Janet McMahon (WRMEA)
Pink Tank

One could be forgiven for thinking that the last three letters of AIPAC stand for “political action committee.” But since the American Israel Public Affairs Committee does not itself make campaign contributions to political candidates, technically it is not a PAC. Curiously, however, the 30-odd “unaffiliated” pro-Israel PACs, most with deceptively innocuous names, all seem to give to the same candidates—almost as if there were a guiding intelligence behind their contributions. In the eyes of the Federal Election Commission, AIPAC is a “membership organization” rather than a political committee. This means that, unlike actual PACs, AIPAC is not required to file public reports on its income and expenditures.

Not for nothing, however, did Fortune magazine once name it the second most powerful lobby in Washington. So it’s easy to understand why, like a night flower that blooms in the dark and dies with the light of day, this particular organization which advances the interests of a foreign government has fought long and hard to ensure that its funding sources and expenditures are not exposed to public scrutiny.

Despite its best efforts, however, unwanted light does occasionally shine on AIPAC’s activities. Most dramatically, perhaps, two of its top operatives, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, were indicted on espionage charges in 2005. Four years later federal prosecutors dropped the charges when it became clear that Judge T.S. Ellis’ numerous rulings in favor of the defendants would require the release of sensitive government documents. Rosen then sued his former employer for defamation, claiming that AIPAC routinely dealt in classified information and that he was in no way a rogue employee, as AIPAC had claimed.

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Patrick O’Connor
WSWS

United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed
Al-Nahyan, left, speaks to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary R.
Clinton at the Second Contact Group Meeting on Libya, in
Rome, on Thursday, May 5, 2011. (AP/J. Martin, Pool)

Yesterday’s meeting of the “Contact Group on Libya” concluded with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announcing that Washington will soon “tap some portion” of the $30 billion in Libyan assets it has confiscated to assist the military intervention.

The brazen illegality of the Obama administration’s moves to use Libya’s national wealth to keep the so-called rebel leadership afloat again demonstrates the colonial character of the US-NATO war to oust Muammar Gaddafi.

Held in Rome, Italy, the second meeting of the Contact Group was a squalid spectacle, resembling a gathering of mafia bosses coordinating a lucrative heist. Twenty-two foreign ministers, mostly from European and Arab states, were joined by officials with the UN, Arab League, NATO, the European Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the World Bank.

In a lengthy joint statement, the group declared that the so-called Interim National Council (INC) in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi is a “legitimate interlocutor for Libyans”—a status that “should entail the possibility for it to request the unfreezing of Libyan assets, which remain frozen in accounts in several states”. A “Temporary Financial Mechanism” has been established to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to the anti-Gaddafi leadership, which comprises various ex-regime figures, Islamic fundamentalists, and US intelligence assets. Kuwait has already pledged $180 million, and Qatar $400 million.

The Obama administration will move to pass legislation allowing it to spend $150 million in Libyan assets in seized in February. The Washington Post reported that “the administration will work with Congress to decide who will get the money”—underscoring the arbitrary and illegal nature of the operation. The Post further explained that the initial sum is only a small fraction of the total $30 billion in “frozen” Libyan assets because “some of that money is in American banks overseas, making it more complicated to use”.

Apparently, stealing Libyan resources is one thing, but removing them from the coffers of American banks quite another.

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Stephen Lendman

As reported, it sounded more like bad fiction than eliminating "Enemy Number One," especially with no visuals, corpse, independent proof, and shifting official accounts.

In Hollywood, it's called rewrite. In politics, it's lying, a Washington bipartisan specialty, notably on issues mattering most.

Also at issue is conducting lawless operations for any purpose. More on that below.

Two previous articles discussed the staged May Day hokum, accessed through the following links here and here.

They addressed the alleged killing of a dead man, an administration and media spread lie. David Ray Griffin's important book titled, "Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?" provided convincing objective and testimonial evidence of his mid-December 2001 death, of natural causes, not a commando hit squad getting their man.

Issues and Answers

After years of using bin Laden simultaneously as a CIA asset and "Enemy Number One," why the shift now? Aside from eliminating the alleged top terror threat, major events like this are always strategically timed for political reasons.

At least several stand out now, including:

(1) Boosting Obama's sagging image. It worked according to a New York Times poll showing an approval bump from 46% in April to an early May 57%, even though the euphoria will soon fade in hard times.
(2) Diverting attention from eroding domestic needs, notably growing angst over a deepening Main Street depression.
(3) Hyping fear for intensified, not less, imperial war, and perhaps preparing the ground for a major false flag attack to advance America's grand scheme for unchallengeable global dominance.

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James Petras
The James Petras Website

Boy killed by Honduran military with bullets and M-16′s
paid for by the U.S. government

Imperial interventions in civil wars have a devastating effect on countries that last for decades and affect the entire economy and society. One indicator of the long-term consequences of imperial military intervention is the tremendous increase of violent crime, the multiplication of gangs, homicides and general insecurity in Central America.

Violence increased far beyond what existed prior to imperial wars in such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. In the period prior to imperial intervention in Central America, during times of revolutionary ferment, high levels of social organization via inclusive social movements, channeled discontent into political and social channels. Revolutionary movements organized armed resistance against specifics targets; repressive police, military and death squad militias. Imperial intervention included military advisers and counter-insurgency strategies which uprooted peasants via scorched earth policies and destroyed communities. Assaults on urban barrios led to the break-up of family and neighborhood networks. The social bonds which integrate people into a moral and social community were ruptured: the goal of imperial planners is to decimate any independent popular civil-society organization as a political threat to its illegitimate collaborator regime.

In El Salvador, the US provided over $300 million a year in arms and training for almost a decade. The Pentagon through its advisory missions, in collaboration with local landlords and generals, financed and forcibly recruited thousands of peasants into death squad ‘civilian militias’ to assassinate local movement activists and terrorize farm workers’movements and trade union organizations. Under imperial military pressure the leaders of the major Central American guerrilla organizations signed on to a peace agreement. The “peace accords” retained the US collaborator regimes in power and the promised social reforms were never implemented. As a result, the homicide rate skyrocketed. The discharged guerrilla militants and unemployed right wing militia members, armed and trained, and with no future, became the bases for gangs, drug and people traffickers, kidnappers and extortionists. The number of people who were annually killed in violent crime (1991-2011) exceeded the number who died each year during the revolutionary struggle (1979-1990).

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