Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, "Setting the Trap on Iran:"
The next step in this pressure campaign is the sanctions regime being crafted by Stuart Levey, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence. This will have several interlocking components: The showpiece will be a new U.N. Security Council resolution to add sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliated companies, along with other Iranian firms involved in manufacturing, transporting and financing weapons shipments and other illicit activities. But that's just the beginning.
Now here is Levey, speaking before an AIPAC policy conference in 2005, and doing some Israel sign-language:
To start, allow me to first introduce my office. I am the Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial and Intelligence, or "TFI." TFI is a relatively new office. It was created in 2004 to oversee the Treasury Department's enforcement and intelligence functions aimed at stopping illicit money flows to terrorists and other criminals....
It is a real pleasure to be speaking with you today. I have been an admirer of the great work this organization does since my days on the one-year program at Hebrew University in 1983 and 1984. I want to commend you for the important work that you are doing to promote strong ties between Israel and the United States and to advocate for a lasting peace in the Middle East....
We all remember the Munich Olympics and Leon Klinghoffer and Pan Am 103 and Entebbe and Maalot and so many more. We all knew all along that terrorist groups could not be reasoned with or negotiated with, and that they sought nothing but destruction. As President Bush articulated in his address to you last year, "[Terrorists] kill without mercy. They kill without shame. And they count their victories in the death of the innocent."
You can imagine, then, how meaningful it is for me to play a role in this Administration's efforts to combat terrorism. I start off every morning reading the daily intelligence book, and then spend my day working to undercut the supply-lines of terrorist groups. It is, quite honestly, exhilarating. I often feel like the baseball players I used to watch growing up who, when asked about salary issues, would say "Are you kidding?? I get paid to do something that I love. I would do this for free."...
Then in the New York Times a year or so back, we had "Stuart Levey's War."
“Stuart Levey’s war is like ‘Charlie Wilson’s War,’ ” a U.S. official said over coffee in the State Department cafeteria, referring to a former Texas congressman’s campaign to change policy on Afghanistan, a saga made into a movie. “It’s the most direct and aggressive stuff we’ve got going. It delivers.”
Is it really that surprising that Levey hangs on from Bush into Obama? Both the New York Times and the Washington Post must have an unwritten policy in which identifying any member of the administration or a Washington think tank with the pro-Israel forces is not allowed. Ignatius is not an ignorant reporter so his failure to identify Levey for what he is, an openly pro-Israel supporter serving in a critical position in the US government, must have some other reason.
Oh and here is Levey's number two, David Cohen, at a recent appearance at Israel lobby group Washington Institute for Near East Policy. According to his WINEP intro, "David Cohen is the assistant treasury secretary for terrorist financing. In this role, he is responsible for formulating and coordinating the Treasury Department's counterterrorism financing and anti-money-laundering efforts."
Before I begin, I want to offer my special thanks to Matt Levitt and Mike Jacobson [senior fellows at WINEP] for facilitating this event. As many of you know, Matt and Mike each spent several years doing outstanding work in Treasury’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. We at Treasury remain grateful for their service, and the Washington Institute has been fortunate to benefit these past few years from their insightful and innovative scholarship on critical issues relating to terrorismand terrorist financing.
As President Bush articulated in his address to you last year, “[Terrorists] kill without mercy. They kill without shame. And they count their victories in the death of the innocent.”
You know your on the wrong side of history when your quoting Bush Jr…
The flag of Iran waves next to the flag of the United States in front of my house.
I urge more and more of us to take some courageous steps to say, I am an American and I will no longer tolerate my country being run by persons who do not have AMERICAN interests as their first priority.
zionists have pushed too far.
Perhaps many of you are like me, come full circle: I adored Jews, loved and respected them — yes, “Jews,” as a category, a prejudice, a ‘one characteristic applies to all’ philo-semite.
Then I started to learn about neoconservatism and zionism.
I believe zionism, a political movement, is harmful for the world, harmful for Palestinians, harmful for Jews.
I also believe that zionist/neoconservative forces have heavily propagandized the people of the United STates. Propaganda works by creating a mob mentality — the hasbara manual discusses the ‘bandwagon effect’, how it appeals to emotion, and how it works as a shortcut to gather followers.
Mobs are just as indiscriminate in their fury when they realize they’ve been exploited; mobs are not likely to discriminate between our cherished Mooser and vile pos s like Stuart Levey and Dennis Ross.
Americans have got to start speaking out in strong and courageous voice for the sake of preserving American values, for the sake of protecting American Jews — and in that order: I do worry about you and yours, Mooser, but truth to tell, my first concern is for my children’s future. They don’t have an Israel to run away to when that mob gets vicious.
