U.S. is incapable of standing up to Israel

[kbo234]

Here's the latest news on the doings of the hate-filled state of Israel.

What a monster its ferocious use of 'the holocaust' has allowed it to become. The very last thing these people want is peace.

It seems Netanyahu thinks he can boss the Americans around. Well, maybe he can. We'll have to wait and see.

Things seem to be reaching a boiling point. This is really quite scary.

The Petraeus Briefing
By Mark Perry – Foreign Policy Blog March 13, 2010

On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) "too old, too slow ... and too late."

The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus's instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. "Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling," a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. "America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding." But Petraeus wasn't finished: two days after the Mullen briefing, Petraeus sent a paper to the White House requesting that the West Bank and Gaza (which, with Israel, is a part of the European Command – or EUCOM), be made a part of his area of operations. Petraeus's reason was straightforward: with U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military had to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region's most troublesome conflict.

[UPDATE: A senior military officer denied Sunday that Petraeus sent a paper to the White House.

"CENTCOM did have a team brief the CJCS on concerns revolving around the Palestinian issue, and CENTCOM did propose a UCP change, but to CJCS, not to the WH," the officer said via email. "GEN Petraeus was not certain what might have been conveyed to the WH (if anything) from that brief to CJCS."

(UCP means "unified combatant command," like CENTCOM; CJCS refers to Mullen; and WH is the White House.)]

The Mullen briefing and Petraeus's request hit the White House like a bombshell. While Petraeus's request that CENTCOM be expanded to include the Palestinians was denied ("it was dead on arrival," a Pentagon officer confirms), the Obama administration decided it would redouble its efforts – pressing Israel once again on the settlements issue, sending Mitchell on a visit to a number of Arab capitals and dispatching Mullen for a carefully arranged meeting with the chief of the Israeli General Staff, Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi. While the American press speculated that Mullen's trip focused on Iran, the JCS Chairman actually carried a blunt, and tough, message on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that Israel had to see its conflict with the Palestinians "in a larger, regional, context" – as having a direct impact on America's status in the region. Certainly, it was thought, Israel would get the message.

Israel didn't. When Vice President Joe Biden was embarrassed by an Israeli announcement that the Netanyahu government was building 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, the administration reacted. But no one was more outraged than Biden who, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, engaged in a private, and angry, exchange with the Israeli Prime Minister. Not surprisingly, what Biden told Netanyahu reflected the importance the administration attached to Petraeus's Mullen briefing: "This is starting to get dangerous for us," Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace." Yedioth Ahronoth went on to report: "The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel's actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism." The message couldn't be plainer: Israel's intransigence could cost American lives.

There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers -- and the Israeli lobby. But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military. While commentators and pundits might reflect that Joe Biden's trip to Israel has forever shifted America's relationship with its erstwhile ally in the region, the real break came in January, when David Petraeus sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers. Maybe Israel gets the message now.

[TonyGosling]

Amazing.
More potentially high level evidence of this.

Full El Al flight took off on 9/11 from JFK to Tel Aviv
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Mar 16, 2010, 00:17
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5691.shtml

(WMR) -- WMR has learned from two El Al sources who worked for the Israeli airline at New York's John F. Kennedy airport that on 9/11, hours after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all civilian domestic and international incoming and outgoing flights to and from the United States, a full El Al Boeing 747 took off from JFK bound for Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport.

The two El Al employee sources are not Israeli nationals but legal immigrants from Ecuador who were working in the United States for the airline.

The flight departed JFK at 4:11 pm and its departure was, according to the El Al sources, authorized by the direct intervention of the U.S. Department of Defense. U.S. military officials were on the scene at JFK and were personally involved with the airport and air traffic control authorities to clear the flight for take-off.

According to the 9/11 Commission report, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta ordered all civilian flights to be grounded at 9:45 am on September 11.

The New York Air Traffic control center's audio tape of recollections of air traffic controllers made an hour and a half after the 9/11 attacks were destroyed by an air traffic control manager who did not face criminal charges for destroying physical evidence on the worst terrorist attack in American history. The Transportation Department later claimed the destruction of the tape was the result of mere 'poor judgment.'

The El Al flight took off two days before commercial flights were permitted to resume on September 13. Private flights were only permitted to resume on September 14. On September 13, a chartered Lear jet flew three Saudis, including a member of the Saudi royal family, from Tampa to Lexington, Kentucky. On September 14, a chartered Northstar Aviation flight flew four Saudis from Providence, Rhode Island to Paris.

On August 22, 2005, WMR reported: 'Four Americans flew with 'Air Bin Laden' flight transporting Bin Laden family members to Saudi Arabia and Europe nine days after 911. The post-911 domestic flights of Bin Laden family members out of the United States with the sanction of the Bush White House were not the only instances where Americans have flown with the family that spawned 'Al Qaeda' leader Osama Bin Laden. WMR has obtained a passenger list from a September 20, 2001, Aero Services private charter flight from Le Bourget Airport, north of Paris, to Geneva, and on to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (King Abdulaziz International Airport-OEJN). On the list are a number of Bin Ladens, as well as four Americans, including a Los Angeles Police Department officer named Jason Blum who flew to Le Bourget from Los Angeles. A previous list provided to Sen. Frank Lautenberg showed Mr. Blum departing from the Bin Laden party in Boston. The newly obtained list shows he accompanied the Bin Ladens to Paris Le Bourget. The other three Americans on the passenger list are J.P. Buonono, Joseph Allen Wyka and Ricardo V. Pascetta.'

Although much has been written about the 'Bin Laden' and other Saudi flights in the days after 9/11, the El Al flight on the afternoon of September 11 is the first instance of Israelis departing the United States while commercial traffic was grounded.

There have also been reports that the FBI seized FAA records concerning the events of 9/11 from the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Islip, Long Island. The ARTCC has responsibility for flights out of JFK.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

[satya]

Very good find on the joe biden affair.
Not sure why tony wants to cross post. Put it in a new topic!

[Disco_Destroyer]

It would seem Brazil isn't:
Lula criticises Israeli policies: Settlements and separation barrier are obstacles to peace, says Brazilian president. http://aje.me/dskoZS

[TonyGosling]

Hamas warns about Israel's conspiracy
Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:53:40 GMT

Hamas deputy chief Moussa Abu Marzuk
Hamas has expressed concern over an Israeli conspiracy to empty Jerusalem al-Quds of its Palestinian residents after the inauguration of a synagogue in the Old City near the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Hamas deputy chief Moussa Abu Marzuk told Press TV that the Tel Aviv regime is determined to replace Palestinian mosques and churches with Jewish sites in East Jerusalem al-Quds.
He said Israeli police deployed thousands of forces to the city in a bid to force Palestinians into leaving it.
His remarks came amid international concerns over the regime's moves which threaten Christian and Muslim sites.
The US State Department's annual report on human rights denounced Israel for only protecting Jewish sites in Jerusalem al-Quds, saying Christian and Muslim houses of worship are neglected, inaccessible, or threatened by property development.
Israel reopened the Hurva synagogue which was destroyed during the 1948 Middle East war, on Monday.
The incident has been the latest to provoke tension between Israeli forces and Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.
Israel, which seized East Jerusalem al-Quds and the Holy City area in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it afterwards, claims the city is its eternal and indivisible capital.
The claim, however, has not been recognized by the international community.

http://www.presstv.ir/classic/detail.aspx?id=121076&sectionid=35102020 2

http://www.bcfm.org.uk/wp-content/Podcasts/20100204130001.mp3