ANNUAL THREAT ASSESSMENT REPORT AND MOSSAD CHIEF EXPOSE U.S. AND ISRAEL’S REAL INTENTIONS ABOUT IRAN AS THREAT.

The ‘Annual Threat Assessment of the Director of National Intelligence for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’ written by John Michael McConnell was released yesterday. It’s a brief yet wide-ranging report that above all demonstrates how paranoid the American administration is about what it sees as threats to its ‘interests’ from the rest of the world. Of particular concern, not surprisingly, is the concern it has for the security of Israel especially in relation to the perceived threat from Iran.

The report states that Iran may be able to have a bomb ready by 2009 but concedes, however, that this is unlikely. Once again, as is usual, there is absolutely no evidence to support the directors claims, merely the prolific use of the phrase ‘with moderate confidence’. Nonetheless, Israel will no doubt leap on the report to stress, yet again, the importance of bombing Iran to force regime change. The report also exposes why Iran is so pivotal to Israeli interests. It tells of Irans support for both Hamas and Hizbollah via Syria, all of who stand in the way of Israeli aspirations for a Greater Israel that includes ultimately the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, south Lebanon up to the Litani river, and the continued occupation and control of the Golan Heights. Even Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, yesterday openly conceded that Iran is a threat to Israel because of its ‘influence’ on Hamas, Hizbollah and Syria. The reality is that it’s this ‘influence’ that is of more concern to the Israelis than Iran’s so-called nuclear ambitions. Iran’s ‘nuclear ambitions’ are merely the propaganda and rhetoric that is being used by Israel to get the US to effect regime change in Iran in order to eliminate the ‘influence’ Iran has on Hamas, Hizbollah and Syria.

Israel’s lies and ulterior motives are becoming increasingly transparent. Mossad chief Dagan and National Intelligence director McConnell’s statements demonstrate just how fraudulent their claims about Iran really are.

MARGO KINGSTON’S ‘WEBDIARY’ MORPHS INTO THE ‘ELIOT RAMSEY’ BLOG.

It seems that the once popular Australian current affairs blog ‘Webdiary’ has been taken over by a character now calling himself ‘Eliot Ramsey’ whose sleazy patronising comments appears to dominate in virtually every thread of the Webdiary blog. The resultant is that other Webdiarists, incensed by his blatant and extreme right-wing views, feel obliged to construct their arguments to revolve around his viewpoint thus denying Webdiarists an opportunity to discuss and debate the problems that beset the world without interference from this fraudulent propagandist whose sole purpose it seems is not to debate but to disrupt.

Around the middle of last year ‘Eliot Ramsey’s’ alter-ego, ‘C. Parsons’, was banned from further commenting at Webdiary. Almost instantly ‘Elliot Ramsey’ appeared on the Webdiary scene posing as a new Webdiarist who had just stumbled upon the blog and wanted to join in the commenting. It soon became clear that Eliot Ramsey was simply C. Parsons trying it on under a different name. When challenged by Kingston, Ramsey at first pleaded ignorance saying he hadn’t heard of C. Parsons – ‘how could I’ he said, ‘I’ve only just arrived at Webdiary’ was more or less his response. A little later, under pressure from other Webdiarists, Ramsey was pressed further by Kingston who asked him straight out ‘are you C. Parsons or not?’ Ramsey, of course, denied he was.

Kingston then decided to take this lying fraudster at his word allowing him to continue commenting at Webdiary despite having banned at least one other commentator that had been discovered with dual identity. A person close to Kingston later inferred that, since Ramsey had denied he was C. Parsons, Kingston was under some sort of legal obligation to let Ramsey continue commenting. This, of course, is utter nonsense. Kinston has no legal obligation to publish anyone’s comments.

Kingston has made it very clear in the past that the right-wing commentators at Webdiary are important to her. When she left Fairfax to start up Webdiary she had envisioned some sort of commercial enterprise that may make her a reasonable income to partly make up for her loss of income from Fairfax. She said then that she was pleased that the right-wing commentators that had been with her at SMH Webdiary had followed her over to her new project. So important to her were the right-wing commentators that when debate and discussion turned to subjects that the right-wing didn’t like and threatened to leave Webdiary, Kingston banned discussion on those subjects with her brother Hamish Alcorn going so far as to say ‘powerful’ right-wing forces had even made death threats to Kinston if she allowed these subjects to be discussed.

As we know, Kingston caved in. Discussion on the events of 9/11 became out of bounds for Webdiary as did most subjects that in any way could be construed as being anti-Israel or anti-Zionist.

Now Webdiary has become a blog for Elliot Ramsey’s sleazy cynicism, rants and tirades. All discussion now revolves around what Ramsey has to say and Ramsey, it seems, has an awful lot to say. By responding negatively to every issue, he dominates discussion forcing Webdiarists to respond in turn to his negativity rather than taking the debate forward. The quicker Webdiary gets rid of this fraudster the sooner many of the other serious contributors who have told me personally that they have been turned off by Ramsey’s presence at Webdiary will return for some serious debate on the important issues of our era.

ANOTHER PROPAGANDIST FROM THE ‘AL QAEDA DID IT’ BRIGADE EXPOSES HIS TRUE COLOURS.

Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine, in trying to compare Holocaust deniers with those that question and criticise the official version of the events of 9/11, has exposed himself for what he really is; a rather arrogant and oafish right-wing propagandist for the ‘al Qaeda did it’ brigade who are attempting to perpetuate the myth that the World Trade Centre towers, including WTC7, were brought down solely as a result of aircraft crashing into them.

Maintaining the story that the towers were brought down solely by aircraft crashing into them is essential for the ‘al Qaeda did it’ brigade, which includes the US government and their most rabid supporters, the neoconservatives and the Israeli Lobby. To allow any evidence that supports the notion that anything other than hijacked aircraft brought down the towers be accepted into the mainstream of the public psyche would be absolutely catastrophic for both the US government and western governments around the world which have relied on the ‘al Qaeda did it’ scenario to justify the Global War On Terrorism and its subsequent invasion and destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq. For this reason alone the US government, and the mainstream media that supports it, have pulled out all the stops to prevent any other evidence that could prove that the events of 9/11 did not happen as the government has said it happened from becoming accepted by the great masses of ordinary people throughout the Western world.

Michael Shermer, it would seem, has become part of that effort. However, in attempting to place ‘911 Truthers’ within the same frame as those that deny the Holocaust, Shermer immediately denies himself any credibility as a bona fide sceptic and he can now be safely cast into the ever-growing numbers of exposed right-wing propagandists and fraudsters who are trying desperately to conceal from the peoples of the world the real history of the events of 9/11.

The vast majority of those that do not want to hear or refuse to accept the reasonableness of alternative arguments about the events of 9/1, despite the overwhelming evidence that is mounting that debunks entirely the governments version of events, do so simply because the very idea that their government has lied to them so enormously and horrifically and with such tragic loss of their own peoples lives would be totally and utterly unpalatable to them and would destroy any little faith that they had left in a system that they had been brought up to believe was incorruptible. The realisation that they had actually become a part of it by believing and accepting it without question would destroy any sense of righteousness they believed they had.

Only time will remove this sense of the truth being unacceptable. It is only unacceptable because the fear of the truth being exposed in such a way will tear away from them everything else that they held to be genuinely true.

To be a genuine sceptic is healthy but Michael Shermer proves himself to be only a propagandist who wants to deny the people the right to question lies and distortions of the truth.

PALESTINIANS HAVE TWO CHANCES AT SOVEREIGNTY: UNDER OLMERT; FAT CHANCE, AND UNDER NETANYAHU; A SNOWFLAKES CHANCE IN HELL!

Benjamin Netanyahu and the extreme right-wing Zionist Likud Party are champing at the bit for Olmert to resign and call an election. If an election were held tomorrow Netanyahu would be able to form a government with reasonable ease and it is generally accepted that in that event any notion of peace between Israel and Palestine can be kissed goodbye.

What Olmert and Bush would like the world to think is that, with Olmert staying on as Prime Minister, there is hope of a two-state solution being realised before the end of Bush’s presidency. However, the notion of peace between Israel and Palestine is as much a hopeless cause with Olmert running Israel and Bush running the US as it would be with Netanyahu running Israel and whoever else running the US. The bottom line is; no matter which of these Israeli prime ministers, Palestinians are never likely to see a proper Palestinian sovereign state.

I’m not sure what it is that so many people do not understand about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The garbage about a ‘two-state solution’ as espoused by the likes of Bush and Olmert does noting but provide a false hope of peace with this hope being far more for their benefit to make them look good in the eyes of their people as they falsely present themselves as men striving for peace. Let’s be quite clear about this, neither of these men are men of peace. Bush’s armies have invaded, destroyed and occupied two nations that were of no threat to the US and have caused the deaths of well over a million humans in Afghanistan and Iraq. Olmert and his IDF thugs continue to murder Palestinians in the Gaza and West Bank, occupy the West Bank, the Golan Heights; they invaded Lebanon under false pretences and bombed civilian areas there that resulted in the deaths of over a thousand civilians including many women and children.

Olmert and Bush are not men of peace.

Olmert is playing for time, both for his own political survival and for time to resolve the Palestinian issue in a way that reflects the reality of the Zionist dream – a Greater Israel at the expense of a Palestinian state. Olmert knows that there will never be a truly independent sovereign Palestinian state and talk of such from him is merely a distraction while the real barrier to the Zionist dream of a Greater Israel, Iran, is dealt with.

