IS CATACLYSMIC WAR AGAINST IRAN ONLY A DISTRACTION TO COVER ISRAEL’S ULTIMATE WAR AIMS?

Any strike on Iran by either the US or Israel or both is likely to be cataclysmic in scale yet for the Zionists of Israel such a war will serve only to distract the people of the West from the real aims of instigating such a horrific war which is to provide both the opportunity and the cover for Israel to realise its ultimate regional endgame of creating a Greater Israel. The Zionist’s dream of a Greater Israel includes occupying, and eventually annexing, south Lebanon up to at least the Litani River and possibly beyond, and also the full occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with the eventual deportation of the Palestinians living in these places to the Sinai and Jordan.

Iran is a geographically large country with a well educated and cultured population that has, since the revolution in 1979 that threw out the US-supported Shah, mainly supported its theocratic hierarchy. It does have its own internal problems that are largely over domestic issues. The Iranian people clearly would like to have their government pay more attention to their welfare needs. Unemployment is high; inflation is high; wages could be better; the health system needs improvement; infrastructure needs upgrading, especially with regard to the processing of its own natural resources. For sure there is a demand for a more liberalised legislation that relies less on Sharia law and more on natural justice. But, for all of Iran’s internal short-comings, the Iranian people are essentially united when it comes to supporting its government’s nuclear power ambitions and also the defence of their country against US and Israeli aggression, threatened or otherwise.

The moment that the West thought it might be able to influence and exploit Iran’s internal divisions in order to create an environment that might bring about revolution leading to regime change has now long passed. The disputed elections of June 2009 created violence in the streets which clearly were aggravated by agents provocateurs supported and financed by Israel and the US. However, the rather feeble attempts to create conditions that might lead to some sort of ‘regime change’ favourable to the US and Israel failed miserably.

As a result of these failures, the West, particularly the US and Israel, have returned to the rhetoric and propaganda of ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ that is designed to induce Western public opinion to support a military strike against Iran ostensibly to eliminate the so-called Iranian ‘nuclear threat’. In order to overcome the total lack of any evidence to support the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme, the US and Israel have adopted a ‘pull out all the stops’ propaganda strategy to the point now that they have said it so often, so loudly and so relentlessly that many now take it as read that Iran really does have a nuclear weapons program despite there still being no actual evidence to support the assertion.

The ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme originated as public rhetoric by Israeli Zionists and their neoconservative supporters in the United States soon after the Shah was deposed and the Islamic Revolutionary government took control. It has reached a crescendo today after years of continuous and increasingly relentless propaganda from Israeli Zionists and neoconservatives. The propaganda existed long before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became Iran’s president, but once becoming president, Ahmadinejad’s own rhetoric about Israel has served only to reinforce the twisted propaganda from the Zionists and neoconservatives about Iran being an existential threat to Israel based on Iran’s continued so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’.

Recently, the Israelis and their neoconservative supporters have changed gear in their propaganda about Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’. The call at first was supposedly about finding a diplomatic solution to the perceived problem of a nuclear Iran. Sanctions, as part of finding a ‘diplomatic solution’, are an absolutely necessary step in the path to war against Iran; world public opinion would not support a direct attack against Iran without going via the sanctions route first. UN endorsed sanctions are now in place and, just as the Israelis and the neoconservatives had hoped, they are not having any effect on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. As a result, the Israelis and neoconservatives have shifted up a gear and are now demanding quite openly and in unison that the US attack Iran.

