"Check It Out" for Wednesday, March 11th
Christopher Ketcham at AlterNet writes about the taboo surrounding Israel's spying efforts in the US.
"Scratch a counterintelligence officer in the U.S. government and they'll tell you that Israel is not a friend to the United States.
"This is because Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks targeting the U.S.. The fact of Israeli penetration into the country is not a subject oft-discussed in the media or in the circles of governance, due to the extreme sensitivity of the U.S.-Israel relationship coupled with the burden of the Israel lobby, which punishes legislators who dare to criticize the Jewish state.
"Israel's spying on the U.S., however, is a matter of public record, and neither conspiracy nor theory is needed to present the evidence. When the FBI produces its annual report to Congress concerning "Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage," Israel and its intelligence services often feature prominently as a threat second only to China. In 2005 the FBI noted, for example, that Israel maintains "an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States."
"Moles have burrowed on Israel’s behalf throughout the U.S. intelligence services. Perhaps most infamous was the case of Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish-American employed as a civilian analyst with the U.S. Navy who purloined an estimated 800,000 code-word protected documents from inside the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and numerous other U.S. agencies. While Pollard was sentenced to life in prison, counterintelligence investigators at the FBI suspected he was linked to a mole far higher in the food chain, ensconced somewhere in the DIA, but this suspected Israeli operative, nicknamed "Mr. X," was never found.
" 'Whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration, you don’t bad-mouth Israel if you want to get ahead,' says former CIA counterterrorism officer Philip Giraldi. 'Most of the people in the agency were very concerned about Israeli espionage and Israeli actions against U.S. interests. Everybody was aware of it. Everybody hated it. But they wouldn’t get promoted if they spoke out. Israel has a privileged position and that’s the way things are. It’s crazy. And everybody knows it’s crazy.' "
At Mother Jones, Bruce Falconer and Daniel Schulman write about infamous Blackwater's own private Africa.
"...representatives from some of the world's best-known private security and military contracting firms, gathered to explore their prospects in the industry's next frontier: Africa.
[At] "....the annual summit of the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA ), a trade group. Industry reps had traveled from as far as Dubai and Malta to discuss this year's topic—the Pentagon's newly established US Africa Command, or AFRICOM--- and to browse booths hawking everything from armored vehicles to high-risk insurance.
"Africa is no stranger to armed security contractors; the industry in its modern incarnation was born when mercenary firms like Executive Outcomes and Sandline International fought for embattled African governments during the 1990s, allegedly in exchange for diamond and oil concessions.. Since then, security contractors have gained broader acceptance. But serious concerns remain about the role they might play in their old stomping grounds.
"Reliance on contractors, though, could add to the controversy already engulfing AFRICOM , especially the fears that the military's forays into development work could blur the line between aid workers and soldiers or hired guns."
Michael Hiltzik at the LATimes writes about the only skin-deep commitment by insurers to health care reform:
"In December, the industry's trade group, AHIP (for America's Health Insurance Plans) revealed that it had experienced an epiphany and decided for the first time to support the principle of universal healthcare -- insuring everyone in America, regardless of health condition.
"What I found by reading AHIP’s 16-page policy brochure was that its position hadn't changed at all. Its version of "reform" comprises the same wish list that the industry has been pushing for decades.
"Briefly, the industry wants the government to assume the cost of treating the sickest, and therefore most expensive, Americans. It wants the government to clamp down hard on doctors' and hospitals' fees. And it wants permission to offer stripped-down, low-benefit policies freed from pesky state regulations limiting their premiums.
"As for universal coverage, which is the goal of many reformers (if not yet the Obama administration), the industry will accept a government mandate to take on all customers, as long as all Americans are required by law to buy coverage.
"The insurers think government intervention is fine if it applies to customers they don't want. The way they put it in their reform plan is that we need a system that "spreads costs for high-risk individuals across a broader base" -- the base consisting of all taxpayers, that is.
Don North, a vetern war correspondent writes at Consortium News about the relationship of the US and El Salvador:
"More than a quarter century ago, the U.S. government under Ronald Reagan drew a Cold War line in El Salvador and made the defeat of the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (the FMLN) a major foreign policy goal.
"Over the next decade, El Salvador became synonymous with death squads and massacres, leaving some 75,000 dead, with the vast majority of the killings blamed on the security forces armed and supported by Washington. Finally in 1992, a U.N.-brokered truce ended the slaughter and left the FMLN on the outside of power looking in.
"However, that may soon change.. In a presidential election scheduled for March 15, the FMLN's candidate, 49-year-old Mauricio Funes, a charismatic television journalist long on eloquent speeches and short on legislative experience, is the odds-on favorite to win.
In the latest polls, Funes is leading Rodrigo Avila, the candidate of the right-wing National Republican Alliance (ARENA), by seven points. If Funes is successful, the FMLN will have won control of the government through the ballot box after failing to do so on the battlefield.
"In the 1980s, El Salvador was the battleground for one of the largest American interventions in the Cold War. Washington sent over $6 billion to aid a Salvadoran government whose army and death squads were responsible for a wide range of atrocities - from the murder of priests and nuns to the elimination of entire villages in areas sympathetic to the FMLN.
"Whichever party wins the presidency in El Salvador on March 15, there are high hopes among Americans who follow Latin American politics that the Obama administration will usher in a new era of understanding for the southern neighbors.
"These observers think this attitude must include respect for democratic results and recognition of the damage caused by U.S. policies since President James Monroe declared the "Monroe Doctrine" in 1823, essentially making Latin America Washington's "backyard."
"As analyst Mark Engler recently wrote: 'El Salvador provides a clear example of a country in which both military and economic policies promoted by Washington under previous administrations have had disastrous results. And it now offers an opportunity for the U.S. to express a new understanding of its national interest.' "
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