Both Olmert and Netanyahu know that a final confrontation with Iran is the only way that either will realise their dreams. When Iran is attacked it will be the trigger for Israel to launch an all-out attack against Hamas in the Gaza and the West Bank, and against Hizbollah in south Lebanon up to the Litani River. Iran is the patron of both Hamas and Hizbollah. Israel must first confront Iran before it can deal with Hamas and Hizbollah. Time, however, is running out for Olmert. Bush will not be president for much longer and Bush’s successor is unlikely to take on Iran, and, knowing that, Israel would not make the first strike. But both Olmert and Netanyahu know that if Israel makes the first strike against Iran while Bush is still president then the US will finish off the job of pummelling Iran into submission for the Israelis while the Israelis deal with Hamas and Hizbollah by a massive aerial strike against Syria and a full-on invasion and occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and south Lebanon.

All they are waiting for now is a casus belli – and, no doubt, if they don’t get one soon, they’ll simply have to invent one.

IN STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS PRESIDENT TAKES ‘NOTHING OFF THE TABLE’ ON IRAN AND THE ZIONISTS INVOKE THE ULTIMATE CHUTZPAH.

The President in his 2008 State of the Union address gives us the usual propaganda and rhetoric about Iran, which is exactly the same propaganda and rhetoric he gave us about Iraq, and he has made it abundantly clear that he will not hesitate “to confront those who threaten our troops”, adding that, “we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert once again cynically taints and insults the memory of those European Jews that perished under the Nazis by invoking the Holocaust for purely modern political motives. To use the memory of the Holocaust as part of a propaganda campaign whose aim is to bring about a change in government of a sovereign nation just so that Israel can create a Greater Israel in the same way as the Nazis attempted to create a Greater Germany is the ultimate Chutzpah and insult that deserves nothing but the contempt of all of the peoples of the world and especially of those survivors, descendants of survivors, and descendants of those that perished.

The tragedy is that the people of America are being forced by their dictatorial President to support the crimes that the Israeli Zionists are committing. These are the very same crimes, the crime of waging unprovoked wars, that were committed against the people of Europe by the Nazis and Fascists, the very same crimes that 408,000 Americans gave up their lives for in the effort to put an end to these kinds of crimes. Now Bush and Olmert want to lie us into yet another war which commits those same crimes.

The world must stand up to these criminals and say ‘Never again!’

‘AUSTRALIAN GENERAL TOGETHER WITH SEVERAL OFFICERS AND CIVILIANS BLOWN UP IN TARGETED KILLING IN CANBERRA.’

NO, IT HASN’T ACTUALLY HAPPENED, BUT IF IT DOES WE’LL KNOW WHY!

One can only assume that if Australian forces don’t mind murdering civilians as they set about murdering Taliban leaders in Afghanistan then they won’t jump up and down and get too upset if the ‘enemy’ comes over to Australia and does the same thing here.

If we wake up one morning to hear that one of our political leaders or a senior military leader and his or her entourage have been blown to bits together with several dozen civilians in a targeted killing in say Canberra then we’ll know exactly why will we not?

It’s been revealed that Australian Special Forces have been directly involved in targeted killings in Afghanistan, killings in which many civilians have also been killed. It’s all too easy to simply write these innocent civilians off as ‘collateral damage’ and ‘unintentionally killed’ but it doesn’t excuse the fact that these soldiers weren’t actually facing their enemy in battle when they murdered them. If ‘they’ did the same thing to ‘us’ then we would call them ‘murdering cowards’ or some such but when we do it to them its somehow OK despite the fact that the vast majority of Australians have never met an Afghani, and there would be many that couldn’t even find the place on a map, yet they’re quite content to think that its OK because it’s just ‘our boys doing what’s asked of them’.

One could argue that ‘all is fair in love and war’ but then if that’s the case we shouldn’t be complaining when the ‘enemy’ (they’re not my enemy, incidentally) find a way to do the same here in Australia or, indeed, in the US, or any other NATO country that’s currently murdering the Afghan people in their own country.

When ‘they’ kill ‘us’ we call them ‘murdering terrorists’ but when ‘we’ kill ‘them’ we call it eliminating the enemy by targeted assassination and those that do it are hailed as heroes.

One has to wonder who the real terrorists actually are.

WHAT IF 500,000 GAZANS MARCHING INTO ISRAEL TRIGGERED A SIMILAR MARCH BY WEST BANK PALESTINIANS?

One can’t let Abraham Rabinovitch’s piece in The Australian titled: “’Breakout into Israel’ ahead” go by without comment. He says that the “next breakout from the Gaza Strip could be into Israel, with 500,000 Palestinians attempting to march towards the towns and villages from which they or their parents fled or were expelled 60 years ago.”

I guess Abe’s talking about the lands that the Israelis ethnically cleansed 60 years ago. When one ‘expels’ a people that have lived in a land for thousands of years it’s called ‘ethnic cleansing’. The alternative for many Palestinians who did not ‘flee’ their towns and villages was to run the risk of being murdered by David Ben-Gurion’s thugs, as so many of Palestine’s townsfolk and villagers actually were, or be forcefully removed from those towns and villages.

So, one needs now to ask; what’s the problem with 500,000 of those Palestinians that survived that ethnic cleansing and their descendants demanding they return to those towns and villages? What can the Israelis do if the Palestinian people from both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank collectively decide to get up and move in to Israel en masse to reclaim their towns and villages? It’s not like its 1948 when Israeli terrorist thugs could literally get away with mass murder during their ethnic cleansing operations. This time the eyes of a very communicative world would be firmly fixed on them. Their misdeeds would be known and reverberate around the world in minutes; not trickle out forty years later when some murdering soldier’s conscience gets the better of him.

Could it be that those peace-loving Israelis would rally to help the Palestinians create a new binational one-state?

Or would the Zionist thugs who would prefer not to share the land with the Palestinian people use force to stop them? And if the Palestinians resist that force to stop them? What then?

If the Palestinian people do decide to march home then the world must support them.

MORE BUNKUM FROM CONDI OVER IRAN.

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice seems to think that the US can have ‘normal relations’ with Iran if Iran gives up its nuclear ambitions. Since she knows that Iran has no nuclear ambitions beyond wanting to generate electricity, she can rest assured that Iran and the US will never have ‘normal relations’ until the US has forced regime change in Iran and there is a puppet Western-friendly government installed. Condi’s ploy works because she knows Iran will not be giving up its peaceful nuclear program and, once the Iranians have told the US yet again that it has no nuclear weapon or enrichment program for nuclear weapons and never has had, then Condi can turn around and say ‘Well, don’t say we didn’t give you the opportunity’ just prior to attacking them.

Condi claims: "If Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities - which is an international demand, not just an American one - then we could begin negotiations, and we could work over time to build a new, more normal relationship". Her claims that there is an ‘international demand’ for Iran to ‘suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities’ is totally misleading. Iran, under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, have every right to enrich uranium for use in power generation and the UN has no legal right to ‘demand’ that the Iranians stop. It is the US that has blackmailed, bribed and cajoled other nations to create the illusion that this so-called ‘international demand’ was a spontaneous call from the international community. In reality billions of dollars of handouts and favourable deals were needed to get the UN on side in order to create this ‘international demand’.

The extent of the strength of this ‘international demand’ can be seen by the pathetically weak UN resolution that has recently been agreed upon. The new resolution does little more than endorse the last one and will have no affect whatsoever on Iran’s economy. The Russians clearly only agreed to the new resolution knowing that it would further delay any military action that the US may have been planning against Iran; the US could hardly attack Iran while the resolution the US worked so hard to get had just been agreed to and not been given a chance to see if it would work.

All Condoleeza Rice has done is set up the strawman for the next round of Iran bashing when Iran tells the US that it won’t be suspending its nuclear plans to enrich uranium to the levels it’s legally entitled to for the purpose of power generation.

Can anyone really believe that there would be ‘normal relations’ between Iran and the US and Israel while the Mullahs and Iranian President Ahmadinejad are governing the country – even if they did give away their ‘nuclear ambitions’? Of course not! It’s just more bunkum from Condoleeza Rice and the Bush/neocon administration.


…AND HOW’S THIS FOR ISRAELI ARROGANCE!

Ha’aretz is reporting that the Israel Defence Minister, the international terrorist Ehud Barak, is furious that Egypt has allowed Gazan Palestinians to flood into Egypt. The report goes on to say that Israeli security sources have said “that Egypt's conduct raises the concern that Cairo is purposely ignoring Israel's demands.”

Who or what gives Israel the right to demand anything of another sovereign nation? And since when has Israel been able to dictate to Egypt who they are allowed and not allowed to let into their country?

For more on the Great Escape see here.

THE BIGGEST PRISON BREAK IN RECORDED HISTORY?!

THE BREAKOUT HAS LEFT ISRAEL DUMBFOUNDED AND HAS GIVEN HAMAS A GREAT VICTORY.


The break-out from the Gaza prison of some 200,000 Palestinian prisoners has got to go down in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest ever prison break.

As the Palestinian people flooded out from their prison through a massive breach created by Palestinian fighters in their prison wall, they were greeted by their brother Arabs on the Egyptian side with welcoming arms. Egyptian authorities had little choice but to stand back and let them through.

The US and Israel are furious that the Egyptians made no effort to stop the flood of Palestinians through the breach saying they have grave concerns that the breakout provides an opportunity for Palestinian fighters to bring arms back into the Gaza.

