A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• Wikileaks needs an army to stop it?
• The moral role of an artist in the modern world
• MSM regulation is above the pay scale of MPs?
• Mandela knows about ethics and Blair has no idea
• Wanting to kill Gideon Levy via the Zionist mainstream
• What the MSM wants to forget about Iraq
• Decolonialism, socialism and radicalism from a right-wing President?

Wikileaks needs an army to stop it? Posted: 13 Sep 2010 This would be funny if it weren’t so serious. One website, Wikileaks, now requires so much American power to try and stop/manage/control it. If only the same effort was spent on actually stopping the wars in the first place: In a nondescript suite of government offices not far from the Pentagon, nearly 120 intelligence analysts, FBI agents, and others are at work—24 hours a day, seven days a week—on the frontlines of the government’s secret war against WikiLeaks. Dubbed the WikiLeaks War Room by some of its occupants, the round-the-clock operation is on high alert this month as WikiLeaks and its elusive leader, Julian Assange, threaten to release a second batch of thousands of classified American war logs from Afghanstan. Thousands more leaked documents from another American war zone—Iraq—are also reportedly slated for release by WikiLeaks this fall. Although outsiders have not been allowed to inspect the “war room” in suburban Virginia and see its staff at work, national-security officials offered details of the operation to The Daily Beast, including the identity of the counterintelligence expert who has been put in charge: Brig. General Robert A. Carr of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The moral role of an artist in the modern world Posted: 13 Sep 2010 The growing number of mainstream figures waking up to the evil of the Israeli occupation is welcome and it’s moving to the heart of the American arts world. Once more Americans realise what is happening, Israel’s day are numbered. Here’s Theodore Bikel, a Tony and Oscar-nominated actor and musician, explaining why: There are weighty reasons why I find myself in full support of the artists’ refusal to perform in the territories. And it should be noted that I am not alone in supporting the courageous stand of our Israeli colleagues. There is a growing list of over 150 prominent artists and arts leaders from the U.S. who have expressed similar concerns to mine. The cause celebre regarding the new performance facility in Ariel has given rise to statements from the leaders of that community as well as from Prime Minister Netanyahu and the culture minister, Limor Livnat. While the latter asserts that “political disputes should be left outside cultural life and art,” both the prime minister and the settlers’ council make it clear that the matter is not about art at all, but about what they call an attack on Israel “from within.” The declaration of conscience signed by prominent Israeli artists − among them recipients of the Israel Prize, the highest cultural accolade given by the state − is characterized as emanating from “anti-Zionist leftists” and is described by the prime minister as being part of an “international movement of delegitimization.” Clearly, anything that is connected to the settlers or to the settlements’ presence beyond the Green Line is political. And, if the refusal of the artists to perform in the territories is tantamount to delegitimization, it follows that any agreement to perform there would amount to legitimizing what many of us ‏(in and outside of Israel‏) believe to be the single most glaring obstacle to peace.

MSM regulation is above the pay scale of MPs? Posted: 13 Sep 2010 Sigh: The Commons is not the place for the media to be on trial over phone-hacking allegations, the former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission has told followers on Twitter. MPs are too cowardly when it comes to tackling newspapers – and that empowers their editors, Sir Christopher Meyer said. Meyer, a former British ambassador to Washington who tweets as @SirSocks, tweeted: “The conflicts of interest are so extreme that MPs should be recused from judging the media. But if not the Commons, who? Newspapers and their editors are empowered by the pusillanimity of MPs who attribute to them powers they simply do not have.” Meyer defended the PCC’s handling of the phone-hacking allegations. He was chairman of the watchdog during its original investigation into phone hacking by newspapers after the News of the World royal editor, Clive Goodman, and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for hacking the phones of royal aides and celebrities. Andy Coulson, now the Conservatives’ communications chief, resigned as editor of the paper despite insisting he had no knowledge of the hacking. He was not questioned during the original PCC inquiry. Meyer had stepped down as chairman by the time the PCC reopened that investigation last year following the Guardian’s revelation that the tabloid had since made secret payments of £1m to three victims of the practice. That report concluded there was no new evidence to suggest that the News of the World executive knew of the practice. Its conclusions were heavily criticised by MPs on the cross-party parliamentary select committee inquiry into press standards. They described the PCC as toothless and dismissed its findings as simplistic and surprising. The PCC inquiry had not fully or forensically considered all the evidence, said the committee in its 167-page report. The PCC was criticised at the time for not questioning key executives face to face and for accepting written statements as evidence, including one from the present editor of the News of the World, who was not even at the newspaper at the time of the Goodman hacking.

