An integral component of the United States’ war on terror is cutting off funding to terrorists and the infrastructures that promote terror. This report documents the undermining of this US policy and the apparent violation of US law by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Palestinian Authority (PA) areas through the funding of Al Quds Open University. Al Quds is a Palestinian university that hosts branches of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror organizations throughout Gaza and the West Bank.In September 2006 at a ceremony at Al Quds Open University, USAID announced $100,000 of in-kind assistance to Al Quds Open University….US law prohibits funding any "educational institution that the Secretary knows or has reason to believe advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity... None of the funds...may be made available for the purpose of recognizing or otherwise honoring individuals who commit, or have committed, acts of terrorism.” (Foreign Operations Bill 2006 (SEC. 559.b-c)
Al Quds Open University is ineligible to receive money from USAID because:
Al Quds hosts student branches of Hamas and Islamic Jihad on campus [See Part 1]
Campus activities honor terrorists, past and present [Part 2]
Campus activities advocate terror as legitimate “resistance”
Al Quds University property is used for Hamas assemblies
Al Quds administration members join in terror group events on campus
Al Quds university participates in and sponsors off campus activities honoring terrorists -- from this report at PMW
The only way to not only get such a policy reversed, but get those who continue slyly to promote such policies and to undercut sensible ones, is for the candidates -- Republican and Democratic -- to denounce this and demand that the whole mess be investigated, and jobs lost, permanently. Punish, all over official Washington, those who think the mixture as before of appeasing those who advocate the Local Jihad (against Israel) or the Greater Jihad is okay, by driving them out of positions of any conceivable power and influence. It can be done. It needs to be done.
True, it means standing up against the most dangerous and most powerful lobby in Washington: the Saudi-Arab lobby, the lobby that not only has worked steadfastly against American understanding of Islam (and not merely of the Arab war against Israel, as some fondly believe), but has also prevented any sensible measures that might long ago have been instituted, way back in the early 1970s, to raise the tax on gasoline and institute other measures to steadily diminish the reliance, not on "foreign oil" but on oil, period. That Saudi lobby has, in other words, managed to direct the energy policy of the largest oil-consumer in the world, and hence distorted the entire energy policy of the world, with enormous consequences.
Meanwhile, in Antisemitic La-La Land, Walt and Mearsheimer are now going about the country flogging their book and prating about the "Israel Lobby" that they claim, idiotically, was responsible for the war in Iraq. Do they not know how opposed to the Iraq War the Israeli military was? What do they know, other than that the names "Wolfowitz" and "Perle" and "Feith" for them mean far more than "Bush" and "Cheney" and "Rice"? For them, who know nothing about what really has gone on in Washington over the past 30 years, the "Israel Lobby" is what counts about the Iraq venture that was supported by, inter alios, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Perle (only the first two of whom were government officials, and who have been out of Pentagon posts for at least two years) as well as by everyone else in and around the top who was not named "Wolfowitz" and "Feith" and "Perle."
For what, exactly, does this “Israel Lobby” count? For helping get passed foreign aid for both Israel and -- since AIPAC has allowed itself to believe that Egypt is a "force for peace" (what nonsense!) -- for Egypt as well. For getting a few symbolic resolutions past, and making sure that noises are made quadrennially about moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem, and things at that level. But that's about it for the famously overrated "Israel Lobby," which itself has proven incapable, or unwilling, to understand Islam, and therefore cannot accurately describe what Israel faces -- a Lesser Jihad that can be contained, but to which there is no "solution" (just as there is no "solution" to the Larger Jihad, except permanent containment and a deliberate attempt by Infidels to constrain the power of Muslim states and societies and individuals to wreak harm on Infidels). That "Israel Lobby" has done nothing t help educate Congressmen about Islam -- which would be a service not only to Israel, but to the entire West.
Meanwhile, the real power in Washington is the Saudi-Arab Lobby. It has managed to prevent a sensible policy toward Islam. It has managed to prevent any understanding of the intruments of Jihad -- the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, demographic conquest -- that now threaten the historic center of the West itself: Europe. It has prevented the development of an energy policy based on the goal of diminishing use of oil and other fossil fuels, that ought to have begun more than three decades ago.
