07/23/12 – Gareth Porter – The Scott Horton Show

Alright, y'all, welcome back to the show.
Santa, uh, no it's not, it's just the Scott Horton Show.
Hmm, I'm just used to saying that.
Um, alright, so, uh, first guest on the show today is Gareth Porter from interpressserviceipsnews.net and, uh, he also writes for Truthout and, uh, a few other places.
You can find all his archives of pretty much everything he ever wrote, I think, at antiwar.com/porter.
Welcome back, Gareth, how are you doing?
I'm doing fine, thanks, Scott.
Um, well, good, and you're welcome.
Uh, loblog.com.
Jim Loeb, he's, uh, the boss over there at interpressservice, and this is his blog, and you've got a piece there, and it's called Why the Buenos Aires Bombing is a False Indicator on Burgas.
And since nobody knows what the hell I'm talking about, let me just say real quick, there was an attack on some Israeli student, uh, tourists in Bulgaria last week.
Uh, the, uh, head truther in, uh, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately announced that it was a MKUltra mass shooting plot.
No, I mean that it was, uh, an Israeli, I mean, uh, Iranian Hezbollah plot, uh, to attack these Israeli, uh, students, uh, because that's who he likes to blame.
And the equivalence was made because of the date uh, to, uh, the Buenos Aires attack of 1994, July 18th, 1994, which, uh, as you say in your piece here, is, uh, always attributed to Hezbollah operating on behalf of Iran.
So now, uh, here's Jeffrey Goldberg and others saying, Ah, yes, of course, this must be Iran celebrating their great victory of 1994.
And so, uh, you know, let's hurry up and get the bombs falling.
Um, and now, uh, here's the part where you debunk all of that.
Right, I mean, this is a, uh, mantra, as, as, uh, many of your listeners I'm sure already know, that, um, the Iranians, uh, were behind the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.
Um, it's always cited as, of course, the worst terrorist bombing of which the Iranians are supposed to be, uh, guilty.
And, uh, the proof positive that, that Iran is, in fact, the world's greatest terrorist state, the greatest exporter of terror.
Um, so I, uh, decided to investigate this, uh, this crime in Buenos Aires, which killed 85, uh, as I recall, I may have the figure slightly off, but, uh, roughly 85, uh, civilians, um, and wounded, uh, nearly 300 or more than 300.
Um, and so it was a terrible, uh, a terrible, uh, mass, uh, bombing, mass murder.
Um, and, and I spent, um, around 10 months in 2006 and 2007 working, uh, to a great extent on this, um, on this investigation of, of what happened, in fact, in the case of the Buenos Aires bombing.
And of course that meant really looking into, uh, the investigation itself, the case that was constructed by the Argentine government and by Argentine, um, intelligence during the period from 1994 right up to 2006.
Um, what I, what I found out was really quite astounding that virtually everything that had been, uh, said about the case, everything that had been written about the case and published about the case was, uh, fiction.
Um, that there was practically nothing about it that, um, was actually true.
And, and you go back to the fundamental, uh, case that was made that this was a, uh, suicide bombing that, uh, was supposedly a hallmark of, of Hezbollah.
This is another, uh, term ripped from the, uh, recent, uh, news stories.
As, as, uh, some people will recall, the, uh, Department of Defense, uh, spokesman just recently said that, uh, yes, this, uh, this Burgas Bulgaria terror bombing has some, some of the hallmarks of Hezbollah.
And this was exactly what was stated in 1994.
Immediately after the bombing, both Israel and the United States said, ah, this is Iran and Hezbollah.
This is, uh, a hallmark.
They didn't use the term, but they were using similar language.
A hallmark of Hezbollah operations and Iranian operations to have a suicide bomber.
Well, it turns out that, uh, the evidence of a suicide bomber, uh, was thin to non-existent.
In fact, uh, I would prefer non-existent in this case because, uh, there were 200, uh, roughly 200 eyewitnesses to, uh, to the bombing.
