WHAT WENT WRONG WITHIN WEBDIARY PART 1

The following article by ex-Webdiary Director Craig Rowley is published following a delay intended to provide Margo Kingston and David Roffey an opportunity to respond to Craig Rowley’s rebuttal of David Roffey’s claims that Craig Rowley had acted deceitfully at Webdiary. There has been no response from either Margo Kingston or David Roffey.

The following is Craig’s rebuttal and counter claim regarding David Roffey’s own deceit.


DNP Dz abuse (however justified) Webdiary Admin:
What Went Wrong Within Webdiary - Part 1

by Craig Rowley

My real name is the same as that which I have used online since I first had any content I'd created published to the World Wide Web. I do not hide my identity. I am Craig Rowley and I was a director of Webdiary Pty Ltd, a company formed by volunteers who believed that what Margo Kingston had made was good and well worth the extraordinary effort to maintain, develop, improve and grow it. These few people and I, we knew what Margo had suffered to see her dream become real and we saw the value in helping her keep that dream alive. Then some time this year something went wrong within Webdiary. This is the story of what has happened within the Webdiary management team in this past year as I have seen it unfold.

I tell this story in the hope that it prompts reflection by some members of that team, and by people who've been part of the Webdiary community, on what it means to be as the motto says: "Independent, Ethical, Accountable and Transparent". In essence, I hope that Webdiary can do what is necessary to once again return to focus on the noble aims Margo had set out in the Webdiary Charter and proudly claim that the motto she bestowed on her creation is truly reflective of its character. I hope the reputation of Webdiary can be restored by how it handles my own act of accountability and transparency in recounting this story.

Before turning to the chronological telling of what happened within Webdiary (that'll form the next part in what will be a short series of posts), it is useful from the outset to explain something of the way Webdiary has operated and how it has been managed.

An explanation of the title I have used for this post is a good place to start. The title I have used is what David Roffey, the Managing Director of Webdiary Pty, had added to a comment not published by Webdiary, a comment submitted by Paul Morrella on September 4, 2007 at 2:16pm. The standard operating procedure for those who've volunteered their time to moderate the comments submitted to Webdiary is to review each comment to ensure publication will be in accord with Webdiary's Editorial Policy. The acronym "DNP" means Do Not Publish, and it is added to those comments which go against the standard set out in the Editorial Policy. "Dz" signifies that the moderator in this instance was David Roffey. He decided that the comment submitted by "Paul Morrella" could reasonably be categorised as "abuse". However, for a reason that only he can properly attempt to justify, David Roffey also added those words within parentheses - (however justified). The "Webdiary Admin" part is the start of the title that the person using the name "Paul Morrella" included with the comment he had submitted.

For some reason, David Roffey determined that the comment by "Paul Morrella" was "abuse" and then indicated to the other Webdiary directors and volunteers working behind the scenes (for by logic they are the only people who David would have counted on being able to see his contemptible appendage) that he thought it was justified abuse. It is essential to make completely transparent what that comment contained in order to demonstrate what David Roffey's decisions represent. So, here it is, the comment in full with the element seen as abusive underlined (Ed note: 'blogspot' does not allow underline function or, if it does, I dont know how to activate it. Apologies):

‘DNP Dz abuse (however justified) Webdiary Admin’
Submitted by Paul Morrella on September 4, 2007 - 2:16pm.

I have read the Phill [sic] Kendall blog on occasion. This person is obviously unbalanced. The anger, and paranoia displayed by him on multiple occasions is palpable. For that reason I decided some time back not to enter into any further discourse with him. I have felt he is a person that not only looks for conflict; he feels an emotional need for it. The creation of imagined enemies all around would suggest this.

Unfortunately we never really know who we converse with over the net. Whilst most have a sense of proportion it is clear a minority do not. For this reason I will avoid any further comment here in the hope this person does find the help he obviously needs. I find the whole episode highly disturbing, and something I wish to refrain from entering into.

PS His claims (and there have been numbers of them) are completely, and disburbingly [sic] bizarre.
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Whilst the statement within that comment seen as abusive has been highlighted, it also contains several other errors.

First, the person using the name "Paul Morrella" misspells Phil Kendall’s name. Then, this person makes outrageous and ill-informed claims about Phil's state of mental health (as highlighted) and then claims to have "decided some time back not to enter into any further discourse" with Phil when in fact he had actually engaged in submitting comments about Phil Kendall, even after Phil had been banned from making any further comment on Webdiary.

Also, contrary to the opinion of "Paul Morrella", it is more likely to be true that we seldom really know who we converse with over the net. Perhaps it can be argued that one never really know one's self, let alone really knows anyone else through and through. However, pulling back from diving deep into questions of phenomenology, it is generally the case that whenever a community forms online there are instances where individuals seek and make in the real world a real connection with the people they interact with online. For example, I have had real world contact with Margo and each of the other directors. I do know them reasonably well (and I'll say more on this later).

One can also learn the patterns that repeat in a person's "online voice" and so in a sense can come to know a little about that person through their online ‘character. Based on what I know of the person presenting himself as "Paul Morrella", I am reasonably certain that he is not a member of any of the professions that qualify an individual to make informed comment on the mental health of another person. So, not only is his opinion an inexpert and in all probability very wrong one on the facts, it is indeed obviously abusive toward Phill Kendall and entirely unethical when judged by the criteria set out in Webdiary Ethics and the Editorial Policy.

Further, the person using the name "Paul Morrella" states that he will "avoid any further comment here in the hope this person …", etc. That proved to be a most hypocritical statement because later "Paul" submitted not just one but a number of comments that continued his cowardly attack on Phil Kendall.

Clearly, when judged against the criteria set out in Webdiary's Editorial Policy there was a lot wrong with the comment by "Paul Morrella" and the decision to mark it DNP was the correct one. Why then, did David Roffey decide to show to the others behind the scenes that he thought the abuse was justified? Why did Webdiary's Managing Director effectively join in the abuse?

The answers to those questions I do not know for sure. As indicated earlier, only David can properly account for his actions. However, I can offer what I know of David and the history leading up to this event in order to inform you sufficiently to help you test your own hypotheses about what the answer to the question may be. I'll do that fully in the next part by returning to the point where things started to go wrong within Webdiary and following the chronology through the time in which David Roffey and Margo Kingston started to routinely banish anybody who dares to question whether the decisions made by them accord with the Editorial Policy the published.

For now I'll just briefly explain why this example of unethical behaviour by the Managing Director of Webdiary is crucial to the telling of the whole story. I had by this time already resigned as a director of Webdiary and in part that was due to taking a stand against the non-consultative management style taken by David Roffey. The events described here then sadly mark the beginning of the end of my "membership" of what remains of what was once a much broader Webdiary community, for after I discovered David Roffey's unethical behaviour, I challenged him to be ethical, accountable and transparent. For doing that I was punished.

What I discovered was that David had published a comment submitted by "Paul Morrella" a short time after the one that was marked "DNP Dz abuse (however justified) …":

‘Angela Ryan’
Submitted by Paul Morrella on September 5, 2007 - 11:56am.

Angela Ryan

Anyway, perspective is always good. I think Phil has a good heart and that is always respected.

Well possibly, though, you have always agreed with him or at least never publicly voiced any difference of opinion. There are a few on this site it seems (including me apparently) that have unfortunately not had the same degree of foresight.

I personally find it sad, and disturbing, that a person would feel the need to find their enemies (imagined in my case) in cyberspace. Taking internet discourse regarding politics, and general issues so seriously is not something I would consider very healthy. Sometimes it is just helpful to walk away from the computer monitor, and find a true sense of proportion.
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Consequently, I submitted to Webdiary the following comment and, after waiting some time to see it published, I found David Roffey had appended his "editorial" comment to it:

'Ethics?'
Submitted by Craig Rowley on September 5, 2007 - 12:41pm.


Why is it that Paul Morrella can question Phil Kendall's motives, ethics, and mental health openly on Webdiary, but Phil Kendall could not (before being banned) openly ask the same questions on Webdiary about Paul Morrella's motives, ethics, and mental health?

David R: anyone can question anyone's motives and ethics. I'm not aware of Paul questioning Phil's mental health - his most recent comment on a sense of proportion applies to a fair few Webdiarists. And Phil wasn't banned for asking questions on those, he was banned for continually and persistently questioning identity when Margo had specifically said that she had checked, was satisfied, and would not publish any further comment on the subject, and for repeatedly accusing Margo and other editors of hypocrisy and other misdemeanours for sticking to that ruling. You can only insult Margo so many times before she's had enough.
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Given David Roffey's editorial statement, I then submitted the following comment marked NFP (Not For Publication):

‘Dz – publishing previous DNP: That’s a lie David. and I’v (the rest of the title: ... and I've the evidence)’
Submitted by Craig Rowley on September 5, 2007 - 3:42pm.


Dz: I was replying to your accusation that Paul had got away with a published comment, which he hasn't. If we banned everyone who was DNP'd, you'd have gone long ago.

Dz you say "I'm not aware of Paul questioning Phil's mental health...".

Yesterday, Paul Morrella submitted this comment:

‘DNP Dz abuse (however justified) Webdiary Admin’
Submitted by Paul Morrella on September 4, 2007 - 2:16pm.


I have read the Phill Kendall blog on occasion. This person is obviously unbalanced. The anger, and paranoia displayed by him on multiple occasions is palpable. For that reason I decided some time back not to enter into any further discourse with him. I have felt he is a person that not only looks for conflict; he feels an emotional need for it. The creation of imagined enemies all around would suggest this.

Unfortunately we never really know who we converse with over the net. Whilst most have a sense of proportion it is clear a minority do not. For this reason I will avoid any further comment here in the hope this person does find the help he obviously needs. I find the whole episode highly disturbing, and something I wish to refrain from entering into.

PS His claims (and there have been numbers of them) are completely, and disburbingly [sic] bizarre.


And I note that you had a shot at Phil as well with the "(however justified)" addition to the title. You were aware, very aware.

I think you should set the record straight and apologise for lying.
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Note that David Roffey added his own editorial comment to my comment, which indicates that he intended to publish it. I was advised by a friend that it was published and remained briefly available to readers and then disappeared without explanation. So, in the end, David decided to not publish my comment and his editorial retort despite there being no 'rule' or guideline with Editorial Policy on which to base that decision.

There are a couple important things demonstrated by that comment David had added. First, it can be taken by any reasonable person as an admission that David Roffey had indeed been aware of the abusive comment and the line being taken by "Paul Morrella" and that he'd signalled to those inside Webdiary's backroom that he thought personal abuse of another person (one he and Margo had already banned from making any further comment on Webdiary) no matter how wrong was in his opinion ‘justified’. Second, it shows that David's way when challenged with reason and logic on my part is to turn to attack and try to threaten me for daring to offer a defence for a man who could not defend himself. Third, it shows how quickly transparency is thrown out by David when it becomes inconvenient to him.

