The announcement last week by the United States of the largest military aid package in its history – to Israel – was a win for both sides. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast that his lobbying had boosted aid from $3.1 billion a year to $3.8bn – a 22 per cent increase – for a decade starting in 2019. Mr Netanyahu has presented this as a rebuff to those who accuse him of jeopardising Israeli security interests with his government’s repeated affronts to the White House. In the past weeks alone, defence minister Avigdor Lieberman has compared last year’s nuclear deal between Washington and Iran with the 1938 Munich pact, which bolstered Hitler; and Mr Netanyahu has implied that US opposition to settlement expansion is the same as support for the “ethnic cleansing” of Jews. American president Barack Obama, meanwhile, hopes to stifle his own critics who insinuate that he is anti-Israel. The deal should serve as a fillip too for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic party’s candidate to succeed Mr Obama in November’s election. In reality, however, the Obama administration has quietly punished Mr Netanyahu for his misbehaviour. Israeli expectations of a $4.5bn-a-year deal were whittled down after Mr Netanyahu stalled negotiations last year as he sought to recruit Congress to his battle against the Iran deal. In fact, Israel already receives roughly $3.8bn – if Congress’s assistance on developing missile defence programmes is factored in. Notably, Israel has been forced to promise not to approach Congress for extra funds. The deal takes into account neither inflation nor the dollar’s depreciation against the shekel. A bigger blow still is the White House’s demand to phase out a special exemption that allowed Israel to spend nearly 40 per cent of aid locally on weapon and fuel purchases. Israel will soon have to buy all its armaments from the US, ending what amounted to a subsidy to its own arms industry. Nonetheless, Washington’s renewed military largesse – in the face of almost continual insults – inevitably fuels claims that the Israeli tail is wagging the US dog. Even The New York Times has described the aid package as “too big”. Since the 1973 war, Israel has received at least $100bn in military aid, with more assistance hidden from view. Back in the 1970s, Washington paid half of Israel’s military budget. Today it still foots a fifth of the bill, despite Israel’s economic success. But the US expects a return on its massive investment. As the late Israeli politician-general Ariel Sharon once observed, ­Israel has been a US “aircraft carrier” in the Middle East, acting as the regional bully and carrying out operations that benefit Washington. Almost no one blames the US for Israeli attacks that wiped out Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear programmes. A nuclear-armed Iraq or Syria would have deterred later US-backed moves at regime overthrow, as well as countering the strategic advantage Israel derives from its own nuclear arsenal. In addition, Israel’s US-sponsored military prowess is a triple boon to the US weapons industry, the country’s most powerful lobby. Public funds are siphoned off to let Israel buy goodies from American arms makers. That, in turn, serves as a shop window for other customers and spurs an endless and lucrative game of catch-up in the rest of the Middle East. The first F-35 fighter jets to arrive in Israel in December – their various components produced in 46 US states – will increase the clamour for the cutting-edge warplane. Israel is also a “front-line laboratory”, as former Israeli army negotiator Eival Gilady admitted at the weekend, that develops and field-tests new technology Washington can later use itself. The US is planning to buy back the missile interception system Iron Dome – which neutralises battlefield threats of retaliation – it largely paid for. Israel works closely too with the US in developing cyber­warfare, such as the Stuxnet worm that damaged Iran’s civilian nuclear programme. But the clearest message from Israel’s new aid package is one delivered to the Palestinians: Washington sees no pressing strategic interest in ending the occupation. It stood up to Mr Netanyahu over the Iran deal but will not risk a damaging clash over Palestinian statehood. Some believe that Mr Obama signed the aid package to win the credibility necessary to overcome his domestic Israel lobby and pull a rabbit from the hat: an initiative, unveiled shortly before he leaves office, that corners Mr Netanyahu into making peace. Hopes have been raised by an expected meeting at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday. But their first talks in 10 months are planned only to demonstrate unity to confound critics of the aid deal. If Mr Obama really wanted to pressure Mr Netanyahu, he would have used the aid agreement as leverage. Now Mr Netanyahu need not fear US financial retaliation, even as he intensifies effective annexation of the West Bank. Mr Netanyahu has drawn the right lesson from the aid deal – he can act against the Palestinians with continuing US impunity. - See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-09-19/palestinians-lose-in-us-military-aid-deal-with-israel/#sthash.fL4Eq28N.dpuf Colombia: The Peace Farce, If There Ever Was One By Peter Koenig



