endempire

2008-02-28T00:42:00.000-08:00

06th January 2008

The Mask of Anarchy

"Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'"

"The Mask of Anarchy"-P.B.Shelley

Just as Ariel Sharon's visit to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque in 1999 prefigured US foreign policy under Bush, I have a sense that a new spirit already suffuses through US policy even though Bush still has a year to go in office.The high noon of the neo-cons has been and gone and the ultimate paroxysm of their madness, the bombing of Iran, no longer seems likely. But from Pakistan to Bolivia, from Kosovo to Kenya this new spirit is a work: the spirit of anarchy.

In Bolivia, a democratically elected government is under threat from traditional elites
desperately hanging onto privilege with the support of the USA. Their goal is to break the power of central government by creating autonomous provinces under their own control. In Pakistan US/UK nominal support for Musharraf is in question as they seek to fragment that country, again playing on centrifugal forces.

In Kenya the US sent their congratulations to Kibaki only withdrawing it when fraud became too glaringly evident. The essentials of the situation are that the victory of America's man through a fraudulent electoral process led to massive opposition which was suppressed and channeled into tribal rivalries through provocations which involved state agencies in at least some cases.In Kosovo the US/UK are once again orchestrating mayhem through the KLA,a tactic made possible by the fading of the Clash of Civilizations paradigm(remember how the Al-Queda tinged KLA's rampage through Macedonia had to be discreetly halted after the 9/11 attacks).

Everywhere the talk is of terrorist groups, tribalism, ethnicity, secession and always the hand of Anglo-American subversion can reasonably suspected although not always proven.The goal here is not global conquest but global chaos; it is a scorched earth policy- if the empire cannot prevail then at least no one else will, and privilege will hold sway over democracy in a world of fragmented nation states and local oligarchies.

In opposition to the destructive machinations emanating from London and Washington are new democratic movements which have a new sense of the centrality of the nation state as their context and their domain. We have seen this dramatically in Lebanon and I believe also in Iraq despite the endless hype about sectarian division. We have also seen Russia and China emerging as stabilising forces in world politics and they are showing themselves skilled opponents of Western wrecking, a factor that makes me feel that it is now too late for the Soros, Democratic Party strategy, if that is indeed what we're seeing, which might have been run with some success in 2004. The world has changed since then and if 2008 is to be the year of democracy it will be the continued advance of the world's long down-trodden peoples and nations, not democracy as the mask of anarchy

2008-02-28T00:38:00.000-08:00

02nd January 2008

Virtually there!

The difficulty of grasping the present state of affairs, particularly in the Anglosphere is due to the coexistence of two different worlds: a real one and a virtual one. Let's look at the real one first.

Faced with multiple challenges to its hegemony, Anglo-America, after failing to extend the Jugoslav scenario to Russia, embarked on a reckless invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Much ink has flown in the attempt to explain this bizarre and doomed venture. Its reason was simple: no one was able to come up with any other solution to fading US power and so the neo-con project was the only option on the table. Now, as widely predicted, defeat is guaranteed and imminent. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, deals are being done with resistance forces to gain a little time and to delay the inevitable humiliating retreat.Governments which were meant to be puppets are dissociating themselves from the occupiers and seeking their own salvation, witness the expulsion of Western diplomats from Afghanistan and the Kirkuk to Syria pipeline.

Since the Iraq War was the last gasp defence of Anglo-American hegemony, it follows from the above that its hegemony is over.In the last years of empire, that hegemony was characterised by a high dollar and pound drawing investment into the London and New York bond markets. These currencies are now going into free-fall and holders of these courrencies in quantity can do no better than buy up chunks of the US economy at knock down prices. The irony of the Communist Party of China bailing out Wall Street seems to have been lost, but the appreciation of irony rests on the perception of a clash between appearance and reality, and that is precisely what is lacking. Of course, these purchases are not just business deals: they have a geo-political component- they are a manifestation of the shift of political power from West to East.

It occurred to me a while back,that, if I was a policy maker in Beijing, I would intervene in such a way as to prop up the dollar while allowing the pound to fall, to gravitate to the level at which it would enter the Euro. Whether this fiendish scheme has in fact been hatched, this is what seems to be happening. Britain has been playing an ambiguous role as both European amd Atlanticist power, and it is not unnatural for the markets, the unbuckable markets to seek clarification: Is Britain heading for the Euro or the abyss?

So much for reality. I won't dwell on the parallel virtual world which is familiar to us all from the media. The problem is that these two worlds being so dissonant, so completely out of phase, has rendered any decision making process problematic. The real world cries out for remedial action; the virtual world sits on its laurels. Were this to be the life of an individual a breakdown would be on the way, and this is true also of the body politic. What form will the breakdown take? It is hard to say since we are in uncharted waters, a historically unprecedented situation.

The action required is the easy part: our abandonment of hegemonic pretensions; the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan; an international peace conference to resolve all outstanding issues in the Middle East; recognition of the sovereignty and integrity of Serbia;an end to hostilities against Russia, Iran and Venezuela; an end to the absurd "war on terror" and the and the disbanding of our Al-Queda networks and other instruments of international subversion; an end to our wrecking role in Europe. Such a programme would reintegrate us into the community of nations and win us goodwill and support we need to get out of the mess were in. And what a Goddamn mess it is!

Or we could just go on in our virtual world of victories in the desert, winning hearts and minds, rebuilding, international coalitions, bringing peace and democracy, sound economic fundamentals, improving standards, staving off a recession etc. etc..

2008-02-28T00:37:00.001-08:00

28th September 2007

An existential crisis

The present financial crisis has only just started and promises to be profound and far reaching. It’s resolution can be one that favours the few who habitually monopolise political and economic power or one that favours the many who habitually strive to create some kind of life for themselves. In short, it’s resolution can be oligarchical or democratic.

In the normal course of events, if one can use that expression to describe a situation so extraordinary, I believe the latter to be the expected outcome. There is a universal trend towards democracy and its necessary companion, sovereignty; peoples and nations are reasserting themselves in the face of the arrogance of imperial domination. South America is only the most spectacular manifestation of this trend, the human face of globalisation which is turning back the tide of misery and exploitation and the humiliation of nations and peoples. The hinterlands in which the exploiters can move to take easy pickings are being blocked off; in the heartlands the dark recesses from which elite power works its malign influence are being exposed to the light of day.

I say in the normal course of events, but things will not be left to take their normal course: the elite will use all the levers of power and influence to twist the course of events, frustrating and dissipating popular aspirations and sowing discord and division. The solution to this crisis, which is also an opportunity to create a more just and egalitarian society, in the first instance through the transformation of a financial system so blatantly skewered towards minority privilege, should be simple. But those who have held power so long will not willingly let it slip from their hands; they will unleash the riders of the apocalypse.

The first of these is war. At a conference of false-flag terrorists in London, organised by the Margaret Thatcher Atlantic Bridge, the remains of the Atlantic Alliance called for war on Iran, a war which would in all probability become a global war between East and West.

The second is hunger. Fidel Castro was prescient to warn of the effects of bio fuel substitution on food supplies and is also the only world leader to note the disappearance of pollinators so essential to our food supply. Scarcity, artificially created, is the friend of the elite; a guarantee of their safety while those on the bestial floor, to use Yeat’s expression, fight for what’s left.

The third of these is the economic crisis itself, above all inflation, wiping out income and savings, bringing trauma to millions.

The fourth is political chaos and dissolution, the breakdown of society and law and order. Traditionally a fear of the privileged, in a world turned on its head, it is in our interest that the rule of law should prevail against an oligarchy which is a law unto itself.

This is a grim picture but I stress that the natural course of events favours humanity to finally reach peace and security after its long and bloody trek through history; but we must be more than ever alert to skulduggery, to conspiracy which is the quintessential modus operandi of oligarchy. Never have light and darkness been so commingled in our constellation and our world so poised to turn to one or the other.

2008-02-28T00:35:00.000-08:00

21st September 2007

Northern Rock, the Pound and the Euro

On Monday night the government made the decision to guarantee deposits at northern Rock. This was hailed by some as an act which sacrificed shareholders and management whilst protecting depositors. What the government had really done was was to underwrite the beleaguered bank’s liabilities whilst leaving it to dispose of its assets as it pleases. Actually this is the kind of arrangement financiers have always favoured for quite obvious reasons. Meanwhile, the depositors , if they do take Darling’s word, will end up, at best with a reimbursement deeply eroded by inflation. True to form New Labour stands behind the British oligarchy. To defend his actions Darling, recalling his student days, may have come up with a slogan like this: defend the gains of the thatcherite revolution!

To guarantee Rock’s deposits was not wrong, but it was only part of the required policy: they also had to take control Rock’s assets. These of course would not themselves be very solid given the problems its clients, and British mortgage holders, in general, are having. But the government would be in a position to restructure these loans allowing mortgage holders in difficulty to remain in their homes on reasonable terms. As it is, the financial vultures are set to take over Rock, milking it for what it’s worth regardless of social consequences. The government has missed an opportunity to intervene decisively to sort out the mess at the expense of the financiers and in the interest of the British people (although, it must be said, it was an opportunity that they were never likely to take).

The consequences of the government stand have been as immediate as they have been unremarked (careless talk costs profits): the pound has plummeted on the foreign exchange markets. The prestige and high value of the pound sterling underwrites the prosperity of Britain’s post-industrial, consumer economy. Under the wing of the dollar, it is a global reserve currency: its demise is, for better or worse, the end of Britain as we know it.

It’s true that in happier times reckless financial strategies would not have ended in tears in this way. Indeed, the anglosphere has spent the last thirty years partying as we offloaded our crisis onto the rest of the world. But these are no longer happy times for ailing hegemons. The Anglo-American empire is a financial empire underpinned in the last instance by military force. That force has been put to the test in iraq and Afghanistan and found to be wanting. There is nothing left to restore the stability of the pound and the dollar. The situation is precisely analogous to that of Italy at the end of the Roman Empire where, having hollowed out its own productive capacity, it had woven itself into the heart of a division of labour around the Mediterranean on which it was dependent, but no longer controlled.

For thirty years we in Britain have subverted every notion of what it means to maintain a society, a state, a coherent body politic. We are left, not with a legal or constitutional framework, not with a public sector free from private profiteering, not with a responsible citizen body, not with a commonwealth of any form, but with nothing but money, paper money, soon to reveal itself as worthless.

In the summer of 2005 the British media were celebrating the demise of the Euro. Now things look rather different: despite massive intervention by the ECB the Euro is holding firm, although they still have the real test in the form of Spain’s total bankruptcy. So with an eye to stabilising our own rocky ship we can consider ourselves lucky to have the option of moving into the euro zone if our continental friends are satisfied that the right conditions are being met ( we will probably have to undertake considerable sanitisation of our finances before qualifying for such a move). We have that option, but not if our oligarchs of the Murdoch school have anything to do with it; these same oligarchs who now plan to mete out to us what they have been meting out to the rest of the world for a long time. For these recipients of corporate welfare the government in their pocket must not be devalued.

UKIP and others, failing to see that our sovereignty is being subverted internally, reject Europe in the belief that they are defending that sovereignty. For all that Europe has still a way to go before truly emerging into the post neo-liberal, post-imperial world, I believe it provides us with a lifeline, a context in which to claw our way back to civilization, an escape route from the horrors of a failed state run by a vicious, murderous cabal.

2008-02-28T00:31:00.000-08:00

14th September 2007

Citizens of the world...(from Argentina about the next 9-11)

Dr Oscar ABUDARA BINI

Citizens of the world, the lies about the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers (9/11/01) are falling apart: Dublin , Madrid , Buenos Aires , Rome , Paris , United States .

On September 11th, those of us who struggle for the truth will be honoring the victims in Buenos Aires , Dublin , Santiago de Chile, Caracas , Madrid , Paris , Rome , Brussels and several places of the United States . Six years ago, Bush swore that the terrorist had been Bin Laden, and the whole world except for few believed him. Today, few believe him.

Italian, Spanish, Argentine, French, German and many American organizations and investigators are working for the truth, for there are as many lies as casualties. University professor David Ray Griffin is calling for demonstrations all over the world: Because of the attack, Americans have accepted anything.

“The attacks left Americans numb enough to accept anything; in the US , this has meant severe restrictions to civil liberties. Abroad, we have had a war against terror that has been a war of aggression against Muslims. This has meant six years of torture, humiliation and death of hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq , people who were innocent civilians or soldiers fighting against an immoral and even illegal occupation.

The cover-up of the media is worldwide

We have seen an unprecedented cover-up of the media in the US and allied countries (also in Argentina). There had been cover-ups before. But in this case, the crime was larger, enormous, the consequences more serious, catastrophic, and the evidences, more obvious. (For example, just by looking at the falling down of the building 7 of the World Trade Center, anyone who knows anything about this issue must consider that it was pulled down by explosives (and not by planes).

The massive media are hiding the fact that we are not before the presence of Muslim terrorism, but terrorism generated by the government of the US.

The failure of the media in exposing the lies of the official version threatens the continuity of democracy, which simply cannot work without independent media devoted to reveal crimes of State.

Which is the truth about Bush’s war against terror? None

The war against terror is false. The “movement for the truth about 9/11” is motivated by the desire to discover the truth about what really happened and who is really behind these attacks. In these six years, the movement has made much progress.

Many can see that there was no external attack but an inside work.

More and more people are beginning to realize that the attacks of 9/11 were an inside job orchestrated by the government of the United States as a pretext to apply their previously established external politics.

The advances of those who struggle for the truth are huge.

There have been two very important advances. One has been the appearance of groups of professionals. Now, not only do we have “scholars for truth about 9/11” and “scholars for truth and justice about 9/11”, which has released a magazine with studies about 9/11; we also have “veterans for truth about 9/11”, “pilots for truth about 9/11”, architects and engineers for truth about 9/11”. On the other hand, despite the fact that there still is not an organization of former intelligence agents, many of them have spoken publicly.

Importance of activism

The other great advance has been the increase of activism regarding 9/11 in Europe . But we still have a long way to go. That is why it is important that all of you do not cease to work in order to put pressure on all the politicians in the world and demand a true investigation on 9/11. Congratulations on your success in organizing this historic demonstration. It might be remembered as one of the steps that helped discover the truth about 9/11, a truth that will mean a lot to overcome the madness that we are going through”.

This is the letter by David Ray Griffin, which we support. But Argentines still can say something.

Who are the investigators, personalities, artists, governments and statesmen that are joining the struggle for the truth?

Eminem, Immortal Technique and Mortal Def have written a rap which chorus says “Bush knocked down the towers”; the artists around the world could abandon their fears and emulate them.

In Hollywood , actors like Charlie Sheen, Danny Glober, Sharon Stone, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn are committed to the demolition of the official lies. Are our actors staying behind?

Prestigious investigators like French Thierry Meyssan, Italian Giulieto Chiesa, Americans Webster Griffin Tarpley, David Ray Griffin, Steven Jones, Mike Kupferberger, Eric Hudsmichdt, etcetera; lawyers like Stanley Hilton, are advancing with discoveries that indicate that Bush’s government is the author of the attacks. The group of Argentine investigators is getting international respect by connecting the international politics of Bush based on 9/11 with the utilization of attacks in Argentina (Embassy of Israel, AMIA) to accuse and invade Iran.

Statesmen like former German minister Andreas von Bulow say that 9/11 was a self-attack, and the prominent American politician B. Brzezinski recognizes that the US may need more self-attacks. The political class and most of the Argentine journalists pretend to ignore these facts.

From Argentina , we support the activities and wish for a huge success of the movements in Europe and the US.

The self-attacks of the US were the crowning of a process that started in Lockerbie (Scotland), continued in Buenos Aires (1992, 1994) and included similar attacks in Madrid and London. Day after day, more suspicions of cover-up from the Spanish and British governments arise. Investigators and movements for the truth are taking care of what happened in the US , but so far the only country that acknowledges that its institutions were used for the cover-up is Argentina . Our country confessed “I cover up”, but it still cannot say “I cover up by orders of this and that foreign power”.

Hundreds of deaths in Madrid , London and Buenos Aires ; thousands in the US ; millions in Lebanon , Iraq , Palestine and Afghanistan . The Patriot Act that was a major blow against freedom in the US already has its pair among us, the “Antiterrorist Act” and “Intelligence Act”. How can we not fight together with the democratic citizens and investigators of Iraq , Lebanon , Afghanistan , Spain , Britain and the US ?!

On the next September 11th we shall be walking side by side with the Europeans and Americans that are showing the world that the reserves of the American democracy have not been silenced despite the acts and politics of terrorism of Blair, Olmert and Bush and the massive campaigns of local and international censorship.

