‘Was hit on U.S. ambassador to Libya a setup?’

TEHRAN, Sept. 25 (MNA) -- Most of what is going on in the United States and the world today that affects public opinion about the war on terror and the ongoing aggression in the Middle East is, like the events of 9/11, either phony or contrived, a U.S. scholar says. Professor James H. Fetzer, who teaches philosophy at the University of Minnesota at Duluth, made the remarks during a recent interview with the Tehran Times. Following are his replies, minus the questions: With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. military-industrial complex was on the verge of losing its principal justification for the gravy train of producing endless arms and ammunition to restrain the relentless expansion of the Communist Empire. It desperately needed an alternative “boogie man” to keep the conveyor belts moving and its profits -- from increasingly technical and expensive weapon systems --soaring, where nothing could work better than some shadowy and elusive enemy in the form of “terrorists,” whose identity has no geographic boundaries and where “terrorist acts,” such as the Bali bombing, could be arranged at any time it would be politically expedient. If the government claims such an act was done by “a terrorist,” very few are in the position to explain that it was actually Blackwater (now “Academi”), Delta Forces, or even the CIA. The fabrication of the events of 9/11, which were done with complicity by the Mossad, fulfilled that objective perfectly, especially by blaming those attacks on 19 Islamic fanatics under the control of a guy off in a cave in Afghanistan. Few have noticed that the first reported claims of responsibility were attributed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as Preston James and I explained in “Peeling the 9/11 Onion: Layers of Plots within Plots.” 15 of the 19 “hijackers” were from Saudi Arabia, but no one here seemed to notice. That Osama had been “our man in Afghanistan” was never acknowledged and, although stories of “blowback” have abounded, until this latest series of protests, which appear to represent the culmination of the decade of abuse of Muslims as a people and Islam as a religion, they seemed fabricated or contrived. Certainly, the low road taken by the Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld troika, which, in “9/11 and the Neo-Con Agenda,” I likened to a crime syndicate masquerading as an administration, sowed the seeds for bona-fide “blowback.” The deaths of (U.S.) Ambassador (to Libya) Christopher Stevens, information management officer or propaganda specialist Sean Smith, and two others may have been cunningly contrived. In his recollections of Stevens, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy has remarked, “This time, the imbeciles have won,” because the ambassador was among the strongest friends of the Islamic world the U.S. has ever placed in the field. While my thoughts about this are somewhat speculative, it may have instead been part of the plan to use the excited protest against this deliberately provocative film, “Innocence of Muslims,” as a cover to take out one of our most effective ambassadors, where there are reasons to believe that he was not going to go along with new plans to destabilize Libya once again. Sen. John McCain, who recently visited Benghazi, has laid the responsibility for his murder on Obama for not paying enough attention to foreign affairs, which suggests that this incident may be part of the GOP “game plan” to elect Mitt Romney by attacking the president's foreign policy. There are reports that the attackers may have had help from inside the consulate. Bear in mind that the Israelis are the most accomplished practitioners of “false flag” ops in the world today. You do not have to go back to the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 when a gang of Irgun terrorists dressed as Arabs murdered 91 and injured another 46; or the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, when Israeli fighters torpedoed and strafed an American spy ship during the Six Day War, killing 34 and wounding 170; or the bombing of its own Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1992, which did not result in enough deaths, so they bombed the Jewish Community Center for greater political effect in 1994 (“False Flag Attacks in Argentina: 1992 and 1994”, with Adrian Salbuchi). But the massacres at Sabra and Shatila in 1982 are nice illustrations of the duplicity of the nation's highest leaders, where Arial Sharon provided cover for the massacre of between 762 and 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese Shiite civilians by a Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia, while the IDF illuminated the streets to facilitate the killing. So taking out Ambassador Stevens under the cover of this protest would have posed no problems for the Mossad. Of course, those who understand the history of the three great Abrahamic religions are aware of their common origins, but that kind of knowledge and sensitivity is exceedingly rare in the USA. As Christof Lehmann observes, “Hollywood stirs