What should be obvious by this point, but perhaps I need to bring it to prominence, is that I still had the ability to see both what was and was not published by Webdiary on the conversation threads associated with those posts I had authored. The comments I expose to all here were made on the conversation thread associated with 'What if...? Solving the Iran stand-off'. After I saw that David Roffey had decided to cover up his lie rather than be ethical, accountable and transparent about it, I tried to formulate a comment that could not under any circumstance be categorised as a DNP without that being in itself another example of departure from the published Editorial Policy. My first attempt was this:

'DNP: Dz same Also … why wasn’t this observed?'
Submitted by Craig Rowley on September 5, 2007 - 4:28pm.


In the DNP marked comment submitted by Paul Morrella he stated:

For this reason I will avoid any further comment here in the hope this person does find the help he obviously needs.

Yet he came back the very next day to make further comment here and it was comment on Phil Kendall. One of you published it.

Why didn't editors observe that and contact Paul to tell him it would be best if he stuck to his supposed intention to not comment here, particularly on the very thing that could injure Phil?
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As you can see it was marked DNP by David Roffey. Why? Those familiar with Webdiary's Editorial Policy will see that it clearly does not contravene any rule expressed in that policy.
I tried again, submitting this:

‘There he is talking about others health again’
Submitted by Craig Rowley on September 5, 2007 - 6:32pm.


How many times is Paul Morrella going to be published making comments about the health of someone else?
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That wasn't published either. I can't show the DNP marks in this instance because I'd only copied this and subsequent comments I tried to submit at this time before they were "processed" by a member of the Webdiary team. Suffice to say that you'll find neither that comment nor this next few published on Webdiary if you look back over the conversation thread today:

‘Look … there is a theme here’
Submitted by Craig Rowley on September 5, 2007 - 6:37pm.


David Roffey you say "I'm not aware of Paul questioning Phil's mental health...".

Yesterday, as you and I know, Paul Morrella submitted a comment yesterday which you did not publish. It contains a stark example of Paul questioning Phil's mental health.

You knew about it because you left your mark on the unpublished comment. So you lied when you said you were "not aware", didn't you?

I think you should set the record straight and apologise for lying.

I also think it is unethical for you to keep publishing comments by Paul Morrella that do so much as even hint at questions about the mental health of another person who comments (or commented in the case of the people you banned).


‘David you lied and need to set the record straight’
Submitted by Craig Rowley on September 5, 2007 - 6:41pm.


David Roffey you say "I'm not aware of Paul questioning Phil's mental health...".

Yesterday, as you and I and all know, Paul Morrella submitted a comment yesterday which you did not publish. It contains a stark example of Paul questioning Phil's mental health.

You knew about that unethical questioning by Paul of Phil's mental health because you left your mark on the unpublished comment.

So you lied when you said you were "not aware", didn't you?

I think you should set the record straight and apologise for lying.

I also think it is unethical for you to keep publishing comments by Paul Morrella that do so much as even hint at questions about the mental health of another person who comments (or commented in the case of the people you banned).
----------

The reason for submitting in a short time two comments trying to convey the same message on this occasion was that I realised after submitting the first that I should have mentioned that all the people working behind the scenes at Webdiary would have already or in time know he had just lied to the broader community involved in the conversation as well as regular and occasional readers of Webdiary.

Seeing that other comments were being published, but not mine, I then submitted this comment thinking David was "on duty":

‘anyone can question anyone’s motives and ethics’
Submitted by Craig Rowley on September 5, 2007 - 6:48pm.

David Roffey today you said:

anyone can question anyone's motives and ethics.

I am questioning yours now because you and I both know you were aware of Paul Morrella's inappropriate comments about the mental health of another 'diarist and yet you subsequently said:

I'm not aware of Paul questioning Phil's mental health...

You were aware he had submitted comment questioning Phil's mental health at the time you published that editorial comment. I think you should explain yourself.

Be accountable.
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When that was not published, and yet comment by others was being published, I submitted this comment:

‘NFP – Dz get this straight’
Submitted by Craig Rowley on September 5, 2007 - 7:06pm.

You can keep reacting to presentation of the fact that you've made mistakes by getting mad at me, but it does not alter the facts.

I understand that it is your natural reaction to get angry with me when I challenge you, but when you have acted in a way that warrants challenging then I will do it.

It would be good if we could start talking about a solution to this situation soon. As I see it, this could have been solved a long time ago.

It could have been solved by a simple and consistent editorial approach where every time C Parsons (now as Eliot Ramsey) tried the 'remorseless ridicule' thing his comment is DNP and then at the next acceptable comment he's told by the editor that the earlier comments were not appropriate for publication and why (it runs counter to the 'civil discourse' standard Margo desired for the space).

Same goes for Jay White when he baited Phil Kendall on his return to Webdiary as 'new user' Paul Morrella. You could have DNP'd the 'baiting' comments and on the next acceptable comment explained why targeting and baiting (acting like a troll) runs counter to the 'civil discourse' standard.

That way you probably wouldn't have had to ban anybody.
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Notice that last one was submitted marked NFP. I was suggesting to David Roffey and the other Webdiary insiders who could read this comment that I would not back down from defending another 'diarist to a bully even if he is the Managing Director of Webdiary Pty Ltd. David's way, you see, is to attack anyone who challenges his decision making. I was also suggesting a reasonable and sensible solution to an ongoing problem with David's decision-making. A problem I will bring into focus in the next post.

More in Part 2 ...

ALREADY THE WHIFF OF PEACE IN PALESTINE HAS DISAPPEARED EVEN BEFORE TALKS BEGIN.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has already conceded to the extreme right-wing Israeli Zionists. He told the Knesset, directing his remarks specifically to the right-wing parties that make up Olmert’s coalition, Shas, an ultra-orthodox Judaist party, and Israel Beiteinu, a secular extreme right-wing Zionist political party, on Monday that there will be no Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank ‘unless Palestinian terrorism is stopped’. Since Palestinian ‘terrorism’ is actually Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, one can readily see that Israeli platitudes about peace and talk of a two-state solution are merely a ploy by which the Israeli Zionists can point the finger of blame for the talk’s failures at the Palestinians. The reality is that, like the Likud party, the Shas and Israel Beiteinu do not want a Palestinian state to ever exist. The goal of Israeli Zionists is a Greater Israel that ultimately includes the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And the recent appropriation of 1,100 dunams (110 ha.) of land from four Palestinian villages between East Jerusalem and the West Bank by the IDF only reinforces the notion that Israel has no intention of allowing the Palestinians a state of their own.

The quicker the world wakes up to the reality that a separate Palestinian sovereign state is not on the agenda of political parties like Likud, Shas and Israel Beiteinu then the quicker the world will realise that there can only be one solution – and that is the one-state solution of an integrated Palestine.

PALESTINE: TWO DIFFERENT ONE-STATE SOLUTIONS; ONE SHARING AND EGALITARIAN, THE OTHER RACIST AND EXCLUSIONIST.

The two-state solution as an answer to the Israeli-Palestine conflict is, as most the world learnt long ago, never, ever going to happen – and nor would it ever work. Even more to the point however, is the fact that neither side really wants a partitioned two-state solution.

Next month a few of the stake-holders who claim to have an interest in a resolution to the Israeli Palestine conflict will meet in the US to discuss, yet again, the possibility of a two-state solution. The plan at this initial meeting is simply to plan further meetings but for the participants it buys a little more time and makes it look good in the eyes of the world at large who will assume that at least some effort is being made to solve the problem.

The reality, however, is that the situation is no different today than it was immediately after the al-Nakba in 1948; the Palestinians want their lands back and the Israeli Zionists want to keep all that they have so far taken from the Palestinians. Not content with that, the Israeli Zionists also want to take from the Palestinians all of what little they still have left in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Talk of a two-state solution is a waste of time. What the Palestinians want are their lands returned to them; a goal a two-state solution will not be able to accommodate. The Palestinians also want a right of return for the original refugees and their descendents who were ethnically cleansed from Palestine when the Israelis took over; this is a subject that the Israelis will not even discuss. The Israelis want to keep their settlements inside the West Bank; an aspiration that the Palestinians could not possibly tolerate in a two-state solution.

The Israeli Zionist extremists, which includes the Israeli Likud Party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, do not even want a Palestinian state of any kind to exist, and, indeed, would secretly prefer, though, for obvious reasons, wouldn’t publicly say so, that all Palestinians in the Gaza and the West Bank be transferred to Jordan leaving those areas entirely free for Jewish-Israeli settlement, full colonisation and eventual incorporation into a Greater Israel State based on Jewish occupation and excluding the Palestinian Arabs. This is the Israeli Zionist ideal of the one-state solution. It excludes entirely the participation of the Palestinian people and is therefore totally racist.

The only possible ultimate solution is a one-state solution whereby both Israelis and Palestinians live together in a secularly governed democratic and integrated single nation.

This is the solution that Dr. Ghada Karmi, the Palestinian academic, is promoting in her visit to Australia which culminated in last Saturday evening’s Edward Said Memorial Lecture which Dr. Karmi delivered at the Adelaide University in South Australia. It is the solution that the peoples of the world should insist upon because it is the only solution that will provide a lasting peace to both the Palestinian and Israeli people and, ultimately, the much needed stability that the region so desperately needs.

A world that supports the one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict will benefit because the successful outcome of a world-endorsed one-state solution will have far more influence in promoting the cause of stability and peace through democracy throughout the rest of the region and will be far more successful than the kind of false ‘democracy’ that is now being forced down the throats of the Arab and Central Asian peoples by the guns and bombs of the US and their allies.

‘FINAL CONFRONTATION’ NEWS.

‘SYRIA HAD NUCLEAR FACILITY’ STORY IS BACK ON THE FRONT BURNER.

During the time that the Israeli Defence Forces blocked all news from Israeli sources regarding its attack on Syria back in early September it was leaked that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) had bombed a Syrian nuclear facility that contained nuclear material from North Korea. Quickly realising that bombing a facility that was ‘hot’ with nuclear material would have been a completely stupid thing to do given that radio active nuclear dust could well have spread all over the Middle East, including Israel, and beyond, it was decided to embellish the ‘leak’ of the Syria nuke story by adding that just prior to the air raid a special forces ground operation was mounted to remove the ‘nuclear’ material from the facility.

Then, realising that this story was really pushing the bounds of credibility into the realms of James Bond-like fantasy, the story was changed yet again. This time the air raid was said to have been against North Korean missiles that had found its way to Syria.

