WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
HomeBlogApril / May 2012 May 1, 2012: Presidential Awards, Masters of War and Vanunu's Final Message to Facebook
May 1, 2012: Presidential Awards, Masters of War and Vanunu's Final Message to Facebook
May 1, 2012: Presidential Awards, Masters of War and Vanunu's Final Message to Facebook
As I was tweaking the following article around 5 AM EST, I received this message from Vanunu via Facebook just hours before he deactivated his Facebook Wall and
TWITTER Account.
"Hi. Today they sent first notice, they will
renew the restrictions.sent to my Lawyer. Now you are free,we can close the
Cause.either you do it or I will do it."
Vanunu was never active in the Cause and only accepted the role as a silent
Administrator so that he could write the final bulletin from Freedom.
Vanunu also
understood only if he accepted the role as the Primary Administrator of the Cause,
could he delete it, otherwise it would remain for people of conscience to
persist in the 3 Purposes until Vanunu is FREE:
1. Learn and Disseminate info
2. Petition your political reps to help FREE Vanunu
3. Request your Media report and report accurately!
Among the thirteen honorees to receive this
year’s Presidential Medal of Freedom, are Bob Dylan and Israeli President Shimon
Peres.
The award was enshrined to recognize individuals
"who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or
national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or
other significant public or private endeavours".
President Obama stated that although, “These
extraordinary honorees come from different backgrounds and different walks of
life, each of them has made a lasting contribution to the life of our nation. They've
challenged us, they've inspired us, and they've made the world a better place.
I look forward to recognizing them with this award.”
The Philadelphia Jewish Voice wrote, “An ardent advocate for Israel's security and for peace, Shimon Peres was
elected the ninth President of Israel in 2007. First elected to the
Knesset in 1959, he has served in a variety of positions throughout the Israeli
government, including in twelve Cabinets as Foreign Minister, Minister of
Defense, and Minister of Transport and Communications. Peres served as
Prime Minister from 1984-1986 and 1995-1996. Along with Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Peres won the 1994
Nobel Peace Prize for his work as Foreign Minister during the Middle East peace
talks that led to the Oslo Accords. Through his life and work, he has
strengthened the unbreakable bonds between Israel and the United States.” [1]
At the KENNEDY CENTER Honors Reception in 1997, President Bill Clinton said, "His voice and lyrics haven't always been easy on the ear, but
throughout his career Bob Dylan has never aimed to please. He's disturbed the
peace and discomforted the powerful. President Kennedy could easily have been
talking about Bob Dylan when he said that, 'if sometimes great artists
have been most critical of our society, it is because their concern for justice
makes them aware that our nation falls short of its highest potential.'"- [2]
Wishfully thinking, I imagine Bob dedicating "Masters Of
War" at the Medal of Freedom Awards reception:
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.
You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion'
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins.
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.-Bob Dylan
Within days of the announcement for 2009’s
Nobel Peace Prize, Israeli Nuclear Whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu declined the honor
in a letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo:
"I am asking the committee to remove my name from the nominations…I cannot
be part of a list of laureates that includes Simon Peres…Peres established and
developed the atomic weapon program in Dimona in Israel…Peres was the man who
ordered [my] kidnapping…he continues to oppose my freedom and release…WHAT I
WANT IS FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM….FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM I NEED NOW."
As Israel's Deputy Minister of Defense,
Shimon Peres met with President John Kennedy, at the White House.
Kennedy told Peres, "You know that we follow very closely the discovery of
any nuclear development in the region. This could create a very dangerous
situation. For this reason we monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell
me about this?"
Peres replied, "I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce
nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first."
In 2004, an Israeli media broadcast utilized Vanunu's photos from top secret locations inside of the Dimona and exposed what Peres denied:
“Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood
Tycoon Arnon Milchan,” is an unofficial biography about the Hollywood
producer, longtime weapons dealer, Israeli intelligence agent and close
friend of Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Milchan met with the authors, Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, answered
their questions, corrected their mistakes and quoted Peres as stating,
“I am the one who recruited him.”
In the 1970′s, Peres was Minister of Defense when he recruited
Milchan as an agent for Lakam, a ‘secret’ unit in Israel’s defense
ministry that purchased technological parts and materials for Israel’s
WMD program.
“Since its founding in the mid-1950′s, the agency was headed by
Benjamin Blumberg…Blumberg was Milchan’s friend, and used him (as well
as other Israeli businessmen) to set up straw companies around the
world, and to open secret bank accounts for financing the nuclear plant
in Dimona and other Israeli security industries.
“Lakam was in effect an intelligence unit dealing with technological
and scientific espionage, and served as a kind of ‘theft contractor’ for
the Israeli security industry…For years, Milchan operated in secret,
yet in the mid-1980′s U.S. customs uncovered an attempt to smuggle
‘switches’ – equipment that can be used both for medical purposes and
for nuclear weapons manufacture – by the California-based Milco company,
owned by Milchan…The FBI began an investigation into Milchan’s affairs,
yet he has never been charged.
