Lie America Into War And Get Rich Doing It

Information Liberation – by Chris Menahan

Bloomberg News is reporting that National Security Council official Richard Goldberg, who was “central” to the Trump administration’s “hawkish Iran policies,” was receiving a salary from a Sheldon Adelson-funded pro-Israel think tank throughout his time at the White House. 

From Bloomberg, Jan 3, “U.S. Official Central to Hawkish Iran Policies Departs NSC”:

Richard Goldberg, the U.S. National Security Council official who clashed with other members of the administration over his push for a more hawkish stance toward Iran, is leaving the job after one year for personal reasons, a person familiar with the matter said.

[…] Former National Security Adviser John Bolton created Goldberg’s job — director for countering Iran’s weapons of mass destruction — explicitly for him. The goal was to counter what Bolton saw as a desire at the departments of State and Treasury to weaken the “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran.

Tension over that issue flared in March as the administration mulled whether to extend waivers allowing Iran to sell a limited amount of oil. The waivers were eventually ended in May.

That fight was only one of the administration’s internecine battles related to Iran and underscored the influence wielded by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the think tank where Goldberg previously worked, in pushing for a tougher line against Iran.

Goldberg will return to FDD, which continued to pay his salary during his time on the National Security Council.

Here’s a video of Goldberg (with a total 91 views despite being up since Feb 2019) shilling for regime change in Iran:

From Wikipedia’s entry on the Foundation for Defense of Democracies:

In 2011, ThinkProgress, a progressive advocacy organization, published FDD’s Form 990 documents that revealed where FDD funding came from, from 2001 to 2004. Donors included:

Roland Arnall: $1,802,000
Edgar M. and Charles Bronfman: $1,050,000
Michael Steinhardt: $850,000
Abramson Family Foundation (of Leonard Abramson): $822,523
Bernard Marcus: $600,000
Lewis Ranieri: $350,000
Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson are also major donors.

ThinkProgress concluded, “Most of the major donors are active philanthropists to ‘pro-Israel’ causes both in the U.S. and internationally. With the disclosure of its donor rolls, it becomes increasingly apparent that FDD’s advocacy of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, its hawkish stance against Iran, and its defense of right-wing Israeli policy is consistent with its donors’ interests in ‘pro-Israel’ advocacy”.

Adelson, Singer and Marcus are all top donors to the GOP and Trump despite largely snubbing him during the election.

Pro-Israel activist Nikki Haley, who compared Trump to Dylann Roof during the election, has also got on the Trump train and is pushing for regime change in Iran.

She was just recently rewarded with a position on Boeing’s board of directors.

Presumably, Haley will be helping them in their super-successful quest to outsource all our jobs to India.

It’s worth noting that President Kushner is pushing for Haley to replace Mike Pence as Trump’s VP for 2020.

In November, Haley received the Theodor Herzl Award from World Jewish Congress president Ron Lauder.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Trump called Lauder up in late December to “yell” at him to “support” him with campaign cash because he has “done more for Jews than any other president” and “could still lose the Jewish vote”:

On Sunday, Dec. 29, hours after a stabbing at the home of a rabbi in Monsey, N.Y., Mr. Trump, from his golf club in West Palm Beach, called one of his oldest acquaintances and major Jewish supporters, the cosmetics billionaire Ronald S. Lauder, to yell that Mr. Lauder should be doing more to “support” him, according to three people briefed on the call.

Mr. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress who recently started a new $25 million effort to fight anti-Semitism that employs a pollster working for Mr. Bloomberg, listened as Mr. Trump ticked off a litany of administration actions. Mr. Trump said that he had done more for Jews than any other president and that he could still lose the Jewish vote. The president never mentioned campaign contributions, but advisers and others briefed on the call said he left the clear impression that was referring to financial support.

In a statement, Mr. Lauder would say only that he has had “many candid, positive and forward-looking conversations with” Mr. Trump, who “deserves a great deal of support from the Jewish community for his fantastic record on Israel and his proven support of the Jewish people here at home.”

In related news, The Washington Post ran a propaganda piece from Stephen Hadley claiming the assassination of Soleimani “opens doors to diplomacy” without disclosing that he’s a director at the defense contractor Raytheon who makes $305,000 a year.

As Tucker Carlson said last night, many of our ruling class are getting “rich and powerful” lobbying for this war and are headed for a windfall.

Meanwhile, many boomer dupes high on propaganda from neocon shills like Ben Shapiro and Sean Hannity think this war is being done to help America.

Information Liberation

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