October 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Just as this article was ready to go to print, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia. This is what the Official website of the Nobel Prize reports: “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220 000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people.” The announcement was made on Friday 7 October, 11:00 a.m., well after the rejection of the gratuitous plebiscite by less than 0.5% of less than 40% of eligible voters, and after President Santos had already decided and declared to extend the ceasefire to 31 October 2016 until which date a renegotiated arrangement had to be found with the FARC ‘rebels’ – a virtually impossible task. – This is so reminiscent of another Peace prize award, namely the one to President Obama in 2009, in the hope that he would bring Peace to the world. At that time the US of A was involved in two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, almost 8 years later Obama boasts of being involved in seven wars around the globe. Bravo! For the Nobel Committee. Does this award mean that indeed Mr. Santos may disregard the highly questionable referendum result in the name of Peace, as was suggested by the Nobel Committee, or will he go back to war on a new page and under new premises, =i.e. with a largely disarmed FARC in the name of continuous fear, conflict and killing in his country? We will soon see where his alliances are, with the People of Colombia – or with his North American Masters of Chaos and Destruction. Colombia apparently voted against Peace with a margin of less than 0.5%, to be exact 0.43%, with a voter participation of only 40%. Can you imagine! This looks, first, like a boycott, as many people didn’t believe in the process and didn’t believe that the results would be adhered to; and, second, it smells of fraud. For example, with most of the ballots counted, the Choco region which suffered heavily from the war, voted with 80% yes. An overwhelming ‘yes’ also came from the Caribbean areas. Who was counting? All pre-plebiscite opinion polls indicated an overwhelming ‘yes’ for Peace. Exit polls indicated a comfortable win for Peace. Why is nobody asking for a recount? Or maybe they do, but we don’t hear about it. Why could that be? – Maybe because Peace was never on the Colombian cum US Governments agenda. It was just a manipulation of the public mind; planting an illusion, as any hope for Peace these days, any Peace, anywhere in the world, is an illusion. But an illusion deviates people’s attention from reality. That was certainly achieved. The 4-year Peace process, initiated by President Santos (image left) started on 19 November 2012 and ended on 24 August, 2016. It was facilitated and formally sponsored by Norway and Cuba. Talks were held in Havana and co-sponsored by Venezuela and Chile. The deal was signed in Havana with big fanfare on 26 September 2016. For many, Santos’ initiative to have the Peace Treaty ratified by a referendum, came as a surprise. In any case, the outcome of the plebiscite is not legally binding. Under the circumstances and with such a small margin, even if it was not manipulated, any healthy and peace loving government would dismiss the narrow outcome and adhere to and promote the implementation of the Peace Agreement. During 52 years the 7,000 to 10,000 strong leftist FARC militia fought in defense of the rural poor against an elite of the rich, mostly urban dweller and latifundios, against government forces with support of the US military stationed in Colombia. The official death toll of 200,000 to 300,000 may in reality be at least double that number, not mentioning the millions of uprooted people who had to flee and lost their homes and land. Reaching a Peace deal would be a welcome and well-deserved achievement. Indeed, the signature event was celebrated throughout Latin America and the world (FARC-EP stands for Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo / Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – The People’s Army). Instead of following the overwhelming people’s desire for Peace – I repeat, after 52 years! of bloody war – President Santos announced last Tuesday to extend the ceasefire until 31 October 2016, saying he hoped that renegotiations with FARC would lead to ‘arrangements’ to find a solution to this conflict. Wasn’t the solution already found when the Peace Agreement was signed on 26 September? Immediately after the plebiscite’s ‘rejection’ light (very light), Santos met with his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe , who campaigned against the Agreement. That in itself is strange. Two Presidents from the same party, friends, and on the payroll of the same masters, the CIA, were leading two