In short, shit from Jews has to stop. History suggests that Jewish overreach in other nations has ended badly for Jews but even more badly for the nation where they have gained outsized influence. The United States faces the profound challenge of attempting to deal with the “Jewish problem” in a different way. I’m not convinced that Americans can do this any differently from the way ordinary German people, who had lived and worked with Jews for generations, ultimately were swept up in rage that targeted Jews.
This time will be different in this way: the record is clear and it is in the hands of thousands, millions: millions of ordinary Americans are accumulating information and documents showing how Jews — zionists– have abused American institutions, have held the American public in disdain, have had a hand causing the anger that comes their way; the causal factors cannot be censored out of mind. (I am just now listening to Deb Lipstadt canonize herself and celebrate her success in censoring David Irving as well as C Span). Lipstadt had/has millions of dollars and backers behind her; maybe those millions will protect her from the mob that she has outraged and abused.
You brought it on yourself, Rollo.
If this is not an anti-semitic diatribe, I don’t know what is.
“I’m not convinced that Americans can do this any differently from the way ordinary German people, who had lived and worked with Jews for generations, ultimately were swept up in rage that targeted Jews.”
Not only is Psycho saying that the German anger against the Jews was justified, he thinks the only solution is sending American Jews to concentration camps!
Slowly but surely, what the BDS movement is all about comes to light.
No, eee, what comes to light is Psycho’s frustration. You opportunistically leap to brand a movement on the basis of one person’s comment, a person who may not be involved in the movement at all.
btw, I am pleased to see that you have abandoned your trollish ways and are now participating properly on the site, engaging the actual issues. Sane and reasonable zionist voices are rare here. I hope you can come to take this role.
Would be nice if the treasury actually worked for the citizens of the United States, huh.
It would be nice if the US Congress worked for the citizens of the US instead of for B Netanyahu
RE: “Treasury officials are sure cozy with Israel lobby” – Blankfort & Weiss
SEE – From Irgun to AIPAC: Israel Lobby’s US Treasury Follies Hurt, by Grant F. Smith, 09/16/08
…AIPAC and its associated think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), were instrumental in lobbying the president for the creation of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence unit early in 2004. The Israel lobby also vetted Stuart Levey who President Bush approved to lead the new unit. TFI claims to be “safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats.” However its actions—and more important, inactions—reveal it to be a sharp-edged tool forged principally to serve the Israel lobby.
TFI has taken no actions to undercut one nexus of money laundering in the Middle East unveiled in 2005 by Israeli prosecutor Talia Sasson and exposed by USA Today. Even mainstream print outlets such as Reuters continue to wonder aloud why US tax exemptions are offered for illegal overseas activities. Although Stuart Levey has made multiple official visits to Jerusalem to liaise with Israeli government officials, when formally asked under a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal how TFI was tackling the reported $50-$60 billion laundered from the US through Israel and into illegal West Bank settlements, TFI politely demurred. TFI claims that Levey’s US-taxpayer-funded missions to Israel must be kept secret from the American public in order to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, which ironically is an anti-money-laundering law…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to dissidentvoice.org
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Government employees (including family members) and decision makers who have dual citizenship with other countries should not be in US policy making positions concerning the country or region of their other citizenship. Israeli citizens have no more business making US policy about Israel or the Middle East than Russian citizens should be making US policy about the old USSR or Europe.
This kind of brazen corruption is facilitated by the complete failure of our security clearance background check system.
American Zionists have a right to compete for and be appointed to any government position for which they are qualified. What they do not have a right to, nor does anyone else, is automatic approval for a security clearance when the position they are applying for requires one.
Note that I am not just talking about policy positions, e.g. Dennis Ross and some of these treasury guys. Pollard didn’t work in policy.
It is the job of DSS and related agencies to identify conflicts of interest and recommend disapproval for American Zionists with ties to either Israeli or American-Israeli organizations. This is not being done.
Also, management of the hiring agency should be allowed no say or influence in the decision. ‘Sponsorship’ is how most neocons and Israel-firsters get into the system in the first place. Recall that Paul Wolfowitz ‘sponsored’ Dennis Ross. I bet if one looks at the employment history of these AIPAC-affiliated Treasury folks, one would see a similar pattern. Ah, what a difference AIPAC’s registration as a foreign agent would make.
Foreign Agents Registration Act
back in the 1950s when the Israel lobby was first requested to register as a foreign lobby, DONALD RUMSFELD wrote a letter to FARA explaining why A Kenan and the Israel lobbyists were entitled to exemption from this requirement with which every other foreign national was expected to comply.
What were the reasons he cited?
I don’t time right this second to look. Does FARA legislation even have provision for exceptions, e.g. Presidential waivers? Or was Rumsfeld talking about an informal exemption, i.e. lets overlook more Israel Lobby criminality?
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