DID ANYONE ACTUALLY BELIEVE THAT STUFF ABOUT BRINGING ‘FREEDOM’ AND ‘DEMOCRACY’ TO IRAQ?

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor for the UK Guardian, reports today that his newspaper has been fined by an Iraqi court for reporting criticism of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. There’s a certain irony attached to this inasmuch that the offending article was actually about al-Maliki’s increasing authoritarianism.

We were told over and over again prior to and then during the war that killed hundreds of thousands, maybe over a million, displaced millions more, and completely gutted an entire nation that is still suffering daily that all of this suffering was in aid of bringing true democracy and freedom to Iraq. Now, the very foundation upon which democracy is built, freedom of the press, has been removed rendering all that suffering as worthless.

And, as for resources; only this last week the Iraqi puppet government dished out the oil contracts and guess who gets the biggest shares of Iraq’s vast resources? You don’t need to guess.

But didn’t we on the left mention that this was likely to happen? Did we not say that all this waffle about bringing ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ to Iraq was merely rhetorical nonsense designed to bring public opinion on side to support the war? Did we not say that the governments that made up the Coalition of the Willing and their neocon backers weren’t really in the slightest bit interested in ‘Freedom’ or ‘Democracy’? Did we not say that the geo-political reality of the war’s intention was to give the West hegemony over the region in order to both secure its resources for the West and eliminate an enemy of Israel?

Now, the remaining façade of ‘democracy’ has been torn away. Corrupt politicians run Iraq under the protection of the US and the West. In return, the West gets the lion’s share of Iraq’s resources.

It was never about ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’; it was always only ever about power, hegemony, oil and Israel.

The vast majority of the world knew all along that this was what it was really all about but our leaders never listened to our voices as unprecedented numbers of us all over the planet marched down our nation’s streets in protest.

There is no real ‘democracy’ in the West. You may vote for this corrupted super-rich bunch of megalomaniacs or you can vote for that bunch of corrupted super-rich megalomaniacs.

Why on earth would we expect it to be any different in Iraq?

THE COMING CONFRONTATION

It seems I am not alone in my opinion that Israel may attack Hezbollah at the same time as it launches an attack against Iran. I have for years commented at this blog, and elsewhere, about what I can only describe as the Final Confrontation between Iran and her allies; Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Israel. As can be seen, I have often been proved wrong when I have stated that such a Final Confrontation has been imminent. I do not, however, believe that I am wrong about it being a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.

I have opined that for the Zionists of Israel such a Final Confrontation is not only inevitable but essential if Israel is to realise its dream of a Greater Israel that includes the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and south Lebanon up to the Litani River where it will gain access to its much needed waters. For Israel, this confrontation with Iran is necessary because Iran is all that stands between Israel and its Greater Israel dream. Without Iran to support them, Hamas and Hezbollah resistance to Israel will collapse.

I have argued that the likely scenario for this Final Confrontation will be based on Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ being used as the casus belli. I have stated explicitly, however, that Israel’s real purpose is to use such a Final Confrontation in order to defeat Hamas and Hezbollah so that Israel can then realise its Greater Israel dream and that any attack against Iran will be accompanied by an all-out offensive against Hezbollah and Hamas.

I stress that the main aim of this Final Confrontation is not to destroy Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’ – that is merely a propaganda ploy to create the casus belli it needs to attack Iran – but to defeat then destroy Hamas and Hezbollah. When the Final Confrontation does come, Israel will be relying on the US to subdue Iran after Israel has instigated an attack, thus leaving Israel free to devote all of its land forces and most of its air force to attack and invade south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

In the past when Israel has attempted to provoke Iran into a Final Confrontation, Iran did not respond. This left Israel in an embarrassing situation whereby it stood accused of using ‘disproportionate force’ and of having committed war crimes by deliberately targeting civilians and civilian areas. The embarrassment was compounded by the fact that the Israelis, both in their war against Hezbollah in 2006 and their war against Hamas in 2008/2009, were not able to achieve their stated war aims of destroying Hezbollah or Hamas. The reality is that Israel will be unable to destroy either without using an attack on Iran to distract from the carnage that will happen as Israel attempts the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah. While the world’s attention is drawn to the massive attacks against Iran, Israel will go about quietly destroying every vestige of Hamas and Hezbollah resistance.

The world should not be fooled by Israel’s past failures to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah. The fact is; Israel has the military wherewithal to destroy both simultaneously and with ease, but can only do so while the worlds eyes are looking elsewhere – hence the need for a massive attack against Iran.

It is not a matter of ‘if’; it is only a matter of ‘when’.

I.A.E.A. FINDS NO EVIDENCE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM AT QOM SO IT’S BACK TO ‘IRAN SUPPLIES WEAPONS TO HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH’ TO KICK OFF NEW WAR.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said yesterday that there’s nothing to worry about at Iran’s nuclear facility at Qom. The news will not please the Zionist warmongers in Israel and their neocon fellow travellers in the US who insist that Iran has a ‘nuclear weapons program’ which, according to the Israelis, they want to use to ‘wipe Israel (and most of Palestine) of the map’.[1]

The Israeli Zionists and their neocon supporters in the US have been using the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ and the Iran wants to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ nonsense for some years now in the hope that they can drum up enough support from world-wide public opinion to justify attacking Iran in order to bring about a regime change there. But each time they beat their war drums and build it up to a crescendo where there could well have been an attack against Iran, along comes ElBaradei to rain on their parade by saying that there’s still no evidence of any Iranian ‘nuclear weapons program’. And each time that has happened, a pattern has emerged whereby Israel attempt to find some other casus belli to get at Iran via either Hezbollah in south Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip or both.

On several occasions during these past few years Israel has attacked both the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon on some Israeli-manipulated pretext or another in order to try and drag Iran into these wars thus providing an excuse to attack Iran directly with the help of the US. So far the Israelis have failed miserably.

But now it seems the Israelis might me up for another try at stirring up a war via Hamas or Hezbollah in the light of ElBaradei’s latest pronouncements about his findings at Qom.

Israel now claims that Hamas have secretly tested a new missile, supplied to them by Iran of course, with a range of around sixty miles which means Tel Aviv could be targeted. As a result, an article in ‘Ha’aretz’ today claims that Israel is preparing Israel for another assault against the people of the Gaza. On top of that, Israel has also claimed that a ship it stopped and hijacked on the high seas was delivering arms supplied by Iran destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon providing the possibility of another excuse to attack the people of Lebanon in the hope of escalating such a war to draw in Iran and the US.