People who were nearby and, and saw it happen and, and would have seen a white Renault traffic van, which was supposedly the suicide bomb car.
And only one person out of those 200 eyewitnesses or alleged eyewitnesses, um, claimed to have seen the, the, uh, uh, suicide bomb car, the one that was said to have been the suicide bomb car.
And that was the wife of a policeman, uh, who, uh, basically was, uh, her, her story was contradicted by her sister who was with her at that moment, who said, no, there was no white, uh, traffic van that went past us at a corner block away from the, uh, from the AMIA, Jewish Community Center, where, which was bombed.
It was only a red and, uh, sorry, a red and black taxi that went past us at the moment just before the blast took place.
So essentially, just to make a long story short, I mean, the, the whole story of the suicide bomb was, was untrue.
Um, it, it was not supported by the, the actual forensic evidence.
Um, and so, and there are many, many other, uh, uh...
Well, now who do you think did it?
Well, I mean, do you want to cut to the chase?
I'll be glad to do that.
Um, I, I think the, the evidence is very strong.
It's, it's, uh, circumstantial evidence as far as the, uh, public record is concerned, but I have other information which supports this that I have not been able to publish.
Uh, uh, but, but I think it's very clear that it was, in fact, uh, Argentine, uh, anti-Semitic, uh, police, intelligence, and military personnel who carried out...
What, Sons of Operation paperclip over there?
Well, yeah, I mean, these are, in effect, uh, not the type of Argentines who, who are affiliated with the extreme right, or if not affiliated with, oriented towards the extreme right, anti-Semitic views.
Uh, the, the dirty war in Argentina, uh, is famous for having been targeted particularly at Jews, particularly the Jewish intelligentsia, of course, uh, teachers, lawyers, psychiatrists, and so forth.
They were mistreated much more harshly than others who were victims of the dirty war in Argentina.
Um, and, and one of the journalists who, who covered the dirty war, who, who covers anti-Semitic, uh, politics and, and, uh, behavior in Argentina told me that, uh, one of the things that happened to Jews was that they were in captivity and detention.
They were subjected to, uh, the speeches of Adolf Hitler.
Uh, uh, that was one of the, uh, hard treatments.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah, this is for sure.
This is definitely the case.
So, um, uh, these people who carried out the dirty war in Argentina, uh, were, were basically, uh, for the most part, uh, never brought to account.
I mean, they were never, never had to pay the price for their, uh, for their war crimes.
And, uh, in fact, they threatened to overthrow the first democratic government.
Um, and by doing so, achieved through intimidation a degree of impunity that is really quite, uh, significant in this regard because that means that they had both the, uh, motive, obviously, in terms of their, their, uh, anti-Semitism and the opportunity because of, you know, still having friends and associates in the security services of Argentina, uh, in position to cover for them, um, and make sure that they would never be found.
Well, and apparently they have an Israeli government that would much rather score political points against Hezbollah than have some real murderers, uh, punished for their crimes.
Well, obviously the, the, uh, political and strategic interests of Israel at that time and ever since then have been to focus on, on Iran and Hezbollah and not to be concerned with anti-Semitic people in Argentina.
All right, we'll be right back after this break with Gareth Porter to talk, uh, about some other examples of bombings blamed on Iran that, eh, maybe weren't them, actually.
Uh, look at loblog.com why the Buenos Aires bombing is a false indicator on Burgas.
We need to get back to that, too.
All right.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm on the phone with my buddy Gareth Porter.
Uh, whenever the word party lies about something, uh, war party, that's an indistinguishable term from the government of Israel.
Uh, whenever they're lying about something, Gareth Porter debunks it.
And in this case, uh, well, so far at least, we've been talking about this piece, uh, specifically why the Buenos Aires bombing is a false indicator on Burgas.