Dr Oscar Abudara Bini

2008-02-28T00:26:00.000-08:00

7th April 2007

The Case of the Bees

The humble bee finds itself at the centre of controversy as scientists seek to the respond to their disturbing disappearance which is now making itself felt as far afield as Taiwan.
We have had recantations, and denunciations within the scientific community; for the most part, they and the media, at least in the USA, throw in their lot with a theory that a fungus, Nosema ceranae, is responsible. This in preference to the politically incorrect notion that human agency, via microwave emissions from mobile phone masts and satellites, may be responsible. Unfortunately a government agency has made short shrift of the fungus theory:

“Government scientists who have been tracking the phenomenon they call Colony Collapse Disorder were skeptical, however, saying the parasite had been an early suspect in the bee die-off but that they had concluded it probably was not responsible.”

Clearly we need an investigation which is prepared to countenance all possibilities.

Why should we regard this issue as being of such importance?

Firstly, the disappearance of the bee is in itself a ecological disaster of major proportions; its direct consequence would affect about a third of the food chain, but because the interconnectedness of all aspects of nature its wider effects could be far worse.

Secondly, if the bee is being affected by microwave radiation, or blighted by something else which undermines its ability to orientate itself, it is probable, and there is some evidence, that other insects and birds are suffering similarly, pointing again to a wider ecological crisis.

Thirdly, if the microwaves( from mobile phone masts or satellites) are affecting bees then this begs the question what effect our they having on ourselves. We already have a substantial body of scientific work showing the deleterious effect of microwave communications on humans which has generally been kept away from public attention.

Finally, this an issue about truth, not in some higher ideological or religious sense but about simple factual truth and our ability to tell it. Are we re-enacting on a grand scale Ibsen’s great drama “ The Enemy of the People” in which the whole superstructure of official society, media , trade unions, vested interests etc. conspire to prevent the reality, that the waters of a local spa are poisoned, being revealed? If we have many Dr Stockmans( Ibsen’s hero who wishes to expose the truth) we also have an unprecedented apparatus of official society, of experts, scientific bodies, academia etc., much of which is working on behalf of private interests. This is a public interest question par excellence; the internet has already been singled out as a vehicle for politically incorrect conclusions regarding this case; it may be it is only hope in building momentum for a truly scientific, open-ended, and urgent, inquiry into this disturbing state of affairs.

2008-02-28T00:23:00.000-08:00

18th July 2007

The Moment to Counter-attack

Two recent events could point to the emergence of a genuine opposition to the ruling elite in the anglosphere: the break from the left by Cindy Sheehan and her decision to stand against Pelosi and Michael Moore’s belated recognition of the dark underside of 9/11 and the need for a proper investigation. Both cases revealed a high level of disillusionment with the Democratic Party and its failure to exploit its election success in November.

What would constitute a genuine opposition? One not run by the people it was meant to be opposing. That doesn’t seem too much to ask but the dismal failure of the so-called anti-war movement and its fawning submissiveness before the Democratic party, or a supposed oppositional wing within New Labour, showed quite clearly that the strategy of running both sides, developed over the course of centuries by the Anglo-Saxon elite, was in play.

But the process of control through co-option has its limits and we are seeing these now. What happens when such a strategy becomes ineffective? The elite need something more drastic, to enforce their rule in a more direct, coercive fashion. Now is the moment they need the “war on terror” like never before. Another “catalysing event”, to use the PNAC’s euphemism for an attack on their own population, would provide a chance to overthrow the constitution at home and to bounce a reluctant military into the madness of an attack, likely nuclear, against Iran.

How does the Downing Street’s absurd anti-Russian campaign fit in the picture? Maybe they see conflict with Iran as inevitably leading to a wider conflict, in fact, a world war - all flowing form the conundrum the war party faced from the moment they became bogged down in Iraq: escalate or withdraw. They have since become paralysed unable to choose a clear direction largely because they faced an increasingly disaffected military. Will Cheney and his crew finally cast off their shackles and bury their own crimes in the rubble of a global conflagration?

It will be difficult: many have wisened up to the false-flag tactic. Furthermore, with the left-right political game exposed as a sham we have a chance to form a genuine opposition to the criminals whose war against terror is now a war against humanity, a war they are conducting on multiple fronts; bankrupting and impoverishing the population, destroying our health and environment, undermining our rights as citizens and plunging us into the horror of war without end. We face a terrifying regression at the hands of an elite whose deepest wish is to break once and for all from the the constraints of the nation state(or, more fundamentally, any notion of society), its institutions, its productive capacity, its notion of a common good and its people.

But they are overstretched on all fronts, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan. The dramatic housing crash in the US must inevitably bring into question the way in which people have been lured into debt. In Britain we see the clear emergence of a movement, at the present on a local basis, of opposition to the proliferation of mobile phone masts on the basis of the clear perception that we are being lied about their safety. The farcical “terrorist attacks” in London and Glasgow of the last weeks cannot have assuaged the growing suspicion about who was behind the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. Finally, the Iraq war is more unpopular than ever and people can only look on in disbelief as it becomes clear that we are to “stay the course until the job is done”.
Now is the moment for a counter-attack on all fronts. We are engaged in a struggle to survive as human beings not human machines( as Aristotle defined slavery)and even to survive at all: can we finally throw off the ideological chains that have bound us and get to our enemies before they get to the button?

2008-02-28T00:11:00.000-08:00

09th April 2007

Chomsky calls for regime change in Iran

Here under the pretence of calling for a movement to stop a possible war against Iran, Chomsky, in all but name, calls for regime change in Iran and shows that he is gravitating towards the position of the likes of HOPOI and Iran Workers Bulletin,whose position is in turn barely distinguishable form that of the likes of Michael Ledeen. I post Chomsky’s article below with my own commentaries.

Preventing War with Iran(Alternet)

Naom Chomsky

Unsurprisingly, George W. Bush's announcement of a "surge" in Iraq came despite the firm opposition to any such move of Americans and the even stronger opposition of the (thoroughly irrelevant) Iraqis. It was accompanied by ominous official leaks and statements -- from Washington and Baghdad -- about how Iranian intervention in Iraq was aimed at disrupting our mission to gain victory, an aim which is (by definition) noble.
What then followed was a solemn debate about whether serial numbers on advanced roadside bombs (IEDs) were really traceable to Iran; and, if so, to that country's Revolutionary Guards or to some even higher authority.
This "debate" is a typical illustration of a primary principle of sophisticated propaganda. In crude and brutal societies, the Party Line is publicly proclaimed and must be obeyed -- or else. What you actually believe is your own business and of far less concern. In societies where the state has lost the capacity to control by force, the Party Line is simply presupposed; then, vigorous debate is encouraged within the limits imposed by unstated doctrinal orthodoxy. The cruder of the two systems leads, naturally enough, to disbelief; the sophisticated variant gives an impression of openness and freedom, and so far more effectively serves to instill the Party Line. It becomes beyond question, beyond thought itself, like the air we breathe.

[But how is this unstated doctrinal orthodoxy imposed? In the Anglo-Saxon world there have always been a behind- the –scenes oligarchical networks. These permeate all the organizations and institutions of society: academia, political parties of right and left(including the far left, by the look of it), media, think-tanks, quangos, NGOs etc..
One of the distinctive features of contemporary oligarchy is the crystalisation of their power in alternative state organizations such as Homeland Security, Northern Command, COBRA, John Reid’s new Home Office etc.]

The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world. We did not, for example, engage in a similar debate in the 1980s about whether the U.S. was interfering in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, and I doubt that Pravda, probably recognizing the absurdity of the situation, sank to outrage about that fact (which American officials and our media, in any case, made no effort to conceal). Perhaps the official Nazi press also featured solemn debates about whether the Allies were interfering in sovereign Vichy France, though if so, sane people would then have collapsed in ridicule.
In this case, however, even ridicule -- notably absent -- would not suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the "source of the problem." The world is aghast at the possibility. Even in neighboring Sunni states, no friends of Iran, majorities, when asked, favor a nuclear-armed Iran over any military action against that country. From what limited information we have, it appears that significant parts of the U.S. military and intelligence communities are opposed to such an attack, along with almost the entire world, even more so than when the Bush administration and Tony Blair's Britain invaded Iraq, defying enormous popular opposition worldwide.

[A gentle insinuation a la Robert Fisk that the alternative is between war and a nuclear-armed Iran.]

"The Iran effect"
The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a recent study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The "Iran effect" would probably be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III."

[Corelli Barnet is right but Chomsky contends that that WWIII means an escalation of terror, presumably “Islamic terror” as a response to a US attack. No, WWIII would not mean that, it would mean a war between states like the US, Russia and China. Chomsky tries to reinforce the idea that terrorism is an Islamic response to imperialism ignoring the possibility, backed by considerable evidence, that the US/UK is behind “Islamic terror” both in the US and in Iraq.]

What are the plans of the increasingly desperate clique that narrowly holds political power in the U.S.? We cannot know. Such state planning is, of course, kept secret in the interests of "security." Review of the declassified record reveals that there is considerable merit in that claim -- though only if we understand "security" to mean the security of the Bush administration against their domestic enemy, the population in whose name they act.

[ There has been a whole series of leaks about US intentions to attack Iran from prominent figures like Giraldi, Hersch and Brzezinski but since the left has kept things hush-hush Chomsky discreetly suggests “we cannot know” about this open secret.]

Even if the White House clique is not planning war, naval deployments, support for secessionist movements and acts of terror within Iran, and other provocations could easily lead to an accidental war. Congressional resolutions would not provide much of a barrier. They invariably permit "national security" exemptions, opening holes wide enough for the several aircraft-carrier battle groups soon to be in the Persian Gulf to pass through -- as long as an unscrupulous leadership issues proclamations of doom (as Condoleezza Rice did with those "mushroom clouds" over American cities back in 2002). And the concocting of the sorts of incidents that "justify" such attacks is a familiar practice. Even the worst monsters feel the need for such justification and adopt the device: Hitler's defense of innocent Germany from the "wild terror" of the Poles in 1939, after they had rejected his wise and generous proposals for peace, is but one example.

[“And the concocting of the sorts of incidents that "justify" such attacks is a familiar practice.” However, it would probably require the concocting of an “incident” on the scale of 9/11 to set this war going, a possibility that Chomsky and most of the left dismiss as a “conspiracy theory”]

The most effective barrier to a White House decision to launch a war is the kind of organized popular opposition that frightened the political-military leadership enough in 1968 that they were reluctant to send more troops to Vietnam -- fearing, we learned from the Pentagon Papers, that they might need them for civil-disorder control.

[ This little flurry of revolutionary élan costs Chomsky nothing, since there is no such movement, the existing “antiwar movement” having carefully avoided highlighting the dangers, or mobilizing against, an Iran war.]

Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however, useful to ask how we would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting U.S. government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian occupation (called "liberation," of course). Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites -- nuclear and otherwise -- in the United States, if the U.S. government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the government of the U.S. and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the U.S. that killed millions of people (just as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?

[If I was living in the anglosphere, I wouldn’t be focusing on condemnation of other people’s governments- all the regimes in the world are as nothing, in terms of criminality, compared to our own]

It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."

[He can’t resist it- the Fiskian insinuation, worthy of the master himself!]

Surely no sane person wants Iran (or any nation) to develop nuclear weapons. A reasonable resolution of the present crisis would permit Iran to develop nuclear energy, in accord with its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but not nuclear weapons. Is that outcome feasible? It would be, given one condition: that the U.S. and Iran were functioning democratic societies in which public opinion had a significant impact on public policy.

[Surely no sane anti-war activist would insinuate, without evidence, that Iran is intent on getting nuclear weapons, knowing that that could be the pretext for an attack.

“A reasonable resolution of the present crisis would permit Iran to develop nuclear energy, in accord with its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but not nuclear weapons”

This is precisely what Iran argues- did you not know, Oh great professor? Is it that, whereas we inevitably must remain ignorant of the machinations of our own government, we have secret knowledge that the Iranians are really intent on getting nuclear weapons. After all, isn’t that just what these mad mullahs would do in disobedience to the fatwa of the great Ayatollah himself.]

As it happens, this solution has overwhelming support among Iranians and Americans, who generally are in agreement on nuclear issues. The Iranian-American consensus includes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere (82% of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved because of elite opposition, then at least a "nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that would include both Islamic countries and Israel" (71% of Americans). Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer building better relations with Iran to threats of force. In brief, if public opinion were to have a significant influence on state policy in the U.S. and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be at hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global nuclear conundrum.

[“If public opinion were to have....”. Yes, but how is that opinion to manifest itself in a country where you can’t move without coming up against the left-gatekeepers.]

Promoting democracy -- at home
These facts suggest a possible way to prevent the current crisis from exploding, perhaps even into some version of World War III. That awesome threat might be averted by pursuing a familiar proposal: democracy promotion -- this time at home, where it is badly needed. Democracy promotion at home is certainly feasible and, although we cannot carry out such a project directly in Iran, we could act to improve the prospects of the courageous reformers and oppositionists who are seeking to achieve just that. Among such figures who are, or should be, well-known, would be Saeed Hajjarian, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Akbar Ganji, as well as those who, as usual, remain nameless, among them labor activists about whom we hear very little; those who publish the Iranian Workers Bulletin may be a case in point.

[Preventing war depends entirely on checking and overthrowing the War Party in US/UK. Their goal is the destruction of Iran not a democratic Iran. It’s not up to Iran to stop itself being attacked- it’s up to us to refrain from attacking it.
Democracy promotion at home is “feasible” but in what, concretely, would such a project consist. Never mind, let’s get on to supporting the Iranian opposition. Do you concern yourself with the question of how many Iranians want to weaken there country with internal revolution just at this moment when they face a mortal foreign threat? You could almost be a closet Leninist were it not that Lenin, at least, had the merit of distinguishing between imperialism and its victims.]

We can best improve the prospects for democracy promotion in Iran by sharply reversing state policy here so that it reflects popular opinion. That would entail ceasing to make the regular threats that are a gift to Iranian hardliners. These are bitterly condemned by Iranians truly concerned with democracy promotion (unlike those "supporters" who flaunt democracy slogans in the West and are lauded as grand "idealists" despite their clear record of visceral hatred for democracy).

[I see, so the democratic revolution here consists merely of changing state policy(albeit “sharply”), whereas, judging by the groups you espouse, in Iran it consists of regime change. Furthermore the main point of changing policy here is to facilitate regime change in Iran. The threats are a problem because they’re “ a gift to hardliners” not because they are wrong in themselves, an act of war, accompanying actions within Iran to undermine Iranian sovereignty. For my part I cannot stress sufficiently the extent that regime change begins at home.]

Democracy promotion in the United States could have far broader consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at once, or very soon, in accord with the will of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis and a significant majority of Americans. Federal budget priorities would be virtually reversed. Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded.

[“Democracy promotion in the United States” turns out to be a wish list of good things. Never mind the effective overriding of the constitution, the human rights abuses, the surveillance of the entire population, the moves to overthrow posse comitatus and the implied threat of martial law, the domination of neo-con networks etc.]

The U.S. would have adopted a national health-care system long ago, rejecting the privatized system that sports twice the per-capita costs found in similar societies and some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. It would have rejected what is widely regarded by those who pay attention as a "fiscal train wreck" in-the-making. The U.S. would have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and undertaken still stronger measures to protect the environment. It would allow the UN to take the lead in international crises, including in Iraq. After all, according to opinion polls, since shortly after the 2003 invasion, a large majority of Americans have wanted the UN to take charge of political transformation, economic reconstruction, and civil order in that land.

[It all looks so rosy. Far from being in terminal decline the US has merely strayed a little of late but will soon set all to right. It’s as if nothing was ever really at stake and empire doesn’t bring with it the dilemma of expansion or collapse. The collapse of US/UK power, though necessary and desirable, will undoubtedly be cataclysmic ]

If public opinion mattered, the U.S. would accept UN Charter restrictions on the use of force, contrary to a bipartisan consensus that this country, alone, has the right to resort to violence in response to potential threats, real or imagined, including threats to our access to markets and resources. The U.S. (along with others) would abandon the Security Council veto and accept majority opinion even when in opposition to it. The UN would be allowed to regulate arms sales; while the U.S. would cut back on such sales and urge other countries to do so, which would be a major contribution to reducing large-scale violence in the world. Terror would be dealt with through diplomatic and economic measures, not force, in accord with the judgment of most specialists on the topic but again in diametric opposition to present-day policy.

