AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.

Monday, April 30, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: EX-SHIN BET BOSS EXPOSES NETANYAHU AND BARAK’S REAL PLANS FOR ISRAEL

The UK Guardian reported today that Yuval Diskin, the former chief of Israel’s internal security organisation, Shin Bet, said that:

…the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and defence minister, Ehud Barak – the principal advocates of military action against Iran's nuclear programme – were unfit to lead the country and could not be trusted to conduct a war. The "messianic" pair were misleading the public on the merits of an attack.

The Guardian went on to report that:

The former Shin Bet chief did not confine his comments to Iran. On peace negotiations with the Palestinians, he said: "Forget all about the stories they're selling you in the media about how we want to talk but [Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas] doesn't, and so forth. I'm telling you, we're not talking with the Palestinians because this government has no interest in talking with the Palestinians … I know from up close what is going on in that area”.

Diskin presented the Iran issue and the Palestinian issue as though they were two separate issues that needed to be dealt with but which he considered were being handled badly by Netanyahu and Barak.

The reality, however, is that the two issues are very much related to each other; indeed, the extreme right-wing Zionist obsession with Iran is because the Zionists real determination is to not only never allow the Palestinian people to ever have a state of their own, but to occupy and eventually annex the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. Together with the Golan Heights, which they have already annexed after taking it from Syria, they hope to realise their long held dream of creating a Greater Israel. Iran comes into the picture because it is Iran that supports the two organisations, Hamas and Hezbollah, which are preventing the Greater Israel Zionists from realising their dream.

While the Israeli’s know that the world will not tolerate Israel simply marching in and taking what they want, the Greater Israel Zionists believe that if war breaks out between Israel and Iran on the pretext that Iran is a threat to Israel, then such a war would could also provide the pretext for Israel to invade and occupy the Gaza, West Bank and south Lebanon telling the world that it was necessary in order to prevent Hamas and Hezbollah retaliating against Israel for Israel’s attack against Iran.

Netanyahu is now under massive pressure. He and Barak are reliant on the US in their war against Iran. While Israel will fire the opening shots against Iran, it will need the US to finish the job on Iran while Israel deals with Hamas and Hezbollah. As the US elections approach, the timing of a war against Iran becomes critical. The fact that Israeli elections may take place at around the same time as the US elections makes the timing even more critical.

And now, with internal pressures dominating headlines in Israel, Netanyahu and Barak’s hands may be forced to take the ultimate step while in the US, Obama, under electoral pressure from the Republicans and the American right-wing and neoconservatives that support the Greater Israel Zionists, may feel obliged to take a punt knowing that a successful war against Iran will ensure him a second term.

Factors operating against this scenario which may prevent war are: Obama may resist pressure from Israel to instigate a war against Iran if opinion polls favour him right up to the election and if he knows that he is going to get over the line reasonably comfortably. That, coupled with internal pressures in Israel against Netanyahu and Barak’s push for war, may well tip the balance to avoid war.

The world can only hope that sensible heads prevail.

FOR AUSTRALIAN READERS…
The latest news on Australia’s most notorious racist, Andrew Bolt, is here.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: THE TIMING OF POSSIBLE ISREALI ELECTIONS ARE A WORRY

The headline in Ha’aretz today is cause for concern. Apparently Likud Party sources have said that a general election is likely to be held between September and November – at just the time the US presidential race is heading down the final straight and a champing at the bit Mitt Romney is keen to see Netanyahu get past the post in Israel.

As usual with Israeli politics, the stated reasons for an early election are varied and complex depending on which Israeli newspaper one reads. However, whatever the reason for an election, the timing of it should be of great concern to both the US and Iran by simple virtue of the fact that Netanyahu would be almost assured of a landslide victory if, prior to the election, Israel launched an initial attack against Iran which Obama could then follow up on leaving Israel to attack and destroy Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The destruction of Israel’s enemies would bring glory to Netanyahu and sweeping victory at the polls for the Likud and the right-wing Zionist parties of Israel while regime change in Iran as a result of a massive follow-up bombing attack against Iran by the US would bring certain victory for Obama.

On the other hand, the failure by Netanyahu to bring the confrontation against Iran to a head by election time will almost certainly cost him his office – and with it will go any future opportunity for him to realise his goal of creating a Greater Israel. For Obama, war against Iran would be better fought after the next US presidential election when he has nothing to lose. However, if Netanyahu forces Obama’s hand by insisting on confronting Iran, Obama will throw every ounce of US muscle into the fight to ensure not just that Iran is deprived of its so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’, but that there is ‘regime change’ in Iran.   

