ANYONE REMEMBER HOW THE LAST GREAT DEPRESSION ENDED? – WORLD WAR TWO GOT STARTED.

In America it took ten years before the economy got going again after the last Great Depression started on 29 October 1929. No one knows how long it would have gone on for had the Second World War not started.

This time it seems as though things are the other way around; we go to war first spending billions of taxpayers money on weapons and invasions, then we spend even more billions on pretending to patch up the stuff that got broken as a result of the invasions and then we wonder why there’s no money left to carry the cost of it all.

The wars have made the ultra rich even richer and, since there is only x amount of money around, that can only mean the poor got poorer but the banks were quite happy to create and perpetuate the illusion that credit was good because it gave everyone what they wanted even if they couldn’t afford it. We were even told that these were the sort of ‘values’ that the kiddies from the West were dying for in the Middle East and Central Asia. Meanwhile the kiddies in the Middle East and Central Asia who were being killed by the kiddies from the West just knew that the kiddies from the West were only in the Middle East and Central Asia in order to enrich the already ultra rich in the West. Now, however, the pigeons have come home to roost. Not only have the ‘values’ that the kiddies from the West have been fighting for been shown to be false but the monetary value of the real reasons why the kiddies from the West are dying for has also had its backside pulled from underneath itself.

Let’s hope that the answer to this potential disaster doesn’t involve even more war. Do we really want the kiddies of our planet to wipe each other out just so that the very rich can remain very rich?

The first decade of the twenty-first century isn’t even over yet and already we’re repeating the mistakes that the lunatics in the twentieth century made.

Will we ever learn?

THE PROPAGANDA OF FEAR AND HATRED – THE HALLMARK OF THE EXTREME RIGHTWING ZIONISTS OF ISRAEL

The Israeli Ministry of Propaganda, better known as the Israeli National Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau, have been working overtime recently dreaming up ‘terrorist’ scenarios aimed at frightening the Israeli people and demonising the Lebanese militias known as Hezbollah. The idea is to work up enough enmity and hatred between the two so that the Israeli Zionists can feel justified in once again invading southern Lebanon in an attempt to kick start a war with Iran and, at the same time, secure south Lebanon up to the Litani River for themselves just as they have tried a couple of times in the past to do without success.

According to a report in the ‘Jerusalem Post’, the Counter Terrorism Bureau believe that Hezbollah are planning to infiltrate across the border and capture an Israeli community and then barricade themselves in one of the homes with Israeli civilians. The IDF apparently are also concerned that Hezbollah may attempt to ‘kidnap’ Israel soldiers ‘as they have done in the past’, presumably a reference to the capture of the two Israeli soldiers whose capture triggered the last attempt by Israel to invade Lebanon.

Meanwhile, extreme right-wing Zionists seem to be getting worried about the influence of the Israeli left who are increasingly moving toward the idea of a free Palestinian state and even the notion of a one state bi-national solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Flyers have been discovered offering NIS 1 million to anyone that kills members of the growing Israeli left-wing Peace Now movement.

The Israeli right-wing is currently in turmoil after the demise of Olmert. However, if an election were to be held now it is likely that Likud under Netanyahu would prevail, a move that would not bode well for Palestinians nor those in Israel who are tired of the violence and the hatreds and the seemingly never-ending fearmongering that is the hallmark of the extreme rightwing.

AUSTRALIAN EXTREME RIGHT-WING MAINSTREAM MEDIA BLOGGERS THINK McCAIN WAS THE WINNER – DESPITE REST OF WORLD THINKING OBAMA WON.

You have to hand it to the extreme right-wing Murdoch bloggers – they’ll swear black is white regardless of the evidence presented to them saying the opposite. (They still think Saddam and Osama bin Laden did the 9/11 job between them.) Take ‘The Australian’ newspapers ultra right-wing commentator known, for obvious reasons to those familiar with her commentary, as ‘SS-Rantenfuehrer’ Janet Albrechtsen. She reckons the ‘Young messiah did not trounce the old guy’ because the ’old guy’ was the tough guy who was strong on victory in Iraq at any cost, strong on continuing to alienate Iran by not offering talks, and strong on Pakistan and Russia as potential world troublemakers. In other words, strong on all of the warmongering garbage that most Americans are now heartily fed up with.

Meanwhile, over at Murdoch’s other right-wing rag, the Sydney ‘Daily Telegraph’, Tim Blair and his band of right-wing loony bloggies think that McCain won because Obama couldn’t remember the name of the mother who had given him a bracelet in memory of her son killed in Iraq. (Never mind that Obama was actually wearing the one that he’d been given while McCain had left his somewhere else.) It was, perhaps, a rather embarrassing ‘me too’ moment for Obama but is the future of the planet really going to revolve around bracelets and remembering who gave it to them?

Interestingly, the vast majority of polls say that he ‘young messiah did indeed trounce the old guy’ so from where these right-wingers get the idea that McCain somehow won the debate is anybody’s guess. Wishful thinking more likely.

As I said, these right-wingers will swear black is white in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. How do they keep their jobs? Of course! They work for Murdoch!

WAS MARRIOTT BLAST FAILED COUP ATTEMPT BACKED BY U.S. IN ORDER TO SECURE PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR ARSENAL?

The fact that both the Pakistan president and his Prime Minister were both scheduled to meet and dine at the Marriott Hotel together with many other senior government leaders at the time of the bomb blast that destroyed the hotel puts a new perspective on the notion that the blast was something more than just another so-called ‘suicide bomber’ attack by ‘Islamic extremists’.

While the US and their allies were quick to use the mainstream media to point the finger of blame at al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan, who have denied any knowledge of the attack, the reality is that neither al Qaeda nor the Taliban had anything to actually gain from such an atrocity. Only the US and their allies would have gained from the deaths of Pakistan’s leaders in these circumstances. Had they been killed, the US and their allies would have had an opportunity to back a pro-US Pakistani to lead the country in its ‘war against terrorism’ which had now come to Pakistan. The US may even have used the event as an excuse to launch ground operations by US forces to secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal using the US-backed emergency leader to give authority to such action.

Other factors are also giving cause for greater suspicion about this event. Just days before the bombing, the US had launched a number of drone attacks against targets on Pakistani soil. The Pakistan government had told the US that all such attacks in future that infringed Pakistan’s sovereignty would be defended by Pakistan’s forces regardless of who was attacking them. The US head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, had given his assurances personally to the President that such attacks would not happen again. But they did. Even as Mullen was giving the President his assurance, the Predator drone attacks were being planned. It was quickly becoming apparent that both the Pakistani government and, more importantly, the Pakistani people, were rapidly losing what little confidence they had left in being allied to the US as they had been. US and allied incursions into Pakistan were seeing Pakistanis becoming increasingly hostile toward the US to the point that the US was running the risk of becoming completely alienated by the Pakistan government.

An alienated nuclear armed Islamic Pakistan right next door to Iran is the last thing the US and their allies want.

RIGHT-WING ZIONIST ISRAELIS WANT ‘NATIONAL EMERGENCY GOVERNMENT' NOW – BEFORE BUSH LEAVES OFFICE!

Already the right-wing Zionists across the board of Israeli politics are calling for a national emergency government in order to cater for, as Ehud Barak the Israeli Labour leader puts it, ‘the political, financial and security challenges’ Israel faces. He has, it seems, the support of Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party.

Such a move would deprive Israelis of a right to elect a new government if the leader-elect of the Kadima Party, Tzipi Livni, is unable to form a coalition government. According to a report last Wednesday, talks between Barak and Netanyahu have resulted in an agreement whereby Netanyahu would become the Prime Minister of such a national emergency government until such time as elections take place either at the end of 2009 or when they are due in 2010 when Barak would take over as premier.

So why the rush to form a ‘national emergency government?

The extreme right wing Zionists – and make no mistake here, despite being leader of what is supposed to be a ‘leftish’ party, Barak is an extreme right-wing Zionist – need to form a government before the Bush presidency ends in order to guarantee support for an attack against Iran, Hizbollah, Syria and Hamas. An Obama presidency will be of no use to a right-wing Zionist government. Obama is unlikely to support such moves and the Zionists can’t afford to wait and see if McCain becomes president.

As always when it comes to Israeli politics, a lot of water can pass under the bridge in a very short space of time and alliances between politicians and parties can be made one moment and switched again the next. One thing is for sure however; if Netanyahu and the extreme right Zionists get up a government before Bush leaves office then Israel, the Palestinians and the entire Middle East can look forward only to more war and more misery.

THE MARRIOTT HOTEL BOMBING – A TERRORIST ATTACK ALRIGHT, BUT WHO EXACTLY WERE THE TERRORISTS?

Take a step back, have a look at the bigger picture and cast aside any preconceived subjective ideas that the western mainstream media propaganda machine may have instilled in you. After an objective and unbiased analysis of the events that preceded the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, there emerges a picture that is starkly different from what the people of the west have been told by their mainstream media.