[“If public opinion mattered, the US...” This passage goes quite well to the theme “If I ruled the world”.But there is a dark note: “terror”. I wonder who could be behind that]

Furthermore, if public opinion influenced policy, the U.S. would have diplomatic relations with Cuba, benefiting the people of both countries (and, incidentally, U.S. agribusiness, energy corporations, and others), instead of standing virtually alone in the world in imposing an embargo (joined only by Israel, the Republic of Palau, and the Marshall Islands). Washington would join the broad international consensus on a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which (with Israel) it has blocked for 30 years -- with scattered and temporary exceptions -- and which it still blocks in word, and more importantly in deed, despite fraudulent claims of its commitment to diplomacy. The U.S. would also equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, cutting off aid to either party that rejected the international consensus.

[And we could work for regime change in Iran and then, why not?,in Russia. That is, if we are really serious about the Soros agenda]

Evidence on these matters is reviewed in my book Failed States as well as in The Foreign Policy Disconnect by Benjamin Page (with Marshall Bouton), which also provides extensive evidence that public opinion on foreign (and probably domestic) policy issues tends to be coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies of public opinion have to be regarded with caution, but they are certainly highly suggestive.
Democracy promotion at home, while no panacea, would be a useful step towards helping our own country become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international order (to adopt the term used for adversaries), instead of being an object of fear and dislike throughout much of the world. Apart from being a value in itself, functioning democracy at home holds real promise for dealing constructively with many current problems, international and domestic, including those that literally threaten the survival of our species.

[The problem with being a bully is that no one likes you. But I’m being unfair Noam- you’re right about the need for the US and the UK to become “responsible stakeholders” in the international order. I prefer to think of it as a community of nations relating to each other on the basis of equality and respect for sovereignty. Rather along the lines of the principles outlined at Bandung(note particularly principle no.4):

The result of the 1955 Asian-African Conference was known as the Ten Principles of Bandung, a political statement containing the basic principles in the efforts to promote peace and cooperation in the world. The following are the Ten Principles of Bandung:
1. Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
2. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations.
3. Recognition of the equality of all races and of the equality of all nations large and small.
4. Abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another country.
5. Respect for the right of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
6. Abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defense to serve the particular interests of any of the big powers, abstention by any country from exerting pressures on other countries.
7. Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country.
8. Settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties' own choice, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
9. Promotion of mutual interests and cooperation.
10. Respect for justice and international obligation. ]

2006-12-23T14:12:00.000-08:00

Christmas Thoughts in Tescos

by Colin Buchanan

Can I give you a hand to pack?
Just mulling over the plan of attack.
And what about a clubcard as well?
This time it really could be hell.
Christmas offers all around,
a peacekeeping force to the Gulf is bound
of this, our civilization, in defence
So we can consume in recompense.
Far be it from me to decry the notion
Or create any untoward commotion.
A chosen people we once were,
It takes more than Armaggedon to make us stir.

2006-11-10T06:06:00.000-08:00

Regime Change: The British Way

“Now does he feel his secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.”

Macbeth, William Shakespeare

The dismissal of Rumsfeld in Washington raises more insistently and urgently than ever the central question in British politics – when will Blair go?

But, surely, Blair has already promised to go by next summer. There are three basic problems with this.

1) Why should we take his word on this?

2) It’s not soon enough.

3) As long as he is in office he can use his position to conspire against the public safety starting new wars and using the “war on terror” to manipulate us.

Sir Christopher Meyer, interviewed on Wednesday after the US election hinted that it would be necessary for Blair to go by January at the latest. Citizen Meyer is not alone in this appreciation. But as Ted Heath once blurted to a political associate who had just picked up the phone – how do we get rid of him?

There has been a lot of talk about impeachment but this is a lengthy process and we need Blair out soon. It also suggests a process of scapegoating which won’t help us do what is necessary: Blair is guilty but who exactly is innocent? So many people are implicated in Iraq that its hard to see where to start let alone where it will all end. The fact is that Blair’s violent inclinations were made absolutely clear by the attack on Yugoslavia and a significant section of the British public were glad to see a show of strength on the world stage.( It is only since it became a show of weakness that attitudes have shifted). And who precisely has lifted a finger to stop him? Even last year we voted him back and spurned the opportunity to support exemplary anti-war candidates like Rose Gentle. If this is not collective guilt it is not far off it.

Blair is so weakened by events in the US that it should be possible to persuade him to stand down . Admittedly, recent statements by the Margaret Becket and Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller to the effect that “we will fight them on the beaches, we will never surrender” suggest otherwise, but hopefully this is just grandstanding. They must know the game is up and if it is fear of prosecution which drives them then I see no harm in allowing Blair and other ringleaders to slip away to Florida (if the Americans will have them) to join Jose-Maria Aznar in his befuddled fantasising about ruling the world. All that matters is that the levers of power should be taken away from these people. Only then can we begin to extricate ourselves from the mess we are in.

I propose the following simple and practical programme concerning Iraq. Stop doing what we are doing , make amends for what we have done, uncover all the truth about the whole affair and begin a reappraisal of ourselves and our place in the world.

To extricate ourselves from Iraq will probably mean entering into negotiations with the Iraqi resistance who will want, if they have any sense, certain guarantees before agreeing to a ceasefire and to allow the British army safe passage out of the country( that our army does require such a safe passage appears clear from the well known fact that they are at present mainly confined to base for their own safety or driving around in areas of remote desert in order to keep out of harm’s way). Thus we require a more realistic assessment of the Iraqi situation than we have so far been able to give. We are not there protecting the Iraqis from each other but fighting and losing against Iraqi forces involved in legitimate resistance to the illegal occupation of their own country. Jeremy Greenstock has called for a comprehensive peace conference for the whole Middle East and I’m sure that the need for this will soon make itself evident.

We must take responsibility for the destruction of Iraq and must compensate the Iraqi nation for it. Since we are bankrupt a thousand times over, realistically most of the construction will be undertaken by Russia, China and others. But our particular knowledge of the mess in Iraq, stemming from the fact that we helped to cause it, gives us a special role such as in the environmental cleaning up of depleted uranium and cluster bomb damage. This in itself would be an immense task.

We need to get to the truth of every aspect of this war and know the whole history of the rise and fall of the War Party. A truth commission similar to that set up in South Africa could be the best way to go about it, the principle being that the whole truth is more important for human evolution than mere retribution.

Finally, we must take stock of our past and our present, and decide how we can relocate ourselves in the world as a nation amongst others, divested of all imperial pretension.

But first, Blair must go.

2006-11-09T02:34:00.000-08:00

The Counter-coup has begun.

By Colin Buchanan

The counter-coup has begun and thanks to the simple beauty of the US constitution it didn’t require tanks rolling down to Congress. What is more as Pelosi has made quite clear it doesn’t mean impeachment. The presidency has emerged strengthened despite the rather hapless figure who continues to occupy it. What has changed is who controls it.

Back in 2001 at a celebratory dinner three months after 9/11, Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, leading neo-con thinktank, made the following remarkably revealing statement:

"It's taken us 13 years to get here, but we've arrived," (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,619784,00.html)

The thirteen years were the neo-con years in the wilderness after Bush senior’s election victory in 1988. Now after 9/11 they were back in the driver’s seat and set to impose their policies on a weak president. Now the dream (our nightmare)is in tatters and an old Bush senior CIA hand is back at the helm. Where did it all go wrong?

The Achilles heel of the chickenhawks, as the civilian Pentagon leadership came to be known, was that someone was going to have to die for that dream. Rumsfeld’s drivel about special forces, and the extensive use of mercenaries couldn’t cut out the main body of the armed forces. Rumsfeld’s dismissal was the fruit of their rebellion.

Darn that dream.

But are the War Party going to sit back and watch as the mere President of the United States, the commander-in –chief, now with the ear of the military, buoyed up by congressional support for his new policy direction, attempts to sideline them? Is it for nothing that they have spent years painstakingly constructing a whole new state apparatus stuffed with their own supporters - Eberhard at Northern Command, Chertoff at Homeland security, Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence with Cheney de facto leader in consultation of the likes of Gaffney at CSP – only to be outdone by a piece of paper, the US constitution? After all their efforts to protect us can it really be that the people don’t care?

The sparks can only continue to fly. They may be losing in Iraq but there is still the “War on Terror” and a frightened American public. Can’t they continue to milk the “Muslim threat” for all its worth. Just to keep that dream alive.

“Darn that one track mind of mine
It can’t understand that you don’t care
Just to change the mood I’m in
I’d welcome a nice old nightmare.”

2006-11-09T02:33:00.000-08:00

The Israeli Embassy and AMIA bombings. Timeline: 1992-2006

1992

17th March. Bombing of Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires.

At 10 pm that same day, according to investigating judge Bisordi, the head of security at the Israeli embassy, Roni Gorni made an intervention pushing the investigation towards the theory of a suicide car bomb. The local police thought the bombs had been taken into the building. Bisordi recalls the irregular manner in which evidence purporting to support the car bomb thesis had been collected [1]

1994

18th July. Bombing of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita de Argentina(Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, or AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people.

Hours after US and Israeli governments blamed Iran and Hezbollah. Israeli soldiers are involved in the clean up operation with the blessing of President Menem.

Later that same day, Argentinian intelligence agents claim to have identified the car allegedly used in the bombing and its owner, Carlos Telleldin, a policeman, of Lebanese descent who runs a suspect car business on the side. He is personally linked to the higher echelons of the Federal police( the perfect patsy, involved in petty crime, of middle- eastern descent and linked to others who can be implicated). [2]

23rd July. Investigating Judge Galeano travels to Caracas to interview Monoucher Moatamer, a former Iranian diplomatic who presents detailed claims of Iran’s supposed role in the AIMA bombing. These claims, which allege the implication of personnel at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires, were to form the basis of Galeano’s investigation.

27th July. Arrest of Telleldin

31st July. “Clarin”, a Buenos Aires daily, outs Moatamer as a CIA agent.[3]

1995

Throughout 1995 the investigation centers around Telleldin with intention of pressuring him to implicate circles within the Argentinian police. Included in this process are Verges, torturer from the dirty war of the seventies, the Mossad , SIDE(Secretaria del Inteligencia del Estado, the Argentinian intelligence agency) and Judge Riva Aramayo who conveyed a message to Telleldin from minister of the interior Corach that “nothing bad will happen to him” if he implicates other police in the bombing.[4]

But, all to no avail, until:

1996

At the beginning of July, Telleldin is offered $400,000.

Shortly afterwards three high- ranking police officers and one retired policeman are accused of participation in the bombing attacks.This is designated as the “local connection” to Hezbollah and, ultimately, to the Islamic Republic of Iran.[5]

Towards the end of the year a document entitled “Buenos Aires police are being scapegoated” is circulated, presumably from within the Federal Police. It questions, in an ironic manner, the car bomb thesis, listing all the witnesses who say that there was no car bomb. It mockingly questions how the car bomb managed to make it to the fourth floor, the epicenter of the explosion, and points out the exceedingly suspicious circumstance that none of the Israeli personnel in charge of security were killed in either of the two terrorist attacks.[6]

1997

A video showing Judge Galeano making the above, particularly generous, inducement to Telleldin is circulated from within the SIDE and even appears on Argentinian TV. This is not seen as in any way affecting the ability of Galeano to continue at the head of the investigation. In order to strengthen the case against the “local connection”, Dr. Alberto Nisman is added to the team. Together, Galeano, prosecutors Mullem, Barbaccia and Nisman along with Beraja, head of DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas, the leading organization of the Jewish community in Argentina) constitute in the words of Memoria Activa, the association of relatives of the AIMA victims, “La Gran Confradia” – “The Brotherhood” [7].

15th May The report of the National Academy of Engineers, commissioned by the Supreme Court, is heard. On the insistence of Beraja and DAIA this was held behind closed doors. However, the seventy seven page document came into the possession of Libre Opinion, who have published a summary on their website[8]. In their report, these experts expressed their absolute certainty that the explosions at the Israeli Embassy came from bombs within the building.

“The day after this session, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires deplored these conclusions and accused the Supreme Court of anti-semitism.” [9]

21st July. Clarin.

“Spokesmen from the Isreali embassy reaffirm to this paper their position of holding Iran responsible, as the ideological godfathers of the bombings at their embassy and AMIA, and demand that the case should be delegated to a federal judge”

[The judge in question was, of course, to be Galeano.]

“In the President’s office the complaints are even more strident: “A short time ago this ridiculous hypothesis of the bombs inside the building came out whereas the only thing which is certain is that there was a car bomb””.[10]

What this really meant was that the Supreme Court, having associated itself with the Engineers report, was to renounce its constitutional primacy. Opponents of this move argued that:

“it would not be correct to delegate the investigation, since, according to Article 117 of the constitution, in cases connected to embassies the supreme Court has “original and exclusive competence”” [11]

In reality, Argentina had already, from the start, ceded its sovereignty around this issue, Isreal assuming sole competence to investigate within the embassy and blocking access to the Argentinian authorities.

At the end of 1997 a cross-party commission of the two legislative chambers, with a remit to oversee the investigation, concluded that: “..there is no concrete evidence of a link between the police force of the province of Buenos Aires and the AMIA bombings. [12]

1998

At the beginning of the year and with the “Brotherhood” back in the driver’s seat, the investigation “bore fruit” with new, more acceptable, findings.

The investigation now claimed to have proof of the implication of Iran in the AMIA bombings and duly expelled seven embassy staff. A former Iranian agent Abdolghassen Mesbahi specifically pointed the finger at Mohsen Rabbani, cultural attaché to the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires as a key planner of the attack, with the help of the “local connection” [13]

. Rabbani was held in Germany but released due to lack of evidence. [14]

But there are always the party poopers:

“We have had official contacts with Mossad and the Israeli police. From what they have told us, there is absolutely no evidence of a connection with Iran and Hezbollah. We have also asked for help from the CIA and they haven’t contributed much either.” Carlos Corach, Argentinian Minister of the Interior. [15]

1999

For the developments throughout this year I quote from Memoria Activa’s short history of the affair.

“Another of the big announcements which government offered society whilst backing the criminal actions of Galeano was the creation of the “Departamento Unidad de Investigación Antiterrorista”of the Federal Police (DUIA). Corach had thought it up to act as the armed wing of the Brotherhood. They placed in charge a senior police chief: commissioner Palacios, who had been linked to the investigation from the start. Years later this same DUIA would receive much deserved recognition when the DAIA in an official public ceremony presented it with a bronze plaque. It was almost like saying: “to the Federal Police, purveyors of cover-ups, for cover-up services provided”.

…..And in the years that followed the detention of the “Buenos Aires brigades”, [i.e.the “local connection”] this DUIA under Palacios was a real mob outfit under the protection of the Brotherhood. They went looking for possible suspects and after detaining them and pressuring them as necessary, left them malleable in the hands of Judge Galeano in the courtrooms of comodoro Py, so he could get more fake evidence against the police and add it in to the false hypothesis he was constructing.

….Even so, and before that inexcusable bronze plaque, it was the Israeli ambassador to Argentina himself, Yitzak Aviran, who thanked Corach for having helped the Jewish community with this initiative: “- you have helped in many ways, including some that I can’t even mention” he said.

……And so it went on, with , on offer this year to calm the demonstrations in the calle Pasteur[ seat of AMIA] , the demand of prosecutors Mullen, Barbaccia and Nisman for a life sentence for Carlos Telleldin and the Buenos Aires Brigade, reinforcing in this way each and every crime and irregularity in the proceedings.

At the end of the year the country’s luck, as well as that of the case itself( which would change for ever with the setting up of new tribunal ) , appeared to change with the fall of Menem.[16]

2001

September, 2001. A Federal hearing, a judicial review of the case against the Carlos Telleldin and the “local connection”, is opened under judges Larrambere, Gordo and Pons.

“The September 11th attacks against the twin towers provoked one of the last and most embarrassing blunders by the Brotherhood: they tried to link Osama Bin-Laden to the AMIA bombings.”[17]

2002

The DAIA and the Menemist branch of the SIDE oppose the interviewing of members of the intelligence services at the hearing, alleging a threat to national security.[18]

2003

21st August. Hade Soleimanpour arrested in UK after Argentinian investigators requested his extradition. Presiding judge, Mr Justice Royce said that the 400 page report presented by the Argentinian authorities did not contain “any clear evidence demonstrating his involvement”.[19] Soleimanpour’s counsel, Mr Alun Jones QC, described the Argentinian government’s case as being based on “innuendo, hearsay and suspicion.[20]

13th November. Soleimanpour released due to lack of evidence.[21]

“Israeli diplomatic sources, claiming to have read a “final” report from the SIDE, attributed the authorship of the alleged suicide bombings to Ibrahim Hussein Berro despite the claims by his brother that he was already dead at the time of the AMIA bombings”. [22]

December, 2003. Judge Galeano is finally dismissed and replaced by Canicoba Corral.