Thursday, April 26, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: MARCO RUBIO AND THE PRETENTIOUSNESS OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

Despite the failures of neoconservative-inspired American ventures into Afghanistan and Iraq, it should, nonetheless, come as no surprise to hear that neoconservative Marco Rubio, who could possibly become America’s next Vice-President, still believes in American exceptionalism and the right of the US to dominate and lead the world.

Yesterday, Rubio, addressing a meeting at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, finished his frightening foreign policy address by telling his audience:

Why does it have to start with us, some say. Why do we have to do it? We find our answer in the words of a non-American. In an address to Congress in 2003, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said:

“I know it's hard on America. And in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I've never been to but always wanted to go -- I know out there, there's a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, ‘Why me, and why us, and why America?’ And the only answer is because destiny put you in this place in history in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.”

And so it is. For this new century is a time of tremendous challenges. But it is also a time of tremendous promise. This is indeed the world America made. It is freer and more prosperous than it has ever been.

But it can be even better. As Americans we can’t make that happen by ourselves. But the world cannot make it happen without us.

His words sum up the neoconservative’s vision of a New American Century first proffered to the world in 1997.

So, why do I say ‘frightening’?

It’s frightening simply because the neocons seem not to have learnt a thing since the disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq. Read the text of Rubio’s speech; all the rhetoric by neoconservatives that led to the destruction of Iraq is repeated again against Iran. But this time there’s more. Lurking in the background of Rubio’s foreign policy speech is the looming threat of China’s challenge to America’s dominance as a so-called ‘superpower’. Rubio wants China to be like America and until it does become like America, it will forever be a threat to America.

The world must reject the arrogance of America’s neoconservatives. The myth of ‘American exceptionalism’ should be exposed. Only they and their supporters in the West can truly believe that the wreck that is America today is actually Exceptional and that the world should want to emulate it.

I doubt anything will alter the fact that Iran will eventually be attacked by the US and Israel, but if the Republicans get their man Romney and his probable off-sider Marco Rubio into the White House, then any doubts that remain will be gone.    

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

NEOCONS AND THE BREIVIK AFFAIR

There’s an interesting piece in the National Review Online today by neocon writer John O’Sullivan.

Clearly, neoconservatives around the world have a serious image problem as a direct result of the deeds of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik on account of the neocons and Breivik having exactly the same political ideology. Now that Breivik is on trial, his motives are becoming even more exposed than when those terrible events happened back in July of last year. Because it was such an horrific event, the commentary that attempted to answer the question of ‘why’ it happened got a little lost as we tried desperately to find out ‘how’ it happened. But, now the trial of Breivik has begun and it’s becoming clearer every day that Breivik is nothing more than an extremist ultra-violent Islam-hating neoconservative, neoconservatives around the word are having to put as much distance between themselves and Breivik as they possibly can. In order to do this, neoconservatives need to utterly condemn Breivik’s deeds to the extreme. And John O’Sullivan is doing just that by inferring that Norway should reintroduce the death penalty.

Leaving aside the fact that neoconservatives would simply like to see the problem go away, and executing Breivik, so they hope, would achieve that, O’Sullivan’s piece also exposes a lot about the neoconservative mindset.

First, there is the pure arrogance displayed in the piece.

Norway is a sovereign state with laws and practices that exclude the use of the death penalty. Norway is also a nation that provides every single person under its jurisdiction an opportunity to the full benefit of their laws no matter who or what they’ve done and does not make exceptions to those laws – especially on the suggestions of American neoconservatives.

Secondly, there is the usual propensity that neocons display – the ‘do as we do’ notion of justice. O’Sullivan actually asks why there should even be a trial at all. Could it be that Norway, unlike the US, would prefer to seek justice rather than revenge against those that commit crimes? Trials not only provide justice, they also often provide an understanding of what went so horribly wrong and, in doing so, may also provide answers in seeking ways to prevent reoccurrence.

And, of course, it’s not just O’Sullivan that’s back-pedalling as fast as possible to put distance between Breivik and the neocons; they’re all at it across the world. Dan Hodges, a Blairite neocon writing in the UKs Daily Telegraph, asks why the Norwegian police didn’t just shoot Breivik on the spot. While Hodges then goes on to explain why they shouldn’t have, one needs to ask why he suggested it in the first place. Hodges then goes on telling his readers how the Norwegians should run their justice system.