Last Thursday a US Predator drone aircraft fired off four Hellfire missiles into Pakistan killing seven people. This was just hours after the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, had personally assured President Asif Ali Zardari that the US would in future respect the sovereignty of Pakistan after previous US incursions both into Pakistani airspace and on to Pakistani soil that had resulted in the deaths of Pakistani civilians. Relations between the US and Pakistan immediately floundered. Just a couple of day’s later, right on cue, there’s this massive blast at the Marriott Hotel that virtually destroys the hotel and kills scores. ‘Terrorists’ are blamed – the same Islamic extremist ‘terrorists, so we and the Pakistani government are told, who the US was trying to get just a couple of days earlier. And now there’s US National Security Advisor (and one of the few warmongering ultra neocons that is still in the Bush administration), Stephen Hadley, trying to tell the Pakistanis that they need the US to go into Pakistan to get these ‘terrorists’ because Pakistan hasn’t got the wherewithal to do it themselves.

We know, of course, that the Americans and their allies are not above this kind of false flag attack, (USS Liberty, Lavon Affair, Operation Northwoods, Gulf of Tonkin, etc.). And, since there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber as claimed, or even that the perpetrator was from one of the so-called Islamic extremist organisations, one can, considering the circumstantial evidence, come to the conclusion that it may more than likely have been a false flag attack perpetrated by the US or their allies than one carried out by Muslim extremists who would, incidentally, have absolutely nothing to gain, especially at that time, from such an attack.

We should get over this ‘our government would never do a thing like that’ mentality and take a good hard look at the geo-political reality of what is actually happening in our world and has been happening for some considerable time.

IS ISRAEL ABOUT TO LAUNCH AN ATTACK AGAINST THE GAZA USING WEST BANK FATAH FORCES?

The head of Palestinian Authority (PA) forces in the West Bank, General Dhiab al-Ali, has told Israeli newspaper ‘Ha’aretz’: “If Gaza remains mutinous, the Palestinian Authority will have no choice but to use force against it”.

It goes without saying that any such operation by the PA in the West Bank against Hamas in the Gaza will need more than just a nod from the Israelis to go ahead. The Israelis will need to supply the PA forces with the logistics of, firstly, moving PA forces from the West Bank to Gaza and, secondly, provide the kind of armaments needed for such an operation – something the PA forces simply do not have.

So far al-Ali denies that there has been any consultation with the Israelis on the matter but the idea that the PA and Israel have not discussed the possibilities is very unrealistic.

In January of next year President Mahmoud Abbas’ presidency ends. There should then be an election to find the next President but it is unlikely that Hamas will be allowed to put up a candidate since the organisation has been declared a ‘terrorist organisation’. This would lead to unrest in the West Bank. In all likelihood Abbas will then declare a state of emergency and extend his presidency with the possibility of then ruling by decree, effectively making him a dictator over the Palestinian people and thus running the risk of a civil war.

From Israel’s point of view, it needs to resolve the ‘Gaza problem’ – preferably before Abbas’ presidency ends. However, Hamas is a formidable military force in the Gaza and also has a strong political power base among ordinary Palestinians who had voted them into government before the PA led by Abbas usurped Hamas power for themselves. Contrary to al-Ali’s assertion that the Gaza under Hamas is ‘mutinous’, it was Fatah that mutinied against Hamas’ democratically elected yet unrecognised government.

The reality is that, if there is to be an invasion of the Gaza to overthrow the Hamas government, it will be undertaken by Israeli forces who would likely ‘soften up’ the Gaza with air strikes prior to a full on invasion that would include PA forces. Naturally the propaganda and rhetoric would be that it was the PA that had planned the assault and carried it out playing down Israel’s role in any such an attack.

The short term gain for the Israelis is that they get immediate security in the Gaza provided by forces that are no longer hostile to Israel. This will result in the cessation of rocket attacks across into Israeli townships close to the Gaza, though rocket attacks have all but ceased already.

For the intermediate term gain, it could be – and this only speculative – that Israel and the PA could come to a deal whereby Israel withdraws all the settlements from the West Bank and realigns some, if not all, of its so-called ‘security barrier’, in exchange for the PA transferring all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip for annexation to Israel where the settlers could then move to. The Israelis then end up with the Gaza Strip with it having been given to them by the Palestinians. Later, of course, there will be further ‘disturbances’ in the West Bank when the Israelis will then feel the need to re-enter the West Bank to start the process of occupation all over again gradually whittling down Palestinian resistance to Israeli colonisation and another round of settlement building.

JENNY HUME EXPOSES HER TRUE RACIST CREDENTIALS

It seems that Jenny Hume over at Webdiary still has absolutely no idea of what racism is all about.

She and her husband may be intrigued to learn that racism is not just about blood and biology as their simplistic upbringing may have taught them but also is about religion and culture, a new racism that they themselves are a part of.

Jenny Hume and Ian McDougall really have no idea about progressive politics in Australia and are simply at Webdiary to promote their own ideas about how they would like to see their ideal of a racist and inclusive ‘Australia’. Their idealistic dreamlike Australia bears no resemblance to the real world that Australia actually needs to be a part of. Their heads are firmly buried in the sands of their own restrained vision of the world that precludes entirely the reality of what is going on around them. To suggest that racism is simply a blood and biology thing without religious or cultural considerations is totally delusional.

A THOUSAND BUNKER BUSTER BOMBS?! AND THEY NEED THESE FOR...!!??

Israel’s recently approved order of 1000 GBU-39 bunker buster bombs has put the prospect of an attack against Iran firmly back on the front burner after having been shoved to the back while the Georgia affair and the current financial meltdown in the US dominated the news.

While no one can be really sure of what’s going on behind the scenes in the US and Israel, it certainly seems as though there is a convergence of circumstances that indicate that there are some moves afoot for the US and/or Israel (more likely ‘and’ rather than ‘or’) to strike not just Iran militarily, but also Hizbollah in Lebanon, Syria and possibly Hamas in the Gaza as well.

The GBU-39, while comparatively not a particularly big bomb carrying only some 23 kgs of high explosive, is, nonetheless, a very sophisticated weapon. Launched from height the bomb is capable of gliding to its target which, if the launch height is high enough and the weather conditions are right, can be up to 100 kms away. It is guided to its target via a GPS assisted inertial navigation system and is said to be accurate to within 8 meters. It can also penetrate reinforced concrete up to 1.8 meters thick. A thousand of these bombs will do a lot of damage, especially when used in conjunction with Israel’s other munitions and ordnance arsenal.

Apart from the order for these bombs there are other factors that tend to indicate that something is in the offing – not least of which is senior retired ultra neocon warmonger David Wurmser’s ’assurances’, published today in the ‘Jerusalem Post’, that Bush will not attack Iran before his term finishes in January. Considering Wurmser’s involvement in the weaving of the web of lies that led to the invasion of Iraq one can easily understand why Wurmser’s words should be treated with extreme scepticism; there is nothing like trying to lull your enemy into a false sense of security.

It also seems that there is a lot of wheeling and dealing going on behind the political scenes in Israel itself with the right-wing Zionists jockeying for position in a post-Olmert Israel. Regardless of who gets the thumbs up for the Kadima leadership, it seems that Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu together with the ultra right Shas party are scheming to snatch government away from Kadima to form a new rightwing coalition to be initially headed up by Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is one of the regions most dangerous politicians and is unlikely to hesitate to attack Iran and any of Israel’s other enemies given any opportunity – especially if he becomes Prime Minister. Netanyahu is also a great friend of vice-president Dick Cheney who is also known to want to bomb Iran and take on Israel’s other enemies. But, even if either Tzipi Livni or Shaul Mofaz of Kadima are able to maintain a coalition government, the likelihood of an attack against Iran is will be increased as both these leaders are known to be less hesitant than Olmert was. Furthermore, once the change has been made, regardless of who it is, the so-called ‘peace process’ with Abbas of Palestine will, for whatever it has been worth, end as none of the alternative potential Prime Ministers are interested in continuing with negotiations.

The Israeli hawks are coming to power and the bombs are virtually ‘off the shelf’ and ready to use. Russia will not support further sanctions against Iran (much to the relief of some rightwing Zionists who now see no point in delaying an attack against Iran; which, in turn, makes one wonder what the Georgia thing was all about in the first place), and, of course, time is simply running out. There’s unlikely to be an attack against Iran with Obama in the White House so the big question now is; can they take the risk of waiting to see if McCain gets up?

Unfortunately for Iran, the Middle East, Americans and the entire world, the warmongers seem to have everything aligned and in place to ensure that the world in the very near future will not be a better place because of them.

NEOCONS GET DESPERATE OVER OBAMA.

Back in May 2008 neocon extremist Edward Luttwak wrote an article about how Barack Obama would be viewed by the Islamic world as an apostate; a Muslim that has made a deliberate move to no longer be a believer within the religion of Islam. The piece, published in the New York Times, was a transparent attempt to connect in the minds of the dumb and gullible the idea that Obama would not be an appropriate person to have as an American president due to his father being a Muslim. This, in turn, subliminally reinforces the notion that a Judeao-Christian America is at war with the world of Islam which is the reason why, so Luttwak suggests, it is inappropriate for Obama to become President.

Juan Cole, a noted professor of modern Middle Eastern and south Asian history at the University of Michigan, was quick to point out how ludicrous Luttwak’s argument was in a rebuttal to Luttwak’s assertions that Cole published on his own website just a few days after Luttwak’s piece appeared in the NYT.

Fortunately – and one has to wonder if it wasn’t as a result of Cole’s scholarly rebuttal – The New York Times public editor, Clark Hoyt, had the good sense to also publish a rebuttal of Luttwak’s ignorant argument.