2004

12th September.The Federal hearing concludes its investigation. Carlos Telleldin and the “local connection” are cleared of all charges relating to the bombings.[23]

The court continued, however, to insist on the car bomb thesis despite the testimony of at least a dozen witnesses, who swore blind that there was no car bomb. This was dealt with in a section of the report headed “Those who didn’t notice it”[i.e.the car bomb]. Prominent amongst those was Gabriel Alberto Villalba.

“He related that…..his glance being directed towards the police patrol car in front of AMIA, he saw suddenly an explosion which came out of the main entrance of the building, from the inside outwards, which covered everything “and a ball of fire which came from the building towards the street”.

Another witness was Juan Carlos Alvarez, a street cleaner who was standing in front of the main entrance just where the car bomb was meant to have passed- he would have been knocked over by it or all but- when the explosion happened. Miraculously, he survived, the doorman with whom he had been speaking only seconds before dying instantly. He also failed to “notice” the car bomb, laden with 300 kilos of explosive, turn at speed, its breaks screeching as it came straight at him. He paid a heavy price for his insistence: in an article which appeared in October 2006 [24] he recounts how his treatment at the hands of the prosecutors nearly lead him to suicide. He has suffered terrible after effects from the bombing and now lives in poverty in Buenos Aires without the medical support that he needs.

Effectively, the court claimed that the failure of these witnesses to see the car bomb was attributable to post-traumatic stress rather than to the more obvious explanation that it simply wasn’t there. It therefore claimed that the alleged discovery of the parts of the car bomb ( the one that they now alleged that Carlos Telleldin had innocently sold to persons unknown –not the “local connection” – without realizing for what purposes it was required) constituted more solid evidence than the adverse eye-witness accounts, despite its agreement with defence counsel that “ the identification and registration of the evidence had not been carried out in a trustworthy manner”. In other words, in spite of the fact that the evidence could have been planted, as judge Bisordi had suggested was the case in the embassy bombing.

With regard to the the alleged Iranian connection to the local police the ruling was categorical:

“Firstly, we must emphasise that the prosecutors have raised this grave accusation but have provided absolutely no evidence to back it up”.

The alleged connection was that of Mohsen Rabbani, cultural attaché at the Iranian Embassy with Ribelli, of the “local connection”. The ruling effectively ridicules the evidence purporting to establish this link:

“On the other hand, inexplicably they tried to establish a link between Ribelli and Rabbani on the basis that the district of Canuelas – where Rabbani’s mosque was located – was close to Lobos where several members of Ribelli’s family lived.
This argument doesn’t stand up to the least analysis on account of its puerility and light-mindedness. It is beyond all logic to resort to the mere geographic proximity of two districts in order to establish culpability. Note that, on this basis, all the residents in the vicinity of Canuelas must have been implicated in this bombing”.

However, by reaffirming the thesis of the car bomb, against tremendous odds, the 2004 ruling left the gate open to acusations against Iran.( The court had ruled merely that Telleldin and co. were not the “local connection” to Iran: it had not ruled on the question of possible Iranian culpability)

2005

And so it was that early in 2005, after a meeting with members of the American Jewish Committee , Kirchner decided that the inquiry was to continue on the basis of the car bomb thesis [25], which had taken such an awful battering over the years and which, if not exactly unscathed, at least had not yet been untirely blown apart, as it were; at least not in the minds of the prosecutors.

But who were the prosecutors to be, given that they had all been thoroughly discredited after the long and painstaking attempt to implicate local police linked to Islamic terrorists had been shown to be an immense criminal conspiracy?

Well I never! If it ain’t ……

.
2006

25th October, “The report of AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was appointed by Kirchner to fully investigate the bombing, identifies seven Iranians, including former Iranian President Rafsanjani, who should be arrested for their involvement in the attack. The 800 page report also lays out in detail the decision- making process in planning the AMIA bombing”. [26]

So are old friend , Alberto Nisman, has risen like a phoenix from the ashes of so many burnt out attempts to implicate the Islamic Republic of Iran in the AMIA bombing, to, once again, lead the charge. He plows a lonely furrow as his former colleages, veterans, one and all, of the Brotherhood’s 14 year campaign of manipulation and falsification, now face serious criminal charges:

September. 2006. “Hugo Anzorreguy, SIDE, Juan Jose Galeano, ex federal judge, Ruben Beraja, ex president of the DAIA (Delegacion de Associaciones Israelitas Argentinas), ex prosecutors Eamon Mullen and Jose Barbaccia are charged with embezzlement,perverting the course of justice, illegal detention, forced confessions, falsification of official documents, with the prospect of from 2 to 20 years imprisonment.” [27]

But Nisman was as much part of the cover-up as they were – a fact that has not esacaped the attention of a leading Argentinian film-maker:

“Following a meeting in Washington in May 2006 at which two senior judges from Buenos Aires were present, strong pressure was applied against both the Argentinian government and judicial authorities. In response, a group of Argentinian citizens lead by Dr. Oscar Abduri-Bini has issued a legal indictment before the Buenos Aires High Court against the American Jewish Committee and the prosecutors Nissman and Martinez Burgos for obstruction of justice”.[28]

We will continue to monitor events as they unfold in this truly astounding and disturbing case at:
www.iransolidarity.endofempire.org

[1] Bisordi, leading judge in Isreali embassy case denonces influence of Israel and rejects car bomb theory. http://www.iransolidarity.endofempire.org/index.php

[2] Memoria Activa is an association of relatives of the victims of the AMIA bombing. They have an excellent year by year account of the entire history at http://www.memoriaactiva.com/cronica%20de%20un%20encubrimiento/memoriaactiva.2006.pdf?2006=.

[3] http://www.fcen.uba.ar/prensa/micro/1994/ms160.htm

[4] http://www.memoriaactiva.com/cronica%20de%20un%20encubrimiento/memoriaactiva.2006.pdf?2006=.

[5] http://www.perspectivamundial.com/2003/2705/270508.shtml

[6] This document can be found on the website of Libre Opinion who have played a central role in exposing the cover-up. http://redkalki.libreopinion.com/noticias/2006/08/informe_ldo_amia.htm

[7] http://www.memoriaactiva.com/cronica%20de%20un%20encubrimiento/memoriaactiva.2006.pdf?2006=.

[8] http://redkalki.libreopinion.com/noticias/2006/08/informe_ldo_embajada.htm

[9] http://www.iransolidarity.endofempire.org/news.php?page=650

[10] http://www.clarin.com/diario/1997/07/21/t-00401d.htm

[11] ibid.

[12] La Nación, Buenos Aires, 19-12-97

[13] http://www.perspectivamundial.com/2003/2705/270508.shtml

[14] (http://www.iransolidarity.endofempire.org/news.php?page=650)

[15] (Haaretz, 6 de enero de 1998)

[16] http://www.memoriaactiva.com/cronica%20de%20un%20encubrimiento/memoriaactiva.2006.pdf?2006=.

[17] http://www.memoriaactiva.com/cronica%20de%20un%20encubrimiento/memoriaactiva.2006.pdf?2006=.

[18] http://www.memoriaactiva.com/cronica%20de%20un%20encubrimiento/memoriaactiva.2006.pdf?2006=.

[19] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3103314.stm

[20] ibid.

[21] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3266011.stm

[22] http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=37800

[23] The full judicial report can be found at: http://www2.jus.gov.ar/Amia/

[24] http://www.periodicotribuna.com.ar/Articulo.asp?Articulo=167)

[25]. . http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=37800

[26] http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20061025/pl_usnw/american_jewish_committee_welcomes_report_on_iranian_responsibility_for1994_amia_bombing173_xml

[27] http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=38033

[28] http://www.iransolidarity.endofempire.org/news.php?page=650

.

2006-09-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

La défaite d’Israël au Liban
par Thierry Meyssan

The Israeli defeat in Lebanon
Thierry Meyssan (Voltairenet.org)

With accompanying translation by Colin Buchanan

Après avoir rencontré de nombreux leaders politiques et responsables militaires libanais, Thierry Meyssan tire les leçons de la guerre. Selon lui, le recours par Israël aux bombardements massifs des zones urbaines et sa défaite face à une guérilla populaire n’ont pas d’équivalent depuis le bombardement d’Hanoï et la victoire du peuple vietnamien sur les troupes US. Surtout, explique-t-il dans ce premier article, le sort des armes a renversé les problématiques internationales transformant une guerre d’Israël contre une « organisation terroriste » en un conflit idéologique régional entre forces sionistes et anti-sionistes qui traverse aussi bien le Liban qu’Israël.

After having met with many politicians and Lebanese military officials, Thierry Meyssan draws the lessons of the war. According to him, Israel’s resort to carpet bombings of urban areas and her defeat by a popular guerilla army are unprecedented since the bombing of Hanoi and the victory of US troops by the Vietnamese people. Above all, he explains in this article, the outcome has overturned the existing paradigm transforming an Israeli war against a “terrorist organization” into a regioinal and ideological conflict between Zionist and anti-Zionist forces across both Israel and Lebanon.

Échec de « l’Air Power »

The Failure of Air Power.

Le plan d’attaque a été conçu de concert par les états-majors états-unien et israélien. Le Pentagone a imposé la technique du Shock and Awe dans le cadre, classique pour Tsahal, du Blitzkrieg.

The plan of attack had been conceived jointly by the US and Israeli chiefs of staff. The Pentagon superimposed its Shock and Awe tactics on Tsahal’s classic Blitzkrieg approach.

Pour les généraux états-uniens, le moment était venu de faire la démonstration du « Pouvoir aérien ». Depuis les années 30, l’armée de l’air tente de démontrer qu’un bombardement aérien massif peut suffire à contraindre un ennemi à se rendre, sans combats au sol. Il conviendrait pour cela de faire tomber un
déluge de feu qui plongerait l’ennemi dans un état d’hébétude. Cette théorie a été mise en pratique sans succès par les États-Unis un peu partout dans le monde depuis 60 ans. Cette fois, l’idée était que la destruction systématique et complète de toutes les villes du Sud-Liban pousserait les Libanais à se révolter contre la dictature du Hezbollah et à acclamer la famille Hariri.

For the US generals, the moment had come to give a demonstration of air power. For the last thirty years, the air force had sought to show that massive aerial bombardment is sufficient to force an enemy to surrender without the need for combat on the ground. It would be sufficient to unleash a deluge of bombs to leave the enemy hopelessly incapacitated. This theory has been put into practice throughout the world for the last 60 years. This time, the idea was that complete and utter destruction of all the towns in Southern Lebanon would drive the Lebanese to rebel against the dictatorship of Hezbollah and turn their support to the Hariri family.

Au bout d’une journée et demie de bombardements, Tsahal avait coupé les communications entre le Nord et le Sud du pays, rendu l’aéroport de Beyrouth impraticable et détruit les réserves d’hydrocarbures, bloqué les docks des principaux ports, et imposé un embargo aérien et naval. Seules restaient des routes reliant le Nord du Liban à la Syrie, sur lesquelles se pressaient des colonnes de déplacés.

After a day and a half of bombing, Tsahal had cut communications between the north and the South of the country, rendered the airport unusable and destroyed petrol reserves, blockaded the main ports and imposed a sea and air embargo. There only remained the routes linking the north of Lebanon and Syria, filled with refugees.

Le problème est que le Hezbollah n’est pas une dictature, mais un mouvement de résistance et de solidarité. Les bombardements ont déplacé un million de personnes. Le premier quart a émigré à l’étranger, le second quart a trouvé refuge en Syrie et la moitié restante s’est déplacée au Nord-Liban. Les réfugiés n’ont reçu aucun secours de l’État. Ils ont par contre été pris en charge par le Hezbollah aidé du Courant patriotique libre du général chrétien Michel Aoun. Certains ont été accueillis par d’autres réfugiés, des Palestiniens, qui vivent misérablement dans des camps de fortune depuis 60 ans. Loin de considérer le Hezbollah comme responsable du malheur qui les frappait, les déplacés ont maudit Tsahal qui les frappait, les États-Unis qui l’armait, et le gouvernement Siniora qui collaborait.

The problem was that Hezbollah is not a dictatorship, but a movement of resistance and solidarity. The bombings displaced a million people. The first quarter emigrated, the second found refuge in Syria and the remaining half went to north Lebanon. The refugees received no state aid. They were rather taken charge of by Hezbollah, helped by the free patriotic current of the Christian general Michel Aoun. Some received the hospitality of other refugees, the Palestinians, who have been living in poverty in the refugee camps for 60 years. Far from considering Hezbollah as the being responsible for their plight, the refugees blamed Tsahal, armed by the Americans with the collaboration of the Siniora government.

La chose la plus étonnante est que les Libanais restés dans le Sud, 34 jours sous un déluge de bombes cinq fois supérieur à la puissance d’Hiroshima, ne sont pas tombés en état de choc. Cette endurance est d’abord due à leur expérience antérieure de la guerre, mais elle doit aussi beaucoup à leur formation et à leur encadrement, sinon à leur foi. Loin de perdre espoir, ils se sont préparés à une guerre longue et ont été surpris par la rapidité de leur victoire.

The most amazing thing was that the Lebanese who remained in the South throughout a deluge of bombs equivalent to five Hiroshimas didn’t collapse into a state of shock. Their endurance was due, first of all, to their previous experience, but also to their training and organization, if not to their faith. Far from giving up they had prepared themselves for a long war and were surprised by the rapidity of their own victory.

Accessoirement, Tsahal a bombardé dès le second jour les studios de la télévision Al-Manar et le siège national du Parti de Dieu, tous deux situés dans un quartier populaire de Beyrouth. Cette attaque n’ayant interrompu les programmes d’Al-Manar que deux minutes et n’ayant eu aucun effet sur l’organisation du Hezbollah, l’état-major israélien a cru que les dirigeants de la télévision et du parti s’étaient réfugiés dans des bunkers situés sous les décombres. Tsahal a donc poursuivi six autres jours les bombardements pour venir à bout des installations souterraines avant de se rendre compte qu’elles n’existaient que dans la fertile imagination des journalistes de Fox News. Au passage, ces bombardements ont dévasté tout le Sud de la capitale qui n’est plus qu’un tas de gravois. Cet acharnement dans l’erreur a psychologiquement profité au Hezbollah qui est apparu invincible face à l’une des armées les mieux équipées au monde.

In addition, Tsahal bombed from day two, the TV studios Al-Manar and the headquarters of the Party of God, both situated in a working class area of Beirut. Since this only interrupted broadcasts for two minutes and had no effect whatsoever on the organization of Herzbollah, the Israeli high command assumed that the TV studio and the party leadership were situated underneath the rubble. Tsahal then embarked on six days of further bombardment of these supposed underground installations before realizing that they existed only in the fertile imagination of Fox News. In passing , these bombings devastated the south of the capital which is now nothing but a pile of rubble. This unremitting pursuit of an imaginary target was to Hezbollah’s advantage psychologically, making them look invincible against one of the best equipped armies in the world.

Les bombardements israéliens sont sans rapport avec la réplique du Hezbollah. Tsahal a utilisé des F-15 pour déverser un tapis de bombes et réduire en poudre toutes les villes du Sud-Liban. Jamais une nation n’avait osé recourir à ce type de bombardement en zone urbaine depuis la destruction d’Hanoï en 1972 par l’US Air Force, jamais depuis lors une armée moderne n’avait essuyé une telle défaite face à une guérilla. Le Hezbollah quant à lui a utilisé des roquettes exclusivement tournées vers des objectifs militaires, même si l’ajustement d’artillerie a nécessairement atteint des sites civils. Il est établi que la Résistance libanaise a détruit un aéroport militaire, le principal centre de transmissions électroniques, le quartier général du Commandement-Nord israélien, et gravement endommagé deux navires de guerre.

The Israeli bombardment was completely disproportionate to Hezbollah’s response. Tsahal used F-15s to carpet bomb and reduce to dust all the towns of southern Lebanon. No nation has dared to resort to this type of bombing in an urban context since the bombing of Hanoi in1972 by the US Airforce and never since then has a modern army suffered such a defeat by guerilla forces. As for Hezbollah, they used rockets aimed exclusively at military targets even though they inevitably hit some civilian facilities. It is confirmed that the Lebanese resistance destroyed a military airport, the principal electronic communications centre, the command centre of Israeli Northern Command as well as seriously damaging two naval vessels.

Lors de la proclamation par l’ONU de la cessation des hostilités, et alors même que le Hezbollah hésitait sur la conduite à tenir, les déplacés libanais ont spontanément repris le chemin du retour. Une demi-heure après le moment tant attendu, les routes praticables du pays n’étaient qu’un unique embouteillage. Les déplacés sont venus immédiatement camper sur les ruines de leurs habitations, refusant symboliquement de céder leur terre. Ce flot humain a contraint les forces terrestres israéliennes a accélérer leur repli.

