I had a busy weekend on Press TV.
First, yesterday’s interview:
War against Muslims started even before 9/11
Press TV has interviewed Dr. Kevin Barrett, author of ‘Questioning the War on Terror’ about the orchestrated campaign against Islam since September 11th, 2001.
What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: The Virginia (military) course that was mentioned there in our report has also warned officers between the link of the Muslim Civil Liberties Advocacy organization, which is known as CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and other such groups, and Hamas, which is referred to as the enemy.
Why have these rights groups been targeted?
Dr. Barrett: Well, that’s a good question and another good question is why is Hamas considered America’s enemy? Hamas is not opposed to America; Hamas is opposed to Zionists in Israel.
So, this leads us to the real reason for this wave of Islamophobic hysteria that’s swept over the USA since 9/11 and that is, to sum it up – September 11th was a coup d’etat by extreme right wing forces in the US military particularly with dispensationalist Christian extremists at the top of the Air Force.
It was overseen by Cheney and the Israeli MOSSAD with its assets in the New York crime scene blew up the World trade Center… and deceptively blamed it on Muslims to launch a war against the religion of Islam.
Today, with these recent revelations, we are only beginning to learn – not we… people like me have know this for a long time, but others that have been in denial about the reality of what really happened on September 11th have just begun to learn how absolutely insane these extreme right wing forces in the USA are.
The good news is that they are being rooted out. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey has been one of many professional leaders in the US military who are unhappy about the September 11th coup d’etat and the War on Islam. And they are slowly, but surely rooting out these crazed Islamophobic forces.
And yes, these Islamophobes are absolutely committed to going after anybody that defends Islam in any way including those who are using the freedom of speech granted under the US Constitution to defend the religion of Islam.
Press TV: You’ve written a book on the War on Terror and I’d like to bring this issue up with you, our guest in Washington was suggesting there that this is a war on Islam that has been supported by three sides and this is not just a non-profit organization maybe in the US giving out an extreme view on Islam, but this is a policy that is entrenched in the government and is part of the policy.
Sometimes we even think when we see for instance reports of Qu’ran burning in Afghanistan Islam are attempts to test the nerves of Islam community. What do you think this war on terror is about and has it become, on the ground, a war on Islam?
Dr. Barrett: Actually, the guest in London was absolutely correct that this does go back to before 9/11. I think the war on terror actually began in 1979 at the Jerusalem Conference on International terrorism (JCIT). Netanyahu summoned George H W Bush and Scoop Jackson who was the leading Senate military budget guy and other big time movers and shakers in the US military establishment and policy makers to Jerusalem.
And at that Jerusalem conference on International Terrorism in 1979, before the Cold War was over, they laid out a plan to replace communism with terrorism as the next great enemy.
Now, terrorism should have been put in quotes because what was really going on was that Netanyahu and his people were setting Islam up to be the next great enemy of the West. Why is that? Because Islam – well, not so much the religion of Islam, but the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims is an obstacle to Greater Israel.
The Zionists have been stealing more and more land; butchering more and more people; pushing their ethnic cleansing harder and harder all the time. The hardcore Zionists want to take the whole of the Middle East for themselves. They want everything from the Nile to the Euphrates and they want to dominate the rest of it.
And in order to do that they basically have to go to war with Muslims because it so happens that the people who live in that part of the world are Muslims. So the war on terror is really a disguised war on Islam on behalf of radical Zionists led by Benyamin Netanyahu who started the whole thing with the Jerusalem conference on International terrorism back in 1979.
Press TV: Suggesting a nuclear attack to justify the destruction of the holy cities of Medina and Mecca we’ve heard, Dr. Barrett, it does sound completely radical and we never hear any official trying to justify it let alone repeat it, but nonetheless, how effective are these kinds of ideas in promoting extremist behaviour towards Muslims?
Dr. Barrett: Well, unfortunately they are effective within a small group of extremists who have become ensconced in certain parts of our military as well as some of the Zionists. There are plenty of liberal Zionists who are somewhat horrified by this kind of extreme rhetoric, but who let it pass and are willing to go along with it because it serves their interests.
Now, we need to step back here for a moment and talk about what would have happened here in the US if for instance we had heard that a US military teacher had drawn up these official documents saying that we might need to have a total war against Jews, on the order of let’s say Dachau and Auschwitz.
What would have happened? The American media would have gone bananas and the US army would have been torn apart and everybody involved would have been kicked out.
The US Constitution has a clause, which says that all religions must be treated equally – that’s our First Amendment. And so, here in America we need to wake up and put a stop to this kind of extreme Islamophobia that wouldn’t ever be accepted if it were directed against any other group.