Hoyt not only pointed out how Luttwak had just got it plain wrong, but also berated the NYT op-ed editor, David Shipley, for not having vetted Luttwak’s original copy for accuracy in the first place. Desperation set in and the neocons at The Weekly Standard were quick to step in to defend their hero. The bottom line remained, however, that Islamic scholars both in the US and the throughout the Islamic world refuted Luttwak’s nonsensical claims.

But Luttwak wasn’t the first neocon crazy to attempt to demonise Barack Obama. In January 2008 the quintessential Islamophobe, Daniel Pipes, wrote a piece titled: ‘Confirmed: Barack Obama Practised Islam’, as though in having done so, he had committed some heinous crime – which, of course, is what the likes of Pipes and Luttwak hope that the people of America and elsewhere will actually think. Pipes, though, is an extremist and not one who easily gives up despite being made a complete fool of by those that have debunked his lunatic assertions. Only recently, August 2008, he wrote an article in similar vein that was published in the Jerusalem Post titled: ‘Obama through Muslim eyes’ in which he again attempted to assert that Obama was a Muslin apostate this time citing fellow neoconservative Shireen K. Burki of the University of Mary Washington, Virginia, as an ‘expert’ in these matters and who actually wrote in May 2008, shortly after Luttwak’s piece appeared, that, “Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house. After all, the 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate.”

What all this demonstrates, apart from the obvious and transparent attempt by the neocons to demonise Obama, is the way in which the neocon pundits use each others work to reinforce their own when in many cases the propaganda actually goes full circle as in this case where Pipes kicks off his garbage then Luttwak follows up followed by Burki and then, to complete the cycle, Pipes uses Burki to reinforce his argument again.

It’s pure desperation from the neocons.

WOMAN THAT THINKS GOD ORDAINED THAT AMERICA SHOULD ATTACK AND DESTROY IRAQ WANTS TO RULE WORLD.

Sarah Palin once told an audience in Alaska that the invasion and destruction of Iraq was a “task from God”. This is the same Sarah Palin that is now the vice-presidential candidate for the Republican Party who could conceivably one day be the President of the United States and, therefore, become the most influential and most powerful person on the planet. And she thinks that the invasion and destruction of Iraq was a “task from God”!?

One has to wonder how she perceives the issues that the US has with Iran and with Russia. Will the destruction of these two nations also be seen as “tasks from God”? And how will a US under President Sarah Palin deal with the Palestinians and the Lebanese and the Syrians or, indeed, any other nation that has a majority of their peoples of a religion that she detests as much as she adores her own religion?

The present President is currently the most despised man on the planet. His approval ratings have been, and still are, among the very lowest of any US President. His lies and wars have cost the American people greatly in both blood and treasure. But, despite all this, here we are at the dawn of a new era that may begin with the election of a new President but with the polls and mainstream media telling us the opposite of what might be expected regarding the outcome of this upcoming election.

There is something terribly wrong here. How can the American people, fully aware now of much the crimes and lies of this Republican Presidency has cost them, go to the polls and vote for exactly the same kind of people into government all over again?

Are you really going to vote for John “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” McCain and Sarah “Task from God” Palin?

The world is relying on the American people to rid us of these lunatics from power once and for all.

THE DESPERATE PLIGHT OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA AFTER EIGHT YEARS OF BREATHTAKING LIES

One of the reasons the mainstream media are so intent on supporting McCain and Palin in the up-coming Presidential election is because they realise that with the demise of Bush and a Democrat president-elect, there is far more likelihood of the mainstream media’s role in the Bush presidency’s lies being revealed by those that, in many cases, were themselves part of the mainstream media machine at the time.

The problem with the moguls of the mainstream media is that they just can’t help themselves when it comes to money-making opportunities. They are even happy to shoot themselves in the foot if they can be assured that there’s a quid in it for them. Of course, they’d prefer not to shoot themselves in the foot but, if there’s enough in it for them, they will.

The American mainstream media, and, more importantly, the moguls that own them, support the rightwing of politics, and in America that’s the Republicans. They support them because Republican goals coincide with the goals of big business and the mainstream media is a part of big business. Those in charge of big business tend to live in each others pockets. They help and support each other. They sit on each others boards of directors and belong to the same clubs and mix in the same social circles. As well as being chief honcho in their own business they also often have large share and stake-holdings in other big businesses to hedge against any disaster that may befall their own business. They share the same political, economic, social and value belief systems and ideologies. In this way they generally are able to maintain control of the political system of America by using the mainstream media to manipulate a compliant and often gullible public into making certain decisions that tend to work in favour of big business and their political supporters.

However, when a given set of circumstances occasionally goes against the best interests of big business and their supporters, despite the best efforts of the mainstream media to prevent such circumstances arising – like, for example, the people of America electing a Democrat for president – then the mainstream media accepts the fait accompli of the situation and then goes all out to make as much money as possible by selling newspapers and advertising space via stories that would otherwise have not been tolerated when big business had greater control of the direction the nation was going.

The mainstream media has a tendency to follow popular trends as well as make a concerted effort to create them. And if the trend is for the people to demand answers to questions, only this time without being lied to, then mainstream media are happy to oblige even if, as I said, it means occasionally shooting themselves in the foot.

The problem this time around for the Republicans, and the mainstream media that support them, is that, if there is a dramatic change in government, there is likely to be a powerful demand for answers to questions that the American people feel have never honestly been answered and the mainstream media, driven by the desire to continue creating wealth for themselves, will feel obliged to provide those answers even at the detriment of themselves. They’ll apologise if they have to; they’ll blame the government and various government departments who they’ll say misled them; maybe even the odd head will roll as they attempt to back out of taking on any of the responsibility of all those things that were wrong and rotten throughout the George W. Bush presidency.

This time though, the mainstream media have bitten off a lot more than they are prepared to swallow. For eight long years they have been so deeply enmeshed in the dispensing of lies and propaganda on behalf of the Bush presidency and his neoconservative administration that they have been left with no choice now but to do all in their power to maintain control even if it means practicing further outrageous deceit to ensure maintenance of Republican power. This time around the mainstream media fears more than loss of income; they fear the idea that they may even be accused of complicity in war crimes perpetrated by the President and the administration. Just the stigma of their complicity in those crimes will set them back years in terms of regaining the confidence of the American people.

The demise of the Republican Bush era in the event of an Obama Democrat win at the next election is the mainstream media’s greatest fear because what they fear most is the revelation of the truth of what happened during the G. W. Bush years and their part in it.

If Obama wins then the truth will begin to trickle out and then it will snowball and the mainstream media will not be able to stop it. They will, instead, abuse the truth, just as the abused the lies of the Bush administration, in order to create greater wealth and power for themselves.

They just can’t help themselves.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE PALIN FIASCO

Of course, it’s not so much about babies and pregnancies and who had whose child; it is, however, very much about hypocrisy and the ability of the Republican combination of John McCain and Sarah Palin to give the American people an honest accounting of themselves because if they can’t even do that, how are they going to be trusted to govern the US, the worlds most influential nation?

This business is likely to blow up in the Republicans faces. The chances of Sarah Palin surviving as the vice-presidential candidate until 4 November are very slim if there is any chance at all. The only way out for them is to provide the proper documentary evidence supporting their claims. It’s something they should have done the instant any question was raised. They didn’t. Why?

We’ll be hearing next that the emotional pressure for the seventeen year-old Bristol, Sarah Palin’s daughter who claims to be pregnant, has been too much to sustain and that she has suffered a ‘miscarriage’.

Are the American people really going to fall for this stuff? Is McCain really fit to be President if he makes these kind of judgements? And what on earth was his advisors thinking of when they let him go ahead with this nonsense?

The only people I feel sorry for here are the Palin’s kidz and the American people – all of whom have been duped and abused for long enough.

ISRAELI GUNSHIPS OPEN FIRE ON UNARMED PALESTINIAN FISHING BOATS WITH HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS ON BOARD

Reports are now coming in of Israeli naval vessels firing on unarmed Palestinian fishing boats with human rights workers on board. The fishing boats were several miles off the Gazan coast and inside Palestinian territorial waters when the Israeli Navy opened fire on them with live ammunition. There have been no reports of injuries.

One wonders if this will ever be a story that sees the light of day in the mainstream media. As I post this at 10.20am Adelaide, Australia local time, there has nothing mentioned at all in the mainstream media. The report originated directly from two of the multinational human rights workers on board the fishing vessels who have been in contact with the Australians For Palestine and Women For Palestine groups in Australia.

Please call the Israeli authorities now and tell them to stop firing on unarmed Palestinians and human rights workers. Here are a few numbers to call:

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tel. +972 2 530 3111
The British Embassy in Tel Aviv +972 3 725 1222
The US Embassy in Tel Aviv +972 2 625 5755
The Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv +972 3 693 5000


UPDATE 1

There are reports that at least two Gazan fisherman were injured when the Israeli Navy fired on the fishing vessels.


UPDATE 2

The ‘Jerusalem Post’ is reporting that the Israeli Navy had fired ‘warning shots’ at the Gazan fishing boats. The fact that two unarmed fisherman had been wounded indicates that they were not warning shots but shots designed to kill and injure.

A QUICK NOTE FOR U.S. READERS

For the benefit of my US readers, a friend has pointed me to some stuff that may be of interest including this and this about the ongoing and terrifying tactics of the police in Minnesota.