Middle East Plot”, Asia Times (18 September 2012), it is rather difficult to imagine that this inferior, low-budget film and those earlier cartoon denigrations of the Prophet Muhammad could possibly explain the resistance they have met in the Middle East, which appears instead to be the latest manifestation of decades of stereotyping of Arabs that has come from Hollywood. Westerners and non-Muslims are seemingly so used to the scapegoating, stereotyping and denigration of Muslims and in particular Arab Muslims in art and entertainment, he remarks, that they don't realize the degree to which the Western news and entertainment industry, and in particular Hollywood -- which is largely dominated by individuals who are dedicated to the cause of Zionism and to promoting Israel's interests -- is representatively depriving an entire population, predominantly Muslim, of its essential humanity. As Lehmann also reports, the Arab American scholar, D. Jack Shaheen, has studied more than 1,000 movies, from the oldest Hollywood productions to the greatest blockbuster productions up to 2001 before published Real Bad Arabs, How Hollywood Vilifies a People. Shaheen concluded that no less than 300 movies, more than 25% of those he studied, vilified Arabs and Muslims in one way or the other, which represents an effort comparable to World War II Nazi propaganda against the Jewish people. This extensive and enduring cinematic portrayal of Arabs, especially Palestinians, creates a cultural background against which current events have to be understood. Even the Disney Classic Aladdin, which has been seen by millions of people worldwide, affords an example of Hollywood's dehumanizing approach. The gullible and naive, especially children, are subtly induced to believe that Arab countries are typified by barbaric practices, such as where innocent women have their hands amputated for forgetting to pay at the bizarre; and, in other films, as he explains, Arab men are depicted as imbecilic and super-rich, sex-addicted tyrants, who not only mistreat their women but especially American women, who are kidnapped and sold off to sleazy Arabs at auctions. That theme is nicely illustrated by “Taken” (2008), where a retired CIA agent, played by Liam Neeson, travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his daughter, who was kidnapped on a trip to Paris and sold at auction to a wealthy Arab sheik. Even my wife and I enjoyed the film, which I am embarrassed to admit, but it is of that kind. According to the Associated Press (16 September 2012), the man who goes by the name, “Sam Bacile”, turns out to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, if that indeed is his real name, who has been convicted of financial crimes. By making the film, he may have violated the terms of his parole and could be sent back to prison. He pleaded “no contest” to bank fraud charges in 2010 and was banned from using computers or the internet or the use of false identities as part of his sentence. Kakoula has identified himself as a “Coptic Christian”, where much of the film was apparently shot inside the offices of Media for Christ, a non-profit based in Duarte, an area of Los Angeles, CA, which has raised more than $1,000,000 to “glow Jesus' light” to the world. A Hermit, CA, man who was script advisor for the film, Steven Klein, has reported having received several death threats, but claims this was an exercise of his First Amendment rights and that he is prepared to die defending them. The most reasonable interpretation of the production of this film, where the actors themselves did not know the roles they were destined to play when it was edited, like earlier cartoons belittling the Prophet Muhammad, is that it was intended to inflame tensions in the Middle East, which have already been exacerbated by the ongoing presence of U.S. military forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan, not to mention their presence in Pakistan and the on-going use of predator drones. So much of what is taking place has to be understood as stage props in political theater, none of which have been more blatant than the second killing of Osama bin Laden or concealing the first death of Saddam Hussein, which I summarized in “9/11: Have we been bamboozled?” (2012). The political situation relative to the presidential election to be held in November suggests that this may be part and parcel of a plan to salvage the prospects of Mitt Romney, who has staked virtually his entire political fortunes on the claim that Barack Obama has a failed foreign policy. Remember that Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe (a 4-star general), acknowledged that he had been informed of plans for the U.S. to attack 7 countries in 5 years at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco (October 3, 2007). Most of the countries on that list, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, have been taken over, where the battle for Syria continues to rage and that for Iran appears to be about to begin. We have reports that Iran is supporting Syria, which makes excellent sense, and it would come as no surprise