“According to the book, right after the ‘switches’ fiasco Milchan
called his friend Peres, then prime minister, and asked for his help in
dealing with the Ronald Reagan administration. Milchan is quoted in the
book as saying he never received money for his services, and that
everything he did was for the state of Israel.” [3]
In “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s secret alliance with apartheid South
Africa” American academic author Sasha Polakow-Suransky exposed
President Shimon Peres’ ‘secret’ offer to sell nuclear warheads to the
South African Apartheid regime in 1975.
He reported that PW Botha, South Africa’s defense minister asked
Shimon Peres [who was then Israel’s defense minister] for nuclear
warheads.
Peres offered them “in three sizes” which are understood as conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.
Peres and Botha also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing
military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring
that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.
Polakow-Suransky also writes that Israeli officials “formally offered
to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in
its arsenal.”
On 31 March 1975, a meeting attended by South African military chief
of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong, wrote a “top secret” memo
laying out the benefits to South Africa in obtaining the Jericho
missiles if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.
On 4 June 1975, Peres and Botha met in Zurich and by then, the Jericho project had been renamed Chalet.
The top-secret minutes of that meeting recorded that: “Minister Botha
expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to
the correct payload being available…Minister Peres said the correct
payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his
appreciation.” [4]
Botha did not go ahead with the deal because of the cost and the fact
that final approval was dependent on Israel’s prime minister.
South Africa did build its own nuclear bombs and also provided much
of the yellow-cake uranium that Israel required to develop its nuclear
arsenal.
The documents also confirm that former South African naval commander,
Dieter Gerhardt admitted there was an agreement between Israel and
South Africa called Chalet that involved an offer by Israel to arm eight
Jericho missiles with “special warheads” understood as atomic bombs.
“Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha,
the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the
military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a
denial of its own existence: ‘It is hereby expressly agreed that the
very existence of this agreement…shall be secret and shall not be
disclosed by either party.’” [Ibid]
SEE PHOTO of that agreement signed by Shimon Peres and P W Botha of South Africa here:
Dr. Avner Cohen, is an Israeli-born philosopher, historical
researcher and a leading expert in Israel’s nuclear policy of deception,
which is spun as ‘Ambiguity.’
Cohen’s latest release is “The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb” and in a interview with Haaretz, Cohen spoke about a late-1969 meeting between Golda Meir and Nixon:
“The United States and most of the Western world agreed to accept
Israel’s special nuclear status. In other words, Israel did not join the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it received special status, and pressure
was not exerted on it with regard to this topic. Ambiguity is the
Israeli-American policy. Without the West’s agreement, there would be no
ambiguity.
“The bitter irony is that right now, ambiguity serves the interests
of Israel’s rival in the Middle East. Iran is creating its own version
of ambiguity: not the concealment of its project, but rather ambiguity
with regard to the distinction separating possession and non-possession
of nuclear weapons. It reiterates that it has no intention of building a
bomb, but that it has the right to enrich uranium, and even come close
to developing [nuclear] weapons – while still remaining true to the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is straddling the line, and in my
opinion, Iran wants to, and can, remain for some time with the status of
a state that might or might not have the bomb. Iran is a state of
ambiguity.” [5]
On 2 October 2009, The Washington Times
reported that Obama agreed to keep Israel’s nukes ‘secret’ and
reaffirmed a 4-decade-old understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a
nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections.”
Three officials spoke on the condition that they not be named because
they were discussing private conversations, but all said Obama pledged
to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May 2009.
Under the understanding, the U.S. has not pressured Israel to
disclose its nuclear weapons or to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, which would require Israel to give up its estimated several
hundred nuclear bombs.
This nuclear deception was reached at a summit between President
Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on 25 September 1969 with
“the United States passively accepting Israel’s nuclear weapons status
as long as Israel does not unveil publicly its capability or test a
weapon.” [Ibid]
During my 2005 interviews with Mordechai Vanunu he told me:
“Did you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from
building atomic weapons? In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion
to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside
proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear
reactor is only for peace.’
“Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters
demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection. The French
were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans
gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to
pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was
there, almost twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona descended seven
floors underground.
“In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would
get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai
and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that
Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on.
“When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that
two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators
would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground
elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they
never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them.
Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a
result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two
hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a
year.” [6]
On 15 January 2011, The New York Times reported:
“Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military
experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally
secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and
Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s
efforts to make a bomb of its own. Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the
experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to
Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich
uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet
computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out
roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though
not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.
“Though American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about
what goes on at Dimona, the operations there, as well as related efforts
in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues
suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to
sabotage the Iranian program…Officially, neither American nor Israeli
officials will even utter the name of the malicious computer program,
much less describe any role in designing it.
“How and when Israel obtained this kind of first-generation
centrifuge remains unclear, whether from Europe, or the Khan network, or
by other means. But nuclear experts agree that Dimona came to hold row
upon row of spinning centrifuges…another clue involves the United
States…an expert added that Israel worked in collaboration with the
United States in targeting Iran, but that Washington was eager for
‘plausible deniability.’” [7]
What remains undeniably true is that masters of war, build all the guns, build the death planes, build all the bombs, hide behind walls and desks but some of us see through their masks and deceptions.
"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel
Vanunu is about Freedom Now, not about wars with any one.
About saying the truth, and be true to myself.
All the rest wars, is between very stupid spies.
VMJC