Now it seems the story has morphed yet again apparently in order to perpetuate the ‘Syria going nuclear’ myth as part of the continuing propaganda and rhetoric geared to bolster public support for the Final Confrontation between the US-Israel and Iran-Syria. The Jerusalem Post, citing an ABC News report, now claims that the IAF did indeed bomb a Syrian facility but one that contained ‘North Korean nuclear technology’ rather than actual ‘North Korean nuclear material’ implying that there was no danger from nuclear contamination of the region as a result of the bombing. Predictably, no further mention of the James Bond-like ground raid on the ‘facility’ is made; a part of the story that seems to have quietly disappeared from the pages of this particular piece of Israeli military history.

The ABC News report also mentions that the US was privy to Israeli plans well in advance of the planned strike and, indeed, had debated whether or not the Israelis should go a head. In the end, so the article implies, Israel went ahead despite US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s opposition to the strike. Her failure to halt the raid is further evidence demonstrating that Rice is increasingly losing influence over both Israeli policies and the polices of their supporters in the Bush administration, especially Vice-President Dick Cheney and his hawk supporters among the neoconservatives who are itching to get the Final Confrontation against Syria and Iran off the ground.


BUSH SAYS HE HAS ‘NO PLANS TO ATTACK IRAN’.

On 29 March 2002 Bush also told the world he had no plans to attack Iraq. Bush’s non-existent credibility isn’t exactly on the line anymore – he’s told that many lies that the world simply doesn’t believe a word he says. The only difference between the propaganda and rhetoric in the lead up to the attack on Iraq and the lead up to the coming attack on Iran is that this time the US only has Israel as an ally.

Of course, if President Bush insists that there will be no attack on Iran, then there is always the ‘lone deranged gunman’ option. Vice-President Dick Cheney, currently pushing Bush to bomb Iran, once having been sworn in as President, would not hesitate to bomb Iran in his push for the Final Confrontation.

DAVID ROFFEY AT WEBDIARY SHOWS HIS TRUE COLOURS

David Roffey, company secretary and editor at the Australian current affairs blog, Webdiary, has exposed his true colours over the recent debacle involving ex- Webdiary director Craig Rowley who Roffey has accused, without presenting any evidence whatsoever, of using multiple identities in debate.

This accusation demonstrates Roffey’s outrageous hypocrisy over the question of identities of debaters at Webdiary. As I have noted many times before in previous posts, the extreme right-wing commentator Eliot Ramsey continues to be allowed to peddle his propaganda despite everyone being fully aware that this person is none other than C. Parsons, an equally notorious peddler of right-wing propaganda at Webdiary in the past.

As a direct result of Craig Rowley being banned for reasons that no evidence was presented to support I wrote to Roffey saying the following:

David Roffey
It’s a pity that Webdiary has seen fit to ban Craig Rowley accusing him of adopting other identities, an accusation, I might add, that is not accompanied by any evidence – at least none that you have offered. This banning is gross hypocrisy if you do not ban Eliot Ramsey for the same reasons. There is abundant evidence demonstrating that Eliot Ramsey is C. Parsons, who used to post at Webdiary just prior to being banned himself yet you have made no mention at all of Eliot Ramsey’s deceitfulness or commented on why he is allowed to continue posting while you ban others.One now needs to wonder about your own credibility, Roffey, as well as that of Kingston’s who we know accepted Parsons as part of the right-wing with which the left and centre commentators could ‘debate’ with providing grist for Webdiary’s mill. Kingston has in the past openly said that keeping the right-wing commentators were essential if Webdiary were to be viable; indeed, commenting on the Holocaust and alternative ideas about the events of 9/11 were banned – and Kingston said so at the time – because the right-wing Webdiarists threatened to leave if such debate were allowed. Kingston as we know caved in to the right and their threats. It seems now that you and Kingston are further pandering to the right-wing’s whims by adopting double standards about who can and cannot post at Webdiary.I know that Kingston has suffered stress from death threats, etc., but perhaps if she had stood up to the right-wing and their thugs in the first place she might feel a bit better about herself. Pandering to the likes of Eliot Ramsey and their right-wing garbage certainly does not help and Webdiary’s continued accommodation of these liars and fraudsters reveals only the true corrupt position of Webdiary management.
Lataan


To which Roffey replied simply…

Damian you continue to be the sort of complete tosser that drove me away from the left thirty years ago ...
David Roffey

My response to that was:

I assume then, Roffey, since you are not able to address the issues I have raised with regard to both Craig Rowley’s banning and Eliot Ramsey still being allowed a platform at Webdiary that you are indeed part of the deceit and fraud that has reared its head there. Furthermore, since you concede that you are now no longer part of the Left, one can assume that you are now a party to the right-wing and support their lies and deceit and, indeed, are a part of it.
The Left, Roffey, I can assure you are far better off without lying and deceiving ‘tossers’ like you in it.
Lataan


Craig Rowley has asked me if he could air his side of the story at this blog and I have invited him to do so since Webdiary is unlikely to allow him to respond to Roffey’s accusation there. Since many Webdiarists do visit my blog, I think it is only fair that Craig Rowley be provided with an opportunity to have his side of the story told with a strong likelihood that other Webdiarists will be able to read for themselves both sides of the story – something which Webdiary have a very strong history of not otherwise allowing.

FORGET THE PROPAGANDA AND RHETORIC, LOOK AT THE GEO-POLITICAL REALITY OF THE ISRAELI-U.S. ENDGAME.

While the world’s compliant mainstream media focuses on the propaganda and rhetoric about the reasons for their wars in the Middle East, the actual endgame for Israel and the US seems to have been all but forgotten.

As part of the propaganda and rhetoric, Israel and the US would like the world to believe that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are currently an immediate threat to the world and to Israel in particular. This propaganda includes the demonisation of Iran’s theocratic government and the belittling of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It’s all aimed at getting public opinion on side to support an attack on Iran, or at least minimise objection to it when it does. So far the rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear ambitions hasn’t created the level of public support that the US government would feel comfortable with if it attacked now.

There are two reasons why the public hasn’t taken the bait with only some eight percent of Americans actually supporting an attack on Iran. First, they’ve heard it all before during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq and are thoroughly familiar with the extent to which that all turned out to be lies, and, secondly, the public are aware that the UN nuclear watchdog organisation, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) itself cannot find any evidence to support Israeli and US claims that Iran is enriching uranium beyond that required for generating energy and certainly nowhere near enough to make a bomb.

The US has succeeded in either frightening or cajoling or bribing some of the UN nations into calling for Iran to stop all uranium enrichment, despite the fact that Iran has a legal right to continue enriching uranium to a level where it can be used for power generation, and has even succeeded in convincing the UN to adopt minor sanctions against Iran. Taking it to the next stage, however, has been a little more difficult for the Americans and the Israelis since the Russians and Chinese are now insisting that the IAEA be able to complete their report to the UN under arrangements that the IAEA and Iran have agreed. Russia and China went along with the earlier sanctions simply to buy a little more time for the situation to be resolved in other ways knowing that the sanctions would have only a minimal effect on Iran. The alternative at the time could well have been an Israeli pre-emptive attack against Iran had Russia and China baulked at these minor sanctions. Russia and China again are playing the ‘buying time’ option as the US and Israel, who, as always, have the UK on board, and now also France as its new right-wing President Nicholas Sarkozy is staunchly pro-Zionist Israel, try, albeit unsuccessfully, to bring on tighter sanctions against Iran. Both Russia and China have far more to lose if sanctions against Iran are increased. The Russians and Chinese have managed to buy a little over a month before any more UN decisions are made regarding Iran but even then it may not be that the US, Israel and their allies get the desired result of no sanctions thus opening the way for a non-UN approved attack (again) on a sovereign nation, Iran.

For the US and Israel the diplomacy game is just that – a game which they need to play in order to satisfy public opinion and those nations like Russia and China that are aware of exactly what the geo-political reality actually is and what the US and Israeli endgame really is.

Israel and the US have, ever since Ahmadinejad was elected President of Iran, used his well-known radical views as propaganda to push the idea that Iran is intent on building nuclear weapons and using them to destroy Israel and possibly even use them against the US. Against those that argue that Iran would not do such a thing because it knows that both the US and Israel would use their nuclear weapons against Iran, the US and Israel’s propaganda response is that Iran has some kind of fanatical death wish whereby it would use its nuclear weapons even knowing that itself would be destroyed.

In light of the Bush regime realising that the American people aren’t going to bite fully on Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear ambitions’, due mainly to the Bush administrations now totally discredited claims with regard to Iraq’s so-called ‘nuclear ambitions’, they have over the last few months began to change their rhetoric. The emphasis now for American consumers, and for the people of those other nations that still have a military presence in Iraq such as the UK and Australia, is that Iran is now supplying and aiding the Iraqi insurgency with training and weapons and killing US and allied service personnel. For Israeli consumers the ‘nuclear threat’ remains and is used consistently by both the current Olmert government and the especially by the extreme right-wing Zionist Likud party headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. As is usual for the extreme right-wing Israeli Zionists and their neoconservative supporters in the US, the spectre of a second Holocaust is invoked to provide the necessary fear levels among ordinary Israelis that in turn give support to the Zionist extremists policies of regime change via attacking Iran.

Iran being a threat to Israel because Iran seeks nuclear weapons, and Iran being a threat to the US because it is supplying insurgents in Iraq with training and weapons is the propaganda and rhetoric that the US and Israel wants the world to hear about via a compliant mainstream media. The geo-political reality, however, is something entirely different.

The US and Israel are very much aware that Iran has no nuclear bomb and does not have the facilities to make one. The US and Israel are also very much aware of what Ahmadinejad actually said with regard to ‘wiping Israel off the map’, a quote that has been deliberately mistranslated by the neoconservative Middle East Media Research Institute.

The geo-political reality is simple; the US and Israel require regime change in Iran and Syria in order to crush resistance to Israeli expansionist dreams in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon, and also to retain without further threat from Syria the Golan Heights and the Shebaa Farms. The issue of Iranian nuclear ambitions and Iran’s ties with insurgents in Iraq is merely a propaganda ploy used to create a casus belli to attack Iran to effect that regime change.

The US and the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ attack on Iraq has created the conditions the US and Israel needed to go forward with the next stage of their Middle East program – an attack on Iran. The propaganda and rhetoric are designed purely to cover the US and Israel’s endgame – for the right-wing Israel Zionists that is the creation of a Greater Israel and for the US it is control and hegemony of the world’s richest resource region. Such an outcome also satisfies the endgame outcomes of various other groups with an interest in what happens in the Middle East and Israel; the Christian Zionists get to realise their dream of a Greater Israel, a pre-requisite apparently for Armageddon; the US oil companies get the pick of the Middle Eastern oil contracts; the so-called US ‘reconstruction’ companies get the massive contracts and dollars that go with it; and the big private US security companies also continue to make billions out of other peoples misery, misery that is often created by them in the first place.

And that is the geo-political endgame that the US and Israel are seeking; regime change in Iran and Syria giving Israel and the US control of the Middle East.