It was inevitable, however, that something had to give in the Gaza. The pressure on the Palestinian people caused by the deprivations initiated by the Israelis attempt to starve and generally make life as unbearable as possible for the Palestinian people were just too much for them to bear any longer. The breakout was clearly the last thing that the Israelis expected and it will be seen around the world as a considerable propaganda victory for the Gazan people.

Already Palestinians laden with food and fuel supplies are beginning to trickle back to their homes inside the Gaza. Furthermore, they are returning home without being molested or searched by Egyptian authorities wanting to check people back in. This is a significant turning point in Israeli-Egyptian relations because it means that the Israelis have lost control over access to the Gaza and, if the crossing does remain open on a more permanent basis, it also means that the Israelis will no longer be able to put pressure on the Gazan people by collectively punishing them via deprivation of fuel, food and medicines. What happens next will be crucial for the Gazan people.

There are a number of scenarios which the Israelis could follow up with. If they can’t get the Egyptians to shut down the crossing, the Israelis may consider invading the Gaza in order to, first, close down the crossing from the Gaza side and, secondly, to seek out the arms that have been brought in during the breakout. This would be bound to upset world public opinion, but, one needs to ask, since when have the Israelis been concerned about public opinion? Such an invasion would not happen without a fight however. Hamas have now taken over control of the border and any invasion by the Israelis would be met with stiff resistance.

Other consequences of the breakout have been a massive groundswell of popular support for Hamas. This is also bound to have some effect in the West Bank as Abbas could see this as a threat to his own powerbase if Palestinians in the West Bank divert their support to Hamas.

The breakout has also rekindled support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who are in alliance with Hamas and support the Palestinian cause. This, in turn, is putting domestic pressure on Egypt’s leader Hosni Mubarak who has already arrested hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters.

The breakout is not something that had been scripted in to Israel’s game plan and how they react will be of crucial importance in many ways to the future of the Middle East.

IS THE ‘FINAL CONFRONTATION’ FINALLY UPON US? ONE HOPES NOT, BUT THE SIGNS ARE NOT GOOD.

I have for some time been warning of the impending final confrontation between the US-Israeli alliance and Iran. The pointers indicating that the moment of that final confrontation may have almost arrived are now too irresistible to ignore. I hope I’m wrong.

Here are a few of those pointers; some obvious, some not so obvious.

First off, of course, is the obvious; if it’s going to happen, then it has to happen soon because after next November Bush won’t be around and it is doubtful that his successor would even dream of it, let alone actually do it. So, as every day goes by, the reality of the final confrontation draws closer.

Other pointers are as follows. About eight weeks ago, toward the end of November last year, the US Navy put out tenders to charter extra ships to carry over a million barrels of ship and jet fuel for their warships and aircraft in the Straights of Hormuz off the coast of Iran. Before the end of January the carrier USS John C. Stennis will join the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower which is already cruising Persian Gulf waters. This extra fuel order comes on top of last August’s massive order from Israel for millions of litres military JP-8 jet fuel and military diesel fuel. Allowing time for the various House and Senate committees to approve the order, the fuel has either been recently delivered or is also on its way.

This activity comes atop an increasingly aggressive rhetoric from the US and Israel particularly after Bush’s recent visit to Israel and the region where he has unsuccessfully attempted to garner support among the Arab nations of the Middle East to put pressure on Iran over its so-called nuclear weapons program. However, because the other Arab nations know full well that the only nation in the region that has an interest in nuclear weapons, and actually has them, is Israel and because the other Arab nations also know full well that there is no evidence whatsoever of Iran wanting or having, or even having had, a program to obtain nuclear weapons, despite US and Israeli assertions to the contrary, and because the other Arab nations have heard all of this exact same rhetoric and lies before when the US and their allies invaded and destroyed Iraq, the other Arab nation declined to offer their support to Bush. Unfortunately, the Arab nation’s failure to support Bush is unlikely to stop Bush and his neoconservative cronies, together with Israel, from attacking Iran.

Heralding Bush’s visit to Israel and the region, which began on 9 January, was the bizarre and rather too conveniently well-timed episode of the five little Iranian outboard speedboats supposedly ‘harassing’ huge US warships in the Straights of Hormuz just prior to Bush’s arrival.

As soon as Bush had left Israel, Israeli terrorists resumed their slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip saying that the killings were in response to Palestinian fighters launching rockets into Israel. Since Bush left, some thirty-nine Gazan Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli terrorists including a number of civilians. Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister, has warned of increased Israeli terrorist actions in the Gaza. While Israeli attacks against the Gaza have increased, the threatened all-out invasion has not yet come. Could it be that an attack against Hamas in the Gaza could come at the same time as an attack against Iran? Come to that, could it be that such attacks will also be coordinated with simultaneous attacks against Hizbollah in Lebanon and even Syria?

The Winograd report is likely to be released on 30 January. It is unlikely to be kind to Olmert thus raising the spectre again of Olmert being forced from office and the possibility of an election being called. Olmert survived a vote of no confidence by the skin of his teeth when the preliminary Winograd report was released at the end of April last year. It remains to be seen whether or not he’ll survive any further calls for his resignation when the full report is released. The extreme right-wing Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party recently resigned from Olmert’s coalition where he was deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Threats. It is likely that he will now join forces with Benjamin Netanyahu in an effort to oust Olmert. Olmert desperately needs something to distract Israelis from his problems and bring Israelis back under his influence. What better than a war against your favourite enemy – and then resign as a hero rather than the loser of the Second Lebanon War.

And last, but not least, we still have the pleasure to come of Bush telling the world about the State of the Union. Who knows what he has in store for the world on 29 January. One can only hope that he doesn’t think a war with Iran will be something exciting to talk about and a fitting finale to his Presidency.

As I said, I do hope I’m wrong!


HOW DOES THE WEST LET THIS GO WITHOUT OUTRAGE?

If Hamas or Hizbollah publicly called for the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert there would be outrage from the governments of the West. Yet when Israeli politicians call for the assassination of Hizbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah the West says nothing at all.

The values that ‘they’ hate about ‘us’ are arrogance and hypocrisy. Who can blame them?

IF A JEWISH-AMERICAN BUYS UP YOUR BLOCK OF FLATS, CAN IT BECOME A PART OF ISRAEL?

Or if a rich Jewish-American bought land in, say, South Australia and then invited Australian Jews to come and build their homes on that land, would they then be entitled to say that the parcel of land that the new Jewish community has established itself on now comes under the governance of, and subject to, the laws of the state of Israel?

Is that a resounding ‘NO’?! Is such a notion too ridiculous to even consider? Because, if it is, why then do we accept Jewish-Americans being able to buy land in Palestine and East Jerusalem who then invite Jews – and only Jews – to come and build their homes on that land thus establishing a Jewish community and then accept that the community and the land that it’s on then falls under the governance of Israel?

Yet, for some reason, the world accepts without question that it is OK for Israelis to just move into pockets of land in Palestine and then claim it as Israeli territory subject to Israeli law.

Its one thing for a Jewish community to want to maintain its heritage, rites and customs in a small enclave within another nation but it’s quite another matter if that community then decides that the land it is living on should become part of the sovereign state of Israel simply because they don’t like the laws of the people that they are surrounded by.

Where will it end?

THE GOVERNMENT’S OF THE ARAB WORLD MAY BE ON SIDE WITH THE U.S. AND ISRAEL AGAINST IRAN, BUT ARE THE PEOPLE?

There is an interesting piece in the Washington Post today by Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institute. Telhami gets it partially right when he writes:

“Many Arab governments are of course concerned about Iran and its role in Iraq, but not for the same reasons as Israel and the United States. Israel sees Iran's nuclear potential as a direct threat to its security, and its support for Hizbollah and Hamas as a military challenge.”

Telhami is on the right track inasmuch that Israel’s concerns are for Irans support for Hizbollah and Hamas (and also Syria which Telhami neglects to mention). However, Israel, contrary to Telhami’s assertion otherwise, does not see Iran’s nuclear potential as a direct threat to Israel’s security. Israel is very much aware of the reality that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and that the allegations against Iran with regard to its so-called nuclear weapons program is purely part of the propaganda and rhetoric that is being used as part of the effort to drum up support for an attack on Iran in order to bring about regime change. Regime change in Iran will isolate Syria which, in turn, isolates Hizbollah and Hamas and this is the endgame that Israel is after.

But here’s the other interesting bit that Telhami says: “Arab governments are less worried about the military power of Hamas and Hezbollah than they are about support for them among their publics. They are less worried about a military confrontation with Iran than about Iran's growing influence in the Arab world. In other words, what Arab governments truly fear is militancy and the public support for it that undermines their own popularity and stability.”

This is what the west doesn’t understand. When the media talks of this and that Arab nation being worried about Iran, most ordinary folk think that the media are referring to the entire nation without realising that in fact they are only referring to the governments of those nations, not the peoples of those nations. Most governments of Arab nations are not democratic. In fact, in many ways Iran is more democratic than many of the Arab countries that are close friends of the US and Israel. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, for example, all have governments in which ‘democracy’ plays no part. So when we read and hear of Bush travelling around the Middle East trying to drum up support from the Arab ‘nations’ to put pressure on Iran over its ‘nuclear weapons ambitions’, what we are really getting to know about is Bush talking to the governments of Arab nations – not the people of Arab nations. In other words, quite simply, the western world is being conned into thinking that the entire Arab world is against Iran when in reality it is only the non-democratic governments of the Arab world that are with the US on this and then only because it is in their commercial and political interests to side with the US. In this regard Telhami gets it right when he says:

“And even though Gulf Arab governments need the US military umbrella for their security, their publics view the United States as a far greater threat than Iran. It is a challenge for these governments to have to continually depend on an America whose foreign policy is rejected by their own publics and whose record in recent years has been more of failure than of success.”