Just as 114 states at the UN endorse the Goldstone report on Israeli warcrimes committed in the Gaza, the stage seems to be set for yet another act of murder and mayhem designed to get the US to attack Iran. The Israeli sense of timing is always immaculate.


ENDNOTE

[1] Israel has never explained how Iran intended to use its nuclear weapon against such a tiny nation as Israel without doing untold harm to the entire region including Irans allies; the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the people of south Lebanon. Nor has Israel ever explained how Iran hoped to avoid a retaliatory nuclear strike by either Israel or the US.

THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION IS BEYOND THE POINT OF NO RETURN: THE ONE-STATE BI-NATIONAL SOLUTION IS NOW THE ONLY SOLUTION.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, is hinting that the goal of a Palestinian state may now have to be ‘abandoned’ unless something positive is done about the settlements in the West Bank. Since it is now quite clear that, despite the rhetoric, the US has no intention whatsoever of enforcing their demands that Israel stop building more settlements – let alone remove those settlements that are already there – any ideas that Palestinians may have had about having a state that consisted entirely of the West Bank can be forgotten; it simply is not going to happen.

The extent of settlement building over the years has now reached a point of no return. What were enclaves of Israeli settlers living in the West Bank has now grown to such an extent that the situation has been reversed and there are now only large, overcrowded and under-serviced enclaves of Palestinians struggling to survive in the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud-dominated coalition government exist specifically to build a Greater Israel; a Greater Israel that includes what they call Judea and Samaria, which most people know as the West Bank.

For decades successive Israeli governments and US administrations have paid lip service to the idea of creating a Palestinian state. They have signed treaties and accords, they have drawn road maps and received Nobel Peace prizes, but all of this has come to absolutely nothing. And all the while, the Palestinian’s lot has deteriorated to a point where there is now almost a sense of utter hopelessness as they see Palestinians being thrown out of their homes in Jerusalem which Jewish settlers then move into.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians live in a virtual prison from which there is no hope of release and within which life daily deteriorates. There is no future for them while the current situation prevails. There can only be one endgame as far as the Zionists are concerned with regard to the Gaza; life will become so miserable for them that they will have no alternative eventually but ask the Israelis to allow them to leave and migrate to another Arab country. Eventually, so the Zionists hope, the same will happen to the Palestinians of the West Bank.

The Palestinian people – and the entire world – must now face the reality that there will never be a free and sovereign Palestinian state existing alongside Israel and that the ONLY solution now for both the Israeli and Palestinian people is to create a single state within which Jews and Arabs live as equals in a free and democratic secular state.

The two-state solution is dead; it was a myth designed to buy Zionists more time to create the Greater Israel they have always dreamed of. They grabbed as much land as they could in 1948 and then again in 1967 while they distracted the world with claims of being the victim when in fact they were the aggressor. They have over the years adopted a policy of taking three steps forward and then two steps back in an effort to convince the world that it was always they that made the concessions. They have done this in Lebanon, the Gaza and in the Golan Heights. They say that they gave the Gaza back to the Palestinians in September 2005 but in reality it was never theirs to give back in the first place and their hope is that one day they’ll have it again to settle in once they’ve squeezed the Palestinians out. In the process they murdered, bombed, executed and imprisoned without trial tens of thousands of Palestinians and impoverished millions more.

The Zionists never have had any intention of allowing any kind of Palestinian state to exist. Slowly, at last, the world is coming to grips with this reality. The next step is for the world to support the demand for a single state in which Jews and Arabs can live in peace. Only then can Jews truly have a place to call home – a home they can share as equals with others who also know the place as their home. Only then can the Middle East become a place of peace.

THE ISLAMOPHOBIC RACIST RIGHT OF AUSTRALIA SHOW THEIR TRUE COLOURS.

Australian Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, an ex-immigration minister in John Howard’s government famed for his role in the notorious Dr. Haneef Affair in which Andrews insisted that Haneef, an Asian Muslim, be kicked out of Australia despite being found to have played no part whatsoever in any ‘terrorist plot’ that a relative was involved in, is now, again, demonising by inference Muslims that are in this country. Andrews is now calling for a debate on what he calls ‘Muslim enclaves’ in Australia.

Andrews call for the debate comes at a time when the debate about immigration and boatpeople is raging over the plight of a boatload of Sri Lankan refugees, all Tamil, who were recently rescued by an Australian ship when their own vessel was in imminent danger of sinking while on their way to seek asylum in Australia.

Andrews was speaking with Alan Jones, the ultra right-wing Sydney radio broadcaster and well known fellow Australian Islamophobe and racist agitator. Andrews told Jones that to “have a concentration of one ethnic or one particular group that remains in an enclave for a long period of time is not good”.

Andrews views are, of course, supported by other ‘journalists’ and ‘commentators’ in Murdoch’s Australian media stable. Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor for ‘The Australian’ newspaper, unashamedly demonises the current crop of asylum seekers as being ‘illegal immigrants’ ignoring altogether the fact that are not immigrants since they are not actually in Australia yet, and that there is absolutely nothing illegal about seeking asylum in Australia.

Naturally, Murdoch’s other propagandists working at some of Murdoch’s metro newspapers are also mounting a determined attack against these asylum seekers and Muslim immigration generally. Three of Murdoch’s most outrageous racist bloggers, Piers Akerman, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt, have for days since the so-called ‘crisis’ began, all used their newspaper’s online hate sites to foment anti-Islam and anti-Asian racism.

Akerman in Sydney uses the propaganda of fear in his rhetoric endorsing the notion “that possible terrorists could slip into the nation among the asylum seekers the RAN is busily ferrying to our shores”. Akerman then leaves it the usual mob of bloggie followers that comment at all three blogs.

Tim Blair, also in Sydney, who’s not over-keen on actually writing too much himself preferring instead to cut and paste suitably cherry-picked quotes from other peoples work to make his point (that way, if it proves to be wrong, he can always blame someone else) works in a similar way to Akerman letting his coterie of predictable bloggies actually say what he might otherwise be sued for saying.

Andrew Bolt, Murdoch’s Melbourne propagandist, follows the predetermined demonising game plan but attacking Rudd from a slightly different angle saying: “Kevin Rudd’s dilemma is this: he must order the Sri Lankans to be forcibly evicted off the ship and into Indonesian jails, thereby looking the utter bastard and hypocrite. Or he must relent and bring the asylum seekers to Christmas Island, signally to people smugglers everywhere that all they need do now to get here is to do as these boat people did - send out a distress signal when near some Australian ship, after first disabling their own boat.” Bolt’s bloggies respond predictably.