Many thanks to Bob Wall whose comments can be read at the No More of the Same blog.

WITH NO POSSIBILITY OF FURTHER SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN WILL ISRAEL NOW FEEL FREE TO ATTACK?

The present standoff between the US and Russia over Georgia and Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia virtually guarantees that Russia will not support further sanctions against Iran in the United Nations. Since Russia is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto power, it is doubtful that the US and their allies will even bother raising the issue of sanctions against Iran until the conflict over Georgia and the separatist states has been resolved.

So, where does this leave Israel?

Israel and the Israel lobby in the US has been champing at the bit to bomb Iran but would much prefer it if the US were to do it for them. Unfortunately for Israel, the US, or more specifically, George Bush, has got his hands full with an American people who are in no mood for more war, especially on the eve of a Presidential campaign that many see as being one of the most important in American history.

However, all is not entirely lost for those rightwing Israelis itching to let loose on the Iranians. Firstly, Condoleezza Rice has said that the US would not say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to Israel doing what it thinks it needs to do in order to ‘defend’ herself, which, of course, is an open invitation for Israel to attack Iran. Secondly, the fact that Russia is now unlikely to support further UN sanctions against Iran could work in Israel’s favour. Waiting for the slow process of the UN imposed sanctions to wind its way through the system has always been the cause of great frustration to Israel but, since the US has insisted that it must go down this road in order to get public opinion on side, Israel has just had to grit its teeth and go along with it. Now, though, they can see themselves being relieved of that particular burden and claim that there is now no time to waste and that Iran is an immediate threat that can no longer be tolerated especially since the UN is no longer able to apply sanctions. In this case Israel may just feel free to ‘unilaterally’ attack Iran but knowing full well that the US will come to Israel’s aid just as soon as the first shot has been fired by Israel.

Which all kind of begs the question: What was the Georgians aim of attacking South Ossetia in the first place and to what extent was there Israeli involvement and US collusion given that we know that there was very heavy Israeli influence within the Georgian government among some of their ministers?

ISRAELI EXTREMIST GROUP NOW OFFER TOURIST PACKAGE DEALS SHOWCASING ISRAELI TERRORISM FOR WANNABE ZIONISTS

The Israeli extremist organisation, Shurat Hadin, a front organisation for Israeli extremist Zionists and neoconservatives, have now taken to advertising in the ‘Jerusalem Post’ their package deal which they call ‘The Ultimate Mission to Israel’. The deal includes the following:

Briefings by Mossad officials and commanders of the Shin Bet.
Briefing by officers in the IDF Intelligence and Operations branches.
Inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings.
Live exhibition of penetration raids in Arab territory.
Observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court.
First hand tours of the Lebanese front-line military positions and the Gaza border check-points.
Inside tour of the controversial Security Fence and secret intelligence bases. Meeting Israel's Arab agents who infiltrate the terrorist groups and provide real-time intelligence.
Briefing by Israel's war heroes who saved the country.
Meetings with senior Cabinet Ministers and other key policymakers.
Small airplane tour of the Galilee, Jeep rides in the Golan Heights, water activities on Lake Kinneret, a cook-out barbecue and a Shabbat enjoying the rich religious and historic wonders of Jerusalem's Old City.

On top of all this you also get:

Five-star accommodations at the Sheraton Plaza Jerusalem (Glatt Kosher),
Three meals a day (all Kosher),
Luxury bus transportation and knowledgeable tour guide,
A dedicated Executive Communications Center at the hotel,
Personal cell phone for each participant.

Watching other people suffer seems to be some people’s idea of a holiday. One can only imagine the outrage of the Western world if, say, Hamas or Hezbollah were to openly ‘normalise’ targeted killings of Israeli political and military leaders or allow Arab tourists to be part of the proceedings of Hamas or Hezbollah ‘trials’ of captured Israelis. Yet the world ignores the Israelis doing the same thing AND making a commercial enterprise out of it!

THE SUCCESS OF THE FREEDOM SHIPS TO GAZA SET PRECEDENTS THE ISRAELIS WILL FIND HARD TO REVERSE.

The arrival on Saturday of the two freedom ships, the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, has lifted the spirits of the Gazan people immensely judging by the reception they received as they appeared in Gazan waters. More importantly, however, their safe arrival into Gaza without interference from the Israelis has set a precedent that would now be difficult for the Israelis to reverse.

The Israelis had thought long and hard about how to deal with this clear challenge to their authority over the lives of the Palestinian people in the Gaza. In the end, considering the amount of publicity that the Israelis were unable to keep a lid on through their supporter’s control of the mainstream media, coupled with the high profile and multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nature of the crew and participants which included a holocaust survivor, an Israeli academic and a sister-in-law of ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, among others, the Israeli authorities had little option but to let the ships through and complete what the Israelis thought was their symbolic business hoping then that it will all be quickly forgotten as it becomes yesterday’s news. However, the Israelis have seriously miscalculated both the motives and the determination of the organisers who the Israelis believed were out merely for the publicity of a one-off venture to test the will of the Israelis and to propagandise the plight of the Palestinian people in the Gaza.

It is true that the Free Gaza project has highlighted the plight of the Palestinian people in the Gaza, but it is a reflection on the Israeli rightwing’s own considerations about humanitarian priorities if they believe that the Free Gaza project was simply about publicity. On the odd occasion that the Israelis do make some concession to Palestinian suffering like allowing the occasional child to get urgent medical treatment in Israel, it is always only for the purposes of publicity; never mind that the child more than likely needed the urgent treatment because the Israelis had denied the facilities to Gazan doctors and specialists in the first place.

The Israelis haven’t entirely ignored the possibilities of further attempts to break the blockade and, indeed, have already warned that further attempts will not necessarily get the same reaction. It would be difficult, though, for the Israelis to justify turning back or, worse, using violence against, ships that are so clearly bringing only much needed aid to the Palestinian people.

Now that the project has received the mainstream media attention that it deserves, it is now up to everyone to ensure that future blockade-busting activities from the Free Gaza Project also get all the attention and bi-partisan support it deserves.

NEOCON WARMONGER KEEN TO PROVOKE RUSSIA IN EUROPE USING THE BALTIC STATES AS A POLITICAL FOOTBALL - AGAIN.

Fred Kagan, a senior neocon who instigated the idea of the ‘surge’ policy in Iraq that some have hailed as a success, is at it again only this time he’s looking to further provoke the Russians by insisting that NATO positively demonstrates it support and presence in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania lest the Russians feel tempted to reinvade them as Kagan thinks they did in Georgia.

Kagan, a well known neoconservative propagandist, is deliberately attempting to recreate the atmosphere of fear and loathing that dominated during the Cold War years. The Baltic States that consist of three small European nations have historically, especially during the last century, been used as a bit of a political football due to their geographical position relative to Germany and Russia.

In 1939 the Baltic States were ceded to Russia as part Stalin’s deal with Hitler when they carved up Eastern Europe between them at the beginning of the Second World War. However, when Hitler turned on Stalin and attacked Russia, the Baltic States quickly fell to German control. Then, toward the end of the war as Russia advanced westward, the Baltic States reverted back to Soviet Russian control. It wasn’t until 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union that the Baltic States regained their independence. As a result of this predominately Soviet Russian control over the years, the people of the Baltic States had become extremely anti-communist and, far more importantly in the twenty-first century since the demise of communism, anti-Russian, and it is this fact that the likes of Kagan are exploiting for their own ends.

So, what’s behind Kagan’s thinking here? The answer lies in what Kagan has proffered as an explanation for this strategy; he ‘says that the West needed to match words with deeds if it was to stop Russia turning into an "intolerable, aggressive imperialistic" power’. The reality, of course, is that it is not Russia that is becoming an “intolerable, aggressive imperialistic” power, but the US.

The circumstances that led to the crisis in Georgia is totally different from the geo-political situation of the Baltic States relative to Russia, yet Kagan, in his relentless hatred of all things Russian, is quite content to place the Baltic States into the line fire yet again by abusing the Baltic States well-known resentment of the Russians to bolster the neocons anti-Russian rhetoric. Kagan knows that the Baltic States are unlikely to refuse Western help but would be far better off simply proclaiming neutrality or simply be non-aligned like Sweden and Finland.

Kagan’s stirring up of old Baltic-Russian antagonisms is transparent and belies the neocons trues objectives of reviving the old Cold War animosities that were the bread and butter of the US military-industrial complex which in turn ensured US predominance as a so-called superpower.

THE U.S. AND THEIR ALLIES HAVE ALMOST LOST THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.

With the allies losing their war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US and their allies are now attempting to subdue the Afghan people using terror; the very methods they had hypocritically accused the Taliban of using and which were offered to the world as part of their justification to invade Afghanistan in the first place.

The other justification, of course, was to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and to destroy ‘al Qaeda’. Almost seven years later and there is still no sign of bin Laden, and al Qaeda, indeed, if the propaganda and rhetoric of the Western neocon and mainstream media is anything to go by, al Qaeda has grown and flourished and now has branches everywhere including Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Morocco and throughout much of Africa including Nigeria, Ethiopia and elsewhere, not to mention still in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

One has to wonder what got into the minds of the US government when they declared that they had ‘routed’ the Taliban in December 2001 after the US invasion of Afghanistan the previous October. It now seems that Bush’s claim of ‘victory’ over the Taliban was to say the least, premature – a mistake he repeated when claiming ‘mission accomplished’ on 1 May 2003 after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The reality is that Bush and the neocons, far from wanting to liberate the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq from brutal regimes and dictators, were far more interested in liberating the Iraqi people of their resources and subduing the Afghan people into submitting to US hegemony for their own nefarious and ulterior motives. What the US hadn’t accounted for was the fact that most people, regardless of how despicable the people that rule them are, will no tolerate a foreign troop on their soil who they know are there to steal from them.

