by Lew Rockwell, Lew Rockwell:
Retired American Marine Scott Ritter is not intimidated, and he does not blame the FBI agents themselves. He reports that they were careful and well-behaved as they searched and raided his cars and home for electronic devices and records on Wednesday. Ritter, a former UN Nuclear Weapons Inspector and Marine, spoke out early about neocon and Bush Administration lies regarding WMD in Iraq, circa 2002. He has few admirers inside the deep state, and his continued activism for common sense and peace in US foreign policy has enraged them.
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His experience, honesty and legitimacy are a triple threat to any state that manages its foreign policy ahistorically, on the basis of constant lies and spin, and without electoral legitimacy. I could be speaking of Ukraine’s Zelensky, long past his use-by date with a state policy of hunting down and killing political enemies, or any number of other countries. I’m talking instead about the far more dangerous, and disturbingly apoplectic, empire of Washington, DC.
We should take seriously what the FBI does and does not do. The US government has many agencies of terror and force, from Homeland Security, to DEA and ATF, to lesser law enforcement agencies, the vast internecine network of intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense itself. The FBI – as a domestic and international player – serves as a valuable bellwether for the average citizen, a sampler of the extensive cohort of coercive federal departments. It works for the deep state, is not independent of that state, and it is relatively disciplined, in that it reliably obeys the state. It is an indicator of the mood of the state, and it’s blinking red.
Scott has been a target of the US war machine and the back room boys who run the country for decades. A few months ago, US agents seized his passport just before he got on a plane from New York to Istanbul on his way to the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. This action, and the FBI raid this week, seem to be connected to Ritter’s excellent perspectives and communications regarding the Washington’s neocon Russia policy, and the costly and tragic US/NATO misadventure in Ukraine.
But Scott has also been extraordinarily accurate and open in his description of Israel as a terrorist state. His factual observations and analysis in this arena carry weight – and cannot be easily discounted using the “everyone slur” of anti-Semitism.
US Senators and Congressmen, and all political appointees are well-educated by their handlers and donors as to what can and cannot be said, and done, regarding Israel. AIPAC and other Israel uber alles organizations have been very successful in owning and controlling both main parties, as well as most third party candidates. They run the campaigns of both main political parties, and they publicly choose American political leadership. AIPAC is boasting on X now about their multi-million primary victories, and money well spent to ensure both houses of Congress walk the line.
Israel has not “suddenly” or unexpectedly become a terrorist state. It was that from the beginning, and most Israelis are very proud of that history. But rather than a mythology of independence, Israel is instead dependent on those around the world who support, or had supported, its Zionist government in word and deed. That level of support is changing. For almost 70 years, European colonialism has been rejected and vilified around the world. In 1992, nearly 70% of white voters – that is to say South African voters at that time – voted to end apartheid. The global shift away from ideas of racial and religious separatism, away from land-stealing colonial expansionism has caused Israel – and her supporters and enablers in the US – to find themselves in a harsh spotlight.
It is Israel’s obvious hypocrisy that drives campus demonstrations against apartheid and mass civilian murder in Gaza. It is the US government’s obvious hypocrisy that makes US State Department and National Security Council spokespersons the absolute jokes that they are – not believed, nor respected by domestic or international audiences.
Most of those who oppose what Israel has done, and is doing in Gaza – that is to say, those who oppose the slaughter and removal of two million mostly unarmed people, along with the destruction of every school, university, hospital, factory, church and mosque, and building they ever built, to prepare for an Israeli taking of Gaza, its beaches and its gas fields – do so largely emotionally, without a deep knowledge of Israel’s history.