Some commentators have suggested that President Obama is hesitant about attacking Iran and that because of this Israel may take it upon themselves to attack unilaterally. The well publicised recent article by Jeffery Goldberg in Atlantic magazine suggests that there is a ‘50/50 chance’ that Israel will do just that. Well known neoconservative and former CIA officer, Reuel Marc Gerecht writing in The Weekly Standard also recently suggested that Israel may launch a unilateral strike against Iran. George Will, writing in the Washington Post has said, after lamenting the lack of action against Iran by the US; “If Israel strikes Iran, the world will not be able to say it was not warned”. Other far-right neoconservatives on the other hand, like Michael Barone writing in National Review Online, are saying that Obama just might instigate an attack against Iran. Meanwhile, another neoconservative, Jonathan S. Tobin, writing in the neoconservative flagship intellectual magazine Commentary this month, goes as far as calling upon and encouraging Obama to “emulate Truman’s example of decisive leadership”, eluding to Truman’s use of nuclear weapons on Japan in an effort to end a war that was as good as already over anyway.

The rhetoric of Israel launching a unilateral strike against Iran is designed not so much to garner public opinion against Iran, but more to promote sympathy for Israel from a US Congress that may be otherwise hesitant to support a US strike against Iran. The idea is to get Congress to push Obama to support an Israel that feels so desperate about their situation that they may take it upon themselves to go it alone despite the risks involved. In the process, the rhetoric also attempts to garner public opinion that supports the notion that Israel is a ‘small embattled nation’ struggling to survive in a hostile region.

Pushing the ‘we might need to strike unilaterally’ propaganda as portrayed by the Israeli Zionists and the neoconservatives, however, does not stand up to close scrutiny and even the most cursory analysis reveals that it is, indeed, nothing more than propaganda.

The reality is; Israel is so reliant on the US that it would be utterly impossible for Israel to strike Iran ’unilaterally’. Israel will need the full support of the US to launch any attack against Iran even if the initial attack is carried out solely using current Israeli air force aircraft and personnel in order for such an attack to appear unilateral. The logistics of obtaining the fuel and ordnance alone that would be required for such a strike will necessitate the full connivance of the US; and the follow-up support of an America apparently coming to Israel’s aid to prevent retaliatory attacks by Iran would require meticulous advance planning and is not something that can be spontaneously set in motion at a moments notice.

The notion that Israel could act ‘unilaterally’ against Iran is one designed purely for propaganda purposes only.

Neither Israel nor the US will be attacking Iran for the exclusive purpose of eliminating Iran’s nuclear facilities in order to destroy its so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’; the US and the neoconservatives have made it quite clear that their aim is to bring about regime change in Iran and nothing less. The idea that either or both will attack in order to destroy Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’ will merely be the stated casus belli to justify such an attack.And there are other realities that also need to be considered. Despite the now almost deafening rhetoric of Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’, there is still the not unimportant matter of evidence proving that Iran actually has a ‘nuclear weapons program’. To date not a single skerrick of any hard evidence has been produced to support any of the US or Israeli claims. The UN’s nuclear watchdog organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has not been able to find any evidence and the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007 stated quite categorically that Iran had discarded its nuclear weapon program in 2003. While the 2010 NIE (which this year is entitled ‘The Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community’) has suggested that Iran “is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to being able to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so”, no actual hard evidence was offered to support the idea that Iran actually had a ‘nuclear weapons program’. The 2010 NIE also noted tellingly that: “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons”. Surely, if Iran hasn’t yet decided to build nuclear weapons how would it have a nuclear weapons program? And if they ‘do not know’ then what evidence can they possibly have to even assume that Iran has a ‘nuclear weapons program’?

As the threat of UN sanctions against Iran loomed yet again in mid-May, 2010, Turkey, Brazil and Iran came up with a plan that they thought would allay the West’s apprehensions about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’. The plan was actually in response to the West’s demands that Iran send its Low Enriched (LE) uranium to a third country for enrichment to Medium Enriched level (ME) for use in producing isotopes for cancer treatment. The product returned to Iran for use would not then be able to be further enriched to the High Enriched level (HE) required to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran arranged through Turkey and Brazil to send half of its 2400kgs of LE uranium off to France and/or Russia for conversion to ME uranium suitable for producing isotopes.