But just ask Walt and Mearsheimer about the Saudi Lobby. They won't know what you are talking about. Ask them about J. B. Kelly's article "Of Valuable Oil and Worthless Policies." They haven't a clue. Today, on NPR, enquiring-silly-mind John Ashbrook had them on, and at the same time was having his audience on, by describing them as "A-List Scholars from MIT and the University of Chicago."
"Scholars." "A-List Scholars."
"A-List Scholars."
Well, that "A" apparently stands for something that I'd rather not say if they are that clueless.
Walt and Mearsheimer are bringing their shows to my town, a moonbat country.
I am considering showing up, in the spirit of "but be much closer to your enemies". Any tips from gentle readers, other than recording as much as possible?
Any good questions to ask?
"Punish, all over official Washington, those who think the mixture as before of appeasing those who advocate the Local Jihad (against Israel) or the Greater Jihad is okay, by driving them out of positions of any conceivable power and influence. It can be done. It needs to be done."
This is a bit simplistic. Washington's love for Saudi money is systemic in the executive branch. State and CIA are dominated by Arabists. The list of former secretaries, ambassadors, officials, and field agents now on Saudi or Arab or oil company payrolls as consultants, lobbyists, or executives is extensive. Every report that crosses the the desk of the Secretary of State or Director of the CIA or the President himself has been created by someone who very well may be looking forward to a pay day that far surpasses the pennies doled out by the US government. The exit door for these unelected and, therefore, virtually unaccountable career bureaucrats all-too-often leads straight to the desert kingdom. And somehow the quality of their post-Washington service would hardly justify the paychecks they receive, so is it just possible that the quality service for which the Arabs pay is actually rendered while said bureacrat, still in the public employ, inserts a line or clause in this legislation here or adjusts that federal regulation there? A yeoman's work to implement a favorable policy or two? Perhaps?
A short while ago I read a piece you wrote on a former British intelligence officer or ambassador who was for sale. There is no shortage of these critters in America's ranks. As long as we think policies from Western governments are stupid or simply ignorant, we miss the point. The West is in serious trouble because of the immorality of the political whores in Washington and London and Jerusalem. Driving them out is far more easily said than done.
Steven Emerson was a pioneer in exposing the Saudi lobby. Here are some excerpts and some summaries I prepared from his book published in 1985:
Steven Emerson “The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection” Franklin Watts, 450 pp (1985).
“Petrodollar trade…has created a reverse imperialism: Instead of trying to advance American ‘interests’ abroad, American corporations here become pawns of Arab nations in trying to change American policies.”
Chapter 1 (The Setting)
Saudi pressure in the 1980’s compelled Europeans to authorize the opening of official PLO offices in almost every European capital. The Saudi refusal to support the franc in 1982 convinced French president Francois Mitterrand to re-describe the PLO as a “resistance organization.”
Chapters 2 (The Loyalty Test) and 3 (The Petrodollar “Revolution”)
Six days following the Yon Kippur War of 1973, the chairmen of Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, and Standard Oil urged the U.S. not to supply military aid to Israel. All of Western Europe (with the notable exception of the Netherlands) had frozen all shipments of military equipment previously ordered by Israel. Fortunately, the Nixon administration was not swayed to betray Israel to big oil.
This resulted in the oil embargo against the U.S. (and the Netherlands). The subsequent recession of 1974-5 resulted in 10% inflation, 8.5% unemployment, and a 13% drop in industrial output.
In contrast, 1973 proved to be the most profitable period for U.S. oil companies in Saudi Arabia due to sales of oil that was originally destined for the U.S., at record prices.
Chapter 4 (An Unsentimental Education)
Congressional hearings in 1975 revealed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had acceded to Saudi demands that Jews and blacks not be permitted to serve in military and construction projects in S.A.