And I’ve already written about how Australian neocon, Andrew Bolt, is also trying desperately to put distance between himself and Breivik.  

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF THE NEOCON PROPAGANDA MACHINE IN ACTION

An article in Commentary today by neoconservative arch-propagandist Jonathan Tobin demonstrates exactly how the neocon propaganda machine works to influence the political wheels in Washington.

The article is supposedly about a fake fatwa issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that effectively banned the production of nuclear weapons. Tobin’s fevered argument is that the fatwa was never issued and the rumour that it was is designed to fool the West into giving Iran more time to actually build a nuclear weapon.

Whether or not a fatwa was issued is really beside the point; what’s interesting about Tobin’s rant is the ‘evidence’ he uses to support his argument that the fatwa never existed.

First he refers to this article by fellow neoconservative writer Ruthie Blum writing in Israel Hayom which Tobin links to. Blum’s article, in turn, then links to the notorious neoconservative propaganda think-tank MEMRI.org, which Tobin also links to in his article. The pattern, of course, is that Tobin refers only to a network of other neoconservative individuals and organisations who he presents as credible authorities on these matters.

MEMRI.org was the organisation that deliberately mistranslated and then misrepresented the speech by Iranian President Ahmadinejad in which, so MEMRI.org tells it, he said that ‘Israel must be wiped from the map’. In fact, what Ahmadinejad said was; ‘this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time’; something completely different. But the propagandists are sticking with the ‘Iran said it will wipe Israel off the map’ meme because it fits in nicely with the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme with which they are telling the world Iran will use to ‘wipe Israel off the map’.

The ‘fatwa’ nonsense is just another piece of neoconservative garbage emanating from their recycle bin of propaganda. They just hope that no one goes rummaging around in their bin of lies to find that most of it comes from the same source – themselves! 

Friday, April 20, 2012

ANDERS BREIVIK AND ANDREW BOLT: THE SWORD AND THE PEN OF KINDRED SPIRITS

At his blog today Andrew Bolt tried desperately to spin his way out of being put in the same ideological frame as Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.

Bolt writes:

You will remember how eager were many on the Left to use the horrific crimes of Anders Behring Breivik to smear mainstream conservatives.

He then goes on to quote an ABC article as though it was the ABC that was trying to smear ‘mainstream conservatives’. But what the ABC piece actually said was:

Accused Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik praised four Australian conservative leaders - including former Prime Minister John Howard - in his 1,500-page manifesto.and:In a manifesto posted online under the Anglicised pseudonym Andrew Berwick, the killer quoted Mr Howard, former treasurer Peter Costello, Catholic Cardinal George Pell and conservative writer and historian Keith Windschuttle.

It wasn’t the ABC smearing ‘mainstream conservatives’, the ABC was merely quoting Breivik himself. What Bolt has actually attempted to do is smear the ABC.

There should be no misunderstanding here – Bolt has no choice but to condemn Breivik for what he has done, but beneath the surface of that condemnation lurks the real Bolt who has exactly the same nationalistic and Islamophobic aspirations as Breivik. But where Breivik had a gun, Bolt has a weapon far more dangerous - he has access to the mainstream media with which to peddle those aspirations.

Bolt is peddling as hard as he can to put ideological distance between himself and Breivik but the more he tries, the more he places himself in the same pigeon-hole.

WAR AGAINST IRAN: NEOCON EXTREMIST BECOMES DELUSIONAL

Neocon commentator David Gelernter writing in The Weekly Standard today is hoping President Obama will attack Iran in order that Israel doesn’t have to. Gelernter writes:

…an American attack would of course be far less dangerous for the world (let alone Israel), because American action to slap down revenge counterattacks will be taken for granted. And clearly an American attack could do greater damage to Iran’s arsenal—and be more likely than an Israeli attack to bring about an Iranian revolution.

Before commenting on his remarks, there are a few one should know about Gelernter.

In 2007 Gelernter published a book titled Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion. The title alone should tell you something about his delusional arrogance. In it, Gelernter argues:

The religious idea called “America” is religious insofar as it tells an absolute truth about the meaning of human life, a truth that we must take on faith. (“We hold these truths to be self evident,” says the Declaration of Independence. No proofs are supplied.) I will try to show that the “American Religion”, which gives “America” its spiritual meaning, consists of an American Creed in the context of a doctrine I will call American Zionism.