Uh, some neocons, like Jeffrey Goldberg, um, at the Atlantic, uh, is trying to say, um, and, and others are trying to say, oh, yeah, see, this is the anniversary of the Hezbollah attack in Argentina in 1994 in Buenos Aires there.
And so, uh, that means we know it was Iran and Hezbollah behind this one, too.
And I don't think, Gareth, that you're saying you're sure Hezbollah didn't do this one.
You're just saying don't look to Buenos Aires for an indication of that because it's much, much more likely, uh, in fact, you are completely convinced that it was, uh, right-wing neo-Nazi types inside their police forces, not Hezbollah, that did that attack in 94.
Well, that's right.
Well, that's right.
And, again, I, I, I do have, uh, information.
I, I know this sounds hokey, but it's true.
I have information that I, I cannot publish because it does involve, uh, the safety of an individual who is a, uh, a source on this.
Well, you know what?
People go back, go to antiwar.com/porter, go to IPSnews.net and read Gareth's archives.
Listen to the archives of him on this show and other shows and you decide for yourself what you think about that.
I'm buying it.
Well, you know, in this case, in this case, I think, uh, I mean, this is, this is information that, that does really pinpoint the, the, uh, uh, the culpability of the, uh, police, uh, in, in the bombing of the, on the, uh, Jewish Community Center.
Uh, but let me, let me, let me just add that, uh, there's so many, uh, points about the official case that are really quite, uh, uh, dishonest, uh, you know, and, and there's so many things to talk about that it's hard to choose, uh, which, which ones to focus on.
But, but let me start with the whole idea of the motive that has been attributed to, uh, the Iranians and Hezbollah, uh, to carry out this bombing.
Uh, that is, uh, the idea that the Iranians were angry with Argentina for having supposedly cut off nuclear cooperation with, with the Iranian government.
And, and in fact, what I found out looking at the, uh, so, so what happened, what happened here was that the, uh, the Argentine government under, uh, Menem actually reached three nuclear agreements in 1987-88 with, uh, the, uh, with the Iranian government, uh, and then the United States put terrific pressure on Argentina to cut off that cooperation.
And so they did in fact, uh, stop two of the performance of two of the three agreements, but the third one was continued.
That was continuing the export of 20% enriched uranium to, uh, Iran, uh, for the Tehran Research Reactor, which of course has become very controversial in more recent years.
So, so Iran had every reason to want to continue to cooperate with Argentina.
In fact, the negotiations were continuing not only before, but after the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in 1994.
Um, so that, that idea that Iran was angry with Argentina, uh, and was carrying out a terrorist action there to, uh, to get revenge against Argentina is, is so silly, uh, that it, uh, it should be completely dismissed.
But it's still being cited, uh, by people like, uh, Goldberg and others, uh, as, uh, logic, as a logic behind the Iranian bombing, or supposedly of, of the Community Center.
Uh, so, I mean, that's just an example of the kind of thing that I found in my investigation.
Um, other things that people should know about the whole, uh, AMIA bombing case, uh, is that, uh, it's clear, it was clearly a setup here.
What they intended to do was to arrest a Shia, uh, used car dealer, chop shop, uh, company manager, uh, owner who had, had dealings with both the police and with criminals in the past, uh, to, to, to set him up so that they could detain him and then get him to finger others who, uh, would be convenient politically to be blamed for the, uh, as, as the Argentine collaborators with the people who carried out the, uh, the attack.
And so, they ended up, uh, that they twice, that the government of Menem, uh, twice offered a bribe to this Shia car dealer.
Uh, the second time, he agreed, uh, for something like, uh, $500,000, as I recall, uh, to finger three, uh, police officials of the Buenos Aires, uh, provincial police, um, who were just, uh, happened to be affiliated with the political rival of President Menem.
Uh, so this is the degree to which this case was so completely phony and political from the very beginning.
It was, it was never a serious, uh, effort to find the truth.