Chapter 6 (The Best and the Brightest that Money Could Buy)
A confidential document dated 1974 known as the “Public Affairs Program for the Arab World” described a strategy for defeating senators by channeling contributions to their opponents. Among the senators who were considered to be “adversaries” to the “Arab” cause were George McGovern (D) and Bob Dole (R).
Chapter 9 (Death of a Princess)
Saudi Arabia succeeds in suppressing the airing of “Death of a Princess” in many European countries and many pbs stations in the U.S.
Chapter 11 (The AWACS Vote) and 12 (The State Department Hoax)
In 1981 S.A. froze contract negotiation with American companies pending congressional approval of the sale of AWACS (Advanced Warning and Command Systems) to S.A. This resulted in a major lobbying campaign by these corporations and their subsidiaries (this even included powerful sectors of the agricultural community).
In order to counter the fierce opposition from congress the vote to allow S.A. to buy AWACS, The Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies doctored a classified document that evaluated the political stability of S.A. to remove critical revelations regarding the political stability of S.A.
Chapter 12 juxtaposes the State Department document with that of CSIS. The missing parts are summarized below:
1) Public disgust (in S.A.) with the expensive and degenerate lifestyle of the royal family, resulting in an image of “arrogance of power devoid of responsibility.”
2) “Shia Muslim antipathy towards the government amounting in some cases to deep and abiding hatred.”
3) Reports of Shia dissident organizations.
4) The possibility of Shia uprisings.
5) A distrust of the military by the royal family, which compels them never to issue fuel and ammunition in large quantities.
6) Petroleum engineering students being sent to study Oklahoma oil fields because the Saudi government does not trust them to know too much about Saudi oil fields.
This selective use of information insured that U.S.-Saudi relations were denied critical congressional scrutiny. Even so, some members of congress still had enough sense (and courage) to vote against the sale. Consequently, they were punished severely by their corporate constituents. They were Senator Heinz (Pennsylvania) and Senator William Roth (Delaware).
Conservatives take heart: These guys were Republicans!
Chapter 14 (The ARAMCO Pipeline)
List of U.S. academic organizations for which ARAMCO was the major contributor:
Institute for Palestinian Studies (the unofficial academic wing of the PLO)
Americans for Justice in the Middle East (Which in 1974 put out a full page add in the NY Times calling for the U.S. to immediately recognize the PLO)
Association of Arab American University Graduates (Described by the Washington Post as “radical” and “militarily Pro-Palestine”)
Chapter 15 (Academia for Sale)
The East-West Foundation (which received 65% of its funding from Fluor) pressured the Aspen Institute to ban all Israeli speakers from the “Islamic Middle East Program” seminar series (1979). Fortunately, the Aspen Institute stopped accepting funds from the East-West Foundation.
Other academic institutions were not so incorruptible: Generous donations from various Arab countries greatly enlarged the department of Arab studies in Georgetown University, but at the cost of academic integrity. This prompted Art Buchwald to write in the Washington Post “I don’t see why the PLO has to have a PR organization when Georgetown is doing all their work for them” (November 5, 1977). In fact, Georgetown’s acceptance of $750,000 from Libya prompted Buchwald to ask whether the university might also set up a “Brezhnev Studies Program in Human Rights” or an “Idi Amin Chair of Genocide.” This negative publicity prompted Georgetown’s president to return the money,
but to this day, the department of Arab studies in Georgetown University remains notoriously biased (my observation).
Chapter 18 (The West Connection)
When Israel attacked Iraq’s nuclear reactor in July 1981, John West (Ambassador to S.A. 1977-1981) sent a letter to the House of Foreign Affairs Committee asking that punitive action be taken against Israel.
As governor of South Carolina (1970-1975), John West (D) was known for his passionate commitment to social, economic, and racial justice. He once vetoed the death penalty as a “barbaric, savage concept of vengeance which should not be accepted, condoned, or permitted in a civilized society.”
In 1980, death penalty opponent John West applauded South Carolina Educational television’s decision to cancel its airing of “Death of a Princess” (a documentary about a 19-year old Saudi princess who was executed with her lover for the crime of eloping).
In 1982, West successfully intervened to grant diplomatic immunity to a Saudi prince that had gotten into a brawl with Miami Police.