Gelernter goes onto write:

I will try to show that the American Religion incorporates the biblical ideas of a chosen people in a promised land. Those concepts are the source of America’s (sometime) sense of divine mission; of her (not invariable yet often powerful) feeling of obligation to all of mankind; of her democratic chivalry – her nagging awareness of a duty to help the weak against the strong. This “chivalry” has nothing to do with knights and ladies; it is a deep sense of duty to the suffering, and comes straight from American Zionism.(1)

Clearly, at least in Gelernter’s twisted and delusional mind, not only is Israel the Promised Land but so is America, and the American people, despite the vast majority of them not being Jewish, are part of his Zionist delusions. Once one understands where Gelernter is coming from ideologically, one can readily understand, albeit in an extremely twisted sort of way, why he sees it as being imperative that the US attacks Iran first in order to ‘protect’ Israel.

Apart from his delusional ideology, Gelernter’s inability to understand that an American attack against Iran, far from ‘bringing about an Iranian revolution’, is much more likely to tenaciously unite the people of Iran behind their leaders as they had before when Saddam Hussein attacked them back in the 1980s, is dangerously naïve. The Iranians, despite the propaganda to the contrary, are not a threat at all to the Israelis, but that would soon change, however, if the Americans or the Israelis launch an attack against Iran. There will by no winners of such a war; all will lose.



(1) David Gelernter, Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion. (New York: Doubleday, 2007.) pp. 4-5.

Monday, April 16, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: NETANYAHU’S REACTION TO IRAN TALKS; JUST SO PREDICTABLE

Yesterday I wrote of how the Zionists were likely to react to the outcome of the recent talks with Iran over its nuclear program. I said that “they will likely claim that delays and further talks only give more time for the Iranians to produce a nuclear weapon”, and, sure enough, today we have Netanyahu being quoted as saying “that further talks scheduled for May are like a gift for Iran, which give the country more time to continue enriching uranium”.

No reaction yet from the neoconservatives; the people at Commentary seem to have given themselves a break until Monday while the mob over at The Weekly Standard are still trying to pen something about it. Likewise, National Review Online.

But there are no prizes for guessing what their responses are likely to be.

It’s all so predictable.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: ISRAELIS UNLIKELY TO BE HAPPY WITH RESULT OF LATEST TALKS WITH IRAN

With talks between Iran and the US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany having just been wound up in Istanbul with an agreement to talk again on 23 May in Baghdad, the Zionists of Israel and their neoconservative supporters are unlikely to be very happy. While the Israeli government has not yet responded to the outcome of the talks, they will likely claim that delays and further talks only give more time for the Iranians to produce a nuclear weapon.

For President Obama, who is trying to put off going to war against Iran before seeing which way the wind is going to blow for him at the upcoming Presidential elections, the outcome is just what he needs. If by around October it looks like he’s going to easily make it back into the White House, then Obama will likely hold off any attack against Iran until after the election. However, if it looks like Romney’s going to get the upper hand or even if it looks like being a very tight race, Obama may well be tempted to quietly invite Israel to initiate an attack against Iran. Then, once the initial strike has been made, an apparently reluctant Obama will become hero of the hour as the US rushes to save Israel from the ravages of Iranian retaliation.

Since Israel, for reasons I have discussed elsewhere, are unable to launch a truly unilateral attack against Iran, Israel will play along with Obama’s game by asserting themselves as being the imminent victims of a certain Iranian nuclear attack just as soon as the Iranians have a weapon ready.

At the moment, the game is being played out as though the US is a calm and collected nation holding back a friend apparently in fear of its life and wanting to strike first before being hit themselves.

But in reality it’s only a game being played for the benefit of public opinion at a time when US politics takes precedent over their friends desire to destroy their enemies.

Sooner or later, though, the ultimate endgame will be played out. Israel will launch an attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to show the world that Iran’s nuclear facilities really is what they fear most, and then the real reason for the confrontation against Iran will be launched; the US will follow up Israel’s initial attack by a massive regime-changing attack against Iran and its defence and governmental defences. Meanwhile, the Israelis will attack Hamas and Hezbollah invading the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon and fully occupying the West Bank with the long-term goal of annexing all of these territories.