Above is a photograph of US troops in Afghanistan but imagine if you will that they are Afghani troops in, say, Outback Australia and their supporting warplanes had just bombed and killed 76 civilians including 50 women and 19 children in Alice Springs. How would you feel about that?

You’d be outraged to the point that if you were a young man and one of those killed was a relative or friend and there was a resistance movement against these foreign troops on your soil you’d be inclined to join up and fight back would you not.

Why then should the people of Afghanistan not feel any different?

And that’s why the US and their allies can never win in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA PROPAGANDA EFFORT ON NEW WTC7 COLLAPSE THEORY FALLS IN A HEAP.

Yesterday’s release of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) report on the collapse of WTC7 seems to have been carefully coordinated with the mainstream media in an all-out propaganda effort to debunk so-called conspiracy theories that insist that WTC7 collapsed after being rigged with demolition charges which would infer that, due to time constraints, could only have been placed in the building before 9/11.

Few, however, find the new ‘evidence’ proffered by NIST of the building collapsing because of the failure of a beam due to thermal expansion very compelling; indeed, some, if one cares to read through The New York Times comments pages that followed their reporting of the reports release, are now more convinced than ever that the governments version of events are lies.

All of the existing evidence, including the now much seen video footage, shows quite clearly the building collapsing uniformly and spontaneously whereas the NIST report requires us to believe that, rather than there being a simultaneous failure of the structural elements supporting the building which would have resulted in the uniform and spontaneous collapse shown, the building collapsed after the sequential failure of the various structural elements. Had this been the case then the building would not have collapsed uniformly as the various videos clearly show it did.

As an aside, the release of the report has also exposed the mainstream media’s complicity in pushing what will now become the official government line on the collapse of WTC7.

First, let’s have a closer look at how the NYT covered the release of the report. On the surface the NYT take on the reports findings seems quite objective. The author of the NYT article, Eric Lipton, uses subtly negative phraseology to give the impression that the report should finally debunk the alternative explanations as to the buildings collapse. For example, he says in the very first paragraph: “Fires in the 47-story office tower at the edge of the World Trade Center site undermined floor beams and a critical structural column, federal investigators concluded on Thursday, as they attempted to curb still-rampant speculation that explosives caused the building’s collapse on Sept. 11, 2001.” The words: “curb still rampant speculation” are used to reinforce the notion that the NIST report reduces those other explanations to mere speculation when, in reality, the NIST reports findings, in the light of the compelling evidence shown in the videos, is actually even more speculative.

Lipton then immediately goes on to say: “No one died when the tower, 7 World Trade Center, tumbled…” Tumbled? The building didn’t ‘tumble’; it collapsed linearly into it own footprint. Lipton also uses the term ‘conspiracy theorists’, a term which since 9/11, the mainstream media has managed to ensure has morphed into a derogatory label. He writes: “What started as a small number of such conspiracy theorists ballooned into a movement of sorts, largely fed by Internet sites and homemade videos.” This is a very patronising piece of criticism from a mainstream media stalwart, the NYT, to the flourishing blogosphere without which we’d have had even less knowledge about events than if we had to rely on the mainstream media.

Another mainstream media online newspaper, The Age of Melbourne, Australia, was less subtle about its anti-conspiracy theorist propaganda. Its headline blared; “9/11 collapse mystery solved: scientists”. Then, right below the opening paragraph, there is a photograph, not of WTC7, but of the second airliner about to hit the second tower of the main WTC with the caption underneath it reading: “The truth about 'conspiracies'. Millions believe the 9/11 attacks were faked, thousands say they've seen UFOs and an army of hunters are after Bigfoot but professional sceptic Dr Michael Shermer has news for all 'believers'.”

The Age report quite unsubtley links and equates those that enquire about explanations of the events of 9/11 other than those given by the government with UFO and Bigfoot believers with the wording even implying that UFOs were seen in Manhattan on 9/11! This particular mainstream propaganda piece was topped of with this: "Hopefully this thorough report puts to rest the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, which dishonour the men and women who lost their lives on that terrible day," from Larry Silverstein spokeswoman Dara McQuillan.

The problem, at least from the government’s point of view, is that the NIST report, far from debunking the so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ alternative explanations for the events of 9/11, have actually strengthened peoples view about the government lying about the events of 9/11 and, in the process, by bringing it all out into the mainstream media as they have, will now gain more converts to the idea that the governments version of events is a cover-up.

WORLD OUTRAGE AS HAMAS THREATENS TO ASSASSINATE ISRAELI LEADERS FOR NOT RELEASING PALESTINIAN PRISONERS !!

Sorry! Sorry. It seems I’ve got it wrong again. Apparently that should read; Israel threatens to assassinate Hamas leaders if one Israeli prisoner is not released. World couldn’t care less.

ARE MEMBERS OF INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES MORE PATHOLOGICAL THAN THE ‘EXTREMISTS’ THEY CLAIM THEY ARE PROTECTING US FROM?

Its odd how, when reading about government intelligence agencies reports on research into ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’, one might be forgiven for thinking that that such reports are more of a reflection on themselves rather than a dissertation on the state of mind of ‘terrorists’ and ‘extremists’. It would almost seem that the personalities of those that they consider to be ‘terrorists’ and ‘extremists’ and themselves are identical if the report in today’s UK Telegraph is any indication.

As one reads through this article the irony of similarity becomes unmistakable, almost compelling. For example, it says: “MI5 has concluded that there is no easy way to identify those who become involved in terrorism in Britain.” Oddly, there’s also no easy way to identify those who become involved in the intelligence services either. Indeed, if anyone in the intelligence services did demonstrate an easy way to identify themselves then they wouldn’t have a job.

The article goes on to say “…that it is not possible to draw up a typical profile of the "British terrorist" as most are "demographically unremarkable" and simply reflect the communities in which they live.” Such a profile, of course, is also an essential qualification for employment with the intelligence services.

The conclusion the report comes to, among other things, is this: “The "mad and bad" theory to explain why people turn to terrorism does not stand up, with no more evidence of mental illness or pathological personality traits found among British terrorists than is found in the general population.” The reports other findings conclude that generally British ‘terrorist’s’, far from actually being ‘extremist’s’, are really quite normal to the point of being boring.

The obvious question here is: Are there any actual ‘terrorists’ then? Are the stories we hear about their fanaticism and extremism just stories made up to justify… well, whatever the government of the day feels like?

On the other hand, what about the people that make up the intelligence and so-called anti-terrorist services? We often hear about how ‘dedicated’ they are but is ‘dedication’ the same as fanaticism? We often hear of how they have ‘eliminated’ extremists and terrorists in so-called shoot outs and straight out assassinations but do ordinary everyday people go around doing that sort of thing? What sort of person would do those sorts of things? Violence always begets violence.

Apparently it would depend on whether or not you work for the government or the other lot. If you work for the government then you are a dedicated brave officer protecting the lives of ordinary citizens. If, however, you work for the other lot then you are a fanatical crazed person dedicated to destroying the lives of ordinary citizens – or at least, until now, according to the mainstream media you are.

The reality is this: The government maintains an intelligence service not to protect us from ‘terrorist’ and ‘extremists’ but to protect the government from having the truth revealed and to do the underhand bidding that government may from time to time require then to do in pursuit of some policy or another that would otherwise be unacceptable to the boring everyday person on the street.

The real ‘terrorists’ and ‘extremists’ out there are not the ones that the government often like to ‘warn’ us about those that charged with ensuring that the government’s will is imposed upon all of us. It is done remorselessly by ruthless extremists who we call our ‘intelligence services’.

Stuck in the middle are the teeming masses of ordinary everyday citizens anyone of whom, according to the intelligence report, could become a ‘ruthless extremist’ just when it suits the other ruthless extremists and the government of the day for them to become so.

MURDOCH OWNED AUSTRALIAN MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPER FRAUDULENTLY EDITS CRITICISM OF ITS SUPPORT FOR ZIONISM.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph owned by Rupert Murdoch has shown, yet again, that it practices deceit and fraud on its opinion blogs. Australian extreme rightwing Islamophobic racist Tim Blair runs an online blog at this newspaper which in the main attracts fellow rightwing Muslim-hating racists who exchange rightwing ideas and generally just slap each other on the back when they opine some outrageous view about their objects of hate. (Currently it’s Barack Obama)

Recently I have been posting at this blog only to find when I really hit a sore point with them that exposes their racism, that what I have written had been heavily editorialised to the point that it is published in a way that means the complete opposite of what was originally written. The intent is to dissuade any further posting that disrupts their otherwise warmongering and hate-filled discourse.

