Boycott Media Lies

STOP Media Lies

You CAN

Here’s HOW

When: Monday, July 21, 2014

Media lies are responsible for wars, mass killings, and genocide.   They frame issues (propaganda) and justify killings.  We can STOP this dangerous assault on the truth and save humanity.   We must act quickly.

Media’s power comes from its reach – from ratings, which translates into money.    We, as individuals and collectively, feed this cycle.  Reduce the reach, lower the ratings, deprive it income.  Boycott.

It is DOABLE.   We can start with the most egregious (may vary from country to country), boycotting 3 outlets for 3 days until behavioral change is noted (rely on other media outlets to see if change has been instituted.  Do NOT watch, listen, or read online the following:

CNN:  Parent Company, Time Warner.   

Note host Wolf Blitzer, former Israeli ambassador to the UN, Oren as Middle East analyst, Newt Gingrich, Christine Amanpour. 

CBS:   Owner, Sumner Redstone (described as one of the 50 most influential Jews).

           

FOX: Parent Company NewsCorp

           

For this to be effective, we must have numbers.  This is what must be done:

Enlist at least 5 people (ideally with one of them having a different ideological view from yours – its doable) to commit to the boycott, the stations, and the days – July 21, 22, & 23.   

Ask them to enlists 5 people, get commitment and inform you of the accomplishment.

Repeat the pattern.

Keep track of the numbers.  

It is no longer sufficient for us to simply blow off steam on FB and other social media.  We must act.  We must bring the cycle of killing and lies to an end.   We must unite and put in the effort.  Let us save humanity.

We will plan our next phase in two weeks and after the initial response.

Save Gaza Today; Tomorrow May Be Too Late!

Emma Bull was right when she said: “Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.” The timing of Israel’s recent assault on Gaza is not coincidental.  It is the culmination of several factors:  The Hamas-Fatah unity; Israel’s escalation of illegal construction in occupied territory; the collapse of the peace talks; the success of the BDS movement; and the growing number of Europeans warning against investment in occupied territories.

Israel’s expansionist agenda was at odds with the growing lack of sympathy around the world.  So it pulled out is best card -- the victim card.    On June 12, three Israeli teens were kidnapped, thought by many to be another Israeli false flag operation.    According to Israeli police records, “the voice of MK Shelly Yacimovich (Labor) could be heard who was being interviewed by Israel Radio as the kidnapping took place” (Jerusalem Post).   

During the phone conversation, shots were heard while Hebrew language was blaring in the background.  A gag order was put on this call.  Immediately, Netanyahu launched on a campaign to solicit sympathy for this ‘victimization’ and to invoke outrage from world leaders blaming the kidnapping on Hamas (who denied responsibility), all the while giving the impression that the teens were alive.

Without provocation, on June 17, Reuters reported that Israel cracks down on Hamas “in a mobilisation on a scale not seen in years” to find the abducted shot teens.   As sentiments of solidarity toward Israel and disgust toward Hamas increased, victim card in hand, IDF boots marched into Palestinian houses turning them into military observation posts, making arbitrary arrests and putting up road blocks to increase pressure on Hamas.    

It took more than two weeks for the very competent IDF to find the dead bodies of the teens in a tiny area – and identifying all the ins and outs of Palestinians households. More sympathy and condemnation pored in as the teens’ bodies were found on June 30^th.    Standing center stage amidst Western media, Netanyahu said: “May God avenge their blood”.   Thinking of himself as God, on July 1 arrest raids were ordered, hundreds arrested and a ‘Hamas member killed’.     All hell broke loose.

The sympathies and framing of events on the ground by the Western media and sympathies of Western leaders gave justification to the bombing of Gaza. The burning alive of a teenage Palestinian boy got a passing mention in the press.    As the death toll in Gaza keeps rising, always,  not only must Palestinians defend their lives and livelihoods, but they must also contend with fighting the pro-Israel media narrative.  

Meanwhile, the UN utters a pathetic whim but remains idle as bombs are dropped on toddlers.    After all, they take their cue from their paymasters with US contributing 25% to the United Nations (the next largest contributors being Japan (12.53%), Germany (8.018%), the United Kingdom (6.604%), and France (6.112%).  Lending their support in fratricide are the Arab leaders fratricide as their continued silence echoes the call to Genocide by Israeli lawmaker Ayelet Shaked.

As Israel is set for a ground invasion of Gaza, the alarming call of a Holy War is heard from an Israeli commander who tells his soldiers that they are engaged in a war to “wipe out” an “enemy who defames” God.   Jewish extremism has always been concealed, and with it, the dangers. But the threat is very real – and very well understood even by those supporting this growing danger.