FOR AUSTRALIAN READERS…

See the latest news on Andrew Bolt, Australia’s most prolific racist, right here.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: TALKS JUST BUYING TIME FOR OBAMA

Since the desired endgame for both the US and Israel in the stand-off with Iran is not over Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ but, rather, war leading to regime change in Iran and an excuse for Israel to attack and destroy Hamas and Hezbollah, there can be only one reason why talks with Iran have been agreed to; Obama needs more time up his sleeve as the Presidential elections draw closer.

The outcome of any talks is a forgone conclusion; they will end in deadlock. No matter what Iran says or does, it will not be acceptable to the US. There is a certain irony in the fact that, while it is Obama that is stalling for time in the run-up to the elections, it will be Obama who will accuse Iran of stalling for more time in order to complete the construction of a weapon. Just as they did in 2010 when Brazil and Turkey agreed with Iran to broker an enrichment deal that would ensure that Iran never had enough enriched material capable of building a nuclear bomb with, so any agreement reached in these latest talks will eventually end in the Americans walking away from any deal.

This time around the US and their allies have upped the ante. They are no longer demanding that Iran open up their nuclear facilities for inspection but, knowing that Iran is unlikely to concede, they are now demanding that Iran dismantle all of its enrichment facilities.

The long awaited final confrontation with Iran is not a matter of ‘if’, it's just a matter of ‘when’.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: HYPOCRISY AT ITS BEST FROM ELLIOTT ABRAMS

If it wasn’t so serious, you’d have to laugh.

Browsing through the Weekly Standard as I do on a daily basis, this piece by Elliott Abrams jumped out at me. It’s called – and I kid you not – ‘Politicizing Intelligence’. In it, Abrams criticises the Obama administration for using intelligence for political purposes. Abrams main source for his complaint is this quote from the Washington Post:

At a time of renewed debate over whether stopping Iran might require military strikes, the expanded intelligence collection has reinforced the view within the White House that it will have early warning of any move by Iran to assemble a nuclear bomb, officials said.

“There is confidence that we would see activity indicating that a decision had been made,” said a senior U.S. official involved in high-level discussions about Iran policy.

The hypocrisy, of course, is in the fact that Abrams observations are the exact inverse of what neoconservatives were saying about Saddam Hussein and his so-called ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’, the supposed ‘existence’ of which was highly politicised in order to provide the US and the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ a casus belli to invade and destroy Iraq. Obama’s motivation for ‘politicising the intelligence’ is not so much to get a war against Iran off the ground, but to delay it to a time that suits him rather than Netanyahu and his neocon supporters, including Abrams, who want the war to get going sooner rather than later.

Abrams had no problem politicising false intelligence for George W. Bush in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq but now here he is getting all precious about Obama politicising real intelligence in order not to go to war – at least not until it’s politically expedient for him to do so.

Hypocrisy and arrogance; the values that ‘they’ really hate about ‘us’. Who can blame them?


FOR AUSTRALIAN READERS…
See the latest news on Andrew Bolt, Australia’s most disgusting racist, right here.

Sunday, April 08, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: THE U.S., ISRAEL AND THEIR ALLIES SHIFT THE GOAL POSTS MAKING WAR VIRTUALLY INEVITABLE

The US, Israel and their allies have now shifted the nuclear goalposts by demanding that Iran dismantle its latest newly-built underground nuclear facilities at Fordo; that they immediately halt enrichment operations, and that they transfer all of their already 20% enriched nuclear material out of Iran.

Knowing full well that Iran is highly unlikely to concede to any of these demands is proof positive that Israel and the West are fully intent on going to war against Iran regardless of anything the Iranians do.

Yesterday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told former Japanese premier Yukio Hatoyama who is visiting Iran, that Iran “is pursuing its right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and will not ignore this right”.

Like previous ‘talks’ between the West and Iran, the outcome of this latest set of demands are likely to be long drawn out. The end result, however, will be the same. Israel, at some point or another, will launch the initial attack against Iran while the US will follow up with a massive bombardment of Iran’s defences, as well as its military and governmental institutions with a view to force capitulation of the theocratic government leading to ‘regime change’. Meanwhile, Israel, while the world’s attention is focussed on the spectacle of a war launched against Iran, will launch its own full scale attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza and Palestinian fighters in the West Bank on the pretext that they are pre-empting a retaliatory attack against Israel by Irans ‘allies’. The whole objective of the wars will be for Israel to not just defeat, but destroy its enemies leaving a pathway clear for occupation and eventual annexation of the lands they want as part of their dream of an Arab free Greater Israel.

The slow-motion march to war has somehow also had the effect of slowing up the pace of world-wide protest against war despite the danger of war now being far less a case of ‘if’ but, rather, of ‘when’.