Naturally, people are free to publish or not as they wish but in this case Blair and his coterie of supporters who professes to be a ‘liberal’, get very irate over people that deny freedom of speech or practice censorship. Yet, when the argument against them becomes compelling, he shuts down the argument by abusing his editorial privilege. While I don’t have a problem with censorship per se, there is in Blair’s case a big problem with his so-called ‘liberal’ credentials – not to mention his hypocrisy.

What the argument was actually about, however, pales into unimportance when it is laid against the fact that this deceitful practice of editing out participators that don’t conform is multiplied by the number of extreme rightwing pro-Zionist anti-Islam hate blogs that Murdoch owns all over the world. It gives him and his paid-for minion’s unparalleled power that goes directly to the Israeli-centric neoconservatives and their warmongering Zionist cohorts in Israel as they attempt to manipulate world opinion to favour their racist agenda.

Having been editorialised out of further blogging at Blair’s demonstrates how desperate these people are in their attempts to silence the truth about rightwing Zionism and the events of 9/11 but also shows how important blogs that are independent of the mainstream media are.

EUROPE REJECTS U.S. POSITION ON RUSSIA OVER GEORGIA CRISIS

Europe is being pragmatic about the crisis over Georgia to the point that the divergence between pragmatic European interests and ideologically-driven US interests over the matter could itself become a crisis.

At the NATO emergency summit meeting yesterday in Brussels it has been reported that many of the European members rejected a US proposal to freeze the Nato-Russia council, established in 2002 to boost relations between Moscow and the West preferring instead to keep open channels of communication between European and Russian Ministers. Even David Miliband, the UK Foreign Secretary said: "I am not one that believes that isolating Russia is the right answer to its misdemeanours.” The UK government, until now, has been very supportive of the tough US policy against Russia. To top it off the meeting decided not to rush through Georgia’s membership into NATO which was one of the main US calls. Even Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, seemed in no rush to endorse a quick decision on the question of Georgia’s NATO membership.

The Europeans are also aware that Russia is quite happy to go and talk and trade with people that will talk and trade with them. The Europeans are very much aware that the Russians may also be happy to trade not just commercially but also militarily. As I type President Assad of Syria is preparing for a trip to Russia for talks about closer ties and the possibility of purchasing military materiel; a situation not likely to please Israel or the US.

The reality is the Europeans know which side their bread is buttered. Wealth creation in Europe and the energy requirements of Europe rely on trading with Russia. The bottom line is simple: Europe cannot afford to upset the Russians to the extent the US wants them to. This will annoy the US in much the same way as the German and French refusal to endorse the US and UK and their allies when the US and the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’, which, incidentally, included Georgia, did when they wanted to attack Iraq in March 2003.

To what extent the US will be annoyed with the Europeans for their intransigence toward US foreign policy on Russia over the Georgia crisis remains to be seen. How the neocons and the Bush administration will react also remains to be seen.

TIM BLAIR FRAUDULENTLY FALSIFIES COMMENTS AT HIS BLOG TO SUIT HIS ARGUMENT!

For those following what has been going on at Blair’s blog, here’s what I said that Blair modified to suit his own argument. It is behaviour that one has come to expect from the rightwing mainstream press.

Bigmac… well, just your choice of name says it all for starters.

Blair, in his usual opportunistic way, simply used the idea of using seawater as a way of having a go at someone who knows far more about the environment than he or, indeed, you ever will. In other words, Blair was simply trying to score political points. The environment and how it may affect the future of the planet is something that should be left to experts and is not something that should be used as a political football by rightwing loons such you, Blair and the other same old hopelessly ignorant posters that insist on gathering here to protect everything the propagandising opportunist Blair says. Fortunately for the rest of Australia there are only a tiny handful of you here and one wonders why even the neocon Murdoch actually keeps the likes of Blair on; he’s an embarrassment to Australia.

Fortunately, the vast majority of Australians do care about the environment enough to make the financial sacrifices that may be required to keep the planet safe and even rejuvenated for future generations. Solar energy in all its forms, direct or wind, is seen by most Australians as the way of the future with total disregard to what you or the other rightwing loons around the world may think about it.

Stick with your obsession for Bush and the turkey; I’m sure people think that’s something that is really important for the future of the world.

THE NEOCONS BACK OFF AS THEY REALISE THEY MAY PUSH THE RUSSIANS FURTHER INTO THE IRAN CAMP.

Events have moved along quickly with regard to the Georgia crisis. I get the distinct impression that the neoconservatives are now back-peddling somewhat from their aggressive stance against the Russians as they realise that it could jeopardise their primary commitment to Israel and their push for regime change in Iran. The neocons have quickly realised that the Russians aren’t going to be the pushover they first thought they were going to be. There has been posture and counter posture from both sides but there is only so much posturing the two sides can do without actual confrontation and, since the Russians have the advantage of home turf, the US are now all postured out and the Russians still haven’t budged.

Frederick Kagan writing in the neocon comic, The Weekly Standard, says: “The Cold War isn't back. The Russian attacks on Georgia don't mean American soldiers will soon be staring at Red Army soldiers in the middle of Germany or that U.S. defense spending must triple to match a global Russian military juggernaut.” Kagan even concedes, without actually saying it, that Russia has got the better of the situation; he writes: “American rhetoric about Russia's actions has been strong but has not deterred Putin from pushing even harder.” The reality is that while American rhetoric maybe aggressive, there is nothing they can do if Russia, as it has, digs its heels in and effectively tells the US to get knotted. Had the Russians backed off as the US demanded, the neocons and the Bush administration would have felt more confident in resuming their stance against Iran but since the Russians haven’t backed off the neocons and the administration have now found that it is they that need to back off from confrontation with Russia. Failure to do so could otherwise completely alienate the Russians and push them into the Iranian camp whereby the Iranian nuclear issue becomes part of the rhetoric in the standoff between the US and Russia – something the neocons and the Bush administration would be keen to avoid at all costs.

As the window of opportunity continues to close the countdown to a Final Confrontation with Iran is still ticking though the US and Israel are going to find it very difficult to get the regime change they need in Iran with the Russians breathing down their necks in anger.

GEORGIA CRISIS EXPOSES U.S. LIE ABOUT MISSILE DEFENCE SYSTEM IN EUROPE TO PROTECT FROM IRAN.

The rushed signing yesterday of a deal between the US and Poland for the US to base ten Interceptor missiles at a base in Poland renders totally transparent the US administrations assertion that the missile defence system is to protect Europe from attack by a nuclear armed Iran.

Over the past year or so the US, together with help from neocon front organisations, has insisted that the missile defence system they want to install in Eastern Europe is to protect the region from the threat of a nuclear armed Iran. Russia has always seen the transparency in this assertion and has objected to the US having their missile defence systems on their doorsteps saying that they are a threat to their own security.

The recent events in Georgia and the resulting stand-off between Russia and the US, culminating in yesterday’s expedited signing of a deal with Poland allowing the missiles to be positioned there, has reinforced Russia’s claims that the placement of the systems in East Europe has nothing to do with threats from Iran and everything to do with the further projection of US hegemony right up to Russia’s doorstep. The talks between Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk were centred against a background of discussion about US pledges to back Warsaw against any Russian aggression with Iran only being mentioned in passing as the Polish government and the US attempted to maintain the façade of the missiles only being for defence against Iran. If that’s the case then why the rush to sign off on the deal?

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the neocons have been behind the push to confrontation with Russia as they realise their War on Terrorism is falling apart in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of being a ‘War on Terrorism’ in these places its becoming clear to the world that, far from being ‘terrorists’, those that are fighting the Americans and their allies are simply wanting their respective nations back. A renewed Cold War with the Russians is just what the US and their allies need at the moment to distract a watching world from the neocons failures everywhere else.

The difference this round, however, is that Russia is not Iraq or Afghanistan. The US, contrary to what they think about themselves, is not the world’s only superpower; Russia can be more than a match for them.

The US should be reminded that they do have weapons of mass destruction and, if their tenacious ability to defend their mother country as displayed during the Second World War is anything to go by, they would be more than willing to use them.

AS THE ‘WAR ON TERRORISM’ FIZZLES AND GEORGIA FLARES, NEOCONS ATTEMPT TO REINVENT THE ‘COLD WAR’

The war in Georgia seems to have reignited the neoconservative’s passion for what they would like us to think is ‘anti-communism’ and has reinflamed their old animosities toward the ‘East’ with the latest confrontation providing them with an opportunity to reinvent themselves as guardians of the ‘West’ as the ‘War on Terrorism’ fizzles due to a lack of any credibility.

Notorious neocon commentator, Max Boot, writing in the LA Times a few days ago opened his piece commenting on the conflict in Georgia by writing: “It took the Red Army -- excuse me, the Russian army -- only two days to secure Abkhazia and South Ossetia.” He then went on to regurgitate the same old Cold War writing style that we were familiar with during 60s, 70s and 80s prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Boot writes: “By crossing Georgia's borders, the Russians have committed their worst violation of international law since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979,” and he adds, “At a time like this, it is vital for the leaders of the West to stand together and make clear that this aggression will not stand.” Boot even resurrects the old anti-communist fear-mongering rhetoric that the West used to justify its ‘stand’ against communism in South East Asia. He says: “Likewise, the Russian attacks on Georgia, if left unchecked, could easily trigger more conflict in the future. The Kremlin has embarked on a campaign to destabilize not just pro-Western Georgia but other former Soviet satrapies that refuse to toe its line. Many of these states have their own Russian minorities whose alleged maltreatment provides the perfect excuse for Russian meddling. Today, Georgia; tomorrow, Ukraine; the day after, Estonia?”