Forget the propaganda and rhetoric of Iranian nuclear bombs, Iran attacking Israel and Iran helping the insurgents in Iraq. Israeli and US domination of the Middle East is all it is all about.

THE ISRAELIS ARE SPOILING TO GET A WAR GOING WITH SYRIA SO THAT THE U.S. CAN JOIN IN AGAINST IRAN.

Over these last few weeks one doesn’t need to be a journo with top of the range contacts in the Israeli military and political hierarchy to feel how palpable the mood is in the government and the defence forces of Israel as they pace the skies close to Syria itching to get a fight going. It seems as though every time Syria gets an aircraft off the ground Israel scrambles a few of their fighters heading straight toward the border.

As well as keeping a close eye on aircraft movements, especially those that drop off the radar, Israel are also keeping a beady eye on Syrian ground troop movements as well. Reading between the lines of the various reports one doesn’t need to be too astute to realise that Israel are looking for the slightest provocation to launch a ‘preemptive’ attack against Syria the moment they look any where near moving troops or tanks up toward the border, or moving their aircraft toward their more forward airbases.

It seems the 90 million gallons of JP-8 jet fuel and 42 million gallons of military diesel has finally arrived or at least is well on the way.

The Israelis are following typical Zionist tactics as they attempt to provoke and manipulate those that they are about attack. The Zionists have always, ever since getting their ethnic cleansing of Palestine underway, sought to find a casus belli to justify their attacks. They are usually based on lies and deceptions and, with the help of a compliant western mainstream media, are usually able to deceive the west into thinking that their actions are always reactive and that they are always the victim. They’ve managed to get away with it time and time again but this time the stakes are so high that the world should take note of what is going on.

If the Israelis attack Syria, which they would probably combine with an attack on both Hizbollah in south Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza and West Bank, Iran will be drawn in due to their mutual assistance treaty with Syria thus providing the casus belli for the US to attack Iran. Even if Iran held its ground as Syria was attacked the propaganda machine would shift into top gear and tell the world that Iran is preparing some kind of action against the west giving the Americans the excuse they need to bomb Iran.

The peoples of the world should be out on the streets – a Final Confrontation between the West and Iran will make what has happened in Iraq pale into insignificance.

THE WEBDIARY FRAUDSTER DROPS A BIG CLANGER. TIME FOR SOME PEOPLE TO WAKE UP!

One year ago, not quite to the day but almost, C. Parsons wrote:
“Before the West's Marxists were reduced to being merely an ancillary movement of IslamoFascism, a common propaganda ploy they used was termed "mirror language" or "moral equivalence".” That was on 23 September 2006.

On 1 March 2007 C. Parsons wrote:
“The rhetoric of "moral equivalence" and "mirror speak" was 20th century Marxism's greatest and indeed only surviving gift to the architects of doom.”

Today, 28 September 2007, at 1.51pm, Eliot Ramsey wrote:
“In the good old days, when Commies were proud to be called such, one of the most tried and tested techniques they used to deflect criticism from Gulags, show trials, peasant massacres, bankrupt economic theories and other aspects of life under socialism, their stooges in the west were trained in the art of 'equivalence rhetoric' or 'mirror language'. This is coming back into fashion.”

So it would seem!

How much longer will this propagandising fraudster and liar be allowed to post his obfuscating garbage? Margo Kingston is beginning to look as much a fraud over her claim to ethics and transparency as Ramsey is a fraud over his claims of not being C. Parsons.

SO, WHO ARE THE REAL ‘TERRORISTS’ OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY? - PART ONE.

The word ‘terrorist’ gets bandied around a lot these days. It’s been around for a while in modern post-Second World War times and has been used against all types of groups and people ranging from the activists of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland to the separatist Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. But since 9/11 it has been almost exclusively used in the mainstream media and by right-wing commentators to describe Arab and Islamist fighters that have dared to raise their hand against the US, Israel or any of their Western allies.

Palestinians who defend themselves against Israeli Zionist aggression and persecution are labelled ‘terrorists’ and the various organisations that they belong to are referred to as ‘terrorist organisations’. Hizbollah fighters, who for years fought against the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, are called ‘terrorists’ and Hizbollah itself is designated a ‘terrorist organisation’ by six nations: Israel, the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.

There are, of course, many other Islamic organisations around the world that have also been labelled ‘terrorist organisations’ and their members, therefore, are also labelled ‘terrorists’. Even Iraqi insurgents have been labelled ‘terrorists’ by the US and their allies.

Islamic fighters that have not been identified as belonging to specific groups or organisations are usually pigeon-holed into the catchall ‘al Qaeda’ terrorist slot regardless of whether they are actually al Qaeda ‘members’ or not. Fighters that fall into this category include non-Iraqi Arab and other foreign Islamic fighters that have found their way into Iraq to help the Iraqi resistance rid their country of the US and other ‘Coalition of the Willing’ invaders. In short, the word ‘terrorist’ has become a propaganda euphemism used predominately by the US, Israel and their Western allies to denote and identify those that they consider to be ‘the enemy’ in their conveniently titled ‘Global War on Terrorism’.

The US and their allies have also very carefully cast those that they view as ‘terrorists’ into a specific mould. Taking great care to avoid using actual officially recognised definitions of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’, the US and their allies instead use a comparative model within which to frame those that the US and their allies tell us are ‘terrorists’. During public discussion and speeches the word ‘they’ is often used. It is a collective term usually used just after the word ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorism’ has just been used, and is used to distinguish ‘them’ from ‘us’. Most people for example would be familiar with the phrase often used in speeches by coalition leaders; “’They’ do not have the same values as ‘us’”. The word ‘values’ is cleverly invoked here because all peoples instinctively value their own ‘values’ above other people’s values but, while realising that people do have different values that are not necessarily any worse or better than ours, when the word is used in a derogatory context, such as in defining an enemy, the immediate implication is that the ‘enemy’ is somehow inferior to ‘us’.

Israel has a tendency to invoke the word ‘terrorist’ in a most vehement and extreme way to describe Palestinians that resist Israeli occupation in the West Bank and who resist Israeli aggression and incursions into the Gaza Strip. As previously mentioned, Hizbollah in Lebanon are also referred to by Israel as ‘terrorists’. All actions by either the various Palestinian resistance organisations or Hizbollah are referred to exclusively as ‘terrorist’ activity. The use of the word in this context is designed to demonise those that the word is used against. The word ‘terrorist’ is the antithesis of the term ‘freedom fighter’ or ‘resistance fighter’, both terms that are used predominately throughout the Arab and Islamic world to denote those that the West define as ‘terrorists’.

But for all of the West’s propaganda and rhetoric when invoking the term ‘terrorist’, are those that they label ‘terrorist’ any more ‘terrorist’ than the soldiers of the forces of the US, Israel and their allies? Indeed, could not the actions of the forces of the US, Israel and their allies be far more appropriately labelled ‘terrorist’ when one considers the more destructive and murderous activities that US, Israeli and allied forces engage in within the territories that they occupy or strike in to?

Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza lob Kassam missiles toward some of the Israeli townships that are within range, mostly in the Negev. They do it in the hope that Israelis will become so fed up with this that they will curtail their activities of aggression in the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza. Most Kassam rockets, which have no guidance system, fall harmlessly in the desert. Every now and then, one or two hit a building and occasionally kill or injure an Israeli civilian. The Israelis label those that both organise and launch the rockets as ‘terrorists’. It should be noted here, however, that the Palestinian attacks against Israel are in RESPONSE to Israeli aggression and not, as the Israelis attempt to portray, acts of aggression from the Palestinians that the Israelis are responding to.

Remember, it is the Israelis that have pushed the Palestinians off of their lands and it is the Israelis that occupy the West Bank and it is the Israelis that have sealed off the Gaza creating an oppressive massive ghetto into which they can launch indiscriminate attacks against resisting Palestinians at any time often killing many innocent civilians. Indeed, it should be noted that far more innocent Palestinian civilians are killed by Israeli terrorists launching attacks inside the Gaza than there are Israelis killed by Palestinian fighters who are resisting Israeli terrorism.


There is another aspect of Israeli operations against Palestinian resistance that would attract instantaneous outcry from Western leaders and the Western mainstream media if the Palestinians perpetrated the same activity against Israel. And that is so-called ‘targeted assassinations’. Can one imagine the reaction if, say, the Palestinians had a guided weapon that that they could use anywhere in Israel and strike down any Israeli politician or senior IDF personnel at will? Can you imagine how the US and the Western world would react if the Palestinians killed, say, Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi in a ‘targeted assassination’? Would such an attack against an Israeli responsible for the deaths of scores of Palestinians be considered any the less a ‘terrorist’ attack than the ‘targeted assassination’ of the wheelchair-bound spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in March 2004? Such an action by Palestinians would not be tolerated by the West and instantly labelled as ‘terrorist’ yet when the Israelis commit the same terrorist act against an old and frail man in a wheelchair it is applauded. This is staggering hypocrisy, yet so many in the West whose minds have been numbed by the relentless propaganda espousing the self-righteousness of the West are unable to see it.

Ever since the Israelis began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine they have always used ‘self-defence’ to excuse their own terrorist activities while accusing those that have fought back as being ‘terrorists’ themselves. The Israelis believe that because their terrorists are part of the bona fide military force of a sovereign nation that the label of terrorist cannot be applied to them. There are two problems with this misconception when it comes to considering what are and what are not terrorist acts. First, the legitimate forces of a sovereign nation have certain legal obligations under international law, many of which Israel has contravened. Secondly, there are many questions of morality that must also be considered when invoking the label ‘terrorist’ and, again, Israel cannot be considered to have acted morally when launching targeted assassinations and killing innocent civilians and many children. Nor can they be considered to have acted morally when collectively destroying the homes and agricultural and horticultural facilities of entire families and communities as they have done in the West Bank and the Gaza. These are both illegal and immoral activities that, had the Palestinians done this to the Israelis, would be considered terrorist acts.

For the Israelis there may well be a third problem that will arise as the unintended consequence of US policy relating to the declaration that a sovereign nation’s defence force arm is a terrorist organisation. If the US pushes through their threatened legislation declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a ‘terrorist organisation’ then the precedent will be set for any nation to call the legitimate forces of any other nation a terrorist organisation – including Israel’s enemies declaring the IDF a ‘terrorist organisation’.


Part two will take the discussion further by examining in closer detail why Western forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, including mercenaries, can also be considered as ‘terrorists’.

THE ANTI-IRAN PROPAGANDA FRENZY.

AHMADINEJAD SAYS THERE ARE NO GAYS IN IRAN; ANOTHER REASON WHY WE NEED TO NUKE IRAN AND KILL HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THEIR PEOPLE RIGHT NOW!