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Saturday’s interview:
Saudis seek Nazi-style occupation of Bahrain: Analyst
Members of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, are expected to meet and discuss closer union among the six countries on May 14.
The member states claim the purpose of the unity is to counter regional threats.
In December 2011, Saudi King Abdullah called on the council members to move “beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity.”
Reports say Saudi Arabia will merge initially with Bahrain in order for the six-member Arab council to reach unity.
This comes while some members of the council have expressed concern about Saudi Arabia’s possible dominance over the other five countries if the council becomes unified.
A Qatari official, whose name was not mentioned in the news reports, said on Friday that Doha “sees this all as Saudi Arabia’s way of undermining the [Persian] Gulf States bilateral relations and forcing its own agenda.”
Meanwhile, many commentators say it is unlikely that such unification will occur within the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council.
The following is the transcript of Press TV’s interview with Kevin Barrett, author and Islamic studies expert, about the issue:
Press TV: The Bahraini information minister has said the union could start with two or three members of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council. On the other hand, we are already seeing rejections being voiced by some of those member states. Is this primarily about a Bahrain-Saudi Arabia union and a move by Saudi Arabia to get the support of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council on this?
Kevin Barrett: Yes, I think the Saudis are trying to keep the lid on protests in the region and they are trying to strengthen their position in Bahrain which they already invaded last year.
To call this a move on the European Union model is disingenuous. I think this is more along the lines of Hitler’s Anschluss, when Nazi Germany invaded Austria. The big difference is that the majority of people in Austria supported that. Whereas today, the vast majority of people in Bahrain will be horrified to be occupied by and digested into Wahhabi Saudi Arabia.
Normally, I think it would be a good thing for countries in the Islamic world to join together according to a sort of European Union model, perhaps have a united currency — gold Dinar being the obvious currency standard — but in this case we have seen the most regressive countries, the sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf that have been repressing their people for many decades up until very recently, half the people in Saudi Arabia were still illiterate and impoverished…There has been some improvement, but this is not a regime that has the welfare of it own people in mind. This is a regime that is playing ball with the world’s biggest imperialist financial powers to privilege the region of its oil wealth and to put that money into the petro-dollar.
Press TV: We were speaking to a Bahraini human rights campaigner earlier and he said it is not only Saudi Arabia. Even Saudi Arabia, because of the crisis that it is facing inside the country itself, it is on shaky grounds itself and these are orders that Saudi Arabia is getting from the United States and these cannot happen without the US consent. What is your view on that?
Kevin Barrett: I am sure that is correct. The Saudi leadership has been with the US leadership since [former US president] Franklin Roosevelt signed a pact with the king of Saudi Arabia in 1945 and another key moment in this very close relationships was in 1970 when the US and Saudis arranged to take the US dollar off the gold standard and inaugurate the petro-dollar backed by Saudi oil sales.
Since then, revenue from the Saudi oil has been propping up the dominance of the petro-dollars in world trade. So, these two countries are very closely connected and from a human rights perspective, it is a shame. The United States is always talking about democracy and human rights and yet Saudi Arabia is one of the worst countries on earth for that. It is a terrible example for the Muslim world and yet we have the Americans propping up this cruel dictatorship and encouraging it to invade neighboring Bahrain, where they have an Arab Spring mass movement happening.
The American people, I think if they knew what was going on there, I hope would stand up and stop supporting this kind of oppression. The US needs to allow the countries of the Persian Gulf and the rest of the world a lot more independence. The US has been running an empire since the World War II and it is time for the US to let go of this empire and start dealing with the people of the other countries in the world fairly and once we do that the Arab Spring will reach to the Persian Gulf.
Press TV: The US has for decades been urging the Persian Gulf Arab states to agree to set up, for instance, a shared missile shield and this is seen as a step towards a joint arms pact that would require basing radar system in one country missiles in another country. But does the fact that this has not happened up until now show that there is strong end to the Arab feud do you think and is this latest proposal going to intensify that feuding between these states?
Kevin Barrett: I think the question pretty well answered itself correctly. The US is pushing for this kind of so-called cooperation, meaning Saudi dominance, because basically these countries have not been very effective at setting up powerful modern societies. So, basically they have been colonial outposts of the US empire which has dominated these countries, but they continue to squabble. I would not be surprised if this proposal does not go very far.
Certainly, the people of Bahrain are not likely to welcome it and I think they will keep their Arab Spring protest going and I assume that the world will not look happily upon Saudi Arabia invading a neighbouring country and incorporating it to its own country.
This is what [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hossein tried to do it to Kuwait and the world was not terribly happy about it. I think a similar lack of success will probably be met here as well.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Crowned King of the United States http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/benjamin-netanyahu-crowned-king-of-the-united-states/14903