From the moment of the declaration of a ceasefire by the UN, and while Hezbollah was still hesitating as to how to react, the Lebanese refugees spontaneously began to return to their homes. Half an hour after this long- awaited moment, the roads which were still open became one immense traffic jam. They returned to camp on the ruins of their homes, refusing symbolically to desert their homes. This human flood forced the Israelis to accelerate their retreat.

L’armée de l’air israélienne affirme également avoir détruit en 72 heures la totalité des rampes de lancement de missiles Sahar livrés par l’Iran au Hezbollah. Cependant, le Hezbollah assure qu’il n’en est rien et qu’il est toujours en mesure de frapper Tel-Aviv. Ce qui est vraisemblable puisque lorsque Tsahal a tenté de reprendre les bombardements sur Beyrouth et qu’Hassan Nasrallah a menacé de rétorsion sur Tel-Aviv, les Israéliens ont renoncé à tenir le pari.

The Israeli air force claims also to have destroyed all the Sahar missile launchers provided to Hezbollah by Iran. Hezbollah, however, deny this claiming they are still capable of striking Tel Aviv. This seems credible since when Tsahal tried to resume the bombing of Beirut they backed down when Hassan Nasrallah threatened to bomb Tel Aviv in retaliation.

Les responsables du Hezbollah affirment n’avoir utilisé qu’un neuvième de leur arsenal et être actuellement en mesure de livrer une guerre identique de onze mois. Les éléments recueillis sur place montrent que plusieurs de leurs unités anti-tank ont été conservées en réserve et n’ont pas participé aux combats.
Hezbollah claims only to have used a ninth of their arsenal and to be able to continue a similar war for eleven months. The evidence gathered on the ground shows that several of their anti-tank units have been held back in reserve and weren’t used in combat.

En définitive, la totale dominance aérienne de Tsahal n’a aucunement servi ses objectifs de guerre. Le déploiement terrestre, quant à lui, a tout de suite tourné au fiasco.

Clearly, Tsahal’s complete air dominance didn’t help them to achieve any of their war aims. As for the ground invasion, it immediately turned into a fiasco.

Échec de l’offensive terrestre.

The Failure of the Ground Offensive.

Dès le premier jour, la tentative de pénétration par des blindés a échoué et la cavalerie a du faire demi-tour. Or, traditionnellement, l’une des forces de Tsahal est sa capacité de progression rapide. Ce premier échec a été interprété comme une tentative prématurée. Les états-majors ont estimé qu’une fois le terrain déblayé par les bombardiers, les troupes au sol n’auraient pas de difficulté à nettoyer les poches de résistance. Le Hezbollah était présenté comme un groupuscule terroriste disposant de 250 à 500 combattants et d’armes sophistiquées. Les déclarations d’Hassan Nasrallah selon lesquelles le Parti de Dieu disposait de plusieurs milliers de combattants aguerris et de 15 000 réservistes ont été prises pour des fanfaronnades. C’est une très lourde erreur, exclusivement imputable à de l’auto-intoxication. Il n’était nullement besoin de services de renseignements complexes pour évaluer la donne, d’autant que le Hezbollah organisait depuis des années des visites de ses installations pour la presse, dans un but dissuasif. Mais la rhétorique de la « guerre au terrorisme », qui assimile tout mouvement patriotique à des groupuscules de fanatiques, l’a emportée sur une réalitée connue de tous.

From the first day, the attempt by tank divisions to break through failed and the cavalry was obliged to make an about turn. Now, traditionally, one of Tsahal’s strengths has been the rapidity of its forward thrust. This first failure was initially seen as a merely a premature operation. The chiefs of staff thought that once the terrain had been cleared by aerial bombardment, ground troops would have no difficulty in clearing up any pockets of resistance. Hezbollah was presented as a small terrorist group of some 250 to 500 fighters with some sophisticated weapons. The statements by Hassan Nasrallah, according to which the Party of God had at its disposal several thousand seasoned fighters and 15,000 reservists, were taken for so much boasting. It was a very big error, the result of the Isrealis believing their own propaganda.You didn’t need sophisticated intelligence networks to see the reality, especially since, for some years now, Hezbollah had been organizing tours of its bases with a view to dissuading the Israelis from doing anything rash. But the rhetoric of “the war on terror” which equates all patriotic groups with small groups of terrorist fanatics, blinded the Israelis to a reality known to all.

Le Hezbollah est un réseau de résistance constitué au cours de l’occupation israélienne (1982-2000). Parfaitement conscient que la paix est impossible dans la région tant que n’aura pas été réglé la question du régime politique en vigueur en Israël, il a consacré les six dernières années à se préparer à de nouvelles batailles. Il a conservé sa structure clandestine, tout en développant une aile politique et parlementaire. Il a formé ses membres, hommes et femmes, à une discipline combattante. Il a constitué un arsenal impressionnant aux frais de ses alliés syriens et iraniens, peut-être russes.

Hezbollah is a network of resistance formed during the Israeli occupation (1982- 2000). Perfectly aware that peace in the region is impossible as long as the question of the nature of the Israeli regime has not been resolved, it has dedicated the last six years to preparing for new battles. It has maintained its underground structure at the same time as developing a political and parliamentary wing. It has trained its members, men and women, to be disciplined fighters. It has built up an impressive arsenal provided by its Syrian, Iranian and possibly Russian allies.

Il a analysé ses propres erreurs de la période antérieure et étudié les méthodes de combat des Israéliens en Palestine et des États-uniens en Irak. Il a parfaitement assimilé les techniques de guérilla et les a modernisées. Suivant les théories élaborées par les généraux libanais A. H. et E. H., il a inventé une forme de guérrilla qui joue sur une palette d’armements disparates. Ainsi, il a enfouit à l’avance dans le sol d’archaïques téléphones de campagnes, impossible à intercepter à la différence des communications numérisées, tout en utilisant des lunettes infra-rouges hi-tech de vision nocturne pour accroître la mobilité de ses commandos.

It has analyzed its errors during the previous period and studied the combat methods of the Israelis in Palestine and the US in Iraq. It has completely assimilated and modernised its methods of guerilla war. Following the theories elaborated by the Lebanese generals A.H. and E.H. it has invented a type of guerilla war which uses a wide range of different weapons. For example, it buried in advance old fashioned combat phones which unlike digital phones couldn’t be intercepted and used hi-tech infra-red night vision goggles to increase the mobility of their commandos.

La guerre du Liban n’a donc pas été une guerre asymétrique opposant une armée moderne, bien équipée, à une guérilla de va-nu-pieds. Dans cette bataille du Goliath israélien contre le David libanais, le faible ne disposait pas que d’une fronde, mais aussi des RPG-29 Vampire, les lance-roquettes les plus performants au monde.
The Lebanese War was not, therefore, an asymmetric war confronting a well-equipped modern army with a ragtag band of guerillas. In this battle between the Israeli Goliath and the Lebanese David, the weaker side didn’t just have slings ; they also had the RPG-29 Vampire, the best rocket-launcher in the world.

La technique du Blitzkrieg, qui fit la victoire allemande de 1939, a trouvé sa limite. Elle était entièrement basée sur les chars. Avec le temps, ceux-ci sont devenus de plus en plus lourds pour résister à des projectiles de plus en plus puissants. Certains sont aujourd’hui recouverts d’uranium appauvri pour renforcer leur blindage. Ils ont été des proies faciles pour les RPG russes du Hezbollah. On doit d’ailleurs se demander si la guerre du Liban ne va pas marquer la fin des chars, comme la bataille d’Azincourt marque celle des chevaliers en armures. Au demeurant, le ministère israélien de la Défense vient d’annoncer qu’il cessait la production des chars Merkava, jusqu’ici considérés comme parmi les meilleurs au monde.

War by Blitzkrieg, which brought Germany victory in 1939, has found its limit. It was based entirely on tank warfare. With the course of time, tanks have become heavier and heavier to counter increasingly powerful anti-tank rockets. Today, some are reinforced with depleted uranium armour plating. They turned out to be easy prey for Hezbollah’s Russian RPGs. We must, then, question whether the war in Lebanon won’t mark the end of the tank, just as Agincourt marked the end of the heavily armoured mounted knight. Incidently, the Israeli defence minister has just announced that the production of the Merkava tank, considered amongst the best in the world, is to be ended.

Une tragique erreur d’analyse

A Tragic Error of Analysis

Mais au-delà de la stratégie, de la tactique et de l’armement, la leçon la plus importante de la guerre du Liban, c’est la valeur des troupes. Au cours des conflits précédents, Tsahal plaçait en première ligne des unités professionnelles et déployait en quelques jours une nuée de réservistes. Ceux-ci se montraient âpres au combat pour défendre la terre acquise et pour en conquérir de nouvelles. Mais les temps ont changé. Les héros de la Légion juive et de la Hagannah sont morts. Leurs petits enfants sont les bénéficiaires d’un régime d’apartheid qui ne se battent plus pour une patrie, mais pour leurs privilèges. Leur expérience militaire se borne à des ratonnades en uniforme dans les Territoires palestiniens. Ils n’ont pas supporté l’affrontement avec la résistance patriotique d’un pays indépendant.

But, apart from questions of strategy, tactics and armament, the most important lesson from Lebanon concerns the quality of the troops themselves. In previous conflicts Tsahal deployed a professional force in the front line following up in a few days with a swarm of reservists. These proved resolute both in defense of land conquered and in conquering fresh terrain. But times have changed. The heroes of the Jewish legion and of Hagannah are dead. Their grandchildren are the beneficiaries of an apartheid regime who fight, not for their country, but for their privileges. Their military experience is limited to racist attacks in uniform in the occupied territories. They haven’t been able to stand up to the patriotic resistance of an independent country.

En réalité, cette guerre n’a pas été celle d’Israël contre le Liban, mais du sioniste contre l’idéal égalitaire. Il convient de rappeler ici que Tsahal n’est pas composé par le peuple israélien, mais par les Israéliens juifs par filiation pour combattre les arabes, fussent-ils israéliens. Au fil des ans, cette armée s’est surtout consacrée au maintien de l’ordre, ou plutôt au maintien de l’apartheid. Les juifs israéliens anti-sionistes ont d’abord opté pour l’objection de conscience et pour l’insoumission. Aujourd’hui, ils placent leur espoir dans le Hezbollah. Ils ont transmis à la Résistance libanaise toutes les documentations internes de Tsahal, qui ont été rapidement traduites en arabe et distribuées à la guérilla. Les maquisards disposaient ainsi des descriptions précises des unités qu’ils combattaient. Informés du détail de la hiérarchie et des insignes de commandement, ils ciblaient les officiers avant de disparaître.

In reality this war was not between Israel and Lebanon, but between Zionism and the egalitarian ideal. It’s worth remembering that Tsahal is not composed of the Israeli people but of Israeli Jews fighting against Arabs, including Israeli Arabs. Over the years, this army has dedicated itself , above all to maintaining order, or, rather, maintaining apartheid. The anti-Zionist Israeli Jews opted initially to be conscientious objectors or simply refused to serve. Nowadays they place their hope in Hezbollah. They passed on to the Lebanese resistance all Tsahal’s internal documents which were immediately translated into Arabic and distributed to the guerilla fighters. The resistance, therefore, had detailed descriptions of the Israeli units. Informed of the details of the military chain of command and their insignia, they were able to target the officers.

Cette qualité du renseignement de la Résistance, qui contraste avec l’auto-intoxication du renseignement militaire sioniste, explique en partie le résultat sur le terrain. Le souvenir restera de la ville d’Aïta Al-Chaab, à la frontière libano-israélienne, où une centaine de combattants résista pendant 34 jours aux assauts de Tsahal sans jamais tomber.

This high quality of intelligence available to the resistance contrasted with the delusional notions which the Israeli army fed itself, explains, in part, the outcome. The town of Aita Al-Chaab, on the Lebanese frontier, where, for 34 days, about a hundred fighters successfully resisted the Israeli army, will always be remembered.

Hassan Nasrallah : à la fois Ho Chi Minh et Mandela ?

Hassan Nasrallah : Ho Chi Minh and Mandela rolled into one?

Les gouvernements israélien et états-unien persistent à présenter le conflit comme une étape de la « guerre au terrorisme » bien que le caractère populaire de la résistance et la défaite de Tsahal contredisent cette analyse. De son côté, le Hezbollah présente ces combats comme une bataille dans la guerre qui oppose dans la région l’idéologie sioniste à l’idéal égalitaire. C’est cette analyse politique qui vient de s’imposer sur le terrain et qui renverse la donne au Proche-Orient, provoquant la colère des généraux les plus extrémistes au sein de l’état-major de Tsahal.

The US and Israel persist in seeing this war as part of the war on terrorism” even though the popular nature of the resistance and Tsahal’s defeat contradict this analysis. For its part, Hezbollah presents the war as a regional struggle between Zionist ideology and its own egalitarian ideals. It is this analysis which has imposed itself on the ground, overturning the prevailing view of the Middle East and provoking the anger of the more extremist generals within Tsahal.

S’il est impossible de quantifier le nombre d’officiers anti-sionistes israéliens qui sont en contact secrètement avec le Hezbollah, il est par contre aisé d’évaluer la manière dont les Israéliens perçoivent la Résistance. Des études d’opinion ont montré que les émissions quotidiennes en hébreu d’Al-Manar ont été plus écoutées par les Israéliens que les bulletins d’information de leurs propres chaînes de télévision [1]. Elles ont aussi mis en évidence que les Israéliens font deux fois plus confiance à Hassan Nasrallah qu’à Ehud Olmert pour résoudre la crise. Loin d’avoir été éradiqué par Tsahal, le Hezbollah est devenu un acteur politique invisible en Israël où il incarne la possible fin de l’apartheid et l’établissement d’une paix durable pour toutes les populations sans exclusive.

If it is impossible to quantify the precise number of Israeli officers in contact with Hezbollah, it is , on the other hand, easy to evaluate the Israeli perception of the resistance. Surveys have shown that more Israelis listen to the daily Hebrew broadcasts of Al-Manar than to news reports from there own TV channels. They also show that the Israelis have twice as much confidence in Hassan Nasrallah to resolve the crisis than they do in Ehud Olmert. Far from being eradicated by Tsahal, Hezbollah has become an invisible political player within Israel where it embodies the possibility of ending apartheid and establishing an inclusive peace for all the peoples of the region.

La défaite israélienne

The Israeli Defeat

L’offensive israélienne au Liban répond à une conjunction d’intérêts.
Pour les néo-conservateurs au pouvoir aux États-Unis, qui font ici office de donneur d’ordre, il s’agit stratégiquement de poursuivre le plan de remodelage des frontières du Grand Moyen-Orient, et tactiquement d’éliminer le Hezbollah avant d’attaquer la Syrie, puis l’Iran [2].

Pour le régime sioniste au pouvoir en Israël, il s’agit stratégiquement de chasser les populations du Sud-Liban, d’annexer cette zone et ses nappes phréatiques, d’y créer un bantoustan pour les Arabes de Cisjordanie –voire de Gaza-, et tactiquement d’éliminer le Hezbollah en tant qu’opposition au gouvernement Siniora.

Pour le système financier, incarné au Liban par la famille Hariri, les destructions permettent de rééditer la vaste opération de réhabilitation du pays qui les a enrichis dans les années 90.

The Isreali offensive in Lebanon brings together a variety of interests.
► for the neoconservatives in power in the US, who are giving the orders here, the strategic goal is to transform the frontiers of the Middle East, the tactical goal is to eliminate Hezbollah before attacking Syria and Iran.
►for the Zionist regime in power in Israel, the strategic goal was to clear the population of Southern Lebanon, to annex this area and its water supplies, to create a Bantustan for the Arabs of the West Bank – indeed , of Gaza too-, and, tactically, to eliminate Hezbollah as an opposition to the Siniora government.
►for the financial system, personified in Lebanon by the Hariri family, the destruction offered them the opportunity to make a vast fortune out of the reconstruction of Lebanon, as they had done in the 90s.

Or, les frontières du Liban n’ont pas été modifiées ; les populations du Sud-Liban ont regagné les terres dont elles ont été chassées ; le Hezbollah est devenu la première force politique et militaire du Liban et devient un acteur essentiel de la vie politique intérieure israélienne ; les Libanais ont refait leur unité ; la Syrie a retrouvé un leadership régional ; l’Iran est renforcé par la victoire de son allié libanais. Quant aux objectifs financiers, la famille Hariri loin d’être en mesure de se maintenir au pouvoir à Beyrouth risque de perdre les immenses propriétés qu’elle a acquises illégalement au cours de la première reconstruction [3].