As if to demonstrate how ridiculous the propaganda and rhetoric against Iran has become, the extreme right-wing warmongering neoconservatives, Israeli Lobby lunatics and their supporting commentators in the mainstream press are having a ball at the expense of some of Ahmadinejad’s more outrageous remarks. Some neocon editors are even implying that, if Ahmadinejad is fibbing about there being no gays in Iran, then he must be fibbing about Iran not pursuing nuclear weapons.

Talk about desperate!

Think about this from a different angle; if Ahmadinejad were to drop dead today would that make what the US and Israel see as a problem go away? Would the death of Ahmadinejad cause peace to break out throughout the Middle East? Of course not; but, judging by the way the extreme right-wing in the US and Israel are carrying on at the moment, you’d be forgiven for thinking it would.

All that the right-wing in the Western media is saying about Ahmadinejad’s propaganda and rhetoric is – you’ve guessed it – just propaganda and rhetoric. The US neocons and the Israeli Zionists have been carrying on about Iran and its so-called ‘nuclear ambitions’ ever since the Iranians kicked the US-backed fascist Shah out of Iran and long before Ahmadinejad became President, and the US neocons and Israeli Zionists will be carrying on about Irans so-called ‘nuclear ambitions’ long after he’s gone – even if he dropped dead today.

The geo-political reality is simple; this right-wing US neocon and Israeli Zionist propaganda feeding frenzy is nothing more than just another excuse to demonise Iran and its leaders in order to gain public support for an attack against Iran so that Israel can have a free hand to realise its long held dream of a Greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people in the Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and, so they hope, even in south Lebanon up to the Litani River. It’s not about ‘nuclear weapons’ and it’s not about Ahmadinejad. IT IS ABOUT ISRAELI ZIONIST DREAMS FOR A ‘GREATER ISRAEL’ – NOTHING ELSE!

‘FINAL CONFRONTATION’ NEWS

IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK AS THOUGH ISRAEL’S RAID ON SYRIA’S ‘NUCLEAR’ FACILITIES DIDN’T HAPPEN AFTER ALL.

A raid of some sort happened but it seems that various US intelligence analysts agree that it wasn’t on any Syrian ‘nuclear’ facility; mainly on account that they don’t actually have one besides the small Chinese supplied facility that they’ve had for years that produces isotopes for medical research, etc.

Someone who pushes the buttons at the US/Israel propaganda factory must have realised that the ‘nuclear Syria’ fairy story was pushing the propaganda envelope just a little too far and Israel were very wise in not confirming anything officially and doing what they did do and that is fly a proverbial kite with ‘nuclear Syria’ on it and see how high that goes.

It didn’t go very high. If Syria had a ‘nuclear weapons facility’ Israel would have made sure that the world knew about it a long, long time ago. They must have also quickly realised that the logistics of getting a raiding party into a high security facility, lifting a load of ‘hot’ nuke stuff and sneaking it away back to Israel and then getting the place destroyed by an air strike is pure delusional James Bond fantasy.

It now seems the raid was more about Korean missiles being supplied to the Syrians. Of course they are not just any old missiles; these are supposed to be equipped with chemical weapons so we are still back with the old ‘they’ve got Weapons of Mass Destruction!’ cry from the Israelis and the US, ignoring entirely that fact that both Israel and the US also have WMDs.


THE ISRAEL LOBBY WORK OVERTIME PROMOTING ‘NATIONAL HATE WEEK’ IN THE U.S.

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard has been doing his bit, yet again, helping the Israel Lobby in promoting hatred of Iran and its visiting President Ahmadinejad who is in the US for the United Nations assembly. Kristol has advised via a piece in his neocon comic that Israel supporters should boycott all of Ahmadinejad’s engagements while visiting the US. Kristol and his Israeli Lobby cronies wouldn’t want anyone to hear about what Ahmadinejad and the Iranian people really have to say about what’s going on in the Middle East.


AHMADINEJAD HAS AT LEAST ONE ISRAELI COMMENTATOR WORRIED!

Shmuel Rosner writing in Ha’aretz reckons that Israel is the big loser over Ahmadinejad’s speech to Columbia University during his visit to the US. He argues that, while there are plenty of Jewish protestors at the university making a lot of noise against him, there are a lot of Americans that are willing to listen and hear him out. It is these that that the Israeli Lobby are really worried about – the protestors are already ‘converted’; most Americans, already fed up with the war in Iraq, may easily shy away from more war against Iran if they are persuaded by Ahmadinejad’s argument that the problem is Israel and only Israel; not the US.

ISRAEL CRANKS UP THE RHETORIC FOR THE ‘FINAL CONFRONTATION’ WITHOUT SAYING A THING!

What with Syria being a de facto member of the ‘Axis of Evil’ because of its association with Iran, it was inevitable that sooner or later North Korea, a fully paid up member of the ‘Axis of Evil’, would be linked with Syria via its dabbling in nuclear stuff and that Israel would exploit that link to the hilt as it cranks up the propaganda and rhetoric in the lead up to an attack on both Iran and Syria in its push for the ‘Final Confrontation’.

The world should get to grips with reality here; Syria has not got nuclear weapons and there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to even suggest that it has even got any kind of nuclear program on paper let alone any facilities to store nuclear material coming in from North Korea. If it had Israel would have let the world know about it yonks ago.

Step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Apart from a small Chinese supplied facility that produces isotopes for medicine and research, there has, until now, been absolutely nothing connecting Syria in anyway whatsoever with anything ‘nuclear’ – absolutely nothing. For all the years Israel has been going on about ‘Syria this’ and ‘Syria that’ in Lebanon, there has never ever been any mention of Syria having anything to do with nuclear energy. Yet now, all of a sudden, Israel is leaking it that they bombed a Syrian nuclear facility that was being supplied by North Korea right at a time when the US and Israel are cranking up the rhetoric for a push against Iran – and the rest of the world is expected to believe this stuff . Punch out a few keywords like ‘nuclear’, ‘North Korea’, ‘Syria’, etc., and Voila! you have instant propaganda without admitting to anything. But all of a sudden we have a Syria that is in pursuit of nuclear weapons.

One wonders how the world would react if a few Syrian MiG29s flew down to Dimona in the Negev dessert in Israel and bombed Israel’s nuclear facilities there. They could fly there, do the deed and be back at their base within forty minutes.


UPDATE

In case anyone was wondering about how irresponsible it would be for the Israelis to bomb a facility containing nuclear material with the resultant likely to be the potential contamination of vast areas of the Middle East including possibly even Israel, a new story has been ‘leaked’ that Israeli special ground forces snuck in to the facility before the air raid and ran off with the nuclear material just prior to the facility being bombed.

We are expected to believe this garbage? Do they honestly believe that people don’t consider the logistics involved in pulling off a stunt like that.

How did these ‘special forces get into Syria (and right over on the other side of Syria)? How did they get into the facility? How did they get out of the facility? How did they get out of Syria? How did they remove the nuclear material? In what? How did they know what special containers were needed to transport the nuclear material? And last but not least, why didn’t these ’special ground forces’ set explosives to blow the facility up while they were there? And, of course, the big question that no one seems to have asked yet: Where is the nuclear material that was taken by the Israelis now?

Israel has gone overboard in trying to expose to the world the nuclear facilities that Iran has yet we’ve heard absolutely nothing from Israel about Syria’s so-called nuclear facilities.

Does anyone really believe this stuff?

MORE FRAUD AND DECEPTIONS AT WEBDIARY!!

It’s a very small world that the nauseatingly patronising fraud Eliot Ramsey of Webdiary fame lives in. Yesterday (19 September) a person calling herself Susan Moy joined the ranks of Webdiarists and takes up an instantly lively discussion with the so-called Eliot Ramsey about the artist Peter Kingston. Webdiary editor Fiona Reynolds had her curiosity aroused and so does a bit of background checking on the mysterious ‘Susan Moy’ only to discover that the real Susan Moy had had her identity usurped by someone pretending to be her.

After having read this I decided that I might have quick ‘Google’ myself of the mysterious Susan Moy. Within moments I discovered that Susan Moy is the Festival Publicist for the 2007 Manly Arts Festival and that – and this is the real spooky bit – none other than Chris Parsons, who mysteriously disappeared from Webdiary just days before Eliot Parsons… er, I mean Ramsey appeared on the scene, is the Communications Officer for the same event!

How long, one wonders, will Margo Kingston continue to allow this obvious fraudster to keep posting his obfuscating garbage at Webdiary?

'FINAL CONFRONTATION' NEWS.

U.N. FINALLY WARNS ISRAEL THAT CUTTING FUEL TO THE GAZA BREACHES INTERNATIONAL LAW.

I wrote two weeks ago about Israel’s plans to cut off fuel supplies to the Gaza suggesting that what they were about to do constitutes a war crime. It now seems that the Israelis are going ahead with their plans to deprive the Gazan people of desperately need fuel having declared that the Gaza is ‘an enemy entity’ and ‘hostile territory’. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement released yesterday has urged Israel to reconsider their position reminding them that they would be in violation of international law if they went ahead with their proposal. Since the Israelis consider themselves to be at war with Hamas, punishing the Gazan people in order to deliver a blow to Hamas is not just a ‘breach in international law’, it is an actual war crime whereby a collective punishment is being administered to the Gazan people because they are governed by Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office has released a statement saying “Hamas is a terrorist organization that has taken control of the Gaza Strip and turned it into hostile territory,” and that “This organization engages in hostile activity against the State of Israel and its citizens and bears responsibility for this activity.” It should be noted that in fact Hamas had not ‘taken control’ of the Gaza Strip, they had already been given control of what is left of Palestine by the Palestinian people themselves in a democratic election that saw Hamas romp home well ahead of the corrupt Fatah organisation. It should also be noted that the Gaza Strip has been turned into ‘hostile territory’ not by Hamas but by Israel itself that continues its murderous incursions into the Strip, and that the use of rockets by Hamas and other resistance organisations is in an attempt to discourage further Israeli aggression in the Gaza and West Bank.


ISRAEL FINALLY ADMITS WHAT THE WORLD ALREADY KNOWS – IT DID FLY INTO SYRIAN AIRSPACE.

However, they still won’t say what the purpose of the raid was and the Syrians aren’t helping by being quiet about what happened while Israeli aircraft were in their skies. Benjamin Netanyahu, by openly congratulating Prime Minister Olmert on the operation, has at least confirmed that the raid over Syria did take place.

Sol Salbe gives an interesting analysis of what he thinks it was all about but, until the Syrians open up and tell us their version, we are unlikely to know for sure what happened any time soon. Suffice to say that it no doubt has a great deal to do with Israel’s preparation for the Final Confrontation.


WHO WOULD BENEFIT FROM THE DEATH OF A LEBANESE FASCIST POLITICIAN IF THE FINGER OF BLAME WAS POINTED TOWARD THE SYRIANS?