For the sake of the those asylum seekers now in distress as a result of being used as the racists political football, and for the sake of others that wish to seek asylum in Australia, I hope that Rudd does the right thing for our fellow humans and gives them the refuge they seek here in Australia without any further delay and that we as Australians put an end once and for all this nonsense of abusing people who are different from us.

ISRAEL HELL BENT ON FINAL CONFRONTATION AGAINST IRAN.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent to the entire world now that, no matter what Iran does with regard to its nuclear program, it will never be enough for Israel and Israel will continue to pursue its witch-hunt against Iran until the regime in Iran has been changed and it will use Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ as the excuse they need to eventually instigate a final confrontation that they hope will lead to that regime change.

Regardless of the current negotiations and their outcome, Israel will continue to assert that Iran is maintaining a secret nuclear weapons program. Amos Harel in his latest opinion piece in Ha’aretz, says that Iran will likely demand more conditions and delays all designed, he infers, to cover Iran’s ‘race for the bomb’. Harel also insists that Israeli intelligence ‘on the Iranian program is largely reliable and accurate’ yet they are unable to produce any evidence of that intelligence to the world or even the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since it is the IAEA that are the major players in the negotiations and who have oversight of Iran’s nuclear activities, one would have thought that the best outcome for Israel would be for it to release to the IAEA, and to the world, this so-called ‘intelligence’ they say they have and convince the rest of the world once and for all that Iran does, indeed, have a nuclear weapons program.

Of course, there is a problem for Israel if they were to do this. First, if Iran really did have a nuclear weapons program and Israel really did have hard evidence of it and then declared it for the entire world to see, while it would be very embarrassing for Iran, it wouldn’t bring down the regime. Israel would have played its hand but still be stuck with an Iranian regime that continued to support Hezbollah and Hamas.

If Israel were serious about their fears of a nuclear armed Iran and had evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program then Israel would have gone to the IAEA and the UN with their evidence long ago, yet, they haven’t. There can be only two reasons why they haven’t; one, they don’t have any evidence any more than the IAEA or the US have, or two, if they show their hand, they lose.

So, what’s it really all about?

The reality is this: Iran, as it keeps telling the world, has no nuclear weapons program and is intent only on generating electrical energy. Israel insists that Iran does have a nuclear weapons program – despite the total lack of evidence – because it wants to use it as an excuse to attack Iran, together with the US, in order to bring about regime change so that Israel can then deal once and for all with Hezbollah in Lebanon which they then hope will result in access to the much needed waters of the Litani River. They can also then deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip after which they can then do as they please with the Palestinians in the Strip without fear of resistance.

Israel will not show their hand because they have no hand to show. Israel’s game is all bluff designed to get the world to support an attack on Iran that will lead to regime change.

We’ve been down this road before.

ISRAEL NEEDS TO FIND NEW CASUS BELLI FOR FINAL CONFRONTATION AGAINST IRAN.

With the announcement yesterday that Iran may agree to have its uranium processed elsewhere, Israel has lost one of the main ‘grievances’ that it had that could have been manipulated to create a casus belli to attack Iran. This will now force Israel to create some other casus belli to justify such an attack.

Israel has been relying on the propaganda of Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ to build up world-wide public opinion that ultimately would support, or at least limit any public outcry, when Israel and the US launched a full-on attack against Iran designed to bring about regime change.

Iran has played it to a tee. For years Iran insisted that it does not have any nuclear weapons program but has insisted with equal vigour that it will not give up the right that it has by virtue of Article VII of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich its own nuclear fuel to the levels required to produce electrical energy. Iran has over these years insisted on the right of controlling the full nuclear cycle for itself. This insistence has provided Israel with all the ammunition it needs to accuse Iran of wanting to enrich its own uranium in order that it can then enrich it to the levels needed to build a nuclear weapon.

However, over the years, Israel’s accusations became increasingly nothing more than political rhetoric as successive reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and US National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) found no evidence whatsoever to support the claims of Israel and their Western backers. Nonetheless, despite the total lack of evidence, Israel and their Western supporters, particularly the US neoconservatives, remained highly vocal and insistent about Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’ in the hope that the world would eventually believe them – even in the absence of any evidence – and support a strike against Iran.

All of their efforts have now come to nothing. The Israelis and the neoconservatives will, of course, continue the propaganda that Iran is still secretly processing uranium despite the new arrangements, but they know that this alone will not be enough to convince the world that it would justify an attack against Iran. The ploy is now unlikely to work though that won’t stop them trying.

Some other ploy will now be necessary to create the casus belli the Israelis and the neocons need to affect the regime change in Iran that is required to allow the Israelis to defeat Hezbollah and Hamas. This means that there will be a return to provocation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and heightened tensions over Lebanon in order to create, yet again, the conditions required to launch another war against the Palestinians and Arabs that might draw in Iran thus creating a strong enough casus belli to launch a regime changing attack against Iran based on their support for Hezbollah and Hamas.

Once again, the ball is now well and truly in Israel’s court.

THE HYPOCRISY OF U.S. MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL.

One has to ask why it is that the US, on one hand, insists that Israel and Palestine find peace as two separate sovereign states existing side by side, yet, on the other hand, spend billions upon billions of American taxpayer’s dollars on arming only Israel to the teeth with strike aircraft and helicopters together with highly sophisticated ordnance in order for Israel to prosecute war and commit warcrimes against the impoverished, deprived and desperate Palestinian people of the Gaza and West Bank and others in Lebanon.

The US and Israel say it’s for ‘self-defence’ yet the only time the world has ever seen Israel’s military might in use is when it’s being used to attack Palestinian and Arab civilians and against Palestinian and Arab resistance fighters defending their homes and land from attack and deprivations by the Israelis. For decades successive US presidents have been ‘brokering’ peace in endless talks between the two parties and for decades successive presidents have been feeding Israel with the means to continue their persecution and wholesale slaughter of Palestinians and the insidious takeover of their lands.

President George W. Bush’s support of Israel’s war against the Lebanese people in 2006 in which Israeli forces mercilessly killed over a thousand civilians and destroyed the homes of many thousands more, and then supporting again their indiscriminate onslaught against an all but defenceless Gazan people in the 2008/2009 Gazan Carnage, is utterly iniquitous in the eyes of the world. Even the UN has seen fit to call these attacks against the Gazans as warcrimes, yet today President Obama has not done one thing to insist that the Israelis remove their deadly grip on the Gaza Strip and has moved to protect the Israelis from prosecution for their crimes.