FOR AUSTRALIAN READERS…
See the latest news on Andrew Bolt, Australia’s most disgusting racist, right here.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

ANDREW BOLT'S EMBARASSING FAUX PAS

It was just a little thing but it so classically demonstrated what a deceitful and conceited racist Andrew Bolt really is.

Today Bolt posted a piece about how the use of the English language is being eroded by people who migrate to Australia without having learnt how to write English properly. His motivation for the criticism was the opportunity for him to push his anti-multicultural nonsense as part of his program to peddle the cause of his brand of racism.

In the original post Bolt wrote:

Speaking and writing basic English is, after all, a key to good citizenship, neighborliness and effective integration.
The comment I wrote in response went thus:

For most people, Bolt, the answer to the problem would simply be to learn how to write English as well as speak it.

For you the answer would be not to allow 'foreigners' into Australia unless they're able to write English.

‘Speaking and writing basic English’, Bolt, ‘is not the key to good citizenship, neighborliness and effective integration’; tolerance is.

And, by the way, speaking of writing basic English, Bolt, in Australia we spell ‘neighborliness’ with a ‘u’ in it as in ‘neighbourliness’.

The comment was published.

At least, for a little while it was.

When Bolt discovered his embarrassing faux pas he pulled my comment and corrected his extremely embarrassing post as though nothing had happened.

Orwell’s Ministry of Truth has been at it again.

Fortunately, technology has the upper hand these days in countering such woeful deceit.


NOTE
This post can also be seen here

Sunday, April 01, 2012

WAR AGAINST IRAN: HILLARY CLINTON’S BIG LIE

Whilst in Saudi Arabia yesterday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a press conference:

With respect to Iran, we had an opportunity to discuss the P-5+1 negotiations – what we expect, what we are intending to present when the meetings begin. We’re going in with one objective: to resolve the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. And I had a chance to talk with our friends here about how we are approaching these talks. I also reiterated what the President has said, that our policy is one of prevention, not containment.

This is pure nonsense.

First, if the ‘international community’ have any ‘concerns’ about Iran’s nuclear program, it is only because the ‘international community’ has accepted the propaganda about Iran having a nuclear weapons program and has done so without seeing any hard evidence whatsoever to support these claims.

All of these claims about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ have originated from the US, Israel and their Western allies. The claims are being believed – or at least supported – by the governments of other nations around the planet that have a vested interest in supporting US foreign policy.

One should also note that the rhetoric has taken a subtle turn in the terminology. As we can see above, Clinton doesn’t actually mention ‘Iran’s nuclear weapons program’; it’s simply referred to as ‘Iran’s nuclear program’ as she now relies on presumptive inference to allow her audience to assume she’s talking about a nuclear weapons program. It seems that earlier references in the rhetoric about a ‘nuclear weapons program’ have done its job and the presumption is now firmly planted in our minds. The reality, of course is; Iran has never denied that it has a nuclear program. It has, however, always denied having a nuclear weapons program and has always insisted that its nuclear program is solely in pursuit of peaceful uses such as power generation and the production of isotopes for cancer treatment.

Secondly, when Hillary Clinton says, “We’re going in with one objective”; it most definitely isn’t to “resolve the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program”. The real objective is simple; regime change in Iran through war and to provide an excuse for Israel to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The fact the US are far more interested in pushing for war is illustrated by Clintons reiteration of US policy as far as Iran’s nuclear program is concerned which is ‘prevention, not containment’. If Clinton isn’t interested in ‘containing’ Iran’s nuclear program then, it seems, they will be preventing it – even if the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Clearly, one way or the other, the US, Israel and their Western allies are not interested in listening to Iran’s claims that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and war for Israel is the real is the ‘one objective they’re going in for’.


UPDATE

This interesting piece in The New York Times today illustrates how the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme is juxta-positioned with the ‘Saddam has WMD’s’ rhetoric in the run to the invasion and destruction of Iraq. It shows how the intelligence community are struggling to come to terms with the nonsense over the Iraq intelligence failures yet still maintain their professional dignity in the face of political pressures to repeat those failures within the Iran context

What’s particularly interesting about this piece is how ultra-neocon John R. Bolton concedes that, “The intelligence analysts I’ve dealt with have always been willing to engage in debates on their conclusions, but there is top-down pressure to make the assessments come out a certain way”.

And isn’t that what’s happening now?