The death of Lebanese politician Antoine Ghanem of the Christian Phalange Party by a car bomb has raised tensions against Syria up another notch. While Ghanem was anti-Syrian, the Syrians would in no way have benefited by his death – especially in these times when Israel are just looking for every excuse to pounce on Syria – which, of course, begs the question; who does stand to benefit by Ghanem’s death? Who are the renowned experts in the use of car bombs having nigh-on invented them when they first used them in Palestine on 12 January 1947?

THE ISRAELIS CONTINUE THEIR EFFORTS TO PROVOKE WAR.

Israeli jets have again flown into Lebanese airspace this time at speeds faster than sound creating sonic booms designed to increase fear and to intimidate. These are the same tactics that were used prior to last years war against Hizbollah and the Lebanese people when Hizbollah retaliated by launching Katyusha rockets into Israel and capturing two of Israel’s soldiers thus giving Israel the casus belli it was looking for in order to launch a full scale attack against the Lebanese people. Now the Israelis are trying the same again in the hope that Hizbollah will once again give Israel cause to launch an all-out attack against them in yet another attempt to entice Syria and then Iran and the US into the ‘Final Confrontation’. It now seems clear that Israel’s foray into Syria some two weeks ago failed to ignite the war that they seek.

Historically Israel has always sought to find a casus belli before launching attacks against their Arab and Middle Eastern neighbours. They have always claimed that their actions have been in response to provocations made against them and that they are merely retaliating and defending themselves. This kind of deceit was practiced in 1947 when the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian peoples from their homes and lands began in earnest, and it continues today as they launch their raids into the West Bank, the Gaza and south Lebanon to kill and capture those that resist their expansionist aggression as they pursue their dreams of a Greater Israel.

Just as during the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1947 onwards, the Zionists kept the Israeli people in constant fear by invoking the memories of the Holocaust and the prospect of another if they did not strike down their enemies, so today those same tactics of fear of a second Holocaust keeps the Israeli people in line to support the right-wing Zionists pursuit of a Greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people. This time it is the fear of an Iranian nuclear holocaust that motivates Israeli support for the Zionists dreams.

The reality is that Iran has no nuclear weapons and nor is there a skerrick of evidence to even suggest that they have or will have at anytime and, therefore, Iran is no threat to the Israelis nor anyone else. However, Iran does support the Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian people’s right to reclaim that which is theirs and to defend themselves against Israeli aggression. The myth of Iranian nuclear weapons serves only to keep the ordinary Israeli people in fear so that the Zionists can continue to rely on their support and, at the same time, provide an excuse to eventually go to war against Iran.

It’s time the world woke up to the lies that are the propaganda and rhetoric of the neocons and Zionists and took note of the geo-political reality of the Zionists dreams of a Greater Israel and a Western hegemony over the resource-rich Middle East. The reality is that it is the US and Israel that are on ground that doesn’t belong to them and that it is the US and Israel that have nuclear weapons and that it is they who are the real threat to world peace.
Tell your government no matter where you are that you want no part of any more wars.

THE FINAL CONFRONTATION: THE COMING WAR BETWEEN THE ISRAELI-U.S. ALLIANCE AND IRAN AND SYRIA.

The long awaited and much heralded war between the Israeli-US alliance and Iran and Syria now seems imminent. It’s not a matter of ‘if’ but simply a matter of ‘when’.

The point that seems to have been missed by most observers is the fact that it was never a matter of ‘if’ and always a matter of ‘when’. The war has, ever since the fall of the Shah in 1979, been utterly inevitable and virtually unavoidable. It would seem, however, that most observers fell for the propaganda and rhetoric that war between Israel-US and Iran could have been avoided had Iran given up its nuclear weapons ambitions. This was never the case. The coming ‘final confrontation’ was never ever about ‘nuclear weapons’; it has always been about ‘regime change’. It was never anything else.

For the Israelis and the right-wing of US politics the need for ‘regime change’ is simple; Iran under the present regime is the major stumbling block to right-wing Israeli Zionist dreams of creating a Greater Israel. Iran supports Syria; Iran and Syria supports Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza and West Bank. With Iran out of the equation Syria will quickly capitulate to Israeli demands of abandoning their support for Hamas and Hizbollah and any other anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian groups, and then, in turn, Hamas and Hizbollah resistance to Israeli expansionism in pursuit of their ‘Greater Israel’ dream will simply crumble then disappear.

Or at least so the Zionists hope.

There is a big problem with the Israeli-US plan. The people that are pushing the plan to knock Iran out of the picture via a massive blow to their ability to wage any kind of war, i.e., the Bush administration and their neocon cohorts in Washington and the Zionists in Jerusalem, are exactly the same people that came up with the plan to knock Iraq out of the picture. These are exactly the same people that told the world that victory in Iraq will be a ‘cakewalk’ and that the people of Iraq will welcome the US as ‘great liberators’ casting rose petals at the feet of US soldiers as they march up the road to Baghdad. These are exactly the same people who told us that ‘smart weapons’ will eliminate collateral damage and not harm the innocent people of Iraq. These are exactly the same people who, after over a million Iraqis have been killed and another four million pushed from their homes, are saying that ‘things are improving’ in Iraq.

Now these exact same people are telling us that a devastating blow against Iran is all it will take for the people of Iran to rise up against their government and, again, the world is expected to believe them.

The exact same people that bought us the catastrophic mess that is now Iraq now want the world to accept the inevitability of a Final Confrontation against Iran – and the most horrifying aspect of all this is; most of the world will do absolutely nothing to stop it.

THE US-NEOCON-ISRAELI COALITION CRANK UP THE ANTE BY INVOKING THE DREADED ‘N’ WORD AGAINST SYRIA.

Neoconservative warmonger, John Bolton, ex-unendorsed US ambassador to the UN and now ‘scholar’ at neocon HQ, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has upped the ante against Syria who seem to be the hate targets by the Western right-wing media this month, right up there with Iran, by claiming that “North Korea may be using Syria and Iran as ‘safe havens’ for its nuclear activities”.

It was just a matter of time before the US-Neocon-Israeli propaganda machine started accusing Syria of being involved with the nuclear ambitions of the ‘Axis of Evil’. It has even been suggested in the ‘Washington Post’ that last weeks Israeli Air Force illegal foray into Syrian airspace was ‘nuclear’ related. The information used to make the accusation, according to the ‘Washington Post’ article, was unsurprisingly, sourced from Israeli intelligence.

Over the last few months there has been no let up on pressure from the extreme right-wing US-neocon-Israeli alliance to persuade the Bush administration to bomb Iran because of its so-called ‘nuclear program’. The accusation, however, that Syria somehow is also involved in Iran and North Koreas ‘nuclear ambitions’ brings a new dimension to the propaganda and rhetoric that the US-neocon-Israeli alliance are using in the build up to what can only be described as the ‘final confrontation’ between the US-Israel alliance and Iran and Syria, the last two hurdles that are preventing, because of their support to Hamas and Hizbollah, the Israeli dream of a Greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinian and south Lebanese peoples.

The recent activities of the Israeli Defence Forces has put a new perspective on the reasons for last months massive fuel order from Israel requesting some 90 million US gallons of JP-8 military jet fuel and some 42 million gallons of military diesel fuel. The last time Israel ordered anywhere near that amount of fuel was just prior to its invasion of south Lebanon last year.

Something big is in the air – and last weeks air ‘strike’ against Syria is just the start of it. It’s just a matter of time before the ‘Final Confrontation’ befalls the hapless peoples of the Middle East – Arab and Israeli.

WEBDIARY’S FRAUDSTER, ELIOT RAMSEY/C. PARSONS, EXPOSED AGAIN !

It was only a matter of time before the fraud Eliot Ramsey repeats words and phraseology that is peculiar almost exclusively to the C. Parsons syntax – yet again. Today at Webdiary he writes: “Well, they may need that aid at home soon, because looky here…”, while on 13 July 2006 he writes: “So, looky here…”.

Beats me why Margo Kingston allows this obvious fraudster to keep posting at Webdiary while banning other Webdiarists like Phil Kendall whose sincerity and compassion for what goes on in this world far outstrips the extreme right-wing patronising cynicism of fraudsters like Parsons/Ramsey…. unless, of course, Kingston is part of the fraud herself. Her hypocrisy about ‘ethical journalism’, etc., as demonstrated by her recent displays of nepotism and earlier deceits are now well known, so why not be party to the Parsons/Ramsey fraud as well!?

TERRORIST TRAINING CAMPS FOR FOREIGN FIGHTERS IN ISRAEL!

A recent article in the UKs ‘New Statesman’ journal has highlighted the existence of a youth military training camp in Israel. The trainees are Jewish youths who come mainly from Europe and the America’s every summer to learn the basics of military life in the Israeli Defence Forces.

The existence of the camp once again highlights the hypocrisy of the West which constantly condemns the existence of similar camps run by Islamic nations for foreign Arab and Islamic fighters. Western propaganda and rhetoric decries the Islamic training camps as ‘terrorist’ training camps while Israel claim they are training Jewish fighters to ‘defend’ Israel. The reality is; it is Israelis that are on land that is not theirs. They are not ‘defending’ Israel at all but rather they are helping Israeli Zionists create a Greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people while the Arab and Islamic fighters are defending their lands from Israeli and US invasions, occupations and theft of their resources.

Hypocrisy and arrogance; just two of the values that ‘they’ hate about ‘us’.

NETANYAHU’S USE OF THE HITLER ANALOGY ABOUT IRAN IS A REFLECTION OF ZIONISM’S OWN NAZI-LIKE POLICIES AGAINST THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.

There is a certain irony, even hypocrisy, in the way that Israel’s leader of the opposition, the extreme right-wing Zionist Benjamin Netanyahu, uses the Hitler analogy when discussing Iran and the threat that Netanyahu proclaims Iran is to Israel. Speaking at a ‘counter terrorism’ conference yesterday he again told his audience that Iran was as much of a threat to the ‘Jewish population’ as Hitler was to the Jews of Europe in 1939 saying: “One year ago, I said we are in 1938, and Iran is Germany. It is 1939 now. Hitler first embarked on a world conflict, and then attempted to obtain weapons of mass death. Ahmadinejad is going about it in the reverse order”.

The reality, however, is completely the opposite; Ahmadinejad and Iran are doing nothing of the sort. In fact it is Israel that has succeeded in obtaining weapons of mass death and it is Israel, together with the US and their other allies, which have embarked on ‘world conflict’ against the peoples of Islam. It is the extreme right-wing Zionists that are behaving most like the Nazis of Europe that Netanyahu speaks of, and it is the Palestinians that are the people that the Ziononazis of Israel continue to persecute as they pursue their racist dream of a Greater Israel completing that which they set out to achieve in 1948 and that is to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian peoples from their lands just as the Nazis attempted, and in many places succeeded, in ethnically cleansing the Jews from Europe.