And now Obama is preparing massive joint ‘defence’ exercises with the Israelis designed to intimidate Israel’s enemies, Hezbollah, Hamas and, of course, Israel’s arch enemy, Iran.

In the face of all this, why on earth would the Palestinian people have any faith whatsoever in anything the Americans offer? All the Americans have ever given the Palestinians are endless talks of ‘peace’ while, at the same time, sending them thousands of tonnes of ordnance delivered to them via the Israelis in aircraft supplied to them by the Americans.

Today, under Obama, things are no different. While the Israelis and Americans moan about Hezbollah stockpiling rockets and the Gazans building homemade rockets and smuggling in light arms and complaining that Hamas and Hezbollah are being supported by Iran, the Israelis are busy arming themselves to the teeth with some of the world’s most sophisticated armaments and weapons supplied by the US preparing themselves for the next onslaught against the Palestinian and Arab peoples.

President Bush, Condoleeza Rice and all others in the administration that were responsible for allowing the Israelis to protract their wars against the peoples of Lebanon in 2006 and the Gaza in 2008/2009, share the responsibility of the war crimes that the Israeli committed. And, if the Israelis commit more crimes in the future, Obama will be just as complicit in those crimes for having supplied Israel with the means to commit them.

ZIONIST CHUTZPAH NO. 5

Just a quick one today.

Both the ‘Jerusalem Post’ and ‘Ha’aretz’ have published video of some Lebanese folk loading a truck. The reports state that they are Hezbollah loading a truck with weapons but, of course, there is no actual evidence that they are either Hezbollah or that they are loading weapon; we’re just told to believe.

Whether it’s Hezbollah loading weapons or not is neither here nor there; it could just as well be ordinary folk loading a truck with carpets or gas cylinders or whatever. The hypocrisy is this: Israel claims that Hezbollah are in violation of resolution 1701 if – and we only have their word for it – it is, indeed, Hezbollah loading the truck with weapons. The problem, however, is that the only way Israel could have got video of Hezbollah violating 1701 is if they violate 1701 themselves by flying Israeli aircraft (manned or unmanned) without permission into Lebanese airspace.

Considering Israel has unsuccessfully invaded and occupied Lebanon several times over the years in order to get at the waters of the Litani River, and, in the process, have killed thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian people, Hezbollah would be silly not to arm themselves to the teeth to defend against Israeli aggression.

Ordinary Israeli people and Jews throughout the Diaspora must reject Zionism before it destroys both the Israeli and Arab peoples.


Visit Murdoch’s Propagandists for the latest piece of deceit from Sydney’s leading liar and deceiver, Tim Blair.

SO WHAT’S BEHIND THE DECISION TO GIVE OBAMA THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR PEACE?

It’s fairly clear that the announcement that President Obama is to be the recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize for Peace has come as a surprise to everyone – including Obama. Questions regarding whether he deserves it or not will be discussed throughout both the blogosphere and the mainstream media for sometime, but what in my view is far more interesting is; what was the committee thinking when formulating their decision. Why did they choose Obama? Was there some noble ulterior motive behind the decision whereby, in awarding it to him, they imagined that a war against Iran, a war that could lead to a global catastrophe, be thwarted?

Did they think that, if he was awarded the prize, it would be difficult – if not impossible – for him to launch a pre-emptive attack against Iran? Did they think that it would be difficult – if not impossible – for Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan to ‘surge’ the war there and extend it even further into Pakistan?

Will this act of giving him the Nobel Prize for Peace give something for the world to stop and think about? Is not the world now thinking not just about ‘peace’ but ‘Peace’ and the man who has the power to wage war but is now obliged to bring ‘Peace’? Before the announcement, it would have been easy for Obama to have launched a pre-emptive attack against Iran. The world would not have liked it, but would have accepted it, once it had happened, as fait accompli. But now…

I wonder if this is not a very clever move by the committee that makes decisions about who gets the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Whether he deserves it or not remains debatable; but there is no denying the fact that the most powerful man on the planet with the power of life or death over millions at his fingertips has been given the most prestigious peace award on the planet to ensure that war can be averted and millions of lives saved.

Once again, the ball is in Netanyahu’s court.


Visit Murdoch’s Propagandists for the latest piece of deceit from Sydney’s leading liar and deceiver, Tim Blair.

THE U.S. SUFFERS AN INTELLIGENCE BLOW AND LOSES CREDIBILITY.

The claim by the US that its intelligence services have known of Iran’s plans to construct an underground enrichment plant at Qom for some three years is really stretching the bounds of credibility and, when examined in the light of the intense rhetoric about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ that has emanated from both the US, Israel and the rest of their Western allies during that period, it simply does not relate to the corresponding historical chronology.

If, as the US claims, their intelligence services have known about it for some three years, then why was it not included in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released in October 2007, just two years ago?

Furthermore, the rhetoric about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ coming out of Israel has been even more relentless than that coming from the US but we are expected to believe that some three years ago Israel too also knew of Iran’s plans to construct an underground enrichment plant yet did not mentioned it at all to anyone despite the fact that its discovery and exposure then could have bolstered their ‘argument’ that Iran’s nuclear plants should be immediately destroyed just as they are screaming for just that right now. Why leave it until now as against mentioning it when Bush was still President who would have been far more likely to support a strike against Iran then than Obama is now?

The reality is; Israel, the US and their allies actually knew nothing of the Iranian enrichment plant until the Iranians declared it, quite properly and within the bounds of their legal obligations, to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Clearly the declaration caught the Israelis, the US and their allies on the hop but decided to try and turn it to their advantage by saying they knew about it all along and that it goes to show just how crafty the Iranians are. However, the only people who have been shown up to be crafty are not the Iranians, but the Israelis, the US and West.

The ploy is utterly transparent and the peoples of the West should begin to demand that there will be no more wars for Israel. Iraq and Afghanistan should be a reminder to us all that we have been fooled before; let’s not be fooled again with this warmongering nonsense.


UPDATE

Winning the Nobel Prize for peace, of course, is likely to make it extremely difficult for President Obama to drop any of his new fifteen ton Grand Slam bombs on Iran.

The ball is now back in Israel's court.


Visit Murdoch’s Propagandists for the latest piece of deceit from Sydney’s leading liar and deceiver, Tim Blair.

IRAN’S LATEST MOVES WILL BE A BLOW FOR U.S. NEOCONS AND THE ZIONISTS OF ISRAEL.

Yesterday Iran outlined as a conciliatory gesture plans to export its Uranium for processing as fuel for Iran’s nuclear power generators. At the same time, Iran has conceded to demands that the IAEA be allowed to inspect Iran’s recently revealed nuclear processing plant.