Iran is not a threat to the Arab peoples of the Middle East; it is a threat to the governments of the Arab nations of the Middles East. Iran has already shown its support for the oppressed and persecuted peoples of Palestine and Lebanon. What the Arab governments of the Middle East fear is Iran being an inspiration for the peoples of the Middle East. For the US and Israel there is no choice but to ensure regime change in Iran but, while this may placate the governments of the Arab nations, it will do nothing except incur the wrath of all of the peoples of the Arab nations around the Middle East and with them Muslims around the world.

The final confrontation is yet to come – and it may well be a confrontation that doesn’t just involve the US and Israel against Iran, but one that could engulf the entire Middle East.

THE HOLIDAY SEASON IS OVER AND IRAN SUDDENLY BECOMES A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE – AGAIN.

We barely heard a murmur about Iran over the holiday period but now they’re back in the news again for no apparent reason other than a few of their young guys had a bit of a day out in their new toys on the water near a few of the US navy’s warships – or, at least, that was what we were told. Suddenly the Iranians are a threat to world peace again. Never mind that the US battle fleets are in waters threatening Iran over non-existent nuclear bombs. It’s not as though the Iranian speedboats were racing around US warships on the Atlantic seaboard off New York; the US warships, armed to the teeth with attack aircraft, Tomahawk missiles and atomic weapons, are in the Persian Gulf to deliberately intimidate Iran yet for some reason we are being told that it is the Iranians that are a threat to world peace.

Now the western mainstream media are regurgitating the entire propaganda and rhetoric repertoire that the neocons and the Israeli Zionists used to get the world to support an invasion of Iraq to support an attack on the Iranians. But what’s really sickening about this whole affair is the fact that the world seems to be just sitting back and doing absolutely nothing about it despite the fact that everything the neocons and Israeli Zionist warmongers told us about Iraq turned out to be nothing but lies. Now we’re being told exactly the same lies all over again and still the world does nothing.

The world should make no mistake about this; Iran will sooner or later be attacked. It is not a matter of ‘if’, only of ‘when’. The US and Israel are not in the slightest bit concerned about Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons. Both know that Iran has no nuclear weapons. While they use the propaganda and rhetoric of nuclear weapons as the excuse to attack, their real aim is for regime change. With a western-friendly pseudo-democratic puppet government in place, Iranian support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance to Israeli Zionist aspirations for a Greater Israel that takes in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon up to the Litani River will evaporate. And without Iranian support, Syria too will no longer be a threat to Israel thus ensuring that the Golan Heights remain in Israeli hands.

The neoconservative/Israeli Zionist plan for the Middle East will be well on the way to realisation if the world allows itself to be taken in again by these liars and warmongers.

And, so far, it looks like the world is going to fall for it again.

IRAN AND SYRIA ARE BACK ON THE FRONT BURNER.

Yet again it seems, Iran has returned to the front pages of the mainstream media with Bush yesterday sounding out Arab support for ‘containing’ Iran. However, some Arab countries are now asking why Iran actually needs to be ‘contained’. The last National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) showed that Iran hasn’t been involved in the nuclear arms game for some time now; and, on top of that, the UNs International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) has not produced any evidence to suggest, indeed, that Iran ever was.

It comes as no surprise then, to learn that Syria has also returned to the front page as well. This time it is because it has since rebuilt (at least, so we are told) something (we don’t know what) at the place where something (again, we don’t really know what) was possibly bombed (though nobody seems to be really sure) back in September 2007.

One thing is really sure, however, and that is; whenever Iran stuff hits the headlines, Syria stuff seems to as well.

The reality is this: If Israel and the US are going to attack Iran – and attacking Iran is going to be the only way that Israel and the US can achieve regime change – then they will have to do it before Bush leaves office. But since the US cannot make the initial attack against Iran, because it has painted itself into a corner following the release of the NIE, it has to be Israel that strikes the first blow – unless, of course, Iran attacks the US or, for example, threatens its ships in the Gulf. Naturally, Iran’s ally Syria, supporting Hamas and Hizbollah, will also be targets.

Whatever it is that’s brewing, one can be sure that it will benefit Israel and their neoconservative supporters and that Arabs and Muslims will die.

BUSH’S VISIT TO ISRAEL AND PALESTINE HIGHLIGHTS REASONS WHY THE BINATIONAL ONE-STATE SOLUTION IS THE ONLY SOLUTION.

The media around the world today are full of the news about Bush’s call for Israelis to withdraw from the West Bank. The story is surrounded with other stories; like Bush asking that Israelis keep Olmert in power and that the Palestinian state shouldn’t end up looking like ‘Swiss cheese’, a reference to the pockets of Israeli settlements that are inside the West Bank.

Problem is; Bush’s statements seem to be full of contradictions. On the one hand he’s saying that the settlements should be withdrawn from the occupied territories and on the other he’s saying that he appreciates that Israel shouldn’t be asked to hand back all of the lands it conquered in the 1967 invasions. Neither of these two statements is going to impress both sides at the same time. Israeli Zionists are not going to be leaving their settlements in the West Bank and the Palestinian people are not going to be signing up to any agreement that allows Israelis to stay on pre-1967 Palestinian territories. The reality is that Olmert is only just clinging to power as it is what with the Winograd Report about to be released, and he will be facing an uphill battle with the Israeli right-wing, including the all-powerful Likud Party under Netanyahu and their allies, if he even hints at dismantling the settlements in the West Bank or allocating bits of Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

It’s time for a reality check. Bush is on a crusade that is doomed to failure. Olmert too will be unlikely to survive the impact of the Winograd report even if he defied Bush’s demands for a Palestinian state by the end of the year. And, on the other side of the fence, or, perhaps one should say; the other side of the wall, Abbas does not have either the support or the mandate of the Palestinian people – not in the West Bank or the Gaza – to negotiate away one inch of Palestinian dirt to the Israelis.

The world knows that this ‘effort’ for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is as much a waste of time and effort as all the others have been over the last sixty years. The only real answer has to be a state where Jew and Arab live together under one secular democratic government in a nation that has no walls or restrictions as to where its citizens can or cannot live and the job that any citizen has is not dependent on that citizens religion, culture, blood or biology.

There are no other options. Bush’s way will never happen. Or Israel could crush the Palestinians and send them on their war to Jordan but will spend the rest of time looking over their shoulders waiting for the day that the Palestinians strike back. Or the Palestinians could launch attacks against the Israelis in a doomed attempt to drive them into the sea and which would end in disaster for all.
The one-state solution is the only solution. Enough time has been wasted already. Far too many have died. How many more need to die before the world realises that there is only one answer.

ISRAELI ZIONISTS OPENLY DEMAND PALESTINIANS LEAVE THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES SO THAT PALESTINE BECOMES PART OF ISRAEL.

The leader of the right-wing Israeli Zionist National Union-National Religious Party (NU-NRP), Benny Elon, is openly calling for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, the removal of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza by the simple expediency of granting them a Jordanian passport, and the abandonment of any ideas about the Palestinians having a state of their own.

What makes this most recent call for the transfer of Palestinians and the take-over of their lands really frightening is the fact that the NU-NRP is closely allied to the Likud Party led by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The call from Benny Elon reflects the reality of what the Israeli Zionists in all of Israel’s Zionist parties really want – a Greater Israel that absorbs into it the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the transfer of Palestinians to Jordan.

The end of January will see the release of the Winograd Report into the failures of the Second Lebanon War of 2006. Once released, and if the backlash is powerful enough, it could well see the end of Ehud Olmert and his Kadima Party in power. If Olmert is forced to step down and call elections then there is a strong likelihood that Netanyahu and his Likud-led coalition would come to power. This time around, Netanyahu will be ceding nothing to the Palestinians as he did in 1998 when he ceded territory to the Palestinians in accordance with the Wye Accords. The current so-called ‘talks’ of a two state solution would be disbanded entirely. Netanyahu has recently made it clear that if he were Prime Minister he would not be pulling Israel out of what he calls Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) claiming that if Israel did leave then Hamas would immediately take control.

And in an election year in the US there will be no one game enough to say ‘NO’ to the Israeli Zionists in their quest for a Greater Israel at the Palestinian peoples expense.

BENAZIR BHUTTO – POPULAR LEADER BUT TOO WEAK TO RISK GOVERNING A NUCLEAR-ARMED ISLAMIC NATION.

By making an enemy of the Islamic world the West has created a rod for its own back. Rather than making the world a safer place, the West has put the world at even greater risk than ever it was during the Cold War.

The death of Benazir Bhutto has only served to increase that risk. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, the chances of this assassination having been carried out by ‘al Qaeda’ or some other ‘terrorist’ organisations are much less than the chances of it having been carried out under the auspices of Musharraf’s Western supporters, the US and the Israelis, who have a vested interest in ensuring that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stay firmly under the control of a leader they know and trust.

Benazir Bhutto, while an extremely popular and pro-western Pakistani political leader, has a history of being weak inasmuch that she never seemed to be able to hang to power for very long. She seemed to always be being ousted from power or involved in some corruption scandal or being sent off into exile – yet again. This is not the sort of leader that the US and Israel could afford to have as the leader of Pakistan even under some power-sharing arrangement. The risk of having such power usurped from her by Islamic fundamentalist politicians and activists was just too much for the US and the Israelis to accept.