Arch neocon William Kristol writing in The New York Times just couldn’t help himself as he jumped on the rickety bandwagon of Cold War invocation. “Will Russia get away with it?” is the title of his 10 August piece. Then in the opening lines he invokes the memory of brave little Georgia’s brave stand against ‘Soviet rule’. “In August 1924, the small nation of Georgia, occupied by Soviet Russia since 1921, rose up against Soviet rule.”

Kristol takes a slightly different tack than Boot. Kristol prefers to lump Putin in with China’s Hu Jintaos to make the communist connection, and then, just to tie things up with Kristol’s other object of paranoiac fear, Iran, gives President Ahmadinejad a mention as well. Just to reinforce that particular aspect of the connection Kristol adds: “Incidentally, has Russia really been helping much on Iran? It has gone along with — while delaying — three United Nations Security Council resolutions that have imposed mild sanctions on Iran. But it has also supplied material for Iran’s nuclear program, and is now selling Iran antiaircraft systems to protect military and nuclear installations.” As the ‘War on Terrorism’ slips aimlessly in to historical oblivion Kristol tries to give it the kiss of life attempting to connect Russia, now, if we are to go along with the neocons, the new enemy of the West, with the Islamic enemies the neocons created for us in 2001

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post, that other notorious warmongering neocon writer Charles Krauthammer writes echoing the Boot and Kristol line. Again, the old Soviet and Cold War analogies are invoked. Krauthammer tells his readers that the Russian “…objective is the Finlandization of Georgia through the removal of President Mikheil Saakashvili and his replacement by a Russian puppet.” Apart from the obvious hypocrisy of this observation, considering America’s own history of promoting puppet governments all around the world, there is also the not insignificant fact that many observers contend that Saakashvili is actually a puppet of the West himself.

Krauthammer also invokes the analogy of the ‘Domino Affect’ of nations systematically being forced to come under Russian influence if Russia has its way in Georgia. He says: “Subduing Georgia has an additional effect. It warns Russia's former Baltic and East European satellites what happens if you get too close to the West. It is the first step to re-establishing Russian hegemony in the region.” Again, however, the hypocrisy is transparent; was not the invasion of Iraq and the replacement of Saddam with a West-friendly leader under pseudo-democratic rule supposed to have had exactly the same effect in the region?

Soon the neocons will be claiming victory in the ‘War on Terrorism’ as they scurry to clamour for the next war: the ‘War to Defend Democracy”?

BUSH PUSHES CRISIS IN GEORGIA TO THE BRINK.

President Bush, after reeling from the events of the last few days in Georgia, has finally rallied himself into some kind of response. All too predictably, however, it is one that simply adds more fuel to what could become a rapidly accelerating fire.

Bush has reacted with two responses that could lead to direct confrontation between American and Russian regular troops. First, he has demanded that all Russian troops leave Georgia and, second, he has sent American troops to Georgia to ‘aid the humanitarian effort’. Bush didn’t make clear if ‘all Russian troops leave Georgia’ included South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the regions the Russians and the Georgians are in dispute over and which was the initial cause of the present conflict, or if Bush would be satisfied if they simply withdrew to their bases of which some are in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and which part of the peace deal brokered by French President Sarkozy allowed for, also is unclear.

Either way, the end result is that armed American troops will be in Georgia – and so will Russian troops.

The Bush response has been slow in coming which clearly indicates that they did not see this crisis developing in the way it did. However, it is highly unlikely that the Georgia government would have taken it upon themselves to aggressively attempt to assert their authority in the disputed regions without he support or go-ahead from the US who have many military advisors in the Georgian military and who would have been in constant communication with the Defence Department at the Pentagon as the Georgians developed their plans to reach into South Ossetia. The US, as I have previously said, has completely misjudged the Russian reaction to Georgia’s moves.

In an effort to recover the political ground Bush lost as the world realised that Bush hadn’t got a backup plan in the event of Georgia’s misadventures going pear-shaped, Bush has gone overboard in ensuring that he is being seen to be the strongman in this crisis. Bush has promised not just humanitarian aid to cater for the immediate crisis but also massive ongoing aid to ensure that Georgia is fully supported by the US in the future. In short, there is likely to be a massive US military presence in Georgia for some time to come.

How Russia will view this development right on their doorstep is another matter.


UPDATE

It seems that in the rush to get a peace deal going, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, has left a loop hole open in the agreement whereby Russian troops can enter Georgia as part of any additional security measures Russia sees fit. This puts the ball firmly back in President Bush’s court who has insisted that Russia live up to their part of the agreement – the Russians will no doubt insist upon it.

DELUSIONAL FANTASIES FROM A DESPERATE ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has released his latest delusional fantasy plan for peace between the Palestinians and Israel. Abbas has rejected it.

The talks between Olmert and Abbas have been a complete and utter waste of time that has catered only to Olmert’s ego and to Abbas’s quest for power. The most ridiculous aspect of Olmert’s latest offer was that it was contingent on Abbas taking control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas. How Abbas was expected to achieve this was not explained unless embedded within any such an agreement was a clause that, if Abbas accepted the offer, the Israelis would wrest control from Hamas by invading the Gaza and then handing power over to Abbas.

The offer was rejected by Abbas because he knew that there would be no way that Palestinians generally would accept the other terms offered particularly with regard to Jerusalem as capital not being part of the deal; the ridiculous land swap offer whereby Israel gets to keep prime land in the West Bank in exchange for a bit of Israeli desert adjoining the Gaza, and the Israeli rejection of the return of refugees to their original homelands saying that they should go to the new Palestine instead.

One can only conclude that Olmert is simply out to try and big note himself before leaving office so that he can say that he ‘at least tried’. But everyone knows that it has all been for show. It has all been part of what Olmert has always been – a shallow and transparent fraudster! There never was any chance that the arrangements that Olmert and Abbas, together with Condoleezza Rice, had discussed were ever going to come into fruition. The offer was never going to be acceptable to the rightwing Zionists of Israel who are never likely to concede anything to the Palestinians, especially a free and independent state; and Hamas, still well supported by the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and the Gaza, would never accept any Israeli settlements on any part of Palestine and certainly will not accept anything less than a full return of refugees to their original homelands.

It may seem, then, that everything is as it has always been ever since 1948 – hopelessly deadlocked.

But all is not lost. The notion of a binational single state has once again been put forward by the Palestinian chief negotiator, Ahmed Qurie, who has been reported as saying: "If Israel continues to oppose making this a reality, then the Palestinian demand for the Palestinian people and its leadership (would be) one state, a binational state.”

Of course, the idea of a binational single state is completely abhorrent to rightwing Israelis because the reality is that, in the event of a binational single state coming into existence, the Palestinian people would soon come to dominate the new state just by virtue of the demographics – the very same demographics that exist today that are driving the rightwing Zionists to insist that Palestinians never have their own state.

While the notion of a binational single state may still be some way from becoming a reality, there are a growing number of Palestinians and Israelis who see such a state as the only alternative to the delusional fantasies of the likes of Olmert on the one hand and the rightwing Israeli Zionists who want all of the lands of Palestine and more for themselves, on the other.

THE REALITY BEHIND THE WESTERN PROPAGANDA AND RHETORIC OF THE WAR IN GEORGIA.

For many the war in Georgia may have seemed as though it came from nowhere; as if it just suddenly erupted without any warning. And, if one were to believe what the pro-western mainstream media are telling us, one could be forgiven for believing that it did. The US and their western allies have taken full advantage of this anomaly and turned it to their advantage for propaganda purposes. They have been busy telling the world that the Georgians have been overwhelmed by the Russian ‘bully boys’ to their north when in reality the Russians were and are merely reacting to the murderous bully boy tactics of the Georgian army and their supporting band of US and Israeli mercenary thugs that ruthlessly attacked the civilian population of south Ossetia in an effort to force them to give up their demands for autonomy.

In fact the tensions in and around Georgia, once part of the Soviet Union, have been simmering for years.

The Georgian state is made up of many ethnic groupings many of whom feel more comfortable being part of Russia than having to be subservient to Georgia. Over the years, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the birth of present day Georgia in 1991, two regions of Georgia in particular, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, have evolved, against the wishes of the central Georgian government, into semi-autonomous regions whose status has been protected and supported by Russia. This has caused massive resentment from the Georgians who insist that these regions come entirely under Georgian control.

Every now and then the undercurrent of animosities between the Georgians and the Russians over these two regions well up to the surface and become a source of potential conflict. In the past Russia, simply by twitching a military muscle, which, if push really came to shove, could flatten Georgia in a flash, usually has seen an end to any further serious posturing by the Georgians.

As well as the existence of these animosities, the old Cold War animosities that existed between the US and her western allies and the Russians still linger on long after what most people believed was an end to the Cold War in 1991. As the War on Terrorism replaced the Cold War as a vehicle for US imperialism in its projection of hegemony into a resources-rich region of our world, so some of those resentments have re-emerged as the new political battles for increasingly diminishing resources intensify. The old East-West polarisations of the post-Second World War are actually beginning to replicate themselves almost as it was in the Cold War days. The all-important difference this time, however, is the new places where the East meets the West – and Georgia is one of those places.

