- We've all been worried about a looming war with Iran
and Syria for quite some time now. Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, young
men and women protest every week on the Plaza downtown under the banners,
"Stop the Next War Now" and "No War Against Iran."
Try as I may, I just can't figure out how to comment on the tragic, but
definitively diabolical Israeli invasion of Lebanon, supported as it is
by rush shipments of "precision guided munitions" and "experimental
weaponry" from the Bush Administration. I should say however, that
it is clearly designed as part of the desired larger regional war involving
Syria and Iran. Perhaps it's best to let Israel Shahak, former professor
at Hebrew University in Jerusalem comment for me:
-
- "The wish for peace, so often assumed as the Israeli
aim, is not in my view a principle of Israeli policy, while the wish to
extend Israeli domination and influence isâ· Israel is preparing
for a war, nuclear if need be, for the sake of averting domestic change
not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states...
Israel clearly prepares itself to seek overtly a hegemony over the entire
Middle East..., without hesitating to use for the purpose all means available,
including nuclear ones."
-
- Fortunately and to their credit, some Israeli citizens
are protesting, calling on soldiers to refuse to serve. One of my colleagues
who has friends in Israel always reminds me that there are many peace activists
in Israel. Here's the latest from Tel Aviv:
-
- "Thousands march in Tel Aviv to protest Lebanon
fighting, call on soldiers to refuse taking part in war. Clashes with passersby
erupt during event, activists called 'traitors'.
-
- Thousands of left-wing activists, including many Arab
citizens, marched Saturday evening from the Rabin Square to the Cinematheque
plaza in Tel Aviv in protest of the fighting in Lebanon. The protestors
held up signs with slogans against the war and called for an immediate
ceasefire. According to the demonstrators, a prisoner exchange deal with
Hizbullah must be struck, as well as a similar deal with Hamas. Marchers
also urged IDF soldiers not to take part in the Lebanon operation, chanting:
"Listen up, soldier â·" it's your duty to refuse."
Other slogans recited by the participants were: "The occupation is
a disaster, leave Lebanon now," "Olmert and Bush have struck
a deal â·" to carry on with the occupation," and
"Children in Beirut and Haifa want to go on living."
-
- As Mr. Ahmed notes below, Daniel Ellsberg, the famous
attorney who revealed the existence of the Pentagon Papers figures prominently
in the news these days. Appearing on the Genesis Communications Network,
Mr. Ellsberg had this to say:
-
- "[In the event of]... another 9/11 or a major war
in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that
there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag
fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention
camps for middle-easterners and their quote 'sympathizers', critics of
the President's policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."
-
- Wayne Madsen, formerly of the National Security Agency,
describes the planning for the invasion of Lebanon as related to him by
insider sources:
-
- Lebanon and Gaza invasions planned last month in Colorado
meetings between Netanyahu, Sharansky, and Cheney
-
- "The Israeli invasion of Lebanon was planned between
top Israeli officials and members of the Bush administration. On June 17
and 18, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Likud Knesset
member Natan Sharansky met with Vice President Dick Cheney at the American
Enterprise Institute conference in Beaver Creek, Colorado. There, the impending
Israeli invasions of both Gaza and Lebanon were discussed. After receiving
Cheney's full backing for the invasion of Gaza and Lebanon, Netanyahu flew
back to Israel and participated in a special "Ex-Prime Ministers"
meeting, in which he conveyed the Bush administration's support for the
carrying out of the "Clean Break" policy -- the trashing of all
past Middle East peace accords, including Oslo. Present at the meeting,
in addition to Netanyahu, were current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former
Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir is very old and suffers from dementia and Ariel Sharon remains in
a coma after a series of strokes.
-
- After the AEI meeting, Sharansky, who has the ear of
Bush, met with the Heritage Foundation in Washington and then attended
a June 29 seminar at Philadelphia's Main Line Haverford School sponsored
by the Middle East Forum led by Daniel Pipes. Sharansky appeared with Pennsylvania
Senator Rick Santorum who this past Thursday was beating the war drums
against Syria, Iran, and "Islamo-fascism" in a fiery speech at
the National Press Club attended by a cheering section composed of members
of the neocon Israel Project, on whose board Santorum serves along with
Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Virginia GOP Rep. Tom Davis.
-
- Our Washington sources claim that the U.S.-supported
invasions of Gaza and Lebanon and the impending attacks on Syria and Iran
represent the suspected "event" predicted to take place prior
to the November election in the United States and is an attempt to rally
the American public around the Bush-Cheney regime during a time of wider
war."
-
- What will it take to stop war with Iran? I can't say
for sure, but it starts with believing it is possible. Perhaps it's time
for everyone to activate their social networks in the military, politics
and media. Think back over your life to everyone you know who was ever
in the military or at all influential, and see if you can't convince them
to oppose war with Iran, support withdrawal from Iraq and take another
look at the events of 9/11. Recent polls indicate that some 70% of the
military want out of Iraq. As Army Medic Patrick Resta said so beautifully
in the Santa Fe Reporter, "When I was in Iraq, I did not want somebody
simply sending me stale brownies. I wanted them to demand answers and hold
the leadership of this nation accountable."
-
- Nafeez Ahmed broke the story this week that government
insiders believe the
- US and UK will go to war with Iran. He is the esteemed
author of The War on Freedom, perhaps the first book to expose the official
911 story as manipulated propaganda designed to legitimate foreign military
adventures. He writes from England and has recently testified before Congress
regarding his research. This is what he has learned regarding Iran, as
published on his excellent blog where you can read this story with links
intact. Of course, I hope we can prove his source to be wrong.