Just as the Nazis attempt to ethnically cleanse Jews from Europe ended in disaster for both Europe’s Jews and the German people then so the Ziononazis attempt at cleansing the Palestinian people from Palestine will also end in disaster for both the Palestinian and Israeli people.

It’s time the world stood up against the Ziononazis and the likes of Netanyahu and his Zionist thugs before it is too late – not just for the Palestinian people, but also for the ordinary people of Israel who just want to live in peace and security and in harmony with their neighbours.

SHATTERING THE MYTHS AND ILLUSIONS OF BIN LADEN AND 9/11

It’s amazing how seemingly ordinary intelligent people continue to believe what they feel they need to believe even when confronted with evidence that so glaringly contradicts those beliefs. Such is the case today among many people who continue to believe in the existence of Osama bin Laden and who continue to believe that he and Saddam Hussein were the perpetrators of the events of 11 September 2001; this despite the overwhelming body of evidence that says bin Laden is very unlikely to be alive, let alone continuing to organise terrorism, and that neither he nor Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11 as demonstrated by the recent exposure of evidence regarding the events of 9/11.

The belief that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the 9/11 is now diminishing even among the mainstream media, though there are still some around who would insist that he did play a part. However, the mainstream media are still insisting that Osama bin Laden is both alive and well and also still at the helm of ‘al Qaeda’ as his recent ‘resurrection’ on video demonstrates.

As I have noted many times before, bin Laden’s death was well reported at the time, though not widely, in the mainstream media but they since seem to have very conveniently forgotten it. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the computer age, those original reports still exist and cannot be denied. The reports, however, were never conclusive; there was never any body shown or found and little is known about where he was buried. The reports were based on eye-witness accounts and circumstantial evidence with regards to his health, which is well documented, and his inability to receive the kind of sophisticated treatment he would need in order to survive his ill-health.

The mainstream media have clearly decided that because his death was not totally verifiable that it is safe to continue to perpetuate the myth of his existence at the behest of the US government and its agencies. In order to support the claims of bin Laden’s continued existence and active leadership of ‘al Qaeda’ there occasionally ‘surfaces’ an audio or video recording of him. Over the years there have been several of both. ‘Experts’, so we are told, proclaim that these tapes, audio and video, are indeed of bin Laden, but when we examine who these ‘experts’ are we find that they are ‘government experts’. No names and qualifications are attached to the statements about the tapes alleged authenticity; we are simply expected to believe what we are told without any evidence to support these statements. Questions about their authenticity are then dismissed as being ‘conspiratorial’ or simply ignored.

But, while the questions can be ignored, the reality of the evidence cannot. In the latest video that has emerged the most obvious question is regarding bin Ladens somewhat wooden and sterile appearance. While there is a resemblance to bin Laden, there are some physical detail features which do not correspond with his known physical features, the most obvious of which is his beard. Naturally, those that defend his existence would argue that he has merely trimmed and dyed his beard. The counter-argument to that would simply be ‘Why?’ If it were for the sake of vanity, why had he not tidied himself up before allowing himself to be filmed in the past? Besides, is vanity really part of bin Laden’s purported creed? But no amount of trimming and dying the beard can mask the fact that the real bin Laden’s facial hair growth is thin and wispy in places particularly in those areas where the beard has whitened. In the latest video purported to be of him, his beard is shown as being of consistent growth and density. But the real giveaway is the physical facial features. They are not immediately discernable and can only be seen upon close examination and become obvious when pointed out. The real bin Laden’s nose has a relatively medium but constant thickness ridge from top to tip, apart from where it flares gently to his nostrils. In the latest film the top of the nose of the person purported to be him is markedly much thinner. While a change in health could change many features, only surgery could change this one. Despite the compelling evidence to the contrary there are still those that continue to go along with what they are told by the mainstream media.

One needs to ask why it is that people, even when presented with all the evidence, continue and persist to believe in things that the evidence says are wrong. The propagandists behind the latest presentation of ‘bin Laden’ rely on the vast majority of people simply accepting that which is presented to them. They hope that most will not question it and not delve into the details or examine too closely the questions raised by those that do scrutinise them.

For some apparently ordinary and intelligent people there seems to be a psychological barrier that goes up that prevents them from even taking a look at the evidence presented to them. There seems to be a steadfast refusal to accept the reality of that which is contrary to their entrenched belief system and, no matter how strong the evidence, they will still refuse to accept the glaringly obvious simply and solely because they find it so totally disruptive of their belief system and faith in the political and social construct of the society they live in. For them to accept the simple reality of the evidence of a fake bin Laden and a 9/11 that so obviously was not as the government said it was would mean that all that they had ever believed in all of their lives about democratic government ‘for the people and by the people’ would be destroyed. The illusion of ‘freedom and democracy’ would be shattered.

The release of the latest ‘bin Laden’ tape is designed to perpetuate the myth of the ‘Global War on Terror’ and to remind the West of who the ‘enemy’ is but, while the majority of western people will continue to accept the myth as a reality, the numbers of people around the world that no longer accept the myth as reality are growing daily. It is imperative that we shatter the myths and illusions because, until we do, we are doomed to live in a world that will slowly end up destroying itself.

MORE ‘BIN LADEN’ GARBAGE FROM THE NEOCON FEAR-MONGERS!

Neoconservative war crazies Rita Katz and Josh Devon of the SITE Group in the US claim that a new tape of Osama bin Laden will be aired on 11 September (next Tuesday). The picture of bin Laden that they have published, inferring that it is a still grab from the tape, while resembling bin Laden, when compared with other known pictures of bin Laden, is in fact nothing like him. Basically the nose is all wrong.

Apart from that of course, there is also the small matter of bin Laden’s death which was well reported at the time but has since been conveniently forgotten.

Let the two-minute hate session begin. Watch out for pictures of Osama bin Emmanuel Goldstein Laden in a newspaper and TV station near you any day now – just in case you’d forgotten what he looked like (in fact, they’re banking on it!)

WHERE ARE THE MASSES OF THE WORLD? WHY ARE THEY NOT ON THE STREETS DEMANDING AND END TO THE MADNESS?

In the months prior to the invasion of Iraq by the US, Britain, Australia and their allies, millions of people all over the world took to the streets to implore their respective governments not to support the war the people knew for sure was coming. But with total disregard to the voices of the peoples of the world the US and their allies pressed ahead with their invasion anyway.

Today, some four and a half years later, with nigh on a million Iraqis dead and another four million unable to live in their homes, the world is bracing itself for yet another unprovoked war against yet another nation that stands in the way of Israeli Zionist dreams of a Greater Israel; a Greater Israel that they hope will consist of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and south Lebanon up to the Litani River, a dream which Iraq once stood in the way of.

The US and Israel are now desperate for ‘regime change’ in Iran and do not care about the cost in terms of human life just so long as the US end up with hegemony over the supply of the regions oil and gas resources and Israel is able to achieve its aspirations for a Greater Israel.

But as the inevitability of war against Iran now approaches, one has to ask; where are the masses in the streets as there were before the invasion of Iraq? Has the fact that Bush, Blair and Howard and their allies ignored the voice of the peoples of the world last time they wanted ‘regime change’ made protest against war seem futile? The need for the peoples of the world to protest war is even more imperative now than ever it has been before.

STOP BUSH, CHENEY, THE RIGHT-WING ISRAELI ZIONISTS AND THEIR NEOCONSERVATIVE COHORTS NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!

ORGANISE MASS PROTEST IN YOUR CITY!!

DO IT NOW!!

I IMPLORE ALL BLOGGERS TO REPRODUCE AND RUN THIS SHORT ARTICLE ON THEIR BLOGS.

ISRAEL CONSIDERS COMMITTING A WAR CRIME AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF GAZA

According to a report in Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper today the IDF are considering cutting off water and electricity supplies to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip as a measure against the Palestinian launching of Qassam rocket attacks on Israel.

For the IDF to counter Qassam attacks by firing at those that are launching the rocket attacks is one thing; however, to counter the rocket attacks by punishing an entire civilian population is a war crime. The crime that is about to be committed on the Gazan people by the Israelis is a crime that the people of the world should be outraged about.

This is the next stage in Israel’s war against the Palestinian people whereby, as I predicted in my 19 June post on this blog, the Israelis will bring such pressure to bear on the Gazan people that they will be forced to leave if provided an opportunity. The ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip continues. I can only repeat what I wrote before; the world needs to act and act now before disaster strikes the Palestinian people of the Gaza.

HOW THE GAZA STRIP FITS IN TO THE BIGGER PICTURE OF ISRAELI ZIONIST DREAMS

Clear away the Israeli, US and western mainstream media’s propaganda and rhetoric about Hamas and the Gaza Strip and the geo-political reality of Israeli Zionist intentions and aspirations, not just for the Gaza but for the entire region, are quickly revealed.

When Ariel Sharon decided to evacuate the 21 Israeli settlements that were on the Gaza Strip in August 2005 he didn’t do so because he suddenly felt generous and believed that the Palestinians should have their lands back. The reality, predictably, is far more prosaic; it was simply costing too much to maintain the security needed to look after just 8000 settlers living right next door to very hostile Palestinians whose lands they had settled on.

In May of 2000 Israel’s then Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, who today is Israel’s Defense Minister, pulled Israel out of south Lebanon after some 22 years of occupation for the same reason that Sharon pulled the settlers out of the Gaza. Barak’s withdrawal was ostensibly to comply with UN resolution 425 which had called for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon back in 1978 shortly after Israel had invaded. Despite withdrawing from Lebanon, however, Israel continued to hang on to the Shebaa Farms – which the UN has deemed belongs to Lebanon – claiming this land was part of the Golan Heights which Israel had conquered when it invaded Syria in 1967.

Both of these apparent ‘concessions’ were in fact part of a cynical ruse. It has always been the belief of Israeli Zionists that a Greater Israel could realistically be created that would include the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and south Lebanon up to the Litani River. While the dream of the biblical Greater Israel extending from the ‘Nile to the Euphrates’ was always the ideal, most Zionists realised that it would remain but a dream. However, a Greater Israel extending from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan and from the Sinai to the Litani River is an ambition that many Zionists consider realistic today.

Over the last 40 years the realisation of that goal has been plagued with problems, not least of which is the Palestinian reluctance to surrender to the Zionists dreams. Ever since 1967 when Israel set out to conquer the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, the peoples they conquered fought back, with the exception of the Golan Heights. Today they continue to fight back. Various Palestinian groups, including Hamas, have dedicated themselves to retrieving all the lands they have lost to the Zionists. For Hamas that has, until very recently, included all of what is now Israel. However, of late Hamas have modified their demands demanding now that Israel withdraws entirely, including all settlements in the West Bank, back to the 1967 line. But it also demands a full right of return of all of the Palestinian refugees including their descendants back to their original lands in what is now Israel.