Now, the frontiers of Lebanon haven’t been altered ; the population of South Lebanon has returned to the homes which they were forced to leave ; Hezbollah has become the leading political and military force in Lebanon as well as a key player in Israel’s own internal politics ; Lebanese unity has been reaffirmed ; Syria has regained its regional leadership ; Iran is strengthened by the victory of its Lebanese allies. As for the financial objectives, far from being in a position to keep its hold on power, the Hariri family is in danger of losing the vast properties which they acquired illegally during the last reconstruction.

En tous points, l’offensive militaire est une défaite.

On all fronts, then, the military offensive has been defeated.

2006-09-16T14:04:00.000-07:00

“Better the Sultan’s turban than the Cardinal’s hat”

Apart fom the sinister decision to launch an attack on Islam at this moment in history when the supreme question of war or peace hangs in the balance, there is a rather bizarre aspect to this whole affair viz. the curious decision to quote a Byzantine emperor’s views on Islam.

Byzantium had experienced first hand the brutality of the western crusaders who, goaded on by Catholic priests in 1203 had sacked the city in one of the greatest atrocities in history, magnified several-fold by the immense cultural and intellectual loss in what was one of the great centres of world civilization. This shocking act of delinquency way surpassed the sacking of Rome by the Goths or the, relatively humane, subsequent sacking of Byzantium by the Turks. Here is how it was recorded by one Byzantine historian:

"No one was without a share in the grief. In the alleys, in the streets, in the temples, complaints, weeping, lamentations, grief, the groaning of men, the shrieks of women, wounds, rape, captivity, the separation of those most closely united. Nobles wandered about ignominiously, those of venerable age in tears, the rich in poverty. Thus it was in the streets, on the corners, in the temple, in the dens, for no place remained unassailed or defended the suppliants. All places everywhere were filled full of all kinds of crime. Oh, immortal God, how great the afflictions of the men, how great the distress!"

The Byzantine historian Nicetas Koniates wrote: "even the Muslims are human and well-disposed, reported to[compared to] those people who carrie the cross of Christ on the shoulders"

Manual II Paleologos ( the emperor who Benedict quoted) had reason to fear the Muslims since Byzantium was perpetually on the verge of falling to them, as indeed it did in 1453. But even in the midst of that final siege one of the city’s last great statesmen was heard to say “Better the Sultan’s turban than the cardinal’s hat”

In fact the destruction or a least fatal weakening of the Byzantine Empire was the main outcome of the crusades whose nominal goal was the reconquest of the Holy Land. It was rather as if todays war against Islam was really an oblique attempt to undermine Europe and Russia in accordance with the perennial goals of British foreign policy as outlined by Mackinder i.e. that Europe and Eurasia should forever be divided. (That may very well be the case.Arguably, the turn towards Iraq only came when the campaign to destabilise Serbia and then Russia reached an impasse and even the submissive Yeltsin threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.) Certainly, with regard to the deep animosity between Western Christendom and the Orthodox world, history has repeated itself and under NATO’s occupation of Kosovo we have seen again the destruction of beautiful Byzantine churches by Tony and Bill’s favourite terrorists, the KLA.

Thank you,Your Holiness , for reminding us, unconsciously, of things you would rather keep forgotten, Western Christendom’s jihad against its religious foes culminating in the destruction of the beautiful city of Byzantium , echoed nearly a thousand years later in the destruction of Kosovo’s churches.

2006-09-15T01:48:00.000-07:00

Brown and Retreat from Empire.

A vague air of depression hangs over the place as the realization sinks in that the counter-coup has been and gone. As in Von Stauffenberg’s plot an insufficient explosive charge was used and the fuhrer was able to emerge more or less unscathed. The motivation for that plot would have been comparable; military reverses had become unacceptable and simply couldn’t go on as before. The unprecedented viciousness of the Blairite response to Brown’s first grab for power confirm that here was more than just personal rivalry: entire factions within Britain’s elite had begun a struggle to end War without End.

It has been objected that Brown lacks any alternative programme and that the contest can therefore be no more than a bit of shadow boxing. This shows a somewhat naïve view of politics where each man puts forward his programme and the best man wins. Here, not only is it not necessary to have a stated programme , it is necessary not to have one. For who could put forward a programme that is effectively a recognition of military defeat: that the struggle to force the rest of the world to support us at their own expense has been lost. The alternative, that we must support ourselves, is so terrible as to be unconscionable. Rather, what we are seeing here is an attempt to grab the reins of power and just do what is necessary; bring the army out of Iraq and Afghanistan while there is still an army to talk of. Of course, the counter-coup would not express itself in defeatist terms. The US/UK would reaffirm their global leadership through diplomacy and trade: a continuation of war by other means- winning without war as the Democrats put it. Losing is winning by other means.

But this would be nothing other than the necessary illusion of those destined to begin the retreat: and those illusions would have all the power necessary to sustain the protagonists. Once retreat has begun an unstoppable chain of events is unleashed: the collapse of the dollar and pound, an inflationary and deflationary economic crisis and generalized political crisis and social breakdown. Most importantly, internal consumption, the glue that holds what’s left of our society together would collapse: consumers would become debtors. In short, the collapse of the imperial project would demonstrate why it had become necessary in the first place and why so many went along with. But now would be the time for the hangover and it would be one hell of a hangover in which the British people would be made more miserable by the impression (correct) that they had brought all this upon themselves through stupidity and greed.

After looking and around and starting to pick up the pieces where would we go? Well, the oligarchy, the creditors who have by now inherited virtually all real estate and state property will have no intention of letting go of it. As at the end of the Roman Empire society would be divided into potentes and humiliores, the all-powerful and the impoverished . Unlike that post-imperial scenario the oligarchy would be unable to transform themselves into a feudal class on the basis of their largely rural property holdings; there would be barriers to the level of backwardness that could be inflicted on what was once a modern society. A legal revolution would therefore eventually be set in motion to reclaim the ill-gotten gains of the post- Thatcherite oligarchy ( property is theft, remember). The collapse of the Middle East war effort would already have unleashed a bloodless purge of the European atlanticist faction : the likes of Sarkozy and Merkel. A great historic development would emerge: an independent and united Europe. The British people would then find a powerful ally in a Europe only too happy to rid itself of a permanent fifth column in its stand off with the USA. Let’s hope we have the wherewithal to grasp the opportunity this presents.

But I am getting ahead of myself: what is clear is that the plots will continue, the process has begun whereby the Whigs who seized power in 1688 to establish the empire of usury and slavery face their demise; it’s not the end of the beginning, it’s the beginning of the end.

2006-09-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

When will someone on the left break ranks?

Craig Murray’s appeals for scepticism regarding the latest supposed Muslim plot to carry out terrorist attacks have marked a possible turning point in popular attitudes towards the so-called war on terror. His blog has apparently been inundated with hits suggesting, as he puts it, that he has struck a nerve. Evidently, not everyone keeps swallowing this terror stuff uncritically. But his stance also has significance from another point of view: Murray is something of a hero on the left, but the left have made it an article of faith not to challenge the consensus on the war on terror. Might they not now be feeling the pressure to adopt a more critical stance towards the word of Tony Blair? On every other issue he is Bliar, but seemingly when it comes to the war on terror his word is his bond.

In fact, the left insist that Muslims, albeit legitimately disaffected Muslims, are behind the terrorist attacks. How do they justify this rather surprising line? Well, some of the more theoretically inclined of the comrades argue that the bourgeoisie (their rather quaint term for the Mafiosi who are seeking to make their rule absolute) simply don’t have to use such methods. In fact with the pirate’s endless war strategy beginning to look like endless defeat, as one disaster follows another, they would appear to have every need for every trick they’ve got- it is this sense that the latest plot comes just in time to save Blair’s bacon that has made so many people suspicious.

No, in fact there is no real debate about this amongst the left – this is simply the line and those who dissent are not presented with arguments but labelled: they are conspiracy nuts, or even anti-Semites. What gives the line credibility is that it’s backed up by the likes of John Pilger, Robert Fisk, George Galloway, Noam Chomsky et al; that is to say by sundry “bourgeois” journalist, academics and politicians. And how dare you challenge these luminaries! - We cling to their every word, we’re revolutionaries! Whose every word do you cling to? Well, oddly enough, some of us actually think for ourselves- a radical attitude, no doubt, but seemingly not a revolutionary one.

And what is it exactly that these luminaries are telling us and the far left is faithfully echoing: it’s the terrorists who are doing it as a response to our foreign policy. No elements inside the state are involved- we can rule that out a priori despite the fact that the war party is the obvious beneficiary of each and every terrorist attack.( didn’t Blair tell us that the war wouldn’t have been possible without 9/11?) Or are they? The left thinks not – they think, or claim to think, that blaming these attacks on our foreign policy means Blair and his gang will lose credibility. That is a rather foolish assumption, to my mind, ignoring as it does the deep reserves of racism and xenophobia which British society possesses. All you are doing is conceding unquestioningly that Muslims are indeed behind the terrorist atrocities and thereby setting up the Muslim community for further isolation and vilification. This politically correct counter spin now adopted by virtually every oppositional force in Britain simply reinforces the simple , brutal message that the War Party wish to convey: the Muslims are the terrorists.

Certainly one can understand why mainstream figures such as Pilger don’t want to start questioning 9/11 and the other atrocities: he risks losing his credibility and worse, witness the experiences of Cristopher Bollyn, Michael Rupert and other 9/11 sceptics. However, the loose canon of the far left, what have they got to lose? Is it fear, folly or something worse which motivates them not only to adopt this line but to so vehemently attack any dissent? Whatever the answer to that, their attitude is not one of the truth seeker unless truth be understood as the endless restatement of tired old clichés.

As the War on Terror approaches its denouement, those behind it will pull out all the stops to achieve their goals - the escalation of the war, beginning with an attack on Iran, and the consolidation of their power at home based on the de facto overthrow of what remains of government by consent. Only more terrorist attacks, attributed to Iran, no doubt, and creating an atmosphere of such fear that all becomes possible, can do this. So who will carry these out, some successful young Asian minding his own business or those being manipulated by dark forces behind Blair? (The “real terrorist” as the left always call him on their demos). When will someone on the left break ranks and admit to the latter as a possibility to be guarded against at all costs?

2006-07-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Lebanon- the new target.
The neo-conservative and the policy of creative destruction.
By Thierry Meyssan (http://www.voltairenet.org/article142364.html)
Translated by Colin Buchanan

In Washington and Tel-Aviv, they are overjoyed about the military operations being carried out in the Middle- East. As Condeleeza Rice put it, Lebanon is undergoing the "the birth pangs of a new Middle-East." For the theoreticians of "creative destruction", it is necessary to let the blood flow in order to impose a new order on a region rich in fossil fuels. Planned long since, the offensive of the Israeli Army is being supervised by the US Department of Defence.

In the course of her press conference at the State Department on 21st July 2006, Condoleeza Rice was asked about what initiatives she planned to take in order to bring peace to Lebanon. She answered : " But I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante. I think it would be a mistake. What we’re seeing here, in a sense, is the growing — the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do we have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the new Middle East not going back to the old one ".

Viewed form Washington, what is happening today in Lebanon has nothing to do with getting back the soldiers captured by Hezbollah.What it is about is the putting into practice of the long nurtured theory of "creative destruction". According to the followers of the philosopher Leo Strauss, the media face of which are known as the "neo-conservatives", real power is not exercise in static way, but, rather, through the destruction of all resistance. It is through plunging the masses into chaos that the elites can consolidate their power.

Again, according to Strauss's followers, it is only through this violence that the imperial interests of the US and the Jewish State converge.

Israel's wish to dismantle Lebanon and to create in its place a Christian statelet and to annex part of its terrirtory isn't new.It was first enunciated, in 1957, by David Ben-Gurion in a famous letter published as an annex to his posthumous memoires.Above all, it was incorporated into a vast project for the colonization of the Middle-East drawn up in 1996 under the title : A Clean Break : A New Strategy for Securing the Realm[of Israel]. This document, written inside a neo-conservative think tank, the IASPS,was prepared by a group of experts around Richard Perle and passed to Benjamin Netanyahu[1]. It is representative of the revisionist zionist ideas of Vladimir Jabotinsky.It envisages :

- the cancellation of the Oslo accords,
- the elimination of Yasser Arafat,
- the annexation of the Palestinian territories
- the overthrowal of Saddam Hussein in Irak in order to destabilise in turn Syria and Lebanon,
- the use of Israel as a complementary base for the US star wars programme.
This document inspired the speech given by Netanyahu. soon after to the US Congress. There to be seen are all the ingredients of the present situation : threats against Iran, Syria and, most of all, the demand for the annexation of East Jerusalem.

This viewpoint coincides with that of the US administration. The control of the oil rich areas which Zbignew Brzezinski and Bernard Lewis called "the arc of crisis", that is to say, the arc connecting the Gulf of Guinea to the Caspian Sea passing through the Persian Gulf, implies a redefinition of frontiers, states and political structures : a "remodelling of the whole Middle-East", according to the expression of George W. Bush.
It is this Middle-East of which Ms Rice regards herself the midwife and to whose birth pangs she is the witness.

The idea is simple : substitute for the states inherited from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, smaller monoethnic entities which can be neutralised by playing one of against the other. In other words, it amounts to going back on the secret agreement reached in 1916, by the French and British empires, the so-called Sykes- Picot accords[2] and to ratify total Anglo-Saxon control over the region. But, in order to create new states, one must first destroy the existing ones. This is what the Bush administration and its have devoted themselves to, with the fervour of a sorcerers apprentice, for the last five years. Just judge by the results :
-7% of Palestinian territory has been eaten away ; Gaza strip and the West Bank have been physically separated by a wall ; the Palestinian Authority has been wrecked, its ministers and MPs kidnapped or illegally detained.
- the UN has enjoined Lebanon to disarm by expelling the Syrians and dissolving Hezbollah ;former prime minister Rafic Harriri has been murdered and ,with him, French influence has disappeared ;the economic infrastructure of the country has been erased ; more than half a million refugees have been created in the region.
- The dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has been replaced by an even more cruel one which kills more than 3000 people a month ; in a state of total anarchy, the country is set to be split up into three distinct entities.
- The Taliban pseudo- emirate has given way to a pseudo- democracy where the obscurantist interpretations of Sharia law still hold sway, as well as the cultivation of opium.In reality, Afghanistan is already divided up amonst the warlords and violence is rife. The central government has given up on enforcing its writ even in the capital.

In Washington, the disciples of Leo strauss, ever more impatient, dream of spreading their chaos to Sudan, Syria and Iran. In this transitional period it is no longer a question of "free market democracy" but just blood and tears.

Jacques Chirac who wished to intervene in Lebanon to defend France's remaining
interests and who had sent Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has become disenchanted : at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, George W. Bush stopped him in his tracks by telling him that it was not an Israeli operation supported by the US but a US operation carried out by Israel. Suddenly, M. de Villepin had nothing to declare but fine words and his own impotence.

More precisely, the project for the destruction of Lebanon had been pesented to the Bush administration by the Israeli army just over a year ago as revealed by the San Frncisco Chronicle[3]. It was up for discussion at the annual world forum, the 17th and 18th of June 2006 at Beaver Creek organised by the American Enterprise Institute. Benjamin Netanyahu and Dick Cheney spoke at length in the company of Richard Perle and Nathan Sharansky. The green light was given in the course of the following days by the White House.

The military operations of Tsahal are supervised by the US Defnce Department. They decide the basic strategy and choose the targets. The main role has been given to Bantz Craddock in his capacity as head of Southern Command. Craddock is a specialist in the deployment of armoured vehicles as he showed when he commanded NATO's ground forces in Kosovo. He is the right -hand man of Donald Rumsfeld whose personal staff office he runs and on whose behalf he set up Guantanamo. Next November he can be expected to be namd head of European Command and of NATO.In this capacity, he could lead the NATO force to be deployed in South Lebanon as well as those already on the ground in Afghanistan and Sudan.
The generals of Israel and the US have already had the opportunity to get to know each other over the last thirty years, thanks to the exchanges organised by The Jewish Institute for Natinal Security Affairs (JINSA), a grouping which obliges its cadres to follow courses of study of the thought of Leo Strauss.

Thierry Meyssan is a journalist and writer and president of the Voltaire Network

2006-07-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

Onto Iran?

By vetoing a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire Blair has given his full support to the Israeli blitzkrieg in Lebanon. This wanton act of terrorism threatens everyone in Lebanon including , incidently, several thousand British citizens whose possible deaths would have thereby been sanctioned by British prime minister.Apparently, all is fair in the “war on terrorism”.These attacks have been justified by feigned outrage at Hezbollah's actions which have gone as far as kidnapping i.e. capturing two Israeli soldiers – yes, soldiers!- engaged in nothing more than an illegal infiltration of a neighbouring country. And so it's only reasonable that the neighbouring country had to be destroyed.