Not entirely unexpectedly, the US rejected the plan saying that this would still leave Iran with 1200kgs of uranium – enough, once enriched, to build one bomb – which was not acceptable to the US. The irony, of course, is that Iran is now left with enough uranium which, once enriched, is enough to build not just one bomb but two; a point seemingly lost on the US and their allies – or was it?

In rejecting the plan, (which conveniently left Iran with nearly two and a half tonnes of uranium) the way was immediately left open for the US to continue its pursuit of sanctions against Iran through the UN. It was by now quite clear where the US, Israel and their Western allies were heading with this strategy. If Russia and China vetoed further sanctions, the way would then be clear for the US and Israel to claim that Iran’s ‘pursuit of nuclear weapons’ could not now be stopped which would provide a pretext for either or both to then attack Iran. In order to avoid, or at least delay, war against Iran, Russia and China reluctantly agreed on 9 June 2010 to expand the already existing UN sanctions but not before the US agreed to water the new proposals down. Later, the US in partnership with the European Union, adopted further much stronger sanctions against Iran outside of UN oversight.

These latest sanctions, however, are doing nothing to deter Iran from continuing what it is actually legally entitled to do under international law with regards to uranium enrichment within the terms of the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory. It is this lack of deterrence which has now brought on the upsurge in threats from Israel and the neoconservatives. The Israelis and the neoconservatives, continuing to ignore entirely the total lack of any evidence, believe that they have now provided Iran every opportunity to give up their quest for ‘nuclear weapons’ and the only option now is to take military action.

By ignoring the fact that there is no evidence to suggest Iran has a nuclear weapons program and continuing to insist that Iran gives up its lawful peaceful quest for nuclear generated electrical power and to be able to produce isotopes to treat cancer, Israel and the neoconservative have demonstrated that, regardless of anything else Iran might do to allay the West’s fears, the Israelis and the neoconservatives want nothing less than war against Iran.

And now we get down to the reason why war, and only war, is so necessary for the Zionists of Israel and their neoconservative supporters.

Israel knows full well that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. They also know that, even if Iran did manage to obtain a nuclear weapon or two, it would still be utterly impotent. To be sure, two nuclear devices, or even one, detonated in Israel would likely destroy Israel, but if Iran were to commit such a horrendous crime, Iran knows it in turn would be destroyed in retaliation by Israel’s comparatively massive arsenal of nuclear weapons that are undoubtedly dispersed throughout Israel and on board Israel’s submarine fleet.

Despite this, however, the Zionists and neoconservatives, like George Will for example, argue that Iran has some kind of death wish whereby it is willing to ‘martyr’ itself in the cause of destroying Israel. To actually believe that Iran would be willing to sacrifice itself just to get at Israel in this way demonstrates only Zionism’s sense of monumental self-importance – or, more realistically, their desire to portray themselves as the perennial victim where Islam is out to get them no matter the cost.

All of this serves the Zionist purpose. Without war with Iran there would be nothing to distract the world’s attention away from an Israeli attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, the benefit of war with Iran provides a multitude of perceived advantages.

Both the US and Israel have gone to great lengths over the years to emphasise Hezbollah’s and Hamas’ links to Iran portraying them as Iran’s ‘proxies’ on Israel’s doorstep. Building these connections to Iran has been essential to the Zionist’s strategy. From the propaganda point of view, the Zionists use of the word ‘proxy’ in describing Hezbollah and Hamas has been important; for the Zionists and neoconservatives to say that Hezbollah and Hamas are Iran’s ‘proxies’ is to imply that Iran is the main enemy and that Iran had developed Hezbollah and Hamas specifically to provide a means of getting closer to Israel. Presented as proof of this is the supply of arms and finance that flows from Iran.

The reality is somewhat different. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are organisations that resist Israel’s expansionist ambitions and, despite being of two different sects of Islam (Hezbollah is Shiite, as is Iran; while Hamas is Sunni) the two organisations have very common interests inasmuch as both are enemies of expansionist Zionism.