If the talks are successful, the moves will take the wind from Israel’s propaganda sails about Iran being an ‘existential threat’ to Israel’s survival and the Zionists will need to find some other means of affecting regime change in Iran if Israel wants to separate Iranian influence from Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in south Lebanon, and Syria.

Just as the US provides support to Israel, so Iran provides support to Hamas and also to Hezbollah via Syria. Without Iranian support, resistance from Hamas and Hezbollah to Israeli aggression would soon crumble and Israel would soon be able to dictate terms in the Gaza with a view to reintroducing settlers and pushing out Palestinians, same in the West Bank, and in Lebanon terms over access to the Litani waters can be discussed with a much weakened Lebanese government.

Up to now, Iranian intransigence has provided the Israelis with the opportunity of manipulating the rhetoric about Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ to culminate in a casus belli to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran that would also trigger a ‘preventative’ attack against Hamas and Hezbollah which, so the Israelis would argue, would be needed to thwart any retaliatory attacks against Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah in support and defence of Iran.

These latest moves by Iran have now effectively removed the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ casus belli and Israel will now need to find some other way to remove Iran from the equation of resistance to Israel’s plans to create a Greater Israel.

There are two alternatives for Israel. First, Israel would need to provoke Hezbollah and/or Hamas into attacking Israel which would then provide Israel with an excuse to launch a massive attack against on or the other of preferably, from their point of view, both, and then hope that Iran could somehow be drawn into the conflict by, say, being seen to supply sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah, which, in turn would finally draw in the US in a direct attack on Iran. The other alternative is some kind of major false flag attack against the US and/or Israel with the finger of guilt being pointed at Iran.

The first option has already been tried twice before; first in 2006 when Israel attacked Hezbollah and the Lebanese people, and then again in 2008/2009 when Israel attacked Hamas and the Palestinian people of the Gaza. On both occasions Israel failed to provoke Iran into any action that would have provided Israel or the US with a casus belli to launch a major attack against Iran.

How Israel handles this latest development remains yet to be seen but one can rest assured that the Zionist of Israel will never give up its dream of a Greater Israel and it is Hamas and Hezbollah with the support of Iran that is all that stands in the way of the Zionist’s dreams.

AN ATTACK ON IRAN WILL BE JUST A PRELUDE TO ISRAEL’S REAL AIMS.

When Iran is attacked (that’s ‘when’, not ‘if’), Israel will likely simultaneously attack both Hamas in the Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and will also overrun the already occupied West Bank. It will overrun the West Bank because, despite the differences between Hamas and Fatah, such a massive onslaught by the Israelis will be seen not as an attack against Hamas, but as an attack against the Palestinian people. The Palestinians will quickly realise that such a massive attack will be for one purpose – the destruction of all Palestinian resistance, Hamas and Fatah, the complete occupation of all of the territories, the subjugation of all of the Palestinian people, and the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority putting an end once and for all any hope of any Palestinian state.

Israeli forces will also attack the south of Lebanon with the aim of occupying it and destroying all traces of Hezbollah. All this will be done on the pretext that Hamas and Hezbollah will likely retaliate against Israel in the event of an attack against Iran, and Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and Hezbollah will be seen in the West as simply pre-emptive action to deter retaliatory strikes against Israel by those who they claim are ‘Iran’s proxies’.

To most in the Western world, Israel’s actions against the Palestinians and Hezbollah will be seen as merely a necessary side action of the main ‘event’; the attack against Iran.

While just a few weeks ago it seemed that Israel would have to go it alone or at least make the first move against Iran, it now seems, in the light of recent events in the US at the UN General Assembly and the revelations about Iran’s so-called ‘secret’ nuclear facility and the pronouncements made during press conferences at the G-20 meetings, that the US may be more inclined to take on a first strike attack against Iran itself or give the go ahead to Israel to launch a first wave attack and then finish it off for the Israelis while they deal with Hezbollah and the Palestinians.

Because an attack against Iran would be more than just the destruction of Irans nuclear facilities – that part of the attack would be for propaganda purposes only to justify the attack – the US would also have to launch massive attacks against Iran’s military and government institutions in an effort to get the Iranians to capitulate to US demands which would include the removal of Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs and the installation of a provisional government nominated by the UN as dictated to by the US.

The war against Iran will be so massive that Israel’s attack against Hezbollah and the Palestinians would seem little more than a side show to the West, yet the overall operation in reality is not so much about bringing Iran to its knees, but allowing Israel to achieve its life-long ambition of creating a permanent Greater Israel.

For Israel and the US many birds will be killed with one stone; Israel gets the West Bank, the Gaza, an impotent Syria, and access to the Litani River in south Lebanon after having destroyed Hezbollah. The US gets a friendly government in Iran which, in turn, will give the US far more clout in both Iraq and Afghanistan now that there is no longer a theocratic Iran to wield any influence in either country.

For Israel and the US an attack against their enemies is not about Iran’s ‘nuclear weapons program’ but about a carefully planned and manipulated set of events using a relentless world-wide propaganda campaign that will culminate in the long-term aims of the Zionists of Israel and the neoconservatives of the US.


Check out
THE MURKY AND DECEITFUL WORLD OF MURDOCH-LINKED RIGHT-WING BLOGS
at
MURDOCH’S PROPAGANDISTS.

THE U.S. MOVES A STEP CLOSER TO THE ‘FINAL CONFRONTATION’.

For years I have been writing at this blog and elsewhere about the inevitability of a ‘final confrontation’ between Israel and the US, and Iran and its allies, Hezbollah and Hamas. Today US President Obama moved a step closer toward that final confrontation.

In rhetoric reminiscent of the threats Bush made about Iraq ‘coming clean’ about its nuclear activities, Obama has told Iran that it must ‘come clean’ about its nuclear activities. At a news conference at the conclusion of the G-20 meeting, Obama told reporters "Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct. 1 they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice." He went on to say that if the Iranian’s didn’t ‘give ground’ that they would be “on a path that is going to lead to confrontation”.

The world seems to have learnt nothing from the mistakes of the Iraq war and the deceit that led up to it. The Middle East is headed down the path to disaster that has been instigated by Zionists and neoconservatives.

This is not about Iran pursuing nuclear weapons; this is about Israel seeking regime change in Iran and using the ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program’ meme to con the world into bringing about that regime change for them. Once regime change has been affected, Israel will feel free to deal with Hezbollah and Hamas. This they will do using any attack against Iran as cover arguing that in doing so they would be fighting a pre-emptive war – a war that this time there will be no going back from.