But therein lays the problem for Israel. The Palestinian’s demands are supported by Hizbollah in Lebanon. Hizbollah, in turn are supported by Iran and Syria. Israel, however, has spent years trying to turn this to their advantage. Using their close alliance with the US and the West, Israel have been promoting Iran and Syria, just as they did Iraq, as an enemy of the US and the West, and, of course, Israel. Once the West accept Iran and Syria as their enemies, as Israel hopes, so the Palestinian organisations that are supported by Iran and Syria, directly or indirectly, will also be seen as enemies of the West by association. Once the West accepts Palestinian resistance fighters as enemies in alliance with Iran and Syria it will provide Israel with the opportunity to deal with them in a way that will finally give them the excuse they need to transfer the Palestinians from the Gaza. The Israelis will then take over and occupy the Gaza and eventually annex it to Israel. Israel may then also exercise the so-called Jordan option whereby all Palestinians are transferred to Jordan, and the West Bank then also gets annexed to Israel.

The one thing that will not happen, regardless of what the Israelis are telling the world, is Palestine will never be a free independent sovereign state while the Israelis have anything to do with it. The current talks between Israel and their Palestinian puppet Abbas about ‘peace’ and a ‘Palestinian State’ are merely a tactic by the Israeli government to bide their time while Iran and Syria are set up as enemies of the West waiting to be attacked. Meanwhile the hype against Hamas, particularly in the Gaza, and Hizbollah in Lebanon will continue as the Israelis attempt to paint them with the same brush they are using to paint Iran and Syria with. Tensions in the Gaza, and the West Bank, between Hamas and Fatah elements are useful to Israel; it allows Israel to accuse Hamas of not wanting peace. This, of course, is nonsense; Hamas are fully aware of what Israel is up to and are simply not prepared to accept giving up their lands.

In order to alienate Hamas in the eyes of the Western world, Israel and the US, with the help of a compliant Western mainstream media, have attempted to show Hamas as an extremist and terrorist organisation and one that has ‘seized’ power in the Gaza. Forgotten entirely is the fact that Hamas never needed to ‘seize’ power; they were given it by the Palestinian people in the democratic elections of January 2006 and the only people that were attempting to seize power were Abbas and his Fatah supporters which they did in the West Bank with the support of the US and Israel. The old colonial tactic of divide and rule has proved successful. Israel now have Hamas exactly were they want them in the Gaza; ready to be taken out at any time by a more than capable Israeli military just as soon as they’ve been demonised enough in the eyes of the western world and when Israel and the US are ready to take on Iran and Syria in what is hoped to be the final showdown. It is in this context that the Gaza is essential to the Zionists plans for a Greater Israel.

BUSH POSSIBLE NO-SHOW AT APEC MEETING IS A BIT OMINOUS!!??

According to Greg Sheridan, neocon commentator with ‘The Australian’, President Bush might well be a no show at the up-coming APEC meeting in Australia early next month. One can only assume that he has something better to do – like maybe conduct a war?!!

BUSH PUTS IRAN BACK ON THE FRONT BURNER WITH THE HEAT FULL ON.

After a relatively quiet period of just gently simmering anti-Iran rhetoric and propaganda being on the back burner for a while, President George W. Bush, addressing the Annual National Convention of the American Legion, has now placed the Iran issue well and truly back on to the front burner with the heat full on. He has told the convention:

“…they [the Iranians] cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities.”

The last part of this statement, authorizing military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s ‘murderous’ activities, is an open ended invitation for the US military in the region, including the US navy battle group stationed close to Iran in the Persian Gulf, to attack Iran on the pretext of pre-emptive defence against Iranian operations in Iraq. To attack Iran’s nuclear facilities would require congressional approval, however, to attack Iran’s armed forces on the pretext of defending US servicemen in Iraq does not. After initial strikes against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps the ‘confrontation’ could soon escalate to include other strategic strikes. Israel would then find some pretext to attack both Hizbollah and Syria knowing that Iran are too pre-occupied with fending off US attacks.

If this is the case then Israel’s recent fuel and ordnance purchases begin to make sense.

PERPETUATING THE MYTH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN, AL QAEDA AND THE ‘GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM’

It’s almost as if the Western allies maintain a think-tank somewhere whose sole job is to dream up garbage about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda that can be fed to the dumb and gullible in regular doses in order to perpetuate the myth of their existence and therefore justify the continued ‘Global War on Terrorism’, a war which in itself has assumed mythical proportions.

In the latest ‘revelation’, designed to remind the dumb and gullible that the Western allies are still after him and, indeed, came close to catching him, we are expected to believe that: “US forces in Afghanistan came so close to discovering Osama bin Laden in the northern winter of 2004-05 that his bodyguards were on the verge of killing him to prevent his capture”. The evidence supporting this is… well, there isn’t any really; we’re just expected to believe it because we’re told it via the ever-reliable mainstream media – the same mainstream media that in 2001 were telling us that Osama bin Laden had died of various diseases and that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was involved in 9/11.

News that the West at one stage were getting close to capturing bin Laden might also bolster the flagging support that Bush is receiving for the continuing ‘Global War on Terrorism’; support that is very badly needed since some 84% of Americans now believe they are not winning the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ and they believe that the US is less safe today than it has ever been.

It’s fast becoming apparent that the ‘Global War on Terrorism’ has turned to farce and looking more and more like a ‘Global War of Terrorism Against the World of Islam’. Six years after 9/11 and no one is interested anymore. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has been achieved. Billions of dollars have been spent, hundreds of thousands or maybe over a million lives have been lost, another four million are now homeless and there is still no end to it in sight.

And still they want to perpetuate the myth of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and the ‘Global War on Terrorism’. It’s time the world woke up to this nightmarish hoax and kicked out those that have foisted this disaster upon the world.


ISRAEL ORDERS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF MILITARY JET FUEL.

Israel has recently ordered $308 million worth of JP-8 military jet fuel. The last time Israel ordered anywhere near this amount of fuel was during the Lebanon war last year when it took delivery of some $210 million worth of fuel.

Besides the jet fuel, Israel has also ordered 30 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, 500 AIM-9M Sidewinder air to air missiles, and 200 AMRAAM medium range air to air missiles.

JP-8 jet fuel has a best used by shelf life of around two months though in ideal storage conditions and with additives it will last up to six months. It can be used well beyond that, say a year, but most jet jockeys, especially fighter pilot commanders, would insist on having fresh fuel that’s 100% reliable in sky battle conditions.

So, what’s all this fuel and ordnance for then?

MIKE LYVERS, THE ISRAELI LOONY LOBBYIST AND ISLAMOPHOBIC FOAMER, TRIES IT ON AT WEBDIARY.

Mike Lyvers, the Israeli loony lobbyist and foaming at the mouth Islamophobe, just can’t help himself. At every opportunity he attacks Iran and Islam on behalf of Israel. In the midst of a debate at Webdiary about free speech and cartoons, gays and homosexuality are mentioned. It provides an ideal vehicle for this warmongering lunatic to mention Iran. He writes:

“Regarding the gay issue, I am consistently amazed that anyone could imagine being gay was a matter of "choice." Given all the social pressures against being gay, there would be few if any gays around if that were the case. But there are even gays in Iran, despite the fact that when outed there they are subjected to grotesque public executions.”

For Loony Lyvers this is good enough reason for the West to attack Iran right now and ensure regime change straight away. Of course, regime change would also have a few other ‘unexpected benefits’, particularly for Israel; like it would leave the Israelis free to deal with Hizbollah and Hamas by ensuring that these organisations that resist Israeli terror don’t get help from Iran via Syria.

No, the reality is; Loony Lyvers couldn’t give a toss for the lives of gay people in Iran. For him it’s just another opportunity for anti-Iranian and anti-Islam rhetoric and propaganda. It is typical of Israeli extreme right-wing Loony Lobby hoodwinking and deceit.

MORE WAR WITH HIZBOLLAH AND MAYBE SYRIA IMMINENT?

An almost unnoticed quote by the Israeli defence Minister, Ehud Barak, and reported yesterday in the Jerusalem Post is significant; “The next war,” he says, “needs to be decided in enemy territory, with minimal damage to the home front.”

This was the last line in a report that more than likely will disappear from the pages of the world’s newspapers by the time you are reading this.

Of course, the first thing one needs to ask is: Which particular ‘enemy’s territory’ is Barak referring to? Israel has so many enemies. They are already in the West Bank and they are already constantly making incursions into the Gaza Strip where any actual ‘war’ as such is likely to be very one-sided, so that only leaves Lebanon or Syria. Barak’s remark about ‘minimal damage to the home front’ could be construed as a reference to the damage that Hizbollah inflicted on Israel as a result of its rocket bombardment of northern Israel during last years war. Some observers have commented that it was Hizbollah’s continued attacks against civilian targets in northern Israel that finally forced Israel to the seek a ceasefire via the US and the UN after Israel failed to stop such attacks with their own bombardments of Lebanon and even its costly invasion.

We now know that, while Hizbollah did attack Israel with rockets, the Israelis were actually planning to attack Hizbollah and Lebanon long before Hizbollah began using rockets against Israel. Indeed, the rocket attacks against Israel, together with the capture by Hizbollah of two IDF soldiers, were just the casus belli Israel were looking for in order to start their war. As always, the Israelis claimed it was their enemies that had cast the first stone but, as always, this is a lie. In fact Israel had spent months planning their attack and weeks deliberately trying to provoke Hizbollah by making low-level supersonic mock attacks over Lebanon. Not only did these flights infringe Lebanese sovereign airspace but they were designed to be both aggressive and intimidating. One could only surmise what Israel’s reaction would be if, say, a flight of Syrian air force MiG-29s made a series of low level supersonic passes over Tel Aviv.

Today, the Israeli air force continues to fly inside Lebanese airspace and, indeed, have come close to having their aircraft shot down by French peace-keeping anti-aircraft missiles. In the last few months the IDF have completed several exercises in the northern Israel region close to both the Lebanese border and the Syrian border. The new Israeli Chief of Staff, General Gabi Ashkenazi, has fully settled into his new role and the new Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, apart from wanting to raise another couple of divisions for the Israeli army, seems about ready to go.

All that remains now is for the Israeli government to find a casus belli and there well then be a strong likelihood of the world witnessing yet another war which this time could see Israel attacking both south Lebanon and Syria simultaneously. Again, the hope is that Iran will come to Syria’s aid thus providing a casus belli for the US to attack Iran.

And that’s the bottom line for the Israelis and the US – regime change in Iran and Syria thus leaving Israel with a free hand to deal with Hamas and Hizbollah as the Zionists take another step toward their dream of a Greater Israel.