But this is not enough for the warlord Blair. Blair, remember, has vision. And what does he see? A chance to provoke the wider war which is his heart's desire.If the armed forces are, as they have shown themselves to be, reluctant to engage in a nuclear attack on Iran perhaps there is a chance to bounce them into it.Surely, after all, they will rally to the defence of democracy. Specifically, Israeli democracy,- not, perhaps, the best that money can buy ( isn't there something of a racial element in it?) but, anyway, a democracy. Remember, Blair will tell them, we are fighting for a state built on the same foundations as our own, expropriation, genocide and terror.

Definately Maybe

A consensus seems to have emerged that Hezbollah “started it”by infiltrating into Israel to abduct the two soldiers. According to Voltaire Network it was the other way round but anyway it has become a “virtual” fact of the type that monopoly control of the media makes possible.More importantly, a consensus has emerged that Iran( and Syria) are somehow behind it.A recent meeting in the House of Commons organised by the Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran(http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/) condemned Blair's attempts to implicate Iran.As Professor Abbas Edalat put it

"Until the new war waged by Israel against Lebanon, the main focus of the US/Israeli hysteric campaign against Iran was centred around the unfounded allegation of a covert nuclear arms program in Iran. We now have a new orchestrated campaign of threats. Today Iran and Syria are being blamed falsely by the US and the UK for being at the root of the present conflict in Lebanon. This double accusation and threat will multiply many fold the danger of a military attack against Iran as well as Syria by Israel and the US. "

But to no avail- Blair's view has already achieved alarmingly wide-ranging resonance.It is also being echoed on the left. Thus Alex Callincos in the latest Socialist Worker writes:

“My guess is that the Hizbollah offensive - for that is what the raid that captured two Israeli soldiers amounted to - was coordinated with the Iranian regime”

Joining in the guessing game was the Great Sage of Massachusetts. In a dithering response to Amy Goodman, Chomsky opined that

“ I don't think we have the slightest idea. You can guess anything you’d like. It's a possibility. In fact, even a probability”

Is this “It's probably Iran” meant to be a rebuttal of the War Party's vehement chorus of denunciation of Iran?

My guess is with this kind of opposition Blair fancies his chances of steamrollering us into the global war, the World War III that Gingrich says has already started. The crisis which started with the Israelis “taking out” a seaside picnic is taking on proportions which are truly terrifying.

Incidently, if anyone thinks that the Brits are laggards when it comes to this escalation read the Times 21st July.It talks of Britains plans for “containment” of Iran and

“ British frustration with the US’s failure to devise a plan for dealing with Tehran, once the Iraqi conflict stripped it of the appetite for military action.”

A bang or a whimper?

There is an air of finality about the situation as if our fate is at last to be decided either way. Will it be with an apocalyptic war against Iran soon to be transformed into a generalized East- West conflict which engulfs us all or is it just the last gasp of the Anglo-American-Israeli ascendancy who with their anti-humanist ideology, their ever more terrible techniques of death, their mercenaries, their death squads, their media whores and their sanctimonious, smirking, lying toadies in the political parties, think-tanks and academia have lorded it over the world for too long?

2006-02-23T07:28:00.000-08:00

An urgent appeal to people everywhere!

For some time, now, the US/UK leadership has had plans to attack Iran as part of their overall strategy of extending their control over the Middle East and, ultimately, the world. It looks like this attack may now be about to happen. The launching of the Iranian Euro spot-market in oil on the 20^th March may well be a factor in precipitating this aggression. The consequences of such an attack are incalculable but it could certainly bring about a wider, even global war. There are also strong indications that the US/UK plan to use nuclear weapons.

It is true that a Russian compromise – Iran’s nuclear fuel to be processed in Russia – is still possible, but there is no diplomatic solution to this crisis from the US/UK point of view: they merely intend to use diplomacy to trigger war, as they did in the period preceding the invasion of Iraq. If “the diplomatic process” fails to provide a pretext for war, they may seek to provide another through setting up a provocation of some kind, for example, a terrorist attack attributed to Iran.

It’s up to us!

Clearly, it is absolutely necessary to oppose this escalation of the war but there is no point in waiting for official peace movements to do the work. They have already failed miserably by not warning us about or opposing energetically these monstrous plans for a greater war: now it is up to us.

What we can do.

1) We must do everything we can to inform ourselves and then to inform others. Hours spent researching on the internet are not wasted as long as the information is passed on to others. Create E-mail lists and spread the word far and wide.

2) The internet is a great tool – but it is not enough! You must also engage with others directly. Talk to family, friends and colleagues. Take to the streets, set up a stall, hold rallies, pickets, demonstrations etc. Organise discussions, committees, public meetings etc. Organise educationals, seminars, conferences, boycotts of products of aggressor countries etc.

3) Use the internet and all other media to publicize your activities- whatever you are doing let others know. Provide reports and photos. Contact newspapers, political parties, prominent individuals, representatives, celebrities and so on. In this way small events, even involving only one or two people, can have resonance throughout the world.

From small beginnings a thousand tributaries can come together to form a global peace movement. It is important to realize that only a tiny group of warmongers are behind these war plans and that we have allies everywhere throughout the whole of society and throughout the world.

Now more than ever peace is necessary and for the first time in human history it is also possible. At stake is the future of us all but let us think most of all of the new generations: we must pass on a peaceful world and viable eco-system to them.

Let’s work together now to make this future possible.

We are about to set up a website: www.defendiran.org which hopefully will serve as one point of reference for our movement.

Please translate and circulate this message.

Colin Buchanan,

Glasgow, Scotland, 12^th February

Contact: handsoffiran@hotmail.com

2006-02-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

Does the SSP look bovvered?

The SSP, the last refuge of the far-left in Scotland , have addressed the pressing issue of the impending attack on Iran.( Socialist Voice 19th January)

Though lagging far behind the “vanguard” in the shape The Daily Mirror and The Big Issue, its still good to see the revolutionaries getting round to an issue which one could be forgiven, on past record, for thinking lies outside their remit which is focused on the issues which affect “ the day-to-day lives of ordinary working class men and women” and, therefore, presumably doesn’t include global war.

( As a brief aside, the Gill Hubbard, SSP luminary, canvassed the house of an ex-SSP friend of mine who fortunately she failed to recognize. He put it to her that the impending Iran crisis was a much greater source of anxiety to him than prescription charges, to which la Hubbard reply icily,” Well, you won’t be voting for us then”).

The typical SSP articles on issues relating to issues concerning the war don’t actually present any clear unequivocal ideas, but rather procede through suggestion and insinuation; just like the rest of the media, in fact. To get to the sense it is necessary to read between the lines. I reproduce the article below with my own commentaries and finish with a “translation” and conclusion.

Iran’s nuclear plans fuel rumours of third Gulf war

This includes one sensational and disturbing revelation viz. the possibility of a third Gulf War. This of course should on the front page but here is relegated to the status of the secondary focus of this sentence. The subject of the sentence is “Iran’s nuclear plans” whose existence is “fuelling” this terrible possibility of war launched by as yet unknown forces.So, the SSP seem have completely taken onboard the “bourgeois” viewpoint that this whole crisis is due to something Iran has done rather than the long-standing plans of the neo-cons.

“The clumsy bullying of Iran, by the US and its uncritical junior partner the UK, to abandon its plans for nuclear power has seriously backfired.”

This tells us that US/UK are threatening Iran in order to prevent it form developing a nuclear programme. This, of course, is the pretext given by the War Party but, of course, there is ample evidence that their real motivation goes way beyond that. Iran has been named part of the “Axis of Evil”. Is a nuclear programme sufficient indication of “evil” in the minds of the neo-cons? Evidently not, since there are many nations with nuclear programmes which have not been so categorized by Bush & co. Still, for the moment, the SSP is prepared to take the views of the “class enemy” at face value.In addition, one would have thought that the Marxists, ever eager to unmask underlying economic factors, would have leapt at the chance of highlighting the fast approaching launch of the Iranian Euro oil spot-market; but no.

"clumsy bullying"

Is bullying OK if its not clumsy? Are US/UK criminal here or merely criminally inept?

"has seriously backfired"

Something criminal or incompetent was afoot but has now "backfired". Does the SSP know something that no one else does?- I would have thought that they are only just getting into their stride with the bullying and that far from "backfiring" they're on an easy run with no opposition from anyone, least of all the global "anti-war movement" Maybe the War Party's high standards have led them to drop the bullying campaign because their clumsiness has been exposed but, I have to say, clumsiness didn't seem to bother them in the propaganda campaign leading up to the Iraq invasion.

"Even Iranian opponents of their country's regime support its right to nuclear power"

This is how it has backfired: because of their clumsiness or clumsy bullying, the Iranian people have rallied round their own government in favour of their own legal right to develop nuclear power.Note that the Iranian government is a regime and therefore by implication, illegitimate whereas the Blair regime would be referred to as the Blair government: that's because Britain is a democracy.

"Hardly surprising given the Iraq disaster. Imperialist meddling has never been so unpopular"

The invasion 0f Iraq was a disaster. Therefore, imperialist intervention is unpopular. If the US/UK had succesfully subjugated and pacified Iraq, then presumably everyone would be queueing up for the same treatment. Oh, the sheer ineptitude! An other missed opportunity.

"All this notwithstanding, military action against the sovereign state has not been ruled out by either Republicans or Democrats and Jack Straw continues to wag a threatening finger and look stern"

There is clear evidence that US/UK has plans for nuclear strikes against Iran, but, of course, they are not saying this openly, concealing their intentions behind the pretence of diplomatic action with the proviso that they may be forced into military action, all else failing. The SSP is quite happy to take this bit of duplicity on the part of their "class enemies" at face value failing to see that the "diplomatic process" is meant to fail.

"In truth, however, there is little the US/UK can do."

They can, and quite possibly will, bomb Iran into the middle-ages but the SSP chooses to reassure us:" everything is OK- don't bother mobilising against another monstrous crime"

"Economic sanctions are an option but given that Iran is the world's fourth biggest oil producer at a time of soaring fuel prices, experts predict such a move would raise still further, from $60 a barrel to as much as $120 with catastrophic consequences for the industrial economies of the Europe and the US."

The sanctions stuff is just part of the diplomatic game, a cover for war preparations. The SSP is happy to take the whole thing on face value: they say that's what its about so that must be true! They wouldn't be lying to us, would they? Surely not George and Tony!

" Nor are the prospects for military action much brighter"

Nothing could be darker for the people of Iran and , indeed, the whole of humanity than the attack which could well be imminent. Does the SSP look bovvered?

"Quagmire"

"The quagmire of Iraq has effectively marginalised any forces in Iran who at one time believed invasion might open up the path to regime change"

So, if they had won a quick victory in Iraq they could have gone on to invade Iran bringing about regime change with the support of oppositional movements.
Does the SSP support these oppositional movements which would be the beneficiaries of a US/UK invasion and would, of course, subordinate the interests of Iran to US/UK imperialism? This would be exactly the position of the neo-cons and one can read innumerable articles to this effect on neo-con websites such as centerforsecuritypolicy.org

" More immediately, any sabre-rattling by the British risks increased attacks on UK troops deployed in Southern Iraq, where militias supported by Iran are active"

But they shouldn't do it because it would endanger British troops in Iraq. Well, that is one reason for not doing it, but certainly not the first one I'd cite.

"The fragility of the British position there was highlighted in Basra last September when tanks were deployed to rescue two SAS men captured by militias."

Two SAS men were caught red-handed carrying out a black-op but once again the official version is good enough for our pefectly domesticated revolutionaries.

"In the ensuing riots, a British Warrior tank was set ablaze and horrific pictures of burning soldiers flashed around the world"

Sometimes the natives get restless.

"Now, large parts of the British occupied zone are now no-go areas and British ministers avoid visits for fear of being caught on cameras with soldiers who have lost limbs or eyes or serious spinal injuries, even brain damage."

We're losing - I wouldn't disagree with that.

"Soldiers have been told not to talk to the media about any of this."

Yes, there has been a total news blackout from the start.

"The news that self-styled New Labour hardman, John Reid is now to visit wounded troops prompts the question- what is he up to?
Sure, he's trying to counter mounting criticism, by soldiesr's relatives and friends, of the government's callous attiotude to wounded personnel."

There is immense discontent within the armed forces; witness the recent leader in The Guardian about the formation of an army union. This discontent certainly involves the issues cited but we can safely assume it goes well beyond these to the whole notion of War without End, the fact that Reid and his gang offer no end in sight and, on the contrary, are sending large numbers of British troops to Afghanistan in what can only be a move to open an eastern front against Iran.

"Victims"
But "Dr" Reid will be adopting his best bedside manner for the cameras, not the victims of his government's war.
Again why?"

By the way, shouldn't that be "regime" rather than "government"- or does the SSP find this gang of quasi-fascist war criminals more legitimate than the Iranian government. Yes, British soldiers are victims of the Blair wars but they are hardly the only or the main ones. Our regime fears that they may have had enough and won't be up for further sacrifices on behalf of Blair's gung-ho gang.

"Chillingly, because the Blair government may be trying to soften the public's resistance to war, either because the furnace of Iraq is about to get even hotter or they fancy another one, this time Iran."

“may be trying”. Surely an understatement! We are witnessing an unprecedented campaign of vilification against a sovereign government and preparation for war at home, including the destabilization of all potential oppositional forces, including the SSP, Respect and the Lib-Dems.

Translation: The SSP takes at face value the mainstream view of the current crisis and apparently regrets that US/UK military action has undermined prospects for" regime change". They seem to be unaware that both the current diplomatic process and the neo-cons professed desire to spread democracy are merely covers for longstanding plans to balkanize and subjugate the Middle East. They are aware that this war and its escalation poses a threat to British forces in the area but seem unaware of the wider dimension of the crisis. The article is underpinned by a vague condescension towards the Iranian "regime" which presumably compares unfavourably with our own blessed democracy which never threatened anyone, is free from human rights abuses and in which the same people haven't taken control over virtually all the media, political parties and institutions.

All on all, this confirms what many of have already observed, namely that this is not a burning issue for the SSP and that it shows a remarkable complacency regarding the danger to world peace and to our own liberties posed by the Blair and his sinister, warmonger gang. After spending a year pretending Iran wasn't a target they now admit that it is: but it is not front page news and this article is hardly a call to action

2006-02-06T02:13:00.000-08:00

The Grand Chess Game

Today( Sunday 5^th) has seen the beating of war drums raised to a new crescendo. Senator John McCain made the following remarkably bellicose statement:

“ There is only one thing worse than military action; that is a nuclear armed Iran”. In the context this amounts to saying “ we will use nuclear weapons rather than allow the possibility of Iran even having them”

This is disturbing, but fully compatible with the now firmly established principles of “ full spectrum dominance” and pre-emptive aggression which now inform US foreign policy.

For his part Rumsfeld came out with this piece of hysterical fantasy

“They seek to take over government from North Africa into Southeast Asia and to re-establish a Caliphate they hope, one day, will include every continent. They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist empire”

I wonder where they got that idea from.

Iran, as they say, remained defiant.

“ We are not seeking a military confrontation, but if that happens we will give the enemy a lesson that will be remembered throughout history.”

One could be forgiven for thinking that war is imminent and who would dare say otherwise. But is diplomacy in fact really finished?

The media obviously seem to think so after yesterday’s vote at the IAEA and after Iran’s apparent cessation of co-operation. The key to understanding the situation is the attitude of Russia.

Many people seem to have picked up the idea that Russia, as well as China, have simply caved in to US/UK demands and are deserting Iran. That is a misconception that has to be immediately corrected: there is absolutely no chance of Russia or China abandoning their absolutely crucial alliance with Iran. What is happening is something a bit more complicated- something more like, well….a grand chess game, to coin Brezizinski’s perhaps unfortunate metaphor for the struggle for power and resources in Eurasia. (Who, after all, would expect to win at chess against the Russians?)

That there is more play in this situation than meets the eye, is evident from the Russian view of yesterday’s events. As RIA novosti put it

“ The IAEA Board of Governors has adapted a resolution Saturday to inform( my italics) the UN Security Council on the Iran issue”

Not even the hint of the possibility of sanctions. At the same time the Russian ambassador to Tajikstan reaffirmed

“ his countries full support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme”

A Russian emmissary, Kislyak, visiting Tehran, said that he had conveyed Russia's "friendly advice to Iranian colleagues: to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency."