The world should wake up before this nonsense blows up in all of our faces – yet again.

NETANYAHU PULLING OBAMA’S STRINGS IN U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY

One wonders how long it will be before the world wakes up and realises that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking the world for a ride over peace talks with the Palestinians.

There was a time, only a little over a year ago when George W. Bush was still President, that there was a demand for settlements in the West Bank to be dismantled and withdrawn before there was any peace deal or serious talk of a Palestinian state. Then Benjamin Netanyahu became Prime Minister of Israel and Obama became President of the US. Netanyahu drew the line; in line with Likud party policy, there would be no withdrawals from the West Bank. So Obama then insisted on a freeze of settlement expansion and new settlements before talks could get underway. Netanyahu, just to show his utter contempt for the whole notion of peace talks and negotiations for a Palestinian state, announces that it will approve more houses in settlements in the West Bank. And now, in the latest twist on talks and settlements in the West Bank, President Obama, desperate to make it at least seem as though some headway is being made, has conceded that talks should go ahead ‘without preconditions’, that is; without any settlement freeze. Now, in the latest effort to squeeze as much mileage out of Obama’s weakness in the face of the Israel lobby, Netanyahu is now only suggesting that Israel might restrain from building more or expanding existing settlements in exchange for talks about peace talks.

Let’s be perfectly clear about what is actually gong on here.

There will never ever be a Palestinian state while the US and the Zionists of Israel have anything to do with it. This latest move is as much a waste of time as all the other talks have ever been.

Apart from anything else, Abbas is not the representative voice of the Palestinian people and has no mandate whatsoever to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinian people. Furthermore, it is Likud party policy to create a Greater Israel that includes the West Bank and to never allow any kind of Palestinian state to exist.

In the latest moves, Netanyahu has successfully played Obama as a Zionist puppet on the world stage of the UN General Assembly. There’ll be no peace and there’ll be no Palestinian state while Netanyahu is pulling the strings. All Netanyahu wants is time while he finds a casus belli to attack Iran thus leaving him free to do as he wishes with West Bank, the Gaza Strip and south Lebanon up to the Latani River.


UPDATE

Now that he has President Obama dancing to his tune over the settlements issue in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now consolidating support among Western and Arab allies for moves to push for sanctions against Iran over Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program.

Netanyahu clearly feels that he is on a roll after his series of meetings with Obama and other Western leaders, including Canadian, Australian and New Zealand, at the UN General Assembly this week. Netanyahu is fully aware that sanctions are unlikely to deter Iran from continuing its nuclear power generation program so is hoping to push through with the formalities of sanctions so that the next phase of attacking Iran can be implemented after it has been shown that ‘sanctions’ aren’t working. Reports as to whether or not Russia and/or China will support sanctions are mixed today with the ‘Washington Post’ saying that ‘Russia and China appeared to rule out sanctions or military action’ while Israeli ultra right-wing newsagency ‘Arutz Sheva’ reports that ‘Russia and China will likely not oppose new tougher sanctions on Iran’.

Time will tell.

ISRAEL REJECTS WAR CRIME ACCUSATIONS BY USING TRANSPARENT AND OUTRAGEOUS CHUTZPAH

If the war hadn’t been such a disastrous tragedy for the Palestinian people, Israel’s counter-claims in response to the Goldstone report criticising Israel’s behaviour during the 08/09 Gaza War would be laughable.

According to a ‘Jerusalem Post’ article, the Goldstone Commission “never asked about:

1. Launching rockets at Israeli towns and villages from within residential dwellings.
2. Firing mortar shells into Palestinian neighbourhoods when IDF soldiers were operating in or near the area.
3. Firing anti-tank missiles, rifles and machine guns at Palestinian buildings in Gaza suspected of having been entered by the IDF despite the presence of Palestinian civilians in the area.
4. Seizing private homes from which to ambush IDF units.
5. Booby-trapping houses before and during the war and detonating the bombs.
6. Planting various types of anti-personnel and improvised anti-vehicular bombs near houses and detonating them.
7. Sniping and firing heavy machine guns at Israeli soldiers within residential areas.”

One needs to ask if the person who wrote this, Jonathan D. Halevi of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, actually stopped to think about the implications of what he was writing.

In item 1 Halevi seems to think that the rockets should have been launched from open paddocks where the Israelis could spot where they were launched from and then destroy them and the people firing them. As if.

In item 2, 3, 4, Halevi is implying that Gazan fighters, there to protect the Gazan civilian population from the Israeli invaders that were indiscriminately killing them, should not have done so.

In item 3 Halevi concedes that the IDF were using Palestinian civilians to cover their presence in civilian areas. In other words, the Israelis by their presence in the civilian areas were using the Palestinian civilians as human shields. To then complain that the IDF were being fired at while they were using Palestinian civilians as human shields and claiming it as a war crime is pure Chutzpah.

Apart from anything else, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Buildings and neighbourhoods become the battlefield. The IDF went into built-up areas and they became legitimate areas for Palestinian fighters to defend. It was the IDF that made the civilian areas battlefields, not Hamas.

The Chutzpah is transparent. The crimes are inexcusable and utterly indefensible. Palestinian fighters have every right to defend themselves and their people. The Israelis are clearly the aggressors; their Chutzpah is nothing less than deceit.

IRAN AND ISRAEL: THE RHETORIC AND PROPAGANDA VERSUS THE GEO-POLITICAL REALITY.

One needs to ask; why are Israel and the US insisting that Iran has a nuclear weapons program when neither can provide any evidence whatsoever that it does? And, even if Iran did have a nuclear weapons program, why are Israel and the US so fearful of it?

If Iran, indeed, did have a nuclear weapons program, it would only be able to produce two to three warheads. While two or three, or even just one warhead would be enough to destroy Israel, one would need to ask; why would Iran risk such a move considering that, even if it succeeded in destroying Israel, Iran itself would be destroyed within hours, or possibly even minutes, in retaliation by the US. Furthermore, an Iranian nuclear attack against Israel would not just affect Israel disastrously, but would almost certainly cause considerable and lasting damage to the Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israeli Arabs and also possibly Syria and Lebanon, all of who are Iran’s allies.

Part of Israel’s, and to a lesser extent, America’s, rhetoric opposing a nuclear armed Iran is that Iran is a state that is prepared to accept the risk of annihilation of itself if it is for what they consider to be the greater good. This, however, remains only rhetoric since there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Iran, its people, its theocratic leaders or its political leaders, would be prepared to risk annihilation over Israel. Yet, despite this, Israel continues to vocally claim that Iran is an ‘existential threat to Israel’.