Uh, it was always intended to hide the real culprits behind this bombing.
Yeah, well, and same for, we talked about this, you did a, a giant piece on this, too.
And thank goodness, because no one else was going to do the work, I guess, on the Khobar Towers attack.
Which, you know, history could have been a very different thing, if they had pinned that on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama Bin Laden, the guys that did it.
That's right, I mean, had they been, uh, uh, sufficiently concerned with Al-Qaeda in 1995-96 to focus on, uh, the, the Al-Qaeda, uh, angle of the possibility that Al-Qaeda was behind it, which, of course, as you know, Michael Shoyer, uh, was quite certain about that.
He put together, you know, he was the head of the Bin Laden unit.
Well, and you know what?
It's, uh, I was reminded the other day about, there's this PBS front line about John O'Neill, who he and Shoyer didn't see eye to eye on many, many things, but they certainly believed the same thing about the Khobar Towers attack.
And, um, there's an anecdote in there about, uh, John O'Neill, uh, who was obsessed with Al-Qaeda, telling Louis Freeh on the plane, oh, come on, the Saudis, they're just blowing smoke up your ass!
And that Louis Freeh, who is, you know, Mr. Ultra-Conservative, Opus Dei guy, who just can't stand to hear a bad word, because John O'Neill used the word ass, Louis Freeh said, oh, you know, you're beyond the pale, and you're low class, and I can't be around you, and I don't like you, and just closed his ears, wouldn't listen to him ever again.
And then, you know, that was maybe the beginning of the end that John O'Neill left the FBI for offending Louis Freeh's delicate little sensibilities as he buys the Saudis and the Israelis line of crap on, uh, what was it, uh, Iranian-backed Saudi Hezbollah.
That's right, yes.
Yes.
Uh-huh.
So, so, I mean, there's so many things about this that, that just don't add up, and, and which, uh, you know, in fact, uh, indicate that, uh, the Iranians were not behind it.
Well, I interviewed the U.S. ambassador, uh, to Argentina to, to Buenos Aires, uh, James Cheek, uh, in 2007, and he admitted that they'd never found any evidence to support the idea that the Iranians or Hezbollah were behind this.
That was simply, he said, uh, politically, he said, you know, we just decided that, uh, the Iranians were to blame, and it was up to them to prove that they weren't behind it.
That's the way he put it to me in an interview.
And, and, and, and, and, that's the way he put it to me in an interview.
Yeah, of course, the Donald Rumsfeld standard.
Exactly.
And then, and then the, uh, deputy, uh, chief of mission, um, who, who was the primary person, primary liaison with the investigators on this case told me that, uh, he called it a wall of assumptions that stood in the way of, uh, the United States government basically, uh, trying to find out objectively what actually happened in this case.
I mean, in other words, there was a political interest in blaming it on Iran because the Clinton administration had already essentially agreed with the Israeli government on a deal.
The Israeli government, that is the labor government, would, uh, do a deal with, uh, with the PLO, um, and in return, the United States would take a much harder line toward Iran.
And so, the United States, the, the, the Clinton administration felt obliged, uh, to support immediately the same day blamed it on Iran saying, uh, uh, you know, Iran basically is, is the head of the snake and it needs to be crushed.
The snake being the worldwide terrorist organization.
It needs to be crushed.
So, uh, this was all about international politics from the very beginning.
No one was really interested in finding the truth.
All right, now, let me ask you this.
Can I keep you one more segment and ask you all about the recent attacks in Thailand, India, Pakistan?
Well, I, I, I, let, let me, let me take a rain check on that for the following reason.
Because I'm doing a piece right now.
I'm working on it this afternoon.
All right, well let's follow up then.
I hope it'll be out tomorrow and I should be able to do something much more systematic on that and we can talk about it later in the show.
Okay, great.
We'll do.
All right, thanks very much.
Gareth Porter, everybody.
IPSnews.net, antiwar.com/Porter.