Mandela knows about ethics and Blair has no idea Posted: 13 Sep 2010 What a true statesman said about a war-monger: Nelson Mandela expressed fury to the British government over Britain’s decision to join with the Americans in invading Iraq, it emerged yesterday. The former South African president picked up the phone and called London to spell out his anger about the decision to join the US-led mission to topple Saddam Hussein. He might be famed for his politeness, but in an extraordinary call to a member of Mr Blair’s Cabinet, Peter Hain, Mr Mandela’s angry feelings boiled over. Diplomatic niceties were abandoned as he warned that Britain’s reputation around the world would suffer “huge damage” because of the invasion and that all the Blair administration’s good work in Africa would be forgotten. Details of the call are disclosed in a new biography of Mr Mandela by Mr Hain, a long-standing friend who was Welsh Secretary at the time. Mr Hain recalled: “He said: ‘A big mistake, Peter, a very big mistake. It is wrong. Why is Tony doing this after all his support for Africa? This will cause huge damage internationally’.” He said last night that he had never encountered his old friend as angry as he was during that conversation: “He was virtually breathing fire down the phone on this and feeling a sense of betrayal.”

Wanting to kill Gideon Levy via the Zionist mainstream Posted: 12 Sep 2010 What kind of Jewish newspaper would publish a letter like this? Having written a book The Punishment of Gaza – with an obvious content – Jewish Israeli Gideon Levy took great pleasure in making a vile speech at a meeting hosted by the Manchester Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. I ask several questions about this hideous man: 1. Why hasn’t be been expelled from Israel? 2. Why hasn’t Mossad been ordered to eliminate him? After all, this group gained recent notoriety for targeting an enemy of Israel. And isn’t the worst enemy a citizen? 3. Why hasn’t this man been arrested on a charge of treason? Arab members of the Knesset frequently attack Israel – and I find it incredulous they can remain MPs. It would not be tolerated in this country. Israel also tolerates the loathsome Neturei Karta and even pays them to spread their message that the country which gives them freedom and safety, can tour the world, siding with the Palestinians to proclaim that Israel shouldn’t exist. They have expressed horror that a senior Israeli rabbi had suggested it was OK to kill Palestinians, yet they never express outrage when Israel Jews are murdered by their Palestinian friends. Crazy standards. Brian Lux, 49 Abbey Road, Llandudno. Britain’s Jewish Telegraph has, a literal incitement to murder. Yet another sign of ever-worsening Zionist extremism in the Diaspora.

What the MSM wants to forget about Iraq Posted: 12 Sep 2010 L. Craig Johnstone writes in the Washington Post about Western responsibility for what we have created in Iraq: Thirty-five years ago, two young Foreign Service officers went AWOL from Henry Kissinger’s staff at the State Department to go to Vietnam in the days before the collapse of Saigon. I was one of them. Our action drew stern rebukes and orders that we be arrested and returned to the United States. We had each been posted in Vietnam. We went back there at our own expense and in defiance of our superiors because we were alarmed at the lack of planning on the part of our government regarding the well-being of our Vietnamese employees and allies as the end to the war approached. We believed that the United States had a moral obligation and a humanitarian responsibility to rescue those who had worked and sided with us on the battlefields of that unwinnable conflict. If I remain today appalled by the callous disregard the government had for our allies in the lead-up to the collapse of Saigon, those feelings are trumped by the extraordinary pride all Americans must feel at the response of both our government and the American people once Saigon fell and the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis struck home. The outpouring of support and the open-arms welcome from Americans for hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees was a magnificent demonstration of the strong moral fiber of our country. We face an analogous situation in Iraq today. We are pulling our troops out of this war. But as we leave, our humanitarian obligations remain. Our war in Iraq has uprooted more than a half a million refugees who have fled to neighboring countries. And we are leaving behind more than a million and a half people who have been forced from their homes within Iraq. Many of these were middle-class workers, merchants, small-business owners — not unlike people you would find in the towns across America. Today they live in squalor, in cardboard shanty towns with open sewers and without clean water. They beg most for the opportunity to educate their children to the levels they themselves achieved before the war. For these families, the war has been a disaster. Americans are not solely responsible for the tragedy that has befallen them, but we bear a measure of responsibility, and we cannot leave them and our responsibilities behind. What we need to do first is provide our share of the funding necessary to help those in the most dire circumstances. The United Nations humanitarian appeal for aid for vulnerable and displaced Iraqis this year calls for just over $700 million. The United States needs to fund at least half of that amount this year. As the oil infrastructure improves in Iraq, oil revenue will follow in five or six years, and the Iraqis can take on the burden themselves. The U.S. contribution would not be a small sum, but would be trifling in comparison to what this war has cost us to date. Next, we need to increase the resettlement of Iraqis who have no prospect for returning to Iraq or whose situations are so perilous that life in Iraq is simply not possible. This includes, among others, Iraqis who have worked with U.S. institutions and whose lives have been compromised by this association. And the latest Amnesty report finds a judicial system in Iraq that is filled with torture and abuse. Welcome to US-imposed liberation.

Decolonialism, socialism and radicalism from a right-wing President? Posted: 12 Sep 2010 Forbes is a mainstream magazine. But this week its cover story is about the supposed socialist revolution being wrought by Barack Obama.