The ‘existential threat’ claim is based on the Israeli claim, a false claim that has been exposed and noted elsewhere, that Iran’s President has threatened to ‘wipe Israel of the map’. This rhetoric continues to be perpetuated despite having been totally discredited by scholars.[1] It continues, nonetheless, to have a hold on the public at large in the West who are not inclined to pursue or even be aware of any scholarly rebuttals and refutations preferring instead to continue to accept with little debate or question the Western mainstream media’s deliberate perpetuation of the ‘wipe Israel off the map’ meme.

If then Israel and the US are aware of the fact that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, yet persist in continuing with the rhetoric and propaganda that it has, then one needs to ask why are Israel and the US going to such lengths to convince the world that Iran does have a nuclear weapons program. One also needs to ask; do Israel and the US really believe that Iran is willing to destroy itself in order to destroy Israel? Furthermore, one should also need to ask; why would Iran be prepared to go to such lengths.

It has been claimed that Iranian leaders have alluded to self-annihilation or, at least, care little about self-preservation.[2] This assumption is based almost entirely on the words of Ayatollah Khomeini who told his audience in a speech in Qom in 1980 shortly after the American hostage taking incident: “We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.”[3] While it is true that historically Iran has been prepared to make significant sacrifices in times of war, it has only done so in pursuit of victory rather than in the face of certain defeat. During its long war with Iraq through the 1980s, Iran sacrificed thousands of her young who died clearing minefields in preparation for advances on their enemy.[4] However, sacrificing an entire nation, one of the world’s oldest civilisations, in order to bring justice to Palestinians and Arabs in and around Israel, one of the world’s youngest nations, would not possibly be in Iran’s interests.

So, given that Iran is unlikely to attack Israel even if Iran did have a nuclear weapon, and considering, furthermore, that Israel actually does have many nuclear weapons, why are Israel and their neoconservative supporters in the US and elsewhere so intent and persistent in this rhetoric of Iran being an ‘existential threat’ to Israel?

The answer lies in Zionism’s long term objectives of creating a Greater Israel. The main forces that stand between the Zionists and their objectives are Hezbollah in Lebanon who have defended their country against attack from the Israelis on several different occasions, and Hamas who have struggled to defend and regain the Palestinian lands that have been taken from them by the Israelis. Both of these Arab and Palestinian entities are supported by Iran via Syria. Without Iran’s support, both Hezbollah and Hamas would not be able to sustain their resistance to Israel’s aggression and ultimate aims.

However, Israel is not able to simply attack Iran; world opinion simply would not support such a blatant act of aggression. In the past, whenever Israel has decided to launch an attack against its enemies, Israel has always managed to find a casus belli that Western governments have been able to accept. The Israelis have always been able to manipulate events in such a way as to allow the world to believe that Israel is the victim rather than the aggressor. With the careful use of propaganda distorting the true nature of events coupled with outright lies and the occasional false flag or ‘psychological’ operation, Israel has been able to control the Western mainstream medias presentation of news via its influence on the owners of the mainstream media so that it favours Israel.

The only way that Israel can effectively and permanently cut Iran’s influence on Hezbollah and Hamas is for Israel to bring about regime change in Iran. In order to bring about regime change one of two things need to happen; either the country needs to be invaded and its government toppled, as happened in Iraq, or the government toppled by internal forces. Since it would be logistically impossible for Iran to be invaded as Iraq was, the only alternative is to have the government toppled by other means.

Iran is a country almost four times the area of Iraq and has 2.3 times as many people as Iraq. The US and their Western allies are hard pushed to contain Iraq properly even today and could therefore not possibly invade and then contain Iran. The US and their Western allies are also very much committed in Afghanistan as well. Recent elections in Iran showed that, despite the upheavals of the disputed elections, the present regime remains safely in power. The upheavals also demonstrated that, while there is internal disagreement and squabbling over domestic and economic issues, the people of Iran are still overwhelmingly loyal to the theocratic state and, more importantly, fully supportive of Iran’s nuclear power generation program.

The US and Israel have only one option left and that is to attack Iran’s military and government institutions with such force that the government capitulates and bows to the demands of the US via the UN – demands that would include ‘regime change’. In order to make such an attack the Israelis and the US will require a casus belli that would be supported by public opinion. Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program, it is hoped, will be that casus belli.

An alternative casus belli could be that evidence, manufactured or otherwise, shows that Iran is substantially supporting Hamas and/or Hezbollah to a level that is a threat to Israel. Since it is now virtually impossible for the US to unilaterally launch an attack against Iran, particularly after the IAEA and their own NIEs have not been able to show that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, it is now left to Israel to launch a unilateral attack that must not be seen to involve the US which the US can then join on the basis that a fait accompli has been established and the US has no alternative to but to come the aid of its ally, Israel.

Since such a scenario could not be realised without a trigger casus belli such as a war with either Hamas and/or Hezbollah in which it can be shown that Iran is involved, Israel will first need to find some reason to launch an attack against one or the other or both. Israel’s well proven ability to covertly provoke its enemies suggests that this scenario has been attempted before when in 2006 Israel launched attacks against both Hamas and Hezbollah on the pretext that these groups had first captured Israeli soldiers which became Israel’s casus belli, when in fact, as has been shown, it was Israel that provoked the captures in the first place that ultimately led to these one-sided wars, and then again in 2008/2009 when Israel wrongly accused Hamas of breaking a ceasefire which was used as an excuse to massively and indiscriminately bomb and kill Gazans in an effort to enrage Hezbollah and Iran into reaction and thus provide a casus belli for Israel to launch an attack against Iran. Such a massive escalation would, in the turmoil that followed, provide an opportunity for Israel to invade and permanently occupy both south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and also the West Bank while the US completed the military strike against Iran to effect regime change.

Regime change in Iran is also very much in America’s interest as well. Iran is strategically well placed to cause havoc to the Middle East oil trade. It is also able to support insurgent militias in both Iraq to Iran’s west and Afghanistan to Iran’s east.

So far in Israel’s various attempts to provoke Iran into a confrontation, Iran has resisted, but Israel and the US still seem determined as they continue to accuse Iran of having a ‘nuclear weapons program’. As Paul Craig Roberts observes, propaganda persistence seems to be an established method these days of preparing public opinion for an inevitable event.[5]

As part of the ongoing rhetoric to provoke conflict, it has been reported that Israel will hold military exercises that simulate a response to a simultaneous missile attack from Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran.[6] Despite the fact that the reported exercises are to be joint exercises with the US, there are currently some attempts to put some distance between Israel’s aggressive rhetoric and the expectation that the US will simply allow Israel to attack Iran. Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, has even suggested the US forces should forcibly prevent the Israeli Air Force from reaching Iran to bomb Iran’s facilities.[7] The simple reality is that Israel could not possibly launch any kind of an attack against Iran without the connivance of the US. It would be impossible for Israel to launch any truly unilateral attack against Iran. Israel needs US military jet fuel and it needs US ordnance to conduct such an operation. The US does not need to forcibly prevent Israel from attacking Iran; it simply needs to refuse to supply it.