different campaigns. While Juan Manuel Santos, the current President, was waving the Peace flag, Uribe drove a fear-mongering campaign especially focusing on the general amnesty concession that FARC got out of the deal. Before Uribe became President in 2002, he formed the ‘Colombia First’ movement. His growing so-called independent party grew even stronger with political elitists and plutocrats to bring him to a second term in 2006. This new coalition of right-wing parties, called the ‘Urbistas’, eventually was the platform on which Juan Manuel Santos was elected in 2010. The current government has amassed a right-wing alliance of conservatives and liberals that at one point controlled 94% of Congress. In the meantime, Alvaro Uribe formed another right-wing Centro-Democratic party. Under two different flags but the same ideology – and less obvious – they control now Congress as a political “Cartel”, as Harvard academic James Robinson, puts it, to prevent any other political force to rise and challenge the exclusive power of the Right – which, needless to say, works in close collaboration with Washington’s interests. It is therefore all the stranger that the two presidential buddies work for different outcomes of the plebiscite. It looks more like a maneuver to deviate and confuse public opinion. Can you imagine, that the US of A, with seven military bases – and more to come – will want Peace? Colombia is THE strategic corner of Latin America, hub of multibillion dollar drug trade, adjacent to two non-compliant nation states Venezuela and Ecuador, from where they plan to reconquer the sub-continent, their ‘Backyard’, as Obama put it so undiplomatically insulting, yet adroitly, as it reflects the mindset of Washington and its citizenry. In the fall of 2009, US and Colombian officials signed an agreement, granting the US armed forces access to seven Colombian military bases for ten years. These are two quotes from a US Air Force document about the bases: “Opportunity for Full Spectrum Operations throughout South America, against threats not only from drug trade, but also from ‘anti-US governments’ in the region.” “The agreement operates from the same (failed) mindset that has given rise to the School of the Americas (SOA / WHINSEC). The purpose of the bases is to ensure US control of the region through military means.” Why would they want Peace now, when chaos and war helps to divide and conquer? But then why carry the Peace process all the way to signature, just to be undone by a phony referendum? – It’s part of propaganda, brainwashing and numbing peoples’ minds. The four years of ‘negotiations’ which made the world believe that Peace was a seriously option, offered the government also a state of semi-ceasefire, a time during which they could regroup, strategize and especially disarm the FARC rebels, defenders of the poor rural workers and of democracy. The FARC in good fate participated in this gambit. The masters of deception once more succeeded with the help of Washington, the Pentagon and the CIA. What is amazing though, is that Latin America, the world, including the four sponsors and co-sponsors, are rather silent about the outcome of the referendum that came out of the blue. It must be the sense of ‘democracy’ that lays behind the referendum. It deserves support, no matter how narrow the margin and how obvious the manipulation of results. How naïve! – The referendum was not needed, since during the four years of ‘negotiations’ the crucial points of discussion and eventually of agreement, were vetted sufficiently with Congress to not pose a problem for ratification; and this especially since the result of the plebiscite has by Colombia’s Constitution no legal binding. The FARC now largely disarmed, will give the government a clear advantage, hoping to eradicate a weakened movement of rebellion for justice. Remember, this is a lesson practiced many times by the empire (and passed on to its vassals), not last in Iraq, when first the country was weakened with the so called Gulf War, 1990-1991, and the ensuing ten years of murderous sanctions imposed by the US and its ‘coalition of the willing’ (and spineless), including the most horrendous bombing campaigns under Clinton – of which the mainstream media reported next to nothing – disabling much of the Iraqi armed forces. Hence, the 2003 totally illegal Bush-Blair Shock and Awe campaign could inflict maximum damage and chaos on one of the most progressive Middle Eastern countries. The NO PEACE dictum in Colombia follows a similar pattern. Peter Koenig is an economist, and water resources and environmental specialist. He has worked for over 30 years with the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Swiss Development Cooperation, in Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, East and South East Asia and Latin America. Peter is also a geopolitical analyst for Global Research, Information Clearing House, RT, PressTV, Sputnik, TeleSUR and The 4th Media, China. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.