During a 1983 lecture to members of the First Presbyterian Church on Hilton Head Island, West told of an “Israeli massacre” of “10,000 Christian Lebanese.”
This never happened.
As ambassador, West provoked major controversy when he facilitated the contracting of a private public relations firm by the government of Saudi Arabia to lobby for the sale of F-15’s.
“It is alarming to think that an ambassador would consent to perform a liason function between commercial interests in this country and the government to which he has been assigned” (Bob Dole,1978)
Perhaps due to the State Department’s defense of West, the Senate investigation requested by Senator Dole never happened.
At the end of his term, West used his experience as Ambassador to facilitate business deals between the U.S. and S.A., and continue to promote Saudi interests in America.
“I don’t like being accused of being bought with Saudi money”
(John West, 1984)
"As ambassador, West provoked major controversy when he facilitated the contracting of a private public relations firm by the government of Saudi Arabia to lobby for the sale of F-15’s."
John C. West's old friend Crawford Cook was, at West's urging, hired by the Saudis. On the campus of the University of South Carolina, at some "Center" named after Ernest Hollings (himself a big promoter of the Saudis, as he was a denigrator of Israel), you can find the names of both "John C. West" and "Crawford Cook."
But then there is James Akins, in a class by himself. He was the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia during that critical year 1973, and finally had to be fired even by Kissinger for his blatant behavior. Imagine what James Akins sent back to Washington about OPEC and the quadrupling of oil prices. Do you think he warned anyone that this was dangerous, given what Saudi Arabia was like, because much of that money was likely to be used abroad to promote the spread of Islam? Do you think James Akins -- who stioll insists that Israel "deliberately" attacked the U.S.S. Liberty during the Six-Day War, which at this point, after the release of the Israeli pilots' tapes, no one except convinced antisemites could possibly maintain -- warned Washiington about the future uses of that oil money?
What about Raymond Close, who was C.I.A. station chief in Jeddah, or was it Riyadh, from 1970 to 1977, again during the critical years when policy toward newly-rich Saudi Arabia might have been differently crafted, if accurate information about the attitudes of Saudis toward Infidels had been accurately conveyed. Close took early retirement, and then immediately went into business with two well-connected Saudi businessmen, one of them a former Saudi intelligence head. When do you think he started getting those job offers from the Saudis -- after he retired, or before? And he then went on to be involved in the banking scandal (was it the IBCC? I can't remember), and various arms transfers, and then of course continued -- for all I know continues from his home in Princeton to this day (just a few years ago another contact and sympathizer of his got him a gig as a "Stimson Fellow" at Yale -- these people are all over the place), writing about American foreign policy and the need to jettison Israel and be grateful to Saudi Arabia for all it has done for us, and is trying to do.
And then there is Eugene Bird, that "patriot" who cares only for the National Interest, as that genuine American "patriot," which is why he heads up something called the "Council for the National Interest" which somehow has enough money to pay for full-page ads in The Times, and more than once, and which pushes a policy of denouncing... the "Israel Lobby" and offers suggestions identical to those of the Saudi government.
And there are so many others, of both parties -- Fred Dutton, the former Kennedy apparatchik. A dozen different Washington lobbying firms. Everyone who ever got an expensive present from Prince Bandar, who dropped off a Jaguar as a token of his affection for Mrs. Colin Powell, and the ostentatiously upright Powell apparently thought that was just swell, never apparently thought he should refuse to accept it, for it not only looks bad, it is bad.
Has Congress taken it upon itself to make such names as "Raymond Close" and "James Akins" and "Eugene Bird" and others well-known to the American public? Has Congress asked to see what information was sent back to Washington in 1973, during the quadrupling of oil prices, by both Akins and Close? It hasn't? Why not?