The Zionist dream of a Greater Israel is well known and its history and ideology are well documented. The original idea of a Greater Israel that stretched “from the Nile to the Euphrates” is now truly just a dream. But the Zionists haven’t given up entirely on their dream of a Greater Israel. The Zionists of today firmly believe that the dream of creating a Greater Israel that includes the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and south Lebanon up to the Litani River or even beyond, can be become a feasible reality.

Israel’s past attempts at occupying the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon have failed miserably due to resistance from the Palestinians and the Arabs respectively. Israel’s attempts to spread itself into the West Bank via ever-growing ‘settlements’ have had some success since the 1967 invasion and military occupation but nowhere near as successful as Israel’s invasion, occupation and eventual colonisation of the Golan Heights that occurred at the same time.

Recent attempts by Israel to eliminate Hezbollah and Hamas have failed. The 2006 attacks and invasion of south Lebanon ended in defeat for Israel despite the horrendous loss of lives inflicted on the civilian population by the Israelis. Likewise, the 2008/09 attacks on Hamas in the Gaza which slaughtered over 1300 innocent civilians and all but destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure was also to no avail. Both wars failed to draw in the US and Iran directly and succeeded only in gaining for Israel the condemnation of the world for what many saw as deliberate war crimes committed against civilian populations.

The Zionist leaders of Israel have learnt their lesson; in the future they will not attempt to get what they want while the eyes of the world are upon them. Before attacking Hezbollah and Hamas again the Zionists of Israel need to ensure that the eyes of world are looking elsewhere. They will also need to ensure that their casus belli for attacking Hezbollah and Hamas and invading Lebanon and the Gaza Strip is credible – and what more credible or plausible an excuse could the Israelis have for attacking Hezbollah and Hamas than pre-empting strikes by them in retaliation for Israel having attacked Iran in order to eliminate an ‘existential and imminent nuclear threat’.

While the eyes of the world are watching the turmoil and carnage being wrought on Iran, initiated possibly by Israel and then followed up with the full force of the US, the Israelis will feel free to smash all resistance to them as they attack and then invade Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and launch a full take-over of the West Bank on the grounds that the Palestinians there will launch a full-on third Intafada against the Israelis and the Zionist settlers.

For the war against Iran, the aim will be to bring the government to its knees by use of massive and overwhelming air power against Iran’s governmental and military institutions forcing the Iranians to capitulate and sue for peace at the UN. There is unlikely to be any kind of occupation; only the threat of more force if the government of Iran does not concede to US demands. The major demand will be for a change in government to one that is friendly to the US, Israel and the West; in other words; regime change.

Meanwhile, the Israelis will consolidate their positions in the areas they occupy by ruthlessly liquidating Hezbollah and Hamas during the fighting. The occupation of south Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank eventually will give way to annexation, even in the face of opposition from most of the world, and the peoples of those places will be forced out and relocated. The Palestinian people will be forced in to the Sinai or Jordan while the Arabs of south Lebanon will be forced north of the Litani River.

Overall, once the war begins, the US and Israel will be relying on their overwhelming military might, especially their air-power, in order to prevail. The US are far too overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan to be able to invade and occupy such a vast country as Iran and would rely on its air-power to maintain its domination. In Lebanon and the Gaza Strip Israel would rely initially on its air-power and then ground mechanised and infantry forces to launch an invasion and maintain an occupation. The same would apply in the West Bank.

There will be nothing spontaneous or ‘unilateral’ about the coming confrontation; it has been in the planning for decades by the Zionists and their neoconservative supporters. Regime change in Iran will be the war aim for the US while the defeat of Hezbollah and Hamas and the subsequent occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon with a view to eventual annexation will be Israel’s war aims while creating a Greater Israel will be their ultimate goal. In all theatres the war will devastate the civilian populations leading to massive upheavals and deaths.

The war against Iran is likely to be cataclysmic in scale but for the Israelis such a war will serve only to be the catalyst for the creation of the Zionists dream; Greater Israel. The ultimate costs of the final confrontation, however, in the end may very well be more than any side can bear.