A 1997 article reviewing the Israeli Defense Force repeatedly stressed the possibilities of, and the need to guard against a religious, right wing military coup, especially as the proportion of religious in the military increases[i]. They have been on the increase.  In 2009, it was reported “Israel's army is changing. Once proudly secular, its combat units are now filling with those who believe Israel's wars are "God's wars". If Israel determines “God’s wars”, none are safe.

World leaders have warned that the conflict could engulf the entire region, but Israel is not heeding their warnings.   Perhaps Netanyahu is smug in the knowledge that even if all in the region (and beyond) perish, Israeli Jews, or at least some, will be safe in its Site 911. Site 911, funded by America, due for completion soon, “will have five levels buried underground and six additional outbuildings on the above grounds, within the perimeter. At about 127,000 square feet, the first three floors will house classrooms, an auditorium, and a laboratory — all wedged behind shock resistant doors — with radiation protection and massive security.  Each door of the facility will have a detailed description of the mezuzahs written in “in-erasable ink”.

With the growing extremism in Israeli military, their “holy wars” and nukes, it is not just Gaza that is burning – this is a war on humanity and perhaps even human race.  If we do not stop it today, tomorrow may be too late.

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[i] Warner D. Farr, LTC, U.S. Army, The Counterproliferation Papers, Israel’s Nuclear Weapons, Sept 1999

America’s Creative Extortion

Admittedly, America has always devised creative means to execute its vast array of crimes against other nations – coups, wars, occupation, exploitation, terrorism, genocide, and so forth.   One crime often neglected is America’s creative extortion. America has made a legal judgment to rob Iran of $1.75 billion.

According to Courthouse News Service, a U.S. court has awarded this money to families of victims killed in the 1983 marine barracks bombing.  This judgment is devilish in design; not only is this an elaborate scheme to justify extortion, but the judgment also lays the blame of what happened in Beirut in 1983 on Hezbollah and Iran.   America can disguise thievery as law, but it cannot conceal the truth of what happened in 1983 – which as follows.

Upon taking office, Ronald Regan decided to launch a ‘second Cold War’ in the Middle East.  He moved combat forces into the region and armed ‘allies’ while initiating a strategic cooperation agreement with Israel.  Soviets invasions of Afghanistan, the Iranian Revolution and the assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat had made the U.S. jittery prompting Reagan to reward those Middle Eastern governments that joined the ‘Strategic Consensus” against the Soviet Union. 

This did not sit well with Israel who had enjoyed the status of being the predominant ally of the U.S.    The November 30, 1981 Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Cooperation signed by Weinberger and Ariel Sharon set the stage for a joint military collaboration between Israel and the U.S.   The Reagan administration’s campaign against “international terrorism” and Saddam Hossein’s actions provided the excuse for Israeli strikes into Lebanon.

In May 1982, Saddam was looking for a way out of the war he had initiated with Iran.  According to a report, on June 3, three men led by an Iraqi intelligence officer made an assassination attempt against the Israeli ambassador to Britain with the hope of provoking Israel to invade Lebanon so that Iran and Iraq would end their hostilities and join forces against Israel[i].   The plan worked in as far as giving Israel the excuse to march into Lebanon.

The Israeli occupation of Lebanon under false pretexts met with a wave of protests from within Israel.  In a June 25, 1982 Haaretz  editorial,   Professor Yehoshwar Porat openly challenged the rationale for the Israel’s attack on Lebanon.

           

“[I]t did not even result from the need to retaliate against Palestinian shellings of the Galilee, because there was no such shelling since and agreement [cease fire agreement between the Palestinians and the Israeli government].  So what was the reason?  I think the Israeli government’s {or more precisely, its two leaders’) decision resulted from that cease fire.”[ii]  

Regardless, soon after the Israeli invasion, on August 20, U.S. Marines landed in Beirut with a clearly defined mission - to supervise the evacuation of the PLO ‘guerillas’.   This was accomplished at the end of the first week of September.  There was no longer a need for a peacekeeping force.  

Yet, 19 days later, after the Israeli invasion and occupation of West Beirut, and the brutal Sabra – Sahtila massacres under the supervision of Ariel Sharon, a larger US force returned to Beirut – this was with a very different mission in mind.  Theirs was not only to secure the airport, but to help the new Gemayel regime ‘consolidate’ power . 