Georgia has recently been making strong moves to become part of NATO and has ambitions to become part of the EU. Russia is very keen, and, given that the US would like to put their anti-missile shield system into NATO countries to protect them from the so-called threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, understandably so, to limit the number of NATO nations it has on its doorstep. As a result of Georgian aspirations about becoming part of NATO, the Georgians have become close allies of the US and the West and also of Israel who have ties to the small but influential Jewish community in Georgia with some of those members having close links to Israel being in the Georgian government including Georgia’s Integration Minister Temur Yakobashvili.

It was because of their strong relationship with the US that the Georgians considered it safe to have another go at asserting its will over the breakaway regions in the belief that the Russians wouldn’t dare to counter any Georgian moves against South Ossetia with Russian military action and, if they did, the US and the West would immediately come to their aid in the event of a Russian backlash against Georgian moves into South Ossetia. Certainly, Georgia would not have made any such move into South Ossetia without the backing of the US. It now seems, though, that both the US and Georgia have badly misjudged the Russian reaction and the US are unable to move. If they do, it will be the first time that the US and Russia have ever directly confronted each other in face to face open warfare – and we all know where that would eventually lead. As it is, American ‘advisors’ (mercenaries), have in all likelihood been in combat with Russian troops in this conflict as have Israeli ‘instructors’ (mercenaries).

The US and, to a lesser extent, the Israelis have painted themselves into a corner. Neither can afford to upset the Russians too much because they need Russian support over their stance on Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program. Open hostility toward Russia, a veto-wielding power in the UN Security Council, would mean the end of UN support for any moves toward a UN endorsement of further sanctions against Iran. While Israel could pre-emptively attack Iran and would get support from the US in doing so, without UN supported sanctions in place there could be no reasonable casus belli for such an attack. (With sanctions in place, Israel could always claim that sanctions aren’t working and attack anyway.)But if the UN were to deny sanctions because of a Russian veto this would be tantamount to the Russians saying it does not believe the Iranians need to have sanctions against them because they do not have a weapons program and, since nobody would know better than the Russians about what programs the Iranians do have in place, they are, after all, the main suppliers of the Iranian nuclear equipment, then bang goes any casus belli the Israelis might feel they can use.

The geo-political reality, as we can see, is a far cry from the propaganda and rhetoric the US and their western allies are trying to put out in the mainstream media. And in this day and age of blogs and the internet which is often nowadays keeping one step ahead of the mainstream media, the propaganda and rhetoric is becoming increasingly more transparent in its blatancy.

U.S. ARROGANCE AND BLATANT HYPOCRISY OVER THE GEORGIA-RUSSIA CONFLICT.

In a blatant demonstration of US arrogance and hypocrisy the US Ambassador to the UN, neocon and PNAC signatory Zalmay Khalilzad, yesterday actually accused the Russians of seeking ‘regime change’ in Georgia. He went on to tell the UN Security Council that Russia was waging a ‘campaign of terror’ in Georgia.

Khalilzad’s remarks follow earlier comments made on Saturday by an un-named ‘senior US official’ that “…Russia has used ‘disproportionate’ force in the South Ossetia conflict with Georgia”, adding that: “The response has been far disproportionate from whatever threat Russia was citing."

This simply further demonstrates the utter hypocrisy of the Bush administration. The word ‘disproportionate’, one might recall, was not a word that the US used when just about everyone else was as the Israelis launched their murderous and criminal bombing campaign against the people of Lebanon killing over a thousand people and causing many thousands more to flee their homes after they had been destroyed. And, while the changing of a regime of any sovereign nation is one that should be affected only by the citizens of that nation, since when has the Bush administered US government been in a position to moralise about the ‘regime change’ ambitions of other powers considering how they are still seeking, with Israel, to change the regime of Iran and not to mention the ‘campaign of terror’ that the US and their allies inflicted on Iraq as they went about ‘regime change’ in that devastated country?

The values that ‘they’ hate about ‘us’ are not our so-called ‘freedoms’ and ‘democracy’ but our arrogance and hypocrisy.

The very same people that have brought death and destruction to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Iran, Pakistan and elsewhere this century are the same the same people that are bringing death and destruction to the innocent civilians who have been caught up in the conflict in Georgia.

The peoples of the world demand regime change in the US. We trust the American people to see to it!

CONDOLEEZZA RICE GIVES THE NOD TO ISRAELI ACTION AGAINST IRAN WHILE TWO MORE U.S. CARRIERS STEAM TO THE GULF.

US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice yesterday said that the US would not say ‘no’ to an Israeli plan to attack Iran adding that Israel is a sovereign state inferring that the US would not interfere with Israeli plans.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that the aircraft carriers, USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Ronald Reagan are now steaming to the Gulf where they will join the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and the aircraft maintenance group headed by the USS Peleliu.

Closer to Israel, Hezbollah in Lebanon continue to be criticised for building its air defences using a sophisticated anti-aircraft missile system. In an act of almost unprecedented chutzpah, the Israelis are actually complaining that the new defence system will now stop them from making illegal flights over Lebanon. Israel is even touting the installation of the new anti-craft system as a direct provocation that Israel may have no choice but to respond to.

As the window of opportunity inches ever closer to closing on an Israeli and US opportunity to attack its enemies, the people of the world must surely now realise that Israeli and US intent toward Iran is rapidly becoming more apparent and that the people of the world should be out on the streets now to protest the prospect of a war that has the potential to devastate our world.

IS ISRAEL MANIPULATING ITS ENEMIES INTO GIVING IT CASUS BELLI TO ATTACK THEM?

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Israel is attempting to manipulate affairs via the use of propaganda whereby it will not only find casus belli to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also its other enemies including Hamas in the Gaza, possibly Syria, and, of course, Iran.

Various news stories in the Israeli press over the past few months seem to indicate that there is an attempt to ‘converge’ perceived threats against Israel to the extent that Israel may tell the world that its only course of action is to make pre-emptive strikes against all 'threats' even if only one of them provides a casus belli to attack.

Over the last week Israel’s propaganda campaign seems to be directed toward Hezbollah in Lebanon who, the Israelis claim, are being ‘provocative’ because they have installed an anti-aircraft missile system which the Israelis say is a threat to Israeli air force incursions into Lebanese sovereign airspace.

However, this also comes at the same time as recent statements by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak who has said: “Those who miss the operations in the Gaza Strip, don't worry, they will come,” alluding to the fact that the present ceasefire is unlikely to last.

And, on top of that, of course, is Israel’s ongoing and relentless propaganda campaign against Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons’ ambitions.

As time goes on, the stage management of this propaganda campaign against all of its perceived enemies has become transparent. Desperation seems to be creeping in as the window of opportunity for US participation in a strike against Iran closes. The stand-off in the Gaza between Hamas and Israel and Fatah in the West Bank can’t last forever and Olmert would be getting desperate to go out on a high note of what he hopes will be a victory that will overshadow the allegations against him of criminal fraud.

The window is rapidly closing. The world needs to wake up to what is about to happen. All the signs are there; it is only a matter of time. Israel is manipulating its enemies; all they are looking for now is an excuse.

CLASSIC CHUTZPAH AS ISRAEL PROVOKES HEZBOLLAH

A report in Ha’aretz today highlighted the now famous Israeli Chutzpah method of dealing with its enemies.

Just the headline alone demonstrates the extent of this particular piece of Chutzpah; “Hezbollah threatens ‘practical measures’ against Israeli overflights”. The report goes on to say that such threats are “…in line with Israeli intelligence assessments that predicted that following the completion of the Israel-Hezbollah prisoner swap, Hezbollah would seek excuses to resume its struggle against Israel in order to justify its refusal to disarm. Hezbollah has cultivated an image as Lebanon's ‘protector’ against what it describes as Israeli aggression.”

The report makes it seem almost as though, somehow, Israel has special rights to violate Lebanese sovereign airspace with Israeli military jet strike aircraft. The fact that these military ‘overflights’ are taking place at all doesn’t get questioned; it’s just taken for granted that that is what the Israelis are entitled to do given President Bush’s, together with other Western leaders, statements that Israel is entitled to take what ever measures it deems necessary to ‘defend’ itself. One wonders how indignant the Syrians would be if they were to send their military jets on ‘overfly’ missions over Israel and then the Israelis threatened ‘practical measures’ against them. For the Israelis such an action by the Syrians would be seen as an act of war.

But what makes this particular piece of Chutzpah double-edged and even more interesting is the way that Israel accuses Hezbollah of refusing to disarm and that Hezbollah is ‘cultivating an image as Lebanon’s protector against what it describes as Israeli aggression’.

Never mind that two years ago Israel deliberately and murderously bombed Lebanon, a campaign that killed well over a thousand innocent civilians, and then invaded the country. It was only Hezbollah’s tenacity in fighting back and Israel’s inability to halt Hezbollah rocket launches onto Israel that pushed Israel to abandon its attempt at conquering south Lebanon and provoking Iran into war, and sue for peace via the UN. Hezbollah are, indeed, the protectors of Lebanon against Israeli aggression. Whatever made the Israelis, in the light of their defeat two years ago, think otherwise?

If Israel has the right to defend itself against aggression then so does the people of Lebanon. Overflying a sovereign nation with military jets is an act of aggression that the people of Lebanon have the right to defend themselves against. Most peoples of the world can see right through this Chutzpah.