This article was first posted on 21 August 2010.
It's as appropriate today as it was then - maybe even more so!

THE SYRIAN BOMBINGS HAS THE TOUCH OF THE MOSSAD ABOUT IT

Friday’s bombings in Damascus have all the hallmarks of a Mossad false flag bombing operation about it. Here’s why.

According to a New York Times report, the bombing was a suicide car bomb. Meanwhile, the UK’s Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Syrian government has blamed al Qaeda elements among Syria’s anti-Assad rebels for the attacks, while a dissident claiming inside knowledge is blaming the Assad government itself for the bombings saying that the bodies were of dissidents murdered by the security forces then planted prior to the explosions to make it seem as though they were victims of the bombing (a scenario that some will find has a familiar ring to it).

The first problem with the story is that it is reported as being a suicide bombing. Suicide bombings are usually confined to either Islamic fighters wanting to kill people of other ethnic/religious groups as has been seen in Iraq, or Islamic fighters wanting to kill foreign troops on their lands as has been seen with Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis and Islamic fighters in Iraq wanting to kill American and Western troops. Whilst suicide bombings have been used in violence between secular groupings, as in revolution and civic upheaval, such bombings are very rare and have usually been by individual’s intent on revenge killing and are usually of a more personal nature as in, say, revenge for the killing of a relative. With two huge bombs going off simultaneously, as in Syria on Friday, these are well organised and designed for maximum impact.

As for the notion that the Syrian government would bomb its own security headquarters buildings – a small regional or district office, maybe – just to gain a few Brownie points from the Arab League is ludicrous. And since the opposition has denied being responsible on account of it only operating on a defensive basis, this only leaves one other option – Israel’s Mossad – and it’s not as though Israel hasn’t used car bombs before in Damascus.

Next, one needs to ask why Mossad would do such a thing; what’s in for them? How do they gain?

Mossad have always worked in devious ways and, while it is often difficult to figure out why they have done any specific deed, one can count on it having some kind of desired effect, even if sometimes obscure, for the Israeli government who would have given the authority which initiated the action.

In the case of the Syria bombing, the ultimate aim would be to initiate further violence that might cause escalation to a point that Iran and/or its proxy Hezbollah is drawn in to the fray. This would then trigger the confrontation that Israel for years has been searching for.

NEOCON LUNATICS WANT WAR WITH NORTH KOREA RIGHT NOW!

The editors of the neoconservative National Review Online are today demanding that the US:

…should conduct military exercises around the peninsula, we should fly over their nuclear sites with stealth aircraft, and we should demonstrate that we can reach out and touch the regime anytime and anywhere. We should freeze the assets of the Kim family wherever they may be. We should shut down Kim’s criminal enterprises by stepping up our patrols of ships that leave the peninsula. We should give our allies in South Korea all the military capability necessary to defend themselves and strike back at the North should they once again be hit.

The editors naively go on to say:

We should do all this before Beijing and Pyongyang have time to hatch a plan that solidifies the status quo. The status quo is dangerous, far more so than patiently and relentlessly working to bring down the Kim regime. For once, instead of waiting to see if a new dictator is “someone we can work with,” we should show the dictator what it will take to work with us. It should be clear that unless the Kim family gets rid of its nuclear weapons and its organs of repression and crime, we will work to remove it from power.

The world is fortunate that Obama is still President of the US and very unlikely to heed the neocons lunatic advice demanding that world war three start right now before Beijing and Pyongyang have time to ‘hatch a plan that solidifies the status quo’.

Do the warmongering lunatics at neocon headquarters really believe that the Chinese and the North Koreans hadn’t thought about what will happen in the event of Kim Jong-Il’s death?

I have little time for any totalitarian government but I have even less for the lunacy of the neoconservatives who believe they are able to project military power without there being horrific consequences. Have they learnt nothing from their wars against the Vietnamese, Afghan and Iraqi people? The neocons misguided belief that the US is now the world’s only superpower is going to get more Americans and their South Korean allies killed when they realise that they are up against the world’s largest standing fanatical army in North Korea and a Chinese military force that is able to match the US.