The rhetoric is far removed from the geo-political reality. When Israel launches its attack against Iran, despite all the rhetoric and propaganda, the US will be backing it all the way. It will not be shooting down Israeli aircraft overflying Iraq because they will more than likely be overflying Saudi Arabia, and, once the initial attack has been launched, the US will launch massive follow-up attacks against Iranian defence installations and its government’s institutions claiming it needed to prevent Iranian retaliatory action against Israel.

It’s not a matter of ‘if’; it’s just a matter of ‘when’ and what will be Israel’s casus belli for the initial attack?


ENDNOTES

[1] Arash Norouzi, ‘’Wiped off the Map’ – The Rumor of the Century’, antiwar.com, 26 May 2007. Available online: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?articleid=11025
[2] Stephen J. Sniegoski, explaining Michael Ledeen’s view in; The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel. (Norfolk, Virginia: Enigma Editions, 2008.) p. 311.
[3] Cited in: Amir Taheri, Nest of Spies: America’s Journey to Disaster in Iran. (London: Hutchinson, 1988.) p. 269.
[4] Matthias Küntzel, ‘A Child of the Revolution Takes Over: Ahmadinejad’s Demons’, The New Republic, 24 April 2006. p. 16.
[5] Paul Craig Roberts, ‘Threatening Iran’, Countercurrents.org, 20 July 2009. Available online: http://www.countercurrents.org/roberts200709.htm
[6] ‘IDF, US military to simulate Iran missile strike on Israel’, Ha’aretz, 20 September 2009. Available online: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1115703.html
[7] ‘Brzezinski: US should forcibly prevent IAF strike on Iran’, Ha’aretz, 21 September 2009. Available online: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1115891.html

IRVING KRISTOL: A MAN WHOSE IDEOLOGY HAS RESULTED IN THE DEATHS AND SUFFERING OF MILLIONS HAS DIED.

He’ll not be missed.

IRAN: BACK ON THE FRONT BURNER?

Recent weeks have seen a number of developments that have put Iran back on the front burner. In the latest development, Israeli Air Force commander, Maj-Gen Ido Nehushtan, has told the ‘Jerusalem Post’ that the Russian S-300 surface to air missile defence system must be stopped from reaching countries which Israel may wish to attack. Naturally, he has Iran in mind.

Israel knows that, once this very advanced missile system is in place, it would make it almost impossible for Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. It is clear from Nehushtan’s remarks that Israel has Iran clearly in its sights. In a report written by the preposterously named ‘Bipartisan Policy Center’ titled ‘Meeting the Challenge – Time is Running Out’, the authors asserted that, if Israel was confronted with a “game changing technology – such as Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft system – Israel, more likely than not, will act on its own”.

On the surface, the way relations between the US and Israel seem to be strained at the moment over the issue of settlements in the West Bank, it may appear to some observers that Israel, indeed, may have to act alone. However, this would be burying ones head in the sand in order to avoid reality. The fact is, despite relations appearing to be strained, the US Congress, firmly in the pay and clutches of the Israel Lobby, will ultimately support the Israelis. However, the Israelis will not at all be able to act without the active connivance of the US. The job that Israel feels it needs to do can not be done without US ordnance and, even if the Israelis were to gain clearance to pass through Saudi Arabian airspace in order to avoid overflying Iraq and the diplomatic problems involved, the massive amounts of military jet fuel required to mount such an operation (an out and back trip of several thousand miles necessitating in-flight refuelling) would also have to be supplied by the US.

It seems the Israelis are very perturbed by the threat of Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft system being in place in Iran and have, if recent unconfirmed stories about Netanyahu’s secret trip to Russia and the Israeli’s involvement in the high-jacking of a ship at sea are true, gone to great lengths in order to prevent it happening.

Now, it may be that the stories about a visit to Russia to discuss the S-300 sale to Iran and the stories about the ship sailing to Iran laden with missiles are just a part of a deception to provide a casus belli to attack Iran arguing that, by receiving the S-300 anti-aircraft defence system, Iran has crossed a ‘red line’ that Israel cannot let go unanswered.

Whatever happens, one can rest assured that, if push comes to shove, Congress and the administration WILL back Israel.

AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE: SKINHEADS AND ZIONISTS JOIN FORCES.

Recent demonstrations in the UK have revealed a phenomenon that one would have never have thought possible; an alliance of anti-Islam ideologies between Zionist extremists and ultra right-wing neo-nazis and fascists who apparently hate Islam more than they used to hate each other.

While not exactly marching arm-in-arm in the streets just yet, ultra right-wing skinheads belonging to the fascist English Defence League have been photographed prominently displaying an Israeli flag at their demonstrations. Clearly, the two groups of extremists that would normally hate each other have found a common enemy. It also seems that the strengths of their hatred for Islam have been enough to form some kind of provisional alliance. It may be that the old animosities of the last century between racist Nazis and Jews have been dulled by time and events. It may be that today’s youthful right-wing extremists, instead of following the Nazi creed of racial superiority and anti-Semitism, are following more in the footsteps of the old Italian style of Fascism whose ranks in the early days was full of Italian Jews and financed heavily by Italian Jewish bankers who saw the Fascists of Italy as a bulwark against communism. It may be that today’s youthful right-wing extremists now view Jews not as Hitler and the Nazis viewed them but rather as a people defending their nation and the world against what they view as the Western worlds enemy, Islam.

It is unlikely that die-hard Nazi-style white-supremacists will ever become allied to the Zionist cause – indeed, many actually see themselves more in sympathy with Islam who are battling Zionism for totally different reasons than the Nazi style right-wing.

This new phenomenon has only recently emerged. It is far too early to predict how it will evolve but it is possible that a split will occur among the ultra right-wing of Europe where some will remain staunch anti-Semitic Jew-hating neo-Nazis while others will see themselves more along the lines of early Italian Fascism where even hard right Zionist Jews will be among their ranks.

On the other hand, it may all simply be a flash in the pan and Europe’s skinheads will settle down again to ultra violence at soccer matches once the soccer season gets properly underway again.