personality-based myths the Right has perfected and continuously deploys to win elections, and the ways in which our slothful, vapid and complicit establishment press propagates those myths -- is the principal subject of this book. And understanding and exposing that right-wing/media partnership is a necessary precondition for weakening it.

Read more...