America is nowhere near as strong as the neocons like to think they are. War after war since the end of the Second World War seems to have taught them nothing.

THE NEOCONS ARE BEGINNING TO WORRY ABOUT RON PAUL

Until now the neoconservatives had all but ignored Ron Paul as a contender for the Republican nomination. They had focussed their attention instead on those potential candidates that were in the mainstream of Republican politics hoping to find one that goes along with neoconservative ideology, particularly with regard to foreign policy relating to Israel and the Middle East.

As yet, the neoconservatives, as I noted over a week ago, don’t seem to have actually settled on anyone that they are entirely happy to give their full support to. All had flaws that the neoconservatives felt did not quite reflect full neoconservative values and the hint was that others better qualified, at least as far as the neocons were concerned, might yet enter the race even at this late stage. Since then, nobody else has stepped forward and the one potential candidate the neoconservatives would definitely not support, Ron Paul, has consistently been up there in the polling as the various debates unfolded and it seems the grass-root rank and file Republicans are increasingly giving Ron Paul the thumbs up. To what extent this will translate into actual votes that count for the nomination still remains to be seen but certainly the support he is getting now is beginning to worry the neoconservatives who today found it necessary to write a lengthy hit piece against Ron Paul portraying him as a maverick libertarian extremist and an outrageous conspiracy theorist. Up until now, the neocons had barely given him a mention believing him to be a rank outsider with no chance of getting up.

Ron Paul’s popularity comes not so much from his extremist libertarian ideology of no government interference in anything – though this has a certain appeal among the middle classes that have managed to hang on to some of their wealth – but, rather, from his anti-war isolationist views. For the neoconservatives, this translates to ‘anti-Israel’ since Ron Paul’s policies include no more US aid – not just to Israel, but to any nation – and also no more wars especially against Middle East nations that are Israel’s enemies.

Since Obama came to be President on the back of a promise to end the wars – which he then promptly reneged on – those that voted for him are reluctant to give him another go. On the other hand, it is only Ron Paul among the Republican contenders that is anti-war; all of the others seem to have been bought off by the Israel lobby who are champing at the bit for war against Iran in order to save Israel from being ‘wiped off the map’. Ron Paul, therefore, has won the hearts of those disillusioned with Obama’s promises, and also of those who like Ron Paul’s libertarian stance.

It’s going to be an interesting New Year which is very likely to disappoint the neocons if it’s going to be left to the current crop of candidates to look after the neoconservative’s interests. While all of them – except Ron Paul – have taken on neoconservative advisors to help out with their campaigns, none of them can really be considered die-hard neoconservatives who will push along the neocon’s agenda.
Ron Paul’s ‘every man for himself’ stance will leave many unenthralled but his anti-war rhetoric is finding a lot of appeal among conservatives fed up with ten years of non-stop wars with more in the offing.

HAS AUSTRALIAN SUPER RACIST, ANDREW BOLT, BEEN SACKED?

The Murdoch ‘journalist’ [sic], Andrew Bolt, a columnist at Melbourne’s Herald-Sun newspaper, left a perplexing post at his column yesterday prior to taking leave. He wrote:

It’s customary to thank your readers at the end of each year. Never have I had more cause to do so than this year. Your support ... well, you can imagine how much and why. I’m extremely grateful.

I am off on holidays with my family. Some thinking will also need to be done about what I’ll do next year. In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas and new year.

‘Some thinking will also need to be done about what I’ll do next year’?

At worst this simply means he’s going to be spending his holidays dreaming up new ways of peddling his extreme racist fearmongering views. At best, however, it may mean that Murdoch’s new chief lackey in Australia, Kim Williams, who recently took over from retiring News Ltd. Australia CEO John Hartigan, has had enough of forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover Bolt’s legal fees after being found guilty of racial discrimination. This, coupled with Murdoch trying to pull back from the image of right-wing extremist journalism after the News of the World fiasco, which ended in Murdoch closing the newspaper down, may well be the reason why Bolt needs to think about what he’ll be doing next year.