if Russia were not doing what it can to maintain the Assad government in place. In my view, if Russia were to declare that any attack on Iran would be regarded as an attack on Russia, it would bring about a high degree of stability and end the hysterical calls for attacking Iran, which have been promoted by Benjamin Netanyahu, especially, who turns out to be a close friend of Mitt Romney and may even believe he would be in the position to dictate U.S. foreign policy were Romney to be elected. A situation like this would be inconceivable in times past when there was domestic disagreement between the political parties in the United States but still unanimity in foreign affairs. As David Kerans (October 6, 2012), has explained, however, the parties have become so polarized that even foreign policy is not longer bipartisan. Since the misconceived “Citizens United” decision by the Supreme Court to allow corporations unlimited spending on political advertising, the U.S. has become increasingly under the control of the rich and powerful. Economic discussion is dominated by free market theology, which has no basis in reality, since the conditions that Adam Smith declared necessary for free markets, including transparency in pricing and the absence of monopolies, do not exist in America today and are one more part of the illusional ideology known as “American exceptionalism.” When an administration can murder 3,000 of its own citizens, fabricate evidence and promote political myths, which is the grim reality of 9/11, it should be apparent to the world that the U.S. is no longer a responsible member of the community of nations. Most of what is going on in the U.S. and the world today that affects public opinion about the war on terror and the ongoing aggression in the Middle East is, like the events of 9/11, either phony or contrived. Wayne Madsen (“Wayne Madsen Reports, July 23-24, 2012), for example, has found several links between James Holmes of the Aurora, Colorado “Batman” shooting, and U.S. government research: “James Holmes, the 24-year-old suspect in the mass shooting of Batman 'The Dark Knight Rises' movie goers in Aurora, Colorado that left 12 people dead and 58 injured, has had a number of links to U.S. government-funded research centers. Holmes's past association with government research projects has prompted police and federal law enforcement officials to order laboratories and schools with which Holmes has had a past association not to talk to the press about Holmes.” This is very suspicious on its face and suggests the possibility of mind control. Similarly, Madsen has also discovered (August7-8, 2012) that the dead suspected gunman who opened fire inside a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin served from April 1992 to October 1998 as a member of the psychological operations unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina: “CNN cited a 'Pentagon source' claiming Page was discharged from the Army in 1998 for ‘patterns of misconduct.’ However, the U.S. Army only revealed that Page was awarded several medals, including good conduct medals and a humanitarian service medal.” This does not prove that these were staged events, but they certainly create that presumption. And CNN has also just reported (September 16, 2012), “Egypt's prime minister said some of the thousands involved in days of protest near the U.S. Embassy got paid to participate, state news reported Saturday, the same day riot police managed to force demonstrators from the area.” It is becoming increasingly difficult to sort out which events are real and which are Memorex. It's a matter of setting the stage for further and more ominous actions. The UK “Telegraph” (September 15, 2012), has now reported that an armada of U.S. and British naval power is massing in the Persian Gulf in the belief that Israel is considering a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program: “Cruisers, aircraft carriers and minesweepers from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war… In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will … begin an annual 12-day exercise.” We have here what may well be the ingredients for a “perfect storm”. The situation is completely absurd: Iran has not attacked any other nation for nearly 300 years. Iran has renounced development of atomic weapons. Iran has signed the NPT and allowed inspectors into its facilities. Israel, by contrast, has 200-600 or more of these little beauties, has not signed the NPT and does not allow inspectors into its facilities. Yet its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “King Bibi: 'Red Line' with Iran Means War Next 60 Days”, YouTube (September 16, 2012), has demanded the U.S. draw a “red line” to demarcate developments by Iran that would commit the U.S. to war. The U.S. so far has refused to do that, which may itself be a “false front” by the Obama administration. But the situation is enormously fraught with hazard and represents the greatest threat of precipitating World War III since the Cuban Missile Crisis, when cooler heads and higher intelligence prevailed. (By Kourosh Ziabari)