If that information is not made public, and the recipients of Saudi and other Arab largesse not publicly revealed, then what will prevent the Saudis, in the next decade, of spreading their wealth around in exactly the same ways, to exactly the same effect? We cannot take away all their money -- though we can severely limit what they can send to this country to pay for mosques and madrasas where literature preachiing hate for Infidels has been found (see the report of Freedom House). But we can subject to close and critical scrutiny those who have in the past received such Saudi and other Arab financial support, directly and indireclty, as a complement to making it illegal to receive sums above, say, $50,000 a year from any foreign country, and to make sure all loopholes are closed and the moral hatches battened down. The American government and the people it presumes to protect can't take much more of this.
kuchuklambat:
If you are going to go, go well armed. There's lots of good critiques of M & W, both the original "paper" and their new book that supposedly covers the deficiencies of the paper available through the Engage website which is maintained by anti-boycott academics in the UK. This is the URL to their home page: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/home/
Articles are posted at the Forum.
Here is a sampling of recent postings, every one of them worth a full read.
Shlomo Rossner: Them and US: this piece blows away M & W's central thesis that the US's relationship with Israel holds no positive value for the US.
"Even if the United States had five CIA's, it would not be able to get the high-quality information it received from Israel. That's what General George Keegan, a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence chief, said in 1986, in the midst of the Cold War.
"The ability of the U.S. Air Force in particular, and the army in general, to defend whatever position it has in NATO owes more to the Israeli intelligence input than it does to any single source of intelligence," he said. "
Read it all:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/896812.html
Dore Gold's position paper (courtesy of Rossner) on M & W
Understanding the U.S.-Israel Alliance:
An Israeli Response to the Walt-Mearsheimer Claim
http://jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=376&PID=0&IID=1795&TTL=Understanding_the_U.S.-Israel_Alliance:_An_Israeli_Response_to_the_Walt-Mearsheimer_Claim
The Daily Forward slices and dices M & W, Jimmy Carter and the like in four easy pieces:
The Forward, a Jewish American liberal newspaper that cannot be accused of excessive support for the organized Jewish establishment, will publish an editorial in today's edition that succinctly describes the tactics of Walt and Mearsheimer on their way to cashing in on the book.
"The trick follows a typical pattern," writes The Forward. "Step one: Publish your views in as provocative a manner as possible. Use words like 'apartheid,' as Jimmy Carter did in his book, or paint Jewish lobbying efforts in darkly conspiratorial terms, as Walt and Mearsheimer did in a paper published last year. Step two: Dare the Jewish community to lash out at you, then whine about being victimized by bullies. Step three: Implore fair-minded liberals to line up behind you, forcing them to choose between endorsing your vision - however skewed - or becoming part of the censorship juggernaut."
Read it all: The Wrong Guys
http://www.forward.com/articles/11461/
Lastly, the URL to a new piece courtesy of the Judeosphere website (not to be confused with another valuable website, Judeoscope). I haven't read it yet, but expect it's a good one: "Open Mike Night With M & W (wherein Walt apparently has made a big gaffe): http://judeosphere.blogspot.com/2007/09/open-mike-night-with-walt-mearsheimer.html
Goal of Israel Lobby: Keep Saudi Arabia from taking away their way of life in a way which is permanent.
Goal of Saudi Lobby: Take away our way of life in a way that is permanent.
Old Atlantic:
Five six-pointed gold stars for you today.
Water Dragon 52,
Thanks.
Hugh> "...raise the tax on gasoline..."
Hugh? I'm more than a little tired of seeing this socialist poison pill "solution" of yours, which is based upon a premise 100% identical to that of a Jihadi contemplating possessions owned by infidels; i.e., that other peoples' property is yours to summarily appropriate and dispense with as you see fit.
-- I'm not interested in paying your Jizya anymore than I am the Islamofascists', or, for that matter, any other slimy sleazebag politician who wants to rip me off purportedly due to the "need" of any other excuse. If EVERYTHING is all just about political FORCE backed up by the police-man's GUN -- then the "House of War" that I find myself already *in* rather tends toward consolidating my opinion that near enemies ought to die puking horribly in the gutter prior to those enemies who are far away.
Capish?
(If any good comes out of the imminent World War IV, it is my earnest hope that Islamofascism thoroughly bankrupts, discredits and destroys Socialism before it is itself destroyed.)
Pazzesco.