Bolt undoubtedly would have had a contract with News Ltd. And it may well be that Bolt has decided to take an offer that’s too good to refuse, hence him going without a fuss – if, indeed, he is going.

Reading through the comments to his post, some of his adoring rednecked fans and supporters are also wondering if he’ll be back. After all, among the extreme right-wing in Australia, Bolt was a hero. But after the court case and what with Murdoch struggling to convince the government that controls on the press aren’t needed, it may well be that Murdoch and Williams have decided that Bolt is too much of a liability and that he should go gracefully without a fuss and with a handsome golden handshake and a well formulated explanation for his departure. Perhaps he could write books for the Murdoch-owned HarperCollins company to publish.

So, the question is: has Bolt gone from the Herald-Sun for good? Let’s hope so. Time will tell. We can but dream.

SO WHO IS THE NEOCON’S MAN FOR THE NOMINATION?

Over the past few months the neocons haven’t really shown a great deal of enthusiasm for any of the candidates running so far for the Republican ticket for the 2012 Presidential election. Michelle Bachmann simply faded away; Mitt Romney turned out to be wishy-washy on climate change; as for Herman Cain, well let’s face it, his race was over the moment someone mumbled something about ‘sex’. Rick Perry’s race was over when he mumbled ‘Oops’; and, while Newt Gingrich is now top of the charts, he just doesn’t have the support of the neocons who regard him increasingly as a ‘flip-flop’ man who is happy to nod and shake his head in any way any given audience wants him to at the time. And Ron Paul, of course, is loathed by the neocons for his isolationist stance.

William Kristol, one of neoconservatisms most influential pundits, penned a piece in the Weekly Standard earlier this week which, reading between the lines, seemed to despair at the motley crew who are currently vying for the top job. He offers up a list of other vaguely possible contenders who haven’t put their hands up – yet. His list includes Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush – in that order.

Mike Huckabee? But why? He didn’t get to the top of the pile in 2008, so why would Kristol think he might get up this time? The answer is; Kristol doesn’t. Huckabee’s name’s there just to make up the numbers.

Same with Sarah Palin. Even if she did step in at this late stage, one wonders if she’d get any serious support from the neocons after her last bungling blustering efforts last time.

Paul Ryan? Ryan is one potential candidate that the neocons would support – if he were to put himself up. This, though, is unlikely and Kristol knows it. Back in January of this year Kristol was promoting a Ryan for President push with Marco Rubio as vice-President runner. But by August Ryan was suggesting Kristol should find someone else to fantasise about.

Chris Christie? A month later Kristol was pleading for Christie to step up. One couldn’t blame Christie if he felt a bit miffed about being asked by Kristol only after Ryan had declined Kristol’s advances. No one likes being second fiddle.

Mitch Daniels? In May, Kristol was wondering if Daniels might run, but by October his hopes were dashed and they are unlikely to be re-awakened.

Marco Rubio? As already mentioned, Kristol had Rubio behind Ryan on a president/vice-president ticket so why would Rubio now be enthralled by Kristol’s suggestion?

Jeb Bush? When one reads out a list there is a psychological advantage of being the last name on the list; you’re invariably the first one to be remembered and therefore shoved into prominence. Was that Kristol’s intention?

So soon after the detested George W. Bush, Jeb, his brother, would be a hard one to sell to the American people. Fortunately for the American people, however, Jeb Bush ruled himself out of the 2012 race much earlier on but if it seems that those that are currently in the race aren’t going to do the trick for the neocons, then just maybe Jeb Bush might reconsider even at this late date. Certainly, there are a lot on the right in the republican movement who are hoping just that.