If, indeed, it were the Western powers that were behind her death, a proposition that, despite the Western propaganda and rhetoric to the contrary, seems most likely, then the upshot is likely to be success for them. Musharraf is likely to weather the storm and will do it with US help even if it means the US sending troops to Pakistan to help Musharraf maintain control. It’s telling that George Bush has called for the Pakistani elections to go ahead but carefully neglected to mention that it should stick to the 8 January 2008 timetable. The omission buys both himself and, more importantly, Musharraf, more time to reconsolidate their positions.

The turmoil following Benazir Bhutto’s death was a risk, it seems, they were willing to take. For the US and Israel the looming Pakistani election was far more of a risk than the aftermath of murdering a popular but weak political leader who could very easily have been toppled by other far more anti-US and Israeli elements within Pakistan who would then have control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

The mainstream media has talked up the risk of civil war in Pakistan but the reality is this; Pakistan is a nation with a massive population of some 165 million people, the vast majority of whom, while upset at what has happened, are far more concerned with just day to day survival in relatively peaceful times than trying to do the same thing while fighting each other in a civil war. There may well be considerable violence in the aftermath of her death but there is unlikely to be any civil war.

Benazir Bhutto’s death is likely to have the desired outcome for the US and Israel. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal will remain in the hands of the leader who the US and Israel have sponsored ever since 9/11. The risk of having a weak leader voted into power in a popular election has been averted. Having a strong man who would in all likelihood concede to allowing US troops on Pakistani dirt is just what the US and Israelis need.

I doubt there will be too many tearful eyes in the White House, the Knesset or the offices of the AEI over Benazir Bhutto’s death.

NEOCONS AND THE WEST TOO QUICK TO BLAME ‘AL QAEDA’ AND ‘TERRORISTS’ FOR BHUTTO ASSASSINATION.

Whenever turmoil is created in our world, such as assassination and bombing, and the neocons rush to point the finger of blame at ‘al Qaeda’ or some other associated ‘terror’ organisation, one can be reasonably sure that what the world has witnessed is yet another false flag operation perpetrated by a group or groups that have some ulterior, political, or even pecuniary motive or motives for creating such turmoil. And such is the case with the assassination yesterday of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistani politics has always been volatile and every election is guaranteed to bring about the deaths of scores of people from political violence during election campaigns. Political assassinations also have always been a part of political life, not just in Pakistan but across the entire sub-continent, ever since the end of British rule. In the past, such political violence has always been home-grown and committed by domestic political players for purely domestic political reasons. However, the death of Benazir Bhutto has repercussions and consequences that extend far beyond Pakistani domestic politics and it is for this reason that one should be sceptical about who the finger of blame is being pointed at. More importantly, one should also look at the political gain that those who are doing the finger pointing could expect to receive as a result of making such accusations.

When blame is apportioned in the mainstream western media there is a tendency for it to stick. For many, that same mainstream western media is all they have to rely on to provide them with their information about events in the world, so when journalists and commentators write their ‘news’ and vent their opinions in the mainstream media it becomes difficult to refute or argue with and any attempts by those that have other ideas about what may really have happened are usually dismissed as conspiracy theorists. In order to ensure that the right ‘message’ gets across, therefore, it is imperative that when events – like the assassination of Benazir Bhutto – happens that the finger of blame gets pointed as quickly as possible and that such blame is made well-known via as much of the mainstream media as possible before any other options could be placed into the collective world mind.

The question then is; who indeed did murder Benazir Bhutto? In the absence of any direct evidence from any quarter, one can only start by asking who had the most to gain by her murder. According to President Bush the “cowardly” attack was carried out by “…by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy”. The first thing one feels compelled to ask is; what democracy? Pakistan is governed by a dictatorship headed by President Musharraf who came to power via a coup and has been supported by the US ever since 9/11. Elections that bore some semblance to ‘democracy’ and were likely to see the demise Musharraf as President are scheduled for 8 January 2008. These are now in doubt, so Musharraf, it would seem, would have much to gain from Benazir Bhutto’s murder. But what would ‘al Qaeda’ have to gain from her death? To be sure, to most fighters who are defending fundamentalist Islam from the onslaught of the West, she was just another western-inspired and educated politician intent on power in Pakistan but she was no more a threat to ‘al Qaeda’ than any other politician in Pakistan looking for power. They certainly would have no reason to kill her – at least not just yet – though no doubt they would be quite happy about the fact that she is gone.

For the US and her allies, particularly Israel, it is essential that Musharraf retains power. Both the US and Israel are very sensitive to the fact that Pakistan does have nuclear arms and that it is a predominately Muslim nation and that there is a large element of Islamic fundamentalists within the nations political ranks who it would be reasonable to assume have a very strong chance of gaining or seizing power in Pakistan and who would have the Taliban of Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan as an ally rather than as an enemy as they are now of Musharraf. Power passing to Benazir Bhutto via an election would have been much easier to seize by Islamic fundamentalists than from Musharraf if that is their intention – another reason why it would not be in their interests to assassinate her.

In early November of 2007, shortly after the earlier unsuccessful attempt on Benazir Bhutto’s life, British current affairs presenter David Frost interviewed her. She told Frost that she had suspicions that members of the Pakistan security services were behind the assassination attempt and had even written a letter to President Musharraf explaining her suspicions. In the same interview Benazir Bhutto also told Frost in a very matter of fact way that Osama bin Laden had been murdered by the same forces that wanted her dead; a man she named as none other than Omar Sheikh, the man convicted of the murder of American Daniel Pearl! It may well be that she was killed simply because she knew too much but much more likely because she was a threat to the current western international status quo who saw her gaining power as a massive risk that the US and their allies could not afford to take; though, most likely, she was killed for all of the these reasons.

Musharraf is the devil the US and the Israelis know. Benazir Bhutto has had power before and lost it; she was popular but she was not strong. Pakistani political power, as far as the US and the Israelis are concerned, should remain in the hands of the devil they have already paid for. The death of Benazir Bhutto may well ensure that power stays with Musharraf and pointing the finger of blame for her death at ‘al Qaeda’ merely strengthens the perception in the West for there to be a strong Pakistani leader and further demonises ‘al Qaeda’ generally into the bargain thus perpetuating the myth of its continued existence.


UPDATE

And, of course, right on cue, ‘al Qaeda’ has ‘confessed’.

HAMAS UPSETS ISRAEL’S GAME PLAN – BY OFFERING A TRUCE!

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, may well have upset Israeli plans for their take-over of the Gaza Strip by offering the Israelis a truce to the tit-for-tat violence that has dominated life in the Gaza ever since Hamas ousted the corrupt elements of Fatah and took control there. Haniya has offered to halt the launching of rockets into Israel from the Gaza if the Israelis stop killing Palestinians and open up the borders to allow the Gaza to begin functioning again.

The propaganda and rhetoric Israel has used to justify their targeted killings of Gazan fighters and the closing of the borders to trade and other essential goods has been that they wanted to pressure Hamas into halting the rocket attacks against Israel but now that Hamas have actually made an approach to negotiate a cease-fire, the Israelis, particularly the extreme right-wing Zionists, are pouring cold water onto the suggestion.

Clearly, the Israelis have other motives in wanting to continue their war against the Palestinian people, particularly Hamas in the Gaza and the Gazan people. Israeli hopes were that Hamas, instead of offering an olive branch to the Israelis in an effort to stop the Israelis killing Palestinian fighters and innocent civilians, would rather be so enraged at the Israeli killings that Hamas would actually increase their actions against the Israelis which, in turn, would provide the Israelis casus belli to invade the Gaza Strip. The plan essentially was not to force Hamas to capitulate but rather to provoke Hamas into actions that would provide justification for an Israeli invasion of the Gaza. Once having invaded the Gaza the Israelis would then have the opportunity of eliminating Hamas either by mass arrests or even killings in what they would tell the world were ‘combat clean-ups’ of Hamas resistance pockets.

The Hamas offer has come as shock to the Israelis. Israeli President Shimon Peres’ immediate response was that the Hamas offer was a “…pathetic and misleading attempt to divert international attention away from the crimes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad”. The statement is classic Zionist double-Chutzpah whereby the Israelis blame their enemies for forcing Israel into taking certain actions that are in themselves criminal in an effort to divert international attention away from the reality of Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.

Peres went on to say: “If Hamas and Islamic Jihad stop firing rockets at our women and children, Israel will immediately hold its fire, so there is no need for negotiations”. He couldn’t very well say anything different but was careful not to mention that the Hamas offer was conditional not just on a cease-fire against the Gazan people but also an opening up of the borders to allow essential goods to flow into the Gaza and some semblance of trade also to return. But most importantly Peres has cleverly avoided saying ‘no’ to negotiations but, at the same time, has made it clear that there will not be any.

For the Israelis, a cease-fire doesn’t solve their problem. Their problem is not really the rocket attacks against Israel, that’s just the propaganda and rhetoric; their problem is Hamas. A cease-fire doesn’t rid the Israelis of Hamas.

With much of Fatah having now capitulated to Israeli demands, Hamas is now the only stumbling block within the Palestinian territories to the long term goal of Israeli annexation of what is left of Palestine, including the West Bank and the Gaza, in order to create a Greater Israel, still the dream of right-wing Israeli Zionists. But while Hamas exists there will never be a Greater Israel which is why it is essential for the right-wing Israeli Zionists to be at war with Hamas; because that is the only way it can be destroyed.