In line with the Reagan strategy, the additional forces were showing a permanent US presence in the Middle with some 100 field grade US Army and Special Forces officers training “the most highly motivated” Lebanese brigades, that is, those with strong Phalangist militia components[iii].    According to the ‘Britannica Concise Encyclopedia’, these were the same militias who under Sharon’s supervision had massacred 800- several thousand women, children and elderly at Sabra and Sahtila.[iv]    In short, the US Special Forces were training terrorists.

By September 1983, U.S. warships were shelling Syrian and Druze militia positions outside Beirut, and Marine ground forces were trading artillery and sniper fire with Shi’a (Hezbollah) and Druze fighters[v].    On October 23, 1983, two trucks hit a building housing US Marines killing most  “peace-keepers”. 

Immoral and bankrupt, the United States is holding Iran responsible for what ensued after the occupation of Lebanon, the butchering of innocent civilians, and resistance to shelling from American warships by Lebanese defending their lives and their soil.   William Shakespeare must have been looking to the future and to America when he said: “Lawless are they that make their wills their law.”

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[i][i] Stephen Shalom, “The Iran-Iraq War”, (Noam Chomsky, “The Fateful Triangle”, Boston: South End Press, 1983, 197n).

[ii] Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4, [Also Vol. 12, no. 1]. Special Issue: The War in Lebanon. (Summer - Autumn, 1982), pp. 214-221.

[iii] Lawson, Fred.  MERIP, No128, The Deadly Connection; Reagan and the Middle East 9Nov. Dec. 1984) pp 27-34

[iv] http://www.answers.com/topic/sabra-and-shatila-massacre

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6985808.stm

[v] Lawson, Fred.

Terror in the Skies

On July 3, 1988, in an unprovoked move, US carrier USS Vincennes fired two missiles at an Iranian passenger plane, Iran Air flight  655 which was on route to Dubai.  All 290 innocent civilians were killed.   The Untied States did not apologize or admit to wrongdoing.  Washington has always maintained that the shooting down of the passenger plane was an accident.   

But was it? The Vincennes' crew, without visual confirmation, fired at the Iranian passenger airliner ‘believing’ it to be an F14 jet fighter descending towards it.   The plane was not descending; it was fast ascending.  Furthermore, a jet fighter is two-thirds smaller than a passenger plane.

This ‘accident’ came on the heels of another incident in 1987 when a U.S. ship fired its machine guns at a fishing boat from the United Arab Emirates, killing one and injuring three.  The fishing boat had been ‘mistaken’ for an Iranian speedboat with ‘hostile’ intent![i] 

Addressing the Iran Air flight, David R. Carlson, commander of another U.S. ship in the region (Persian Gulf) stated that the conduct of Iranian military forces in the month preceding the incident was pointedly non-threatening," and the actions of the Vincennes "appeared to be consistently aggressive”.   The Vicennes inclination to kill ruthlessly earned it the nickname “Robo Cruiser”[ii]    

Not only was there no apology forthcoming, but also the incident would be the start of a string of sky-murders carried out by the United States against Iranian citizens. Thomas Whalen from the aviation law practice of Washington firm Eckert Seamans Cherin and Mellot had argued that sanctions on Iranian carriers are detrimental to airline safety and violate the commitment to airline safety made by the USA, Iran and most nations of the world in 1944 when the Chicago Convention was forged.   

Immoral and blind to laws, Robo Cruiser” gave way to Robo Sanctions. 17 planes crashed killing some 1,500 people.   Terrorism in the skies had become another tool in Washington’s arsenal.

Encouraged, two experts, Michael B. Kraft, a counterterrorism consultant and Brett Wallace, research coordinator at the International Center for Terrorism Studies, actually endorsed acts of terrorism against Iranians.  Writing for the Washington Times in 2007, they argued:

           

“Most of the current sanctions, however, are relatively invisible except to bankers or the would-be exporter or importer. By contrast, suspending Iran Air’s landing rights and cutting off spare parts and maintenance services would be a very visible and dramatic step to both the Iranian public and the mullahs.”

A UN Panel on March 17, 2005 describes Terrorism as “any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act.”)

Washington listened. Spare parts were denied. More crashes, more dead civilians.  

Today, as Iranians commemorate the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 and mourn the death of 290 civilians, the world must be cognizant of the fact that the United States continues its policy of terrorism.   When it comes to mass murder,  for Washington, sky is the limit.

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[i] Ronald O'Rourke, "The Tanker War," Proceedings, U.S. Naval Institute, May 1988, p33

[ii] Commander David R. Carlson, "The Vicennes Incident," letter, Proceedings, U.S. Naval Institute, Sept. 1989, pp. 87-88.