Russia and Iran are the Real Enemies

By: Cliff Kincaid

I spent 40 years as a media critic, most of it with Accuracy in Media (AIM), but I have given up monitoring and reviewing the performance of what passes for the liberal media. These people are mostly paid corporate liars. They are lazy, too. I have turned a lot of my attention to the conservative media, especially Fox News, which provides a stream of constant laughs. I watch it, hoping for some nuggets of real information,

But consider the story, “Absence of House Speaker Could Have Serious Impact on US handling of terror attacks in Israel.”

This laughable story by Chad Pergram and Kyle Morris is a continuation of the channel’s Jihad against the eight Republicans in the House who voted to evict Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair.

It was totally made up to make a bogus point. Here is how it started out: “The absence of a House speaker amid the crisis in the Middle East, as Israel works to defend itself from an unprecedented attack by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists, has raised significant concerns among national security circles.”

Who are these circles? Later, we learn about concern coming from “one House Republican who asked to remain anonymous.”

My bet is that it is a McCarthy backer.

The story uses formulations like “Fox is told” and “a source told Fox News.”

Here is another paragraph from this phony story: “Fox has also heard from multiple lawmakers and congressional sources warning of potential problems for the U.S. should there be a need to respond to the Middle East situation or another foreign policy crisis.” Eventually, somebody in Britain is quoted as saying there was “chaos” in the House of Representatives.

Before that, we are told, “Last week, foreign policy experts told Fox News Digital that the ensuing chaos that came as a result of McCarthy’s removal could lead U.S. adversaries to take advantage of the crippling state of Congress on a number of fronts.”

This is pure propaganda.

A “crippling state of Congress.” Says who? The “crippling state” of American government is in the White House, which conducts foreign policy and whose appeasement policies have produced wars in Europe and now the Middle East.

We need to understand that what is really happening is a Russian-inspired war, using Iran and its proxy, Hamas.

Instead of going into this, Fox host Griff Jenkins interviewed Rep. Tim Burchett on the air and confronted him with bogus assertions about how the House was supposedly paralyzed by the lack of a Speaker of the House. Burchett, one of the eight voting against McCarthy, calmly rebutted each claim, noting that the Senate wasn’t in session and that Israel has plenty of U.S. support anyway.

“That is not even in the realm of reality,” Burchett said, countering the notion that Congress would somehow need to pass emergency legislation to deal with the Middle East and that the lack of a full-time Speaker was a problem.

He said, “You honestly think we’re going to run down to Washington this weekend and pass legislation to take care of something in Israel?”

“We’ve already funded Israel,” he said.

The issue, Burchett said, was Biden’s $6 billion pay-off to Iran, the sponsor of Hamas.

The other issue is that Iran is sponsored by Russia, the same country waging war on Ukraine.

Perhaps the Hamas war on Israel will wake up Burchett and his colleagues to the reality of what is happening in Ukraine every day, with constant attacks from Russian weapons and Iranian-made drones.

We need to be reminded of some basic facts.

On October 23, 1983, Russia-backed Iran ordered and carried out the suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing 241 American military personnel. An Iranian drove the car bomb into the barracks.

I attended and covered the 2003 trial in which the detailed evidence of the Iranian role in this bombing was presented in detail.

As I reported for AIM at the time, the trial involved a case brought against Iran by attorneys Steven Perles and Thomas Fortune Fay on behalf of the families of the Marines who were killed. Under a U.S. law passed in 1996, victims of terrorism can sue state sponsors of terrorism and collect damages from the assets that the terrorist regime may hold in the U.S.

The trial featured a videotaped deposition of a former terrorist insider named “Mahmoud,” who described in detail how Iran ordered the terrorists to attack the U.S. Marines and French troops in Lebanon, and revealed that the driver of the truck carrying the bomb was himself an Iranian.

In a videotaped deposition, former CIA officer Robert Baer testified that there was no doubt, based on the best intelligence information, that Iran was behind it. Baer said this bombing, and a previous bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, were “acts of war.”

Dr. Reuven Paz of Israel testified via videotape that before the Marine barracks bombing Israel had intercepted a message from the government of Iran to its Ambassador in Syria, calling for military attacks on the foreign forces in Lebanon, including the Americans. Paz, who worked for the Israeli security service known as Shin Bet, said the intercepted message was provided to the CIA.

Admiral James Lyons, who was Deputy Chief of Naval Operations at the time, testified that he received a copy of the message, which described the need for a “spectacular action” against the Marines. But he received the message two days after the bombing.

Sergeant Steve Russell, who was guarding the embassy on that fateful day, said he had been warned about a possible car bombing of the barracks literally hours before it happened. He warned others and stayed alert. But, as a “peacekeeper” under restrictive rules of engagement, he carried an unloaded gun, and the compound was surrounded only by concertina wire. The car bomber drove through all of this into the barracks.

This evidence was accepted by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who found Iran liable for billions of dollars in damages.

Instead of making Iran pay, Biden gives $6 billion to Iran.

Doesn’t this constitute something more important than dozens of shell companies and payments to his drug-addicted son Hunter?

Here is where we need the focus of the media.

President Trump had a different approach. He ordered the assassination of Iranian general and top terrorist leader Qassem Suleimani. Suleimani headed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds (IRGC) Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization responsible for producing many of our wounded warriors from Middle East conflicts. More than 600 American soldiers died at his direction.

Trump killed an anti-American terrorist leader, while Biden pays off the sponsors of that terrorism. Isn’t this impeachable?