The Israelis will not be taking up Hamas’ offer of a cease-fire – it’s not part of their game plan.

RUSSIAN NUCLEAR FUEL DELIVERY TO IRAN WON’T CHANGE THE ISRAELI GAME PLAN.

The delivery of nuclear fuel to Iran from Russia is a turning point in the saga of Iran’s relations with the US and Israel over Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program but is unlikely to change Israel's ultimate goal of regime change in Iran.

While it had always been part of the plan for Russia to supply fuel to the Bushehr facility, the delivery at this time has come as a complete surprise to both the US and Israelis who had hoped to muster support for increased sanctions against Iran via the UN before the delivery took place. This latest development would seem to preclude Russia from any such endorsement at the UN meaning that there is no longer any likelihood of any further UN sanctions against Iran. This, coupled with last weeks release of the NIE saying that US intelligence agencies have no evidence of any Iranian nuclear program since at least since 2003, has meant that Israel will have to reconsider its position with regard to any possible attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Since the nuclear fuel has been delivered to the Bushehr nuclear facility in Iran’s south-west, an Israeli attack on the plant will now not be possible due to the risk of radio-active contamination and the proximity of the facility relative to Iraq and Kuwait and the Gulf region generally. While the Iranians have guaranteed that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can have access to the facility to ensure the proper use of the Russian supplied fuel, it is unlikely to deter the Israelis from casting their eyes toward Irans other facilities which are designed to produce Iranian nuclear fuel which the Israelis allege is for a nuclear weapons program.

Meanwhile, Bush has been quick to spin Russia’s supply of nuclear fuel to Iran arguing that it proves that Iran has no need to enrich uranium itself. Iran has insisted, however, that, under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it has the right to produce its own nuclear fuel. While Russia has suggested to the Iranians that, for the sake of placating the demands of Israel and the US, that it does not pursue enriching its own uranium, Russia has not insisted that Iran cease its enrichment program and, clearly, have certainly not made any fuel deliveries from Russia conditional upon ceasing their enrichment program.

So, where does this leave the Israelis? Basically the Israeli position will remain essentially unchanged. They will continue to argue that Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program and they will continue to plan for their destruction – now excluding the Bushehr plant, of course. The endgame for the Israelis has never changed; their real goal is not stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program – they know full well, just as the IAEA do, that Iran doesn’t have one – but to destroy the power of the Iranian Islamic state and change the regime. This, in turn, will allow the Israelis to deal with their enemies on their doorstep, Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas, who they hope will capitulate to Israeli demands thus allowing the Israeli Zionists to fulfil their dream of a Greater Israel.

SO WHO KILLED LEBANESE GENERAL FRANCOIS AL-HAJJ?

The Reuters report that appeared in Ha’aretz today speculates on three possibilities as to who may have been responsible for the assassination of Lebanese General Francois al-Hajj who was killed by a car bomb on Wednesday.

First, the report suggests, ‘perhaps it was al Qaeda-type militants striking in payback for Hajj's role in the army's summer onslaught on fighters based in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared.’

Then again, could it have been ‘Syria warning the army not to tilt toward the United States or end its tolerance for the armed activities of the Shi'ite Hezbollah group?’

Or ‘maybe it was forces unwilling to see the army led by an officer seen as friendly to Hezbollah and close to a Christian opposition leader.’

Option three is interesting, though not unsurprisingly, rather vague. Now, an ‘army led by an officer seen as friendly to Hezbollah and close to a Christian opposition leader’ could only pose a problem for one entity that would have the wherewithal and the actual temerity to do something about it; a nation that has not baulked in the past at either covertly or overtly assassinating its enemies and potential enemies and, at the same time, make political capital out of the assassination by making it seem as though it was carried out by another of its enemies; a nation who, specifically, has an organisation whose predecessors virtually invented the art of the modern car-bomb back in 1947.

The fact is, Syria does not at all benefit by this mans death; indeed, Syria is unlikely to be involved if for no other reason than it is very much aware that the Western finger of blame is likely to be pointed to them whenever anyone in the Lebanese hierarchy is assassinated regardless of whose ‘side’ they are on.

Fatah al-Islam, the al Qaeda-type militants referred to in the first possibility, would not have the expertise in logistics or materials needed to mount such a sophisticated operation.

That just leaves those ‘forces unwilling to see the army led by an officer seen as friendly to Hezbollah and close to a Christian opposition leader’. Would such an assassination be of benefit to the cause of deliberate destabilisation of a nation that harbours an enemy on its doorstep? Could such destabilisation lead ultimately to a confrontation with the ultimate enemy of Israel and the US?
A conspiracy theory, one might ask? Well, yes. A conspiracy to assassinate, an assassination that succeeded, it definitely was. A theory? Yes again, but then so are the other two possibilities.

THE U.S. COULD STILL STRIKE IRAN BUT IT IS NOW UP TO ISRAEL TO STRIKE THE FIRST BLOW.

As many commentators have observed, even some frustrated neoconservative writers, the release of the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has effectively precluded the US from making a first strike against Iran over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

However, while the NIE has effectively precluded the US from making the first strike, it has also achieved two other important and related potential consequences. One is that it has also now removed any lingering doubts that Russia or China may have had about not supporting any further UN sanctions against Iran while, at the same time, and because of that lack of support in the UN from the Russians and the Chinese, has placed the onus on a first strike against Iran on Israel who now seem more determined than ever to take on the task.

But it is not a task the Israelis would take on lightly. They are acutely aware that, unlike their attack on the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak in 1981, any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will require substantial help and support from the US. There is no doubt that any planning for such a raid by the Israelis will need to include US collusion and, once the initial strike by the Israelis has been made, Israel will need to rely on overt and direct US military support to prevent any counter-attack probability by the Iranians.

Clearly, the latest NIE has been deliberately released in order to allow Israel to plan on the basis that Israel will make the initial strike while the US provide all support instantly after the first strike has been made. In other words, the NIE has created a fait accompli for Israel to have no option, if it so decides, but to make the first strike. The only alternative is for Iran to be left alone since neither Russia or China are likely to support further sanctions against Iran in the light of the NIE.

One should bear in mind that Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program is merely a casus belli to promote Israel and the US administrations real aim which is regime change in Iran.

In the end the NIE has changed nothing in terms of the endgame for both the US and Israel who want regime change in Iran. What it has done, in fact, is simply made it easier for Israel to take the decision to do the job. There is no more procrastination.

The world is a step closer to possible disaster.

IRAN’S ‘NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM’: HEAVY ON PROPAGANDA AND RHETORIC BUT STILL NOT A SKERRICK OF EVIDENCE.

Benjamin Netanyahu was telling his new chum the French President Nicholas Sarkozy that the “Iranian missile and fissile activity continues with great momentum, so pressure must be intensified.” Meanwhile, the new Israeli ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosser, was telling a British newspaper: “At the current rate of progress Iran will reach the technical threshold for producing fissile material by 2009”. Tzipi Livni, at a NATO Foreign Ministers conference in Brussels last Friday told her audience that: “Tehran is close to crossing the technological threshold, after which it will be able to secretly produce nuclear weapons without supervision”.

In not one of the above mentioned instances was there any evidence whatsoever to support any one of the claims.

The world’s foremost authority on Iran’s nuclear status, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), has not been able to find any evidence at all that concurs with any of Israel’s claims. How does Netanyahu not trust the IAEA enough to tell them how he knows that ‘Iranian missile and fissile activity continues with great momentum’? Does Prosser know something that the IAEA doesn’t when he asserts that ‘at the current rate of progress Iran will reach the technical threshold for producing fissile material by 2009’? And is Livni holding out on the IAEA when she says ‘Tehran is close to crossing the technological threshold’?

The war against Iraq was instigated on exactly the same kind of claims. Is it not time the world asked; where is the evidence? It seems the mainstream media aren’t game to ask despite having been made complete fools of last time. Yet again the mainstream media is allowing itself to be the propaganda medium for warmongers.


SO WHERE’S THE EVIDENCE!!

Outgoing Israeli National Security Council head, Ilan Mizrahi, has told the Jerusalem Post that ‘Israel had concrete evidence that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon’. He went on to say ‘that Israel's evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons demonstrated the urgency of stopping the country's nuclear program as soon as possible’.

One has to keep asking; WHAT EVIDENCE?

Why hasn’t this evidence been handed over to the IAEA? Could it be that IT SIMPLY DOESN’T EXIST?

ISRAEL’S HYPOCRISY OVER IRAN’S ‘NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM’.

Despite the total lack of evidence, Israel is stepping up the propaganda and rhetoric of the myth of an Iranian nuclear weapons program in its effort to overcome the disappointment of the latest US National Intelligence Estimate which told the world that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Yesterday, according to Ha’aretz, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his government ministers that Israel ‘would continue to work alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to expose covert Iranian activities and investigate its military program to develop nuclear weapons’.

The problem with this piece of blatant propaganda is that the IAEA aren’t out to ‘expose covert Iranian activities’ on behalf of Israel. The IAEA exists solely to monitor the nuclear programs, weapons or power generating, of all nations that the UN have an interest in on behalf of the UN. The IAEA doesn’t exist for the sole purpose of rubber stamping the accusations and allegations of Israel and the US simply so that a casus belli for war can be found. The US and Israel tried that exact same stunt in the lead up to war against Iraq. It didn’t work then inasmuch that the IAEA didn’t bend to US and Israeli demands, accusations and allegations of Iraqi nuclear weapons – not that that stopped the US from invading anyway – and it is unlikely to work now.

