As The World Squirms

Archives

· U.S. Israel Lobby & General (Videos, Commentaries, Interviews)

(Press ‘F11’ function key on keyboard to toggle back and forth between full-screen and regular viewing modes – sound on!)

BBC: The Power of Nightmares

The Rise of the Politics of Fear

By Owen Whitman – A review

Hotpolitics.com

Sunday, September 02, 2007

The UK’s BBC in its following The Power of Nightmares video series presents a trenchant and profound political indictment. This important statement – virtually ignored by America’s corporate media - exposes in meticulous detail how (and why) a pernicious socio-political ‘Terrorist Myth’ has been exploited and spread unquestioned through politics, the international security services and media.

The BBC posits that politicians had come to recognize that in an age of increasing governmental irrelevance, public disenchantment with politics and widespread public disillusion with government’s consistent history of promises and failures, those selling the “Darkest Fears” and nightmares became most powerful.

At the heart of the BBC story are two groups:

1. the American neo-conservatives and

2. the radical Islamists.

In the BBC narrative, both groups were idealists spawned from the widely perceived failure of the statist-liberal dreams of building a “better world”.

The rise of the “Politics of Fear” began in 1949 with two men whose radical ideas would eventually inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neo-conservative movement that today dominates Washington. Ironically, both these men shared the belief that modern liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together.

The two movements they inspired (American neocons and radical Islamists) set out, each in their different ways, to rescue their societies from this perceived decay.

In an age of growing disillusion with politics, the neo-conservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their vision. They would create the myth of a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union that only they could see.

The Islamists, on the other hand, were faced by the refusal of the masses to follow their dream and thus began to turn to terror to force the people to "see the truth"'.

These two groups have indeed changed the world, but not in the way either intended. Nevertheless, statist political philosophies of all stripes found common value in the “Politics of Fear” – a perfectly manipulable tool for ‘rejuvenating’ government’s diminishing legitimacy, authority and power.

This extraordinary political statement is a must-view for anyone seeking to understand “The Politics of Fear”, and its use by the contemporary “Political class” who, for personal gain, cynically and self-servingly exploit and manipulate international politics and undermine our American Republic.

NOTE: Each video segment following “Part 1” (below) begins with the same brief series intro and a short recap of the prior segment.

After choosing your segment by clicking on the red blinking ‘dot’ below, you can view the video in full-screen mode by clicking on the full-screen icon located in the lower right-hand corner of the Google video viewer. Sound on, mind open and prepare to become enlightened…

Part 1: Baby It’s Cold Outside!

(59 Min)

Part 2: The Phantom Victory

(59 Min)

Part 3: The Shadows in the Cave

(1 Hr)

GENERAL SIR MIKE JACKSON: The UK’s Former Top General Condemns Washington’s “Intellectually Bankrupt” Policy

BBC – Video

The head of the British army during the Iraq invasion, General Sir Mike Jackson, said Washington’s post-war policy was "intellectually bankrupt". He has also hit back at suggestions that British forces had failed in Basra and charged that Donald Rumsfeld was “one of the most responsible for the current situation in Iraq”. He describes Washington's approach to fighting global terrorism as "inadequate" for relying on military power over diplomacy and nation-building.

Video

General Sir Mike Jackson's attack draws Washington’s ire

Palestine Israel occupation 101

Noam Chomsky

Movie Trailer (New)

ISRAEL LOBBY: Mearshimer, Walt and the Erudite Hysteria of David Remnick

By Tony Karon

Tonykaron.com

9.3.07

(Excerpt)

First, an illustrative anecdote: A little over a year ago, Iraq’s prime minister Nuri al-Maliki arrived in Washington and addressed Congress. The event was supposed to be a booster for the elected Iraqi leadership, showing U.S. support for the new government. But at the time, Israel was pummeling Beirut in response to Hizballah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers, so U.S. legislators naively tried — and failed — to get Maliki to condemn Hizballah. And, revealing the extent to which Washington is encased in a bubble when it comes to matters involving Israel in the Middle East, Senators Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and Dick Durbin wrote Maliki a letter saying the following: “Your failure to condemn Hezbollah’s aggression and recognize Israel’s right to defend itself raise serious questions about whether Iraq under your leadership can play a constructive role in resolving the current crisis and bringing stability to the Middle East.”

To cut bluntly to the chase, there is scarcely a single politician in the Arab world willing to endorse Washington’s definitions of the problems or the solutions when it comes to Israel’s impact on the region — and that even among the autocrats with whom the U.S. prefers to work, much less that rare breed that Maliki represents, i.e. a democratically elected leader. It is the U.S. leadership that is in denial about what is needed to create security in the region.

Indeed, the grownups in Washington know this better than anyone. In response to the same crisis in Lebanon, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft wrote:

Hezbollah is not the source of the problem; it is a derivative of the cause, which is the tragic conflict over Palestine that began in 1948.

The eastern shore of the Mediterranean is in turmoil from end to end, a repetition of continuing conflicts in one part or another since the abortive attempts of the United Nations to create separate Israeli and Palestinian states in 1948.

But nobody in power listens to Brent Scowcroft any more. Washington’s Israel bubble so detaches it from an objective view of the Middle East that Howard Dean’s 2003 call for the U.S. to adopt an “even-handed” position between Israel and the Palestinians has long since entered the U.S. political playbook as an example of foot-in-mouth campaigning. (See my earlier entry on how well Barack Obama has learned this lesson.)

Like the tech-bubble and real estate-bubble, Washington’s “Israel bubble” is unhealthy and dangerous — in fact, it not only jeopardizes U.S. interests throughout the region and beyond (by serving as Exhibit A for any anti-American element anywhere in the Islamic world to win the political contest with America’s friends), but it is also exceedingly bad for Israel: Particularly over the past decade, the U.S. has essentially enabled Israeli behavior so self-destructive that it may have already precluded any chance of it being able to live at peace with its neighbors.