Lying is “Good For Business”: The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Mainstream Media (MSM) are “Serial Liars”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

The powerful voices of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) exert a decisive influence on the formulation of US foreign policy.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) describes itself  as “independent and nonpartisan…[and] an indispensable resource in a complex world.”
Its website at www.cfr.org is heralded as “a trusted, nonpartisan source of timely analysis on international events and trends.” It’s authoritative Journal Foreign Affairs “is widely considered to be the most influential magazine for the analysis and debate of foreign policy and economics.”

Unquestionably the CFR  is said to provide a “carefully documented” and “objective” understanding of World events including the crisis in Ukraine and the crimes committed against the people of Palestine. 
In the latest CFR blurb on Israel’s ground war against Gaza authored by Hussein Ibish, and posted on the Council’s website, prime minister Netanyahu is said to have a profound “dislike for military conflict”:
These are some of the CFR highlights concerning Prime Minister Netanyahu: the unspoken victim of what the author describes as “unpredictable politics”:

Bibi’s First War

Why Benjamin Netanyahu Has Never Liked Military Conflict

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141641/hussein-ibish/bibis-first-war

“Few in Israel seem to love him, but they do regard him as safe and reliable.
His government has been sucked into a major conflict with Hamas and other extremists in Gaza,
he is at the mercy of events and other actors outside his control.
With all his caution, Netanyahu has managed during his time in power to avoid leading the country in a major conflict.
By contrast, the current conflict seems to embody Netanyahu’s deep aversion to unpredictable politics. It began with the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank by militants that were associated with Hamas but had quite possibly gone rogue.
When their bodies were discovered after 18 days, Netanyahu’s government seemed ready to call it a day. He signaled that he wasn’t interested in a major escalation in Gaza;
Rocket attacks from Gaza increased, and Netanyahu ultimately felt politically compelled to act, despite evident misgivings from the military.
And so now, for the first time in his career, Netanyahu finds himself presiding over the chaos of a war that seems very much outside his control.
Hamas has launched countless rockets at Israel, including parts of the country previously beyond its range,”
Read complete article here: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141641/hussein-ibish/bibis-first-war

Wow! Authoritative analysis under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations:

• No mention of the loss of human life,
• No mention of the destruction of hospitals
• Hamas started the war, Israel has the right to defend itself
• Netanyahu “is at the mercy of events” which are “beyond his control“
• The victims of Israeli war crimes are responsible for their own deaths
• Netanyahu is “safe and reliable”, he is committed to peace, he was “politically compelled to act”

What Does the MSM have to Say Regarding Israel’s War on Gaza?
It is what you might describe as a MSM-CFR Consensus.
The latest pitch in the Wall Street Journal by an authoritative NYU Law Professor is that because civilians in Gaza are “supportive of  terrorism” they should be held accountable for their own deaths:

Let’s state the obvious: No one likes to see dead children. Well, that’s not completely true: Hamas does. …  With this conflict about to enter its third week, winning the PR war is the best Hamas can hope to achieve. Their weapon of choice, however, seems to be the cannon fodder of their own people…
The asymmetry is complicated even further by the status of these civilians [victims of Israeli bombing and shelling]. Under such maddening circumstances, are the adults, in a legal and moral sense, actual civilians?
The people of Gaza overwhelmingly elected Hamas, a terrorist outfit dedicated to the destruction of Israel, …
What did Gazans think was going to happen? Surely they must have understood on election night that their lives would now be suspended in a state of utter chaos. Life expectancy would be miserably low; children would be without a future. Staying alive would be a challenge, if staying alive even mattered anymore. (Professor Thane Rosenbaum, WSJ, July 21, 2014, emphasis added)

The above odious narrative goes beyond “authoritative” lies and fabrications. While the deaths of civilians are casually acknowledged, “their right to live” is taken away from them, because in the words of the illustrious associate professor at NYU, “adult civilians” are “terrorists” supportive of Hamas and their children are “cannon fodder.” So much for university scholarship and for “civilian academics” who support US-NATO-Israeli  “humanitarian wars.”
The Council on Foreign Relations and the Downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17
In its coverage of the downing of MH17, the CFR intimates without evidence (in an interview with Stephen Sestanovich, George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies) that Moscow is behind the crash of MH17.

“This is not just a case of of somewhat confused and trigger-happy military people shooting down an airliner that they thought was a military target. The really awkward part of this for Putin is that he was caught red-handed, stoking a civil war in another country.

This sweeping and dangerous narrative permeates the MSM, contributing to the breakdown of international diplomacy.

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