Jeb Bush is a far more articulate and more sophisticated person than his brother George will ever be and would superficially have far more appeal. But that doesn’t mean to say that Jeb would be a better President; it just means that he’d be able to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people more successfully than his brother George did - or not. Jeb Bush became a neoconservative long before his older brother became one and was a signatory to the June 1997 Project for the New American Century Statement of Principles.

If ever Jeb Bush did become president the world could look forward to a very dark future as it feeds on the ideas and ideology of neoconservatives eager to finish what they started when Jeb’s brother was President.

Let's hope Kristol doesn't get his wish. The world will not be a better place.

ON THE MIS-USE OF THE ‘ANTI-SEMITISM’ LABEL BY ZIONISTS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS

There was a time, back in the last century and before, when the phrase ‘anti-Semitism’ simply meant a hatred of Jewish peoples for no reason other than they were Jews. This unfounded hatred built up over centuries and culminated in the tragedy that occurred during the Second World War when Nazis, their sympathisers and fellow travellers, together with other Jew-haters throughout Europe, jumped on Hitler’s bandwagon of anti-Semitism in an attempt to wipe out European Jewry.

At the end of the war when the full extent of the attempted extermination of European Jewry became known, the world was horrified. But, despite the defeat of Nazism, the punishment of many of those responsible, and the universal condemnation of what had happened, a latent anti-Semitism lingered on into the post-war period not just among the peoples of the nations that carried out and assisted in the atrocities, but even among some peoples that were part of the nations that were Allies who eventually defeated Nazism and brought an end to the war and the atrocities that went with it. White-supremacist neo-Nazi groups flourished during the post-war years and the ‘anti-Semite’ label became synonymous with both those who had hated Jews and those that continued to do so.

To this day, there are still anti-Semites, mostly white-supremacists and neo-Nazis, who continue to hate Jews for no reason other than they are Jews.

However, there has evolved from this an opportunity for some to abuse the anti-Semitic label for nefarious propaganda purposes other than to identify true anti-Semites. It’s rather unfortunate that those that are now misusing the term are themselves Jewish.

Zionists, intent on creating a Greater Israel at the expense of the Arab people by building and farming on their lands, are now attempting to use the ‘anti-Semite’ label against anyone who condemns Israeli Zionists and their supporters for their actions against the Palestinian people as the Zionists attempt to create their Greater Israel. Zionists and their supporters, particularly neoconservatives, are especially adept at mis-using the term as part of their propaganda to demonise their critics and enemies.

The method they use is simple: Instead of identifying specific criticism against Zionism and addressing that criticism, Zionists and their neoconservative supporters simply condemn the criticism – any criticism – as being anti-Semitic, and those that are doing the criticising as being anti-Semitic ‘jew-haters’. In some cases, even other Jews that criticise Zionism are being labelled ‘anti-Semites’ though more often the term ‘self-hating Jew’ is used.

The objective of such mis-labelling by Zionists and their supporters is transparent; it is to paint those that criticise Zionism as the same kind of evil anti-Semites that attempted to destroy European Jewry during the last century. Fortunately, such propaganda devices are indeed transparent and, for the most part, such mis-use of the label has been exposed and dismissed simply as abusive propaganda by right-wing Zionist extremists and their neoconservative supporters.

But while it is easy for most to dismiss the mis-use of the ‘anti-Semite’ label as outrageous propaganda by extremists, it does have an extremely unfortunate side-effect inasmuch that its mis-use devalues the true meaning and use of the label. If the ‘anti-Semite’ label is bandied around inappropriately too often in the way it has been then there will come a time when its true and proper use will become ignored – until, once again, it is too late.
The ‘anti-Semite’ label was once a powerful tool that could be used against those that attempted to resurrect the age-old hatreds that were, and still are, levelled against Jews just because they are Jews. However, Zionists and neocons that abuse the ‘anti-Semite’ label for purely political and propaganda purposes diminish the memory of those that perished at the hands of those that really were anti-Semites.