Time and time again the IAEA have gone into Iran and found absolutely nothing to even suggest that Iran is pursuing nuclear technology for any purpose other than power generation. For all the well-known resources of the Israeli intelligence organisation, Mossad, no evidence has been found by the Israelis to suggest anything different; and one can be sure that if they had they would quickly be telling the world about it.

But, for all the propaganda and rhetoric, what is really sticking in the throat of the rest of the Arab nations of the region is not so much whether or not Iran may be pursuing nuclear weapons, but the hypocrisy of Israel’s claims about Iran’s nuclear program. Israel is the number one nation that is jumping up and down about Iran’s supposed obfuscation over its nuclear program when Israel itself cannot even be honest about its own nuclear program. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates while at a recent conference in Bahrain was asked whether he thought Israel's nuclear program posed a threat to the region, Gates replied: "No, I do not." The remark was greeted with howls of laughter from the Arab leaders and officials assembled.

Never mind that it is the US and Israel that do actually have nuclear weapons and never mind that it is the US that has openly said that it would pre-emptively use nuclear weapons, even against a non-nuclear weaponed state, and never mind that, considering the closeness of the Israel-US alliance, that Israel would likely adopt a similar stance if it felt it needed to.

But the world should not lose sight of the real motives behind the US and Israeli propaganda and rhetoric about Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’. The real reason for their stance against Iran is to promote the idea of ‘regime change’. Even if Iran gave up entirely its nuclear program, Israel and the US would then need to search for some other casus belli to promote regime change. Both Israel and the US know that regime change is not going to come from within Iran and that the only way to affect regime change is to either neutralise the current regimes power or obliterate it entirely. Without regime change in Iran, Israel is unable to move forward in its plans to create a Greater Israel by crushing all resistance to it. It is Iran’s support of Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas that are thwarting all that the Israeli right-wing are seeking to achieve.

The Israelis and the US believe that if Iran capitulates, then so will all the other enemies of Israel that are supported by Iran.

The neocons and warmongers of the US are willing to risk the nuclear annihilation of some nations in order to create a Greater Israel that has hegemony over the Middle East. One can rest assured, however, that, if any nation gets destroyed by nuclear weapons, it will not be Israel or the US.

Therein lies the ultimate hypocrisy.

THE NEOCONS ARE IN A FRENZY OVER THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE REPORT: THEY THINK IT’S A C.I.A. PLOT AGAINST BUSH!

The recently released National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear ambitions has sent the neoconservatives into a frenzy of disbelief and recrimination against the CIA suggesting even that the CIA are plotting to undermine President George W. Bush and his stance against Iran.

Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, have been insisting that Iran has been developing production facilities for enriching uranium to the levels needed to produce a nuclear weapon. Bush and Rice have also been insisting that the world can stop Iran enriching uranium by using diplomacy via the UN but have not, however, taken the military option ‘off the table’. Meanwhile, Vice-President Cheney has been saying that diplomacy is not going to work inferring that the only option is to militarily destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Cheney is backed up by neoconservatives both inside the administration and in the think-tanks and commentariat.

The neoconservatives have been the most ardent supporters of military action against Iran. In June of this year arch-neoconservative theorist, Norman Podhoretz, wrote his now well known article, ‘The Case for Bombing Iran’ in which he called, indeed prayed, for the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities. He felt sure that Bush “…will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel.” The NIE report, therefore, has come as a blow to Podhoretz. In his latest commentary Podhoretz accuses the CIA of plotting against Bush. He writes: “But I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations.”

Podhoretz is not the only neocon that is furious over the report. Ultra neocon warhawk Michael Ledeen, the so-called ‘Resident Scholar of the Freedom Chair’ at neocon headquarters, the American Enterprise Institute, finds the report simply unbelievable and can barely contain his seething cynicism and contempt of the ‘Intelligence Community’.

Max Boot, meanwhile, writing in the Wall Street Journal tries desperately to hide his disappointment of the implications of the report by reiterating the usual propaganda and rhetoric that the neocons have been spouting ever since the ousting of Shah and adding that he believes that many of the Arab states in the region wouldn’t mind seeing Iran attacked in order to ensure that Iran doesn’t become a regional nuclear power.

One of the most hawkish of all of the neocons, John Bolton, has also waded into the argument saying, predictably, that the report is simply wrong and the Intelligence Community “…is engaging in policy formulation rather than "intelligence" analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it.”

Bolton begrudgingly concedes, however, that: “While the president and others argue that we need to maintain pressure on Iran, this ‘intelligence’ torpedo has all but sunk those efforts, inadequate as they were.”

Certainly, short of some other startling evidence surfacing that contradicts the NIE report, or, alternatively, some other ‘event’ happening that can be blamed on Iran, the NIE report has effectively put an end to the notion that the US will unilaterally and pre-emptively attack Iran. But, as I and others have already written, the NEI report would not preclude the US from covertly supporting an initial attack on Iran by the Israelis and then overtly attacking the Iranians immediately after an Israeli initial attack in order to prevent an Iranian counter attack.

The NIE report has pushed the neocons further now into the Israeli right-wing Zionist camp because it is now only the Israelis that will be able to launch a pre-emptive attack against Iran.

But then, isn’t that what the neoconservatives wanted in the first place? An attack against the Iranians for the sake of Israel’s quest for a Greater Israel? And doesn’t it almost get Bush and the not-quite-as-hawkish members of his administration of the ‘warmonger’ hook – a call American public opinion is unlikely to tolerate?

So where does the NIE report now leave us?

Essentially, all it has done is put a slightly new slant on the propaganda and rhetoric against Iran. Since the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions is merely a smoke screen for Israeli and neocon calls for ‘regime change’ generally, the NIE report has simply moved the onus of effecting ‘regime change’ from the US to Israel.

Just as an aside, while the NIE report says that Iran stopped its ‘nuclear weapon program’ in 2003, the inference is that Iran had a nuclear weapon program prior to 2003. The reality is that there is still not a skerrick of evidence to suggest that Iran had a nuclear weapon program before 2003.


ISRAEL WARNS IRAN TO CO-OPERATE OR ‘PAY THE PRICE’

In a follow up to the above report, it seems Israel has been quick to warn Iran of military action telling Iran to “…co-operate or pay the price”. Since Iran has actually nothing to ‘co-operate’ about, especially in the light of the NIE report, one can expect that Israel will take military action.

IS THE THREAT OF ATTACK AGAINST IRAN OVER OR IS IT MORE LIKELY THAN EVER?

The Likudniks and right-wing Zionists of Israel are furious as are Vice-President Dick Cheney and his band of neoconservative cohorts both within the administration and in the think-tanks. The recently released National Intelligence Estimate has effectively put a huge dent in their plans to use Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions as a casus belli to attack Iran in order to effect ‘regime change’ since the report says that Iran had shelved its nuclear weapon ambitions since 2003. But does this really get Iran off the hook as far as a preemptive attack by either Israel or the US or both is concerned?

The report only states that Iran’s nuclear weapons plans have been on hold since 2003. However, Iran still continues to enrich uranium for use in its planned nuclear powered electrical energy generation program and it is this that now seems to dominate Israeli concerns causing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to continue the drive for further sanctions against Iran. The problem for the warhawks in continuing to press their case for sanctions against Iran is that their earlier, and successful, calls for sanctions against Iran in order to get Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment, even that which only enriched uranium for use in power generation, was based on the premise that Iran did have an active and ongoing secret nuclear weapons program.

Both Olmert and his Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, despite the NIE report, which they became aware of at the Annapolis meeting of last week, maintain that Iran has reactivated their nuclear weapons program though, as usual, the Israelis are unable to provide any evidence of this.

The upshot of the NIE report is that, while it has made a dent in US plans to pre-emptively attack Iran since the administration would now find it difficult to get congressional or public support for such an attack, it would not prevent the Israelis from attacking Iran’s scattered nuclear facilities. Such an attack would be covertly supported by the US up to the point of an actual raid by the Israelis and then openly supported with, most likely, US military action against Iran to pre-empt any Iranian counter-attack against Israel.

The bottom line is; the NIE hasn’t really made any difference to the warhawks desire for regime change in Iran but it has put the onus back on to Israel to open such an attack against Iran. This may be done either directly with Israel simply springing a surprise attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities or they may try, as they have done in the past, to provoke Iran into showing its hand by attacking Hamas in the Gaza and possibly Hizbollah in south Lebanon as well. Another possible scenario would be for Israel to simultaneously attack Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran and maybe even Syria as well, and then pull back their attack on Iran leaving the US to handle Iran while Israel deal with Hamas, Hizbollah and Syria. It’s an ‘all or nothing’ final confrontation scenario but it may well be the last opportunity the US and the Israeli warhawks get this side of the 2008 Presidential Election, assuming there is one – but that’s another story…


THREAT OF FULL-ON INVASION STILL HANGS OVER THE GAZA

Israeli Defence Minister has said that he is holding off from ordering a full-on invasion of the Gaza for the time being but has warned that it is “time to kill those that carry out attacks against Israelis”.

Disgusting remarks like this seem to be totally ignored by the Western media yet one can imagine the furore from the West if Hamas or Hizbollah said: ‘It is time to kill those that carry out attacks against the Palestinian people’. The reality is that Israelis are already killing those that are carrying out attacks against Israel – and also a lot more that aren’t. Palestinian fighters, particularly in the Gaza, are firing shells and rockets into Israel in an effort to get the Israelis to desist from attacking Palestine and the Palestinians yet the Israelis are making it seem as though they are the ones that are suffering.

