Paul Craig Roberts

66

Paul Craig Roberts : biography

April 3, 1939 –

In a 2009 article for Counterpunch magazine, titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean", Roberts wrote that for 60 years, Israel has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated accusations that Gaza is "the world largest concentration camp," populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department a "puppet" of the Israelis and the U.S. a puppet state" of the Israelis. He concluded that "there’s no money for California, or for Americans’ health care, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it.", Counterpunch This was another position that separated him from the right, who have generally supported Israel.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization, has criticized Roberts as promoting anti-semitism for his increasing focus on "criticism of Israel and Jews," making his writings "popular with fringe publications on both the left and the right". Roberts nominated Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Roberts cautions against blaming all Jews for crimes of a right-wing government:

"The world will need to remember that although Israel is a Jewish state, it is a state whose policies many Jews find objectionable, just as a majority of American Jews oppose President Bush’s wars of aggression in the Middle East and his unconstitutional policies at home. We must not confuse Israel’s Zionist government with world Jewry, just as we must not confuse the American people with the war criminals in the Bush regime."

South Ossetia War

In an interview on August 27, 2008, on a broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, Roberts stated that he believed that influential neoconservatives affiliated with the George W. Bush administration were leading the United States into a nuclear confrontation with Russia over the situation in Georgia and South Ossetia. Roberts gave the conflict “almost total certainty if John McCain gets in office" and stated that the conflict would be in a timeframe of about two or three years.

2009–2010 Iranian election protests

In a June 19–21, 2009 article in CounterPunch about the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests following the re-election of Ahmadinejad, Robert stated that while "the protests … no doubt have many sincere participants," they "also have the hallmarks of the CIA orchestrated protests in Georgia and Ukraine. ", CounterPunch

September 11, 2001 attacks

Of the 9/11 Commission Report, he wrote in 2006, "One would think that if the report could stand analysis, there would not be a taboo against calling attention to the inadequacy of its explanations." (see Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission Report). He has reported findings by experts who conclude there is a large energy deficit in the official account of the collapse of the three WTC buildings. He says that this deficit remains unexplained.

Roberts comments on the "scientific impossibility" of the official explanation for the events on 9/11. On August 18, 2006, he wrote: I will begin by stating what we know to be a solid incontrovertible scientific fact. We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to “pancake” at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false… Since the damning incontrovertible fact has not been investigated, speculation and “conspiracy theories” have filled the void.

In November 2012 Roberts referred to al Qaeda’s role in the attack as "unsubstantiated.", Paul Craig Roberts website

Anwar al-Awlaki

Anwar al-Awlaki was an American cleric who became linked by intelligence agents to some of the 9/11 hijackers. After being imprisoned in Libya, he espoused a radical Islamist position and appeared to have been involved with the attempted Christmas Day bombing in 2008. In October 2011, he was killed by a deliberate United States drone attack. Roberts objected, calling the assassination "The Day America Died". He wrote that although Awlaki was critical of "indiscriminate assaults on Muslim peoples" and "told Muslims that they did not have to passively accept American aggression", the US lacked evidence that Awlaki was either a real threat or an Al Qaeda operative