-
- UK Govt Sources Confirm War With Iran Is On
- by Nafeez Ahmed
-
- In the last few days, I learned from a credible and informed
source that a former senior Labour government Minister, who continues to
be well-connected to British military and security officials, confirms
that Britain and the United States "... will go to war with Iran before
the end of the year."
-
- As we now know from similar reporting prior to the invasion
of Iraq, it's quite possible that the war planning may indeed change repeatedly,
and the war may again be postponed. In any case, it's worth noting that
the information from a former Labour Minister corroborates expert analyses
suggesting that Israel, with US and British support, is deliberately escalating
the cycle of retaliation to legitimize the imminent targeting of Iran before
year's end. Let us remind ourselves, for instance, of US Vice President
Cheney's assertions recorded on MSNBC over a year ago. He described Iran
as being "right at the top of the list" of "rogue states".
He continued: "One of the concerns people have is that Israel might
do it without being asked... Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy
that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well
decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning
up the diplomatic mess afterwards."
-
- But the emphasis on Israel's pre-eminent role in a prospective
assault on Iran is not accurate. [Not so sure about that - Ed.] Israel
would rather play the role of a regional proxy force in a US-led campaign.
"Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration
has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East..."
reports Seymour Hersh. He quotes a former high-level US intelligence official
as follows:
-
- "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just
one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war
zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war
and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrahâ·we've
got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."
-
- Are these just the fanatical pipedreams of the neoconservative
faction currently occupying (literally) the White House?
-
- Unfortunately, no. The Iraq War was one such fanatical
pipedream in the late 1990s, one that Bush administration officials were
eagerly ruminating over when they were actively and directly involved in
the Project for a New American Century. But that particular pipedream is
now a terrible, gruelling reality for the Iraqi people. Despite the glaring
failures of US efforts in that country, there appears to be a serious inability
to recognize the futility of attempting the same in Iran.
-
- The Monterey Institute for International Studies already
showed nearly two years ago in a detailed analysis that the likely consequences
of a strike on Iran by the US, Israel, or both, would be a regional conflagaration
that could quickly turn nuclear, and spiral out of control. US and Israeli
planners are no doubt aware of what could happen. Such a catastrophe would
have irreversible ramifications for the global political economy. Energy
security would be in tatters, precipitating the activation of long-standing
contingency plans to invade and occupy all the major resource-rich areas
of the Middle East and elsewhere (see my book published by Clairview, Behind
the War on Terror for references and discussion). Such action could itself
trigger responses from other major powers with fundamental interests in
maintaining their own access to regional energy supplies, such as Russia
and particularly China, which has huge interests in Iran. Simultaneously,
the dollar-economy would be seriously undermined, most likely facing imminent
collapse in the context of such crises.
-
- Which raises pertinent questions about why Britain, the
US and Israel are contemplating such a scenario as a viable way of securing
their interests.
-
- A glimpse of an answer lies in the fact that the post-9/11
military geostrategy of the "War on Terror" does not spring from
a position of power, but rather from entirely the opposite. The global
system has been crumbling under the weight of its own unsustainability
for many years now, and we are fast approaching the convergence of multiple
crises that are already interacting fatally as I write. The peak of world
oil production, of which the Bush administration is well aware, either
has already just happened, or is very close to happening. It is a pivotal
event that signals the end of the Oil Age, for all intents and purposes,
with escalating demand placing increasing pressure on dwindling supplies.
Half the world's oil reserves are, more or less, depleted, which means
that it will be technologically, geophysically, increasingly difficult
to extract conventional oil. I had a chat last week with some scientists
from the Omega Institute in Brighton, directed by my colleague and friend
Graham Ennis (scroll down about 2/3's to see Graham's letter published
in The Independent), who told me eloquently and powerfully what I already
knew, that while a number of climate "tipping-points" may or
may not have yet been passed, we have about 10-15 years before the "tipping-point"
is breached certainly and irreversibly. Breaching that point means plunging
head-first into full-scale "climate catastrophe". Amidst this
looming Armageddon of Nature, the dollar-denominated economy itself has
been teetering on the edge of spiralling collapse for the last seven years
or more. This is not idle speculation. A financial analyst as senior as
Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan's immediate predecessor as chairman of the
Federal Reserve, recently confessed "that he thought there was a 75%
chance of a currency crisis in the United States within five years."
-
- There appears to have been a cold calculation made at
senior levels within the Anglo-American policymaking establishment: that
the system is dying, but the last remaining viable means of sustaining
it remains a fundamentally military solution designed to reconfigure and
rehabilitate the system to continue to meet the requirements of the interlocking
circuits of military-corporate power and profit.
-
- The highly respected US whistleblower, former RAND strategic
analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who was Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary
of Defense during the Vietnam conflict and became famous after leaking
the Pentagon Papers, has already warned of his fears that in the event
of:
-
- "... another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East
involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the
day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that
will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners
and their quote 'sympathizers', critics of the President's policy and essentially
the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."
-
- So is that what all the "emergency preparedness"
legislation, here in the UK as well as in the USA and in Europea, is all
about? The US plans are bad enough, as Ellsberg notes, but the plans UK
scene is hardly better, prompting The Guardian to describe the Civil Contingencies
Bill (passed as an Act in 2004) as "the greatest threat to civil liberty
that any parliament is ever likely to consider."
-
- As global crises converge over the next few years, we
the people are faced with an unprecedented opportunity to use the growing
awareness of the inherent inhumanity and comprehensive destructiveness
of the global imperial system to establish new, viable, sustainable and
humane ways of living. Unfortunately, we have no other option. There is
still light, however dim it may seem in this overwhelming smog of escalating
calamity...
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