The Israeli Zionists should be reminded that it is they that are on real estate that does not belong to them and it is they that have created the Gaza Ghetto. The Palestinian people have every right to defend themselves against aggression, persecution and occupation.

ANNAPOLIS PEACE PROCESS DOESN’T EVEN MAKE FIRST BASE; INVASION OF THE GAZA NOW IMMINENT.

The first sign of even the slightest possibility of any international accommodation of the Palestinians via the UN and the Zionist Israeli government backs off. The US have pulled the plug on a UN resolution endorsing an agreement to talk about a plan to end conflict by the end of 2008 at the behest of the Israelis.

Not only has the peace process not been able to make to first base at the UN but the Israelis are now waiting patiently for the excuse they need to invade the Gaza Strip. Israeli Terrorist Chief Ehud Barak has said that “…every passing day brought Israel closer to a major operation in the Gaza Strip.

Already Israeli IAF terrorists have killed four Palestinians which they attacked early Saturday morning as they went about their legitimate policing duties in the Gaza. Barak is now only awaiting an excuse to launch a major offensive that could herald the full-on ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip. As usual, the Israeli Zionist terrorists are looking for a casus belli to begin their operations.

And the world sits back and watches the whole disaster unfold before their eyes with barely a murmur of protest.

THE FARCE OF ANNAPOLIS: A TRAGEDY FOR THE PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI PEOPLE.

Israel, yet again, has managed to defer any positive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite the propaganda and rhetoric of the pomp and ceremony of Annapolis that was aimed at raising the hopes of peoples around the world yet in reality did nothing to impress the peoples of Israel or Palestine. All that the parties agreed to in the end was to keep discussing the idea of peace and hope that something comes out of it by the end of next year. Both sides, however, know full well that peace will be no closer by the end of next year than it is now.

The talks have effectively doomed the Palestinian people to at least another year of oppression and persecution, particularly in the Gaza Strip where already there are plans afoot for the Israelis to invade and oust the Hamas government there and hand power over to Abbas, a move that is likely to alienate the Gazan and West Bank Palestinians even further from the Abbas Fatah camp.

The fact is there is little left of Palestine out of which a sovereign Palestinian state can be created. The Israelis have succeeded over the years to so fragmentise what little there was of the West Bank portion of Palestine and to isolate the Gaza that there is nothing the Palestinian people can see that a state can be built from. The extreme right-wing Zionists of Israel are not going to budge from their settlements in the West Bank nor will they hand back the Golan Heights to Syria, another bone of contention that prevents peace coming to the region. Nor will the right-wing Zionists of Israel ever allow the Gaza Ghetto to become part of any Palestinian state; a physical impossibility anyway even with the very best of intentions. For the extreme right-wing Zionists of Israel there will be no return to the 1967 borders. For them there will never be a Palestinian state of any kind.

Bush, Olmert and Abbas have condemned both the Israeli and Palestinian people to more of what they have been giving each other for the last sixty years and they have done this under the banner of false hope.

There is now only one way forward – toward the binational one-state solution, a solution that all the peoples of the world should unite for to bring an end to the lunacy of constant war throughout the Middle East and beyond.

PRESIDENT SIGNS DOCUMENT EFFECTIVELY MAKING IRAQ A COLONY OF THE U.S.

I’m not sure that I’ve read a more sickening document than the one that was released by the White House yesterday entitled ‘Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship Between the Republic of Iraq and the United States of America’. Encapsulated in this document is the geo-political reality of what the Bush/Cheney administration and their neoconservative and Likudnik supporters had set out to achieve since the day George W. Bush became President of the US.

Far from ‘liberating’ the Iraqi people from the ‘yoke of tyranny’ for them to become a ‘free and democratic’ model to which all other Middle Eastern states could aspire, which was the propaganda and rhetoric used by the neoconservatives that convinced the Coalition of the Willing that Iraq was a ‘noble and righteous cause’, the declaration instead condemns Iraq to an endless occupation designed to enhance the power of the elite puppets of Iraq, and to ensure that Iraq’s resources remain firmly under American control and enriching American controlled oil companies. In short, the document is the instrument by which Iraq has effectively become a colony of the US.

There are several iniquitous points made in the document that betray the real intent of the administration but, in particular, point five of the second principle relating to ‘the economic sphere’ which says: “Facilitating and encouraging the flow of foreign investments to Iraq, especially American investments, to contribute to the reconstruction and rebuilding of Iraq,” and point eight which says: “Supporting the Republic of Iraq to obtain positive and preferential trading conditions for Iraq within the global marketplace including accession to the World Trade Organization and most favored nation status with the United States,” says it all.

Iraq’s puppet leaders have signed over Iraq to the US.

A NEW CLOCK IS TICKING IN AUSTRALIA.

Despite its prosperity, Australians on Saturday finally woke up to the fact that there are many things that are more important for the future of the world and Australia than merely filling up ones wallet with as many credit cards as possible. Australians clearly seem comfortable with the fact that wealth creation and the maintenance of wealth is something that can be achieved without the likes of Howard and his cronies who seemed to think that wealth creation was the be all to end all for those that have the wherewithal to actually achieve success. Little consideration was given to the myriad of Australians that weren’t, many of whom were left behind unable to keep pace with rising interest rates, rising prices and diminishing incomes as their protections were eroded from beneath them.

Prosperity, like familiarity, can often breed contempt; contempt of those others unable to become or have failed to become prosperous. Those that succeed then become totally focussed on maintaining their wealth often to the exclusion of all other considerations. This led to the several successive re-elections of Howard to government. It was based solely on the false fears of loss of wealth. People were prepared to overlook Howard’s lies and arrogance provided he could continue to look after their wealth.

Finally, however, the people of Australia have woken up. They have realised that it was not Howard that created our prosperity, it was the people themselves. Australians were able to create wealth before Howard’s workplace laws came into effect. The workplace laws were seen to be a hindrance to wealth creation for most working people and were seen to only benefit businesses. The drought brought home the importance of considering climate change, water conservation and the urgent need to find new ways of creating energy resources, all of which had been all but ignored by Howard and his fixated corporatist, wealth creating government.

Howard has ignored the indigenous people of Australia, he has ignored those who don’t have the skills and ability to create their own wealth, he has ignored the calls of great swathes of Australian people who do not want to be involved in wars for America and Israel against peoples that are not a threat to us, he has ignored the plight of those that seek refuge in Australia from the wars that Howard has involved Australia in and he has ignored the future of a world that will have to cope with the environmental consequences of the processes that were involved in creating our prosperity.

Now he has paid the ultimate price. The policies of arrogance, greed and short-sightedness in the pursuit of wealth has been rejected by Australians who can at last see that creating vast wealth today does not in any way guarantee the world a prosperous future for the long term. Howard’s attempt to build a self perpetuating pseudo-democratic corporatist fascist state based on financial elitism and regional hegemony has also been rejected. Australia can now become a member of the regional community based on sharing and understanding and not threats of military intervention or being cut off from aid.

Howard’s time is up. The clock is now running in a race against time to get the world fixed up. We’ve got one shot at it before time runs out altogether. It is up to us to ensure that our new government do what is necessary to get it right for everyone – not just in Australia and the region but for the well-being and future of the entire world.

TIMES UP IN AUSTRALIA! WILL THE REST OF THE WORLD FOLLOW?

There is a palpable sense emerging around the world that, despite the on-going violence in Iraq and the slow strangulation of the Gazan people by the racist Zionist Israeli government and the continuing on-again off-again threat of attack against Iran, that there is a glimmer – just a glimmer mind – of light that can be vaguely seen at the still distant other end of a long and still deadly tunnel.

A cynic might suggest, perhaps even quite rightly, that that’s easy for me to say being in Australia on the eve of an election that is likely to see the rejection of Prime Minister John Howard’s nearly twelve year old attempt to build the worlds first pseudo-democratic corporatist fascist state. Hopefully, however, Howard’s political demise will be the beginning of the end of extreme right-wing dominance over the western world. Next year President George W. Bush and, more importantly, Vice-President Cheney, will be gone and, if a Democrat becomes president, Bush and Cheney’s neoconservative entourage will be gone with them.

The upcoming farce at Annapolis will further highlight to the world the failure of Western right-wing governments to resolve the sixty year-old conflict that has been the root cause of virtually all of the crises of the Middle East during that period. The people of the Middle East, and particularly of Israel and Palestine, are beginning to reach the end of their tether with their tolerance of their political leaders that have failed time and time again to bring them peace and the people are now looking for alternative more viable answers to their problems including the possibility of the once not even dared to dream of idea of a binational one-state solution now increasingly being seen as the only viable alternative.

Perhaps by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century the peoples of the world would have seen off the extremists of the West whose actions have given us the extremists of Islam. Perhaps the world will have woken up to the fact the extremists of Islam exist because of the arrogance and self-righteous hypocrisy of the Western extremists that want that which is not theirs but belongs instead to those of another faith and culture.

We, the people of the world, might never be able to rid the world of racists and fascists but at least we can take their power away from them. It is too late for those that have been killed and have lost their homes in the struggles against the West in the Middle East, Afghanistan and elsewhere but now perhaps the beginning of the end really is in sight.

It’s been sixty years for the people of Israel and Palestine and it’s been nearly twelve years for those that have had to suffer because of Howard’s extremist policies and its been seven years for those that have had to suffer because of Bush and Cheney’s extremist policies.

Their time is nearly up. It’s better late than never.