None of this conveys much sense of a rift between the two countries whereby Russia is setting up in ally for destruction by the US airforce. Significantly, after appearing to rule this option out yesterday, Tehran now says it will hold further talks on Russia’s proposal to enrich uiranium on its own soil( for the background to this possible agreement see Thierry Meyssan’s invaluable article translated on this blog)

That Russia had something up their sleeve was clear already by Wednesday. As Reuters put it.

“Delaying action until March would allow time for Russia and Iran to work on details of Moscow’s offer to purify uranium for Tehran - a joint venture aimed at preventing diversion of nuclear fuel to bomb-making.”

In other words, after appearing to tow the US/UK line on Monday and Wednesday and leaving Iran facing the option of total surrender or the wrath of the UNSC, it became clear that sufficient concessions had been extracted to allow still for a negotiated solution to the crisis. Surely, this was good news!

Not, alas, for the US/UK coalition. They had already set the juggernaut in motion and were prepared to sweep all before them in a drive for war mascarading as a diplomatic process: the goal of the process being war, the diplomacy providing the trigger in a rerun of what we saw before the Iraq invasion.. The point is that even US/UK, inveterate warmongers though they are, need a trigger, some kind of justification for another genocidal (or suicidal) adventure. The Russians may well have played a deft gambit or rather a variant of the Reti opening, which allows the opponent to occupy the centre of the board in an illusory show of strength. The subtlety about this play is that by posing as an honest broker and even a friend of the US, Russia is avoiding putting itself in the firing line and the demonisation which is a necessary prelude to being targeted by the the empire. Thus the US will find itself unprepared when suddenly the Russia- China – Iran alliance gels around the Russian uranium purification proposals. As a bonus, in Europe the atlanticist faction has taken, or been given, the reins and are naturally running with the Americans. They could be in for a fall.

What then has been the response of the US/UK coalition to the sudden realization that, despite their advance formation their position is crucially flawed. Could they adjust their strategy and, if so, to what?

By Thursday ominous noises were emanating from the office of John Negroponte, not the Director of Central Intelligence but the new supremo, the National Director of Intelligence, to the effect that

“the terror network’s core elements are making preparations for terror strikes against America and other targets”

Not to be outdone, the BBC announced that Lord Carlyle, no less, had condescended to view documents purporting to establish that similar attacks would occur over here. Note that this not the usual wolf-cry from one of Tony’s dodgy , masonic police friends but a Lord of the Realm and therefore, one would be led to suppose, a man of unimpeachable integrity( in contrast to Blair’s impeachable lack of integrity).

So, a big effort was being made hit the write buttons, to elicit the due Pavlovian responses from the respective transatlantic communities by parading two archetypes of their respective cultures viz. the cowboy and the squire. The message was being made more absorbable: there will be another terrorist attack.

To whom would such an attack be attributable?

I don’t really see why I should be obliged to answer this question. I’m sure most of you could have a stab at it. But, guesswork apart, those of you who have seen the trailers to this particular film should have no doubt. In their heart of hearts the directors must have known all along that it would come to this so we’ve had some pretty remarkable footage on show for some time. That Scottish daily Express deadline comes to mind “ Maniac plots WWIII”( a reference to Ahmadinejad). Then there were Frank Gaffney’s Jules Verne like fantasies about Iran attacking the US with EMP’s( electro-magnetic pulses for the uninitiated). And, of course, the Times on how Iran was behind the London bombings.

But are they really desperate enough to find a pretext to attack Iran that they would be prepared to do what they always do i.e. arrange for them to attack us first. It does look like it; terrorism is the only way to deal with the diplomatic threat which could stop them from attacking Iran before Iran sets up its Euro spot market. That’s set for 20^th March. Time is running out for the Americans. Time is running out for all of us. If we allow dark forces to synthesize a pretext for war we risk sinking into a mire from which we may never emerge.

2006-02-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

This is my translation of an article written in French by Thierry Meyssan(http://www.voltairenet.org/article134908.html)

The hidden stakes in the Iran crisis

The confrontation between the big powers over Iran continues with antagonisms hidden from view. Since December 2002, the USA has accused Iran of seeking nuclear arms in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT)

The seizure of Iran by the USA would mean them taking control of both the East bank of the Gulf and the Southern Caspian, including their reserves of oil and gas estimated to be the second largest in the world. Already the US have military control of part of the Caspian basin and of a corridor enabling them to link this area with the Indian Ocean( Afghanistan and Pakistan). They have also taken control of the key areas of the Gulf( Saudi Arabia and Iraq). At the end of this operation, Washington should have complete control over the world’s main hydrocarbon production and reserves. It will control the world economy without the need to share power.

At the present stage in the conflict, the big powers are divided with regard to US strategy goals. The UK, France and Germany are convinced that Iran has a nuclear arms programme. They base this on briefing by the US intelligence services who have shown them secret documents asserting that Tehran is working on a Green Salt Project aimed at developing a missile system with nuclear warheads. On the other hand, Russia, China and India consider Iran’s programme to be purely civilian in nature. They base themselves on the Fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeiny, decreeing that the production, possession and use of nuclear weapons is contrary to Islamic teaching.

Objectively, the NPT’s distinction between between legitimate civilian and prohibited military programmes is no longer pertinent given the techniques now available. Civilian know-how and facilities can easily be adapted to military use. A rigorous reading of NPT would lead to the prohibition of nuclear programmes for all states, whereas a more lax interpretation would open the door to generalized proliferation. Without dealing with this question it is impossible to resolve the Iranian case, and it is precisely this grey area which the US is exploiting in order to lead the way to war.

There is, however, perhaps one means of clarifying the situation . A special method of enriching uranium, not yet completely developed, would, once again, allow a clear distinction between civilian and military usage. Russia is endeavouring to perfect this method and proposes that it be used not only for Iran’s benefit but for that of the international community as a whole. This is expected to be one of the three major proposals which President Putin will put forward at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, this summer.

The feasibility of this project remains to be demonstrated. Russia would produce nuclear fuel on its own territory in factories constructed in partnership with the state in question under the control of the International Atomic Energy Authority(IAEA). Detailed procedures still have to be worked out to guarantee the interests of all the protagonists. If this project were to be fully realized international relations as a whole would be turned completely upside down. Russia, as the guarantor of energy provision throughout the world would eclipse the authority of the USA which today satisfies their own energy needs at the expense of the rest of the world.

Iran has made of its nuclear programme a symbol of its independance with regard to Anglo-Saxon colonialism from which it has suffered so much. Contrary to an idea put about for some time now in the atlanticist press, this ambition is not the reserve of a particular faction within Iran but is shared throughout Iranian society. In addition, if the Islamic Republic has abandoned its dream of expansion dating from the Khomeiny revolution, nowadays, it intends to play a leading role in the rejuvenated non-aligned movement.. It also intends to share its demands regarding nuclear power with other countries and reaffirm the right to a peaceful nuclear programme, not just for itself, but for everyone.

Far from being concerned exclusively with Iran, the present diplomatic game will impact on the international balance of power and the intention of the USA, reaffirmed yesterday in the State of the Union Address, to take on unilateral global leadership.

Throughout 2004 and 2005 the various powers have been making increasingly complicated moves. A European Troika was meant to play the role of honest broker between the USA and Iran; they demanded a halt in Iran’s nuclear programme and then leant decisively towards the American camp. Iran, after accepting a two and a half year moratorium on its nuclear research, resumed them on the 10^th January 2006, considering that they had waited long enough as a sign of good will without any serious response form the Europeans. The Russian position had become completely opaque, the foreign minister giving to understand that he shared the point of view of the Europeans until being put in his place by Putin who reaffirmed his commitment to a peaceful solution. Finally, a series of diplomatic missions have enabled Russia, China and Iran to develop a common strategy.

The whole question was given a kick-start when Britain organsied, on 30th January, a « private ministerial dinner » bringing together the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the USA and China.. In the course of this meeting, Jack straw, British foreign minister proposed that the IAEA refer the question to the Security Council, the first step on the way to war. His Russian and Chinese opposite numbers emphasized that such a decision would have no basis in international law. Confident in the viability of their uranium enrichment project, the Russian Federation wished simply to play for time, the time necessary to put together an agreement with Iran i.e. one or two months according to the experts. The dinner was concluded by setting out a timetable which each side presented as a victory: the IAEA Council of Governors will not be able to refer Iran to the UN Security council next week because it lacks the power to do so, but will demand of the UNSC that it be given the powers to do so at a future date.

This compromise allows the Americans and Europeans to maintain the pressure and the Russians and Chinese to gain time. Working out who came out best depends on whether you consider the glass half-full or half-empty.

In practice, assuming that the Security Council gives the Council of Governors the requisite powers, the latter can only put them into effect at their next meeting on 9th March.

The Iranians make play of resenting this horse trading as a betrayal by their friends the Russians. But, it is quite possible that they have obtained a written guarantee from the Russians that they will veto any vote by the Security council authorizing war.

Whatever the case may be, the Iranians are appealing to their partners in the non-aligned movement for help. President Ahmadinejad received a phone call of support from Thabo Mbeki( South Africa, who had produced nuclear during the apartheid era, along with Israel, later renounced them). Indonesia has repeatedly called for peace, whilst Venezuela and Malaysia are soon to receive the Iranian president.

At the same time, Iran is preparing « a world without Israel and the USA ». Tehran is optimistic about putting in place an oil spot market which doesn’t accept dollars. This is already working at an experimental stage. If no nation has officially announced its participation, many are encouraging participation through private companies acting as intermediaries. Now, the dollar is an overvalued currency whose value is maintained essentially by its role as a petro-currency. Such a spot market, once really up and running, would provoke a collapse of the dollar, comparable to hat of 1939, even if its transactions only amounted to a tenth of the world turnover. US power would be undermined by the falling dollar and, in time, Israel would also find itself bankrupt

Washington is then obliged to apply all its force to ensure that the major world powers break with Tehran. Short of war, the US must at least succeed in imposing economic isolation on Iran. Paradoxically, neither option seems possible. The US and Tsahal can hardly bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, since these are maintained by Russian advisers and technicians. Attacking Iran would imply declaring war against Russia. Furthermore, even if strikes were possible, Iran would not neglect to strike back at Israel with the devastating Thor-1 missiles sold to them by the Russians. The Shiites would make life even harder for the occupation forces in Iraq. If the US choose to use an economic blockade of Iran, this could easily be bypassed through Iran’s special relationship with China. Meanwhile, Iran would deny the West part of its oil supply, bringing about a rise in prices of 300% per barrel and a huge economic crisis.

Quite clearly, the outcome of this confrontation depends on the ability of each protagonist to impose his own timetable on events. Meanwhile, the Bush administration stubbornly drives towards a confrontation which it lacks the means to carry through successfully and in which it risks loosing its authority.

2006-01-26T02:46:00.000-08:00

FAQs on Iran

Does the London-Washington- Tel-Aviv axis have a leg to stand on , legally or morally, in its campaign to isolate Iran internationally and to deny her a nuclear programme on the grounds that it will necessarily be used to create nuclear weapons?

No.

Is Iran in breach of the Non-proliferation Treaty?

No.

Is Britain in breach of the NPT?

The announced programme for a new generation of nuclear weapons places Britain, as a signatory to the NPT, in clear breach of that agreement which obliges Britain to endeavour to phase out nuclear weapons .

Why would Iran want a nuclear programme if not to create nuclear weapons?

The same reason that we want to renew our programme viz. in order to guarantee energy supplies in an unstable world. The fact that a country already has significant supplies of oil or gas doesn’t mean they can afford to be complacent. Just look at Britain! - we had such reserves but now they’ve run out leaving us high and dry.

Is there any evidence that Iran is constructing nuclear weapons?

No. IAEA inspectors have had unrestricted access to Iran’s nuclear facilities and have found no evidence of a nuclear weapons programme.

Is Iran a threat to us?

Iran has no means to pose a serious threat to Britain.

Are we a threat to Iran?

Undoubtedly. Our ally George W. Bush has labelled Iran as “evil”. Blair has spoken of the need to “deal with “ Iran. Coalition forces are arraigned on Iran.s Western and Eastern border. We have endeavoured to encircle Iran, isolating it internationally. We are in the midst of an extraordinary campaign of demonisation of Iran reminiscent of that which preceeded the disastrous invasion of Iraq. A press release from strategic command appears to confirm insider leaks that Cheney had requested that they prepare for nuclear strikes against Iran.

Tony Blair considers Iran to be a sponsor of international terrorism and Iran has been linked to the 7^th July bombings in London. Could they carry out terrorist attacks against us?

Since the Bush/Blair faction describes all its enemies as terrorists and they are making enemies faster than they can kill them, it follows that virtually anyone could be accused of carrying out terrorist attacks. Terrorist attacks are criminal acts. Rather than leaving the press to speculate about who may or may not be behind the London bombings, and since we have both police detection agencies and a criminal justice system, I recommend that Blair and co. find out by carrying out a rigorous investigation into the facts, beginning with a full inquest into the deaths of four Asians allegedly implicated.

Isn’t Iran an easy target so shouldn’t we just attack them anyway?

Iran is a proud nation of 80 million people. They we will react fiercely to any aggression against their independence and sovereignty . They are closely allied to Russia, who have provided them with state of the art missile systems, and China for whom they are increasingly important as an energy supplier.

Could an attack against Iran then lead to a global war?

Certainly, it would be a grossly irresponsible, as well as criminal , act.

Who described the idea of attacking Iran as “silly”.

Sir Alan West, head of UK naval forces.

Should Blair be impeached?

According to General Sir Michael Rose, yes. However, he is not acting alone and appears to be part of a wider circle which is using its control of our media, institutions and political parties to advance its own, utterly reckless and ruinous agenda. These people need to be exposed and suitably restrained from further mischief.

2006-01-19T02:25:00.000-08:00

Comrade Callinicos renders his position more profound.

Comrade Callinicos is back again on Iran( Socialist Worker 21st January) and there has been a certain evolution in his views; from they would have to be stupid to attack Iran ( so, surely, they won’t do it) to they’re stupid enough to do anything( and, therefore, may well do it). So in the last couple of months he’s arrived at a conclusion many of us reached a long time ago – the War Party are stupid( I would rather say, mad). He’s come late to this dread realization but better late than never.

What conclusion does he draw from this last-minute embrace of reality. Is his article an appeal to the British people and his own membership to get out and mobilise against a terrifying escalation into the next phase of War without End( such as Tony Benn, president of Stop the War made last summer), a plan in which our own government is clearly implicated?

Not at all! After “guessing” that Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons Callinicos muses, like a cheap tabloid journalist, on “what the US and its allies can do to punish Iran’s defiance” whether his “guess” is correct or not. The punch line is the speculation that the results of an attack

“ are likely, once again, to demonstrate the limits of US power”.

Oh well, that’s all right then! Why not just sit back and watch it on TV?

2006-01-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

Prepare to oppose a nuclear attack on Iran!

The eerie silence over the Iran crisis is I think portentous and suggestive of danger for us all. The evidence is clear enough : a statement from Strategic Command has effectively confirmed ex-CIA agent Philip Giraldi’s claim in The American Conservative( 1^st August 2005) that Cheney had requested that Statcom prepare for nuclear strikes against Iran(See Nuclear War against Iran- Michel Chossudovsky, 3^rd January at globalresearch.ca). Given forty years of agitation in this country against nuclear weapons you may be excused for thinking that people would be shouting from the rooftops about this mortal threat to us all: but the people don’t know and evidently the likes of CND and Stop the War don’t want to know. Are these organisations then guilty of criminal neglect in terms of not carrying out their self-proclaimed tasks? Undoubtedly. Are they in fact integrated into the empire and using their influence to clear the way for their masters? Who knows? The reality we face is , however, implacable in its awfulness; we are heading inexorably towards the tragic denouement of the imperial war machine: those who are itching to use “those wonderful weapons “, as Madeleine Albright would have it, have manoeuvred themselves into precisely the place where they can finally achieve what they have been bragging about for so long. Before discussing what action we should take to try and prevent disaster I will try to summarise the method in this madness in order to shake up the attitude of the sceptics, the “they wouldn’t do a thing like that tendancy” which, apart from simple treachery, is the main obstacle to action.

A nuclear attack on Iran would be a crime of inconceivable proportions and totally unpredictable outcomes. It would be opposed by Russia, as well as China, contrary to mendacious press reports from who have an obvious motive in convincing us otherwise.

Do the USA and Britain have the means to carry out such an attack?

A thousand times over.

Have they a history of war crimes including nuclear war crimes?

Clearly.

Could the criminals involved be said to have a longstanding predisposition to this type of action; is it a crime fortold?

Clearly it is. Anecdotal evidence shows the likes of Richard Perle as braggarts when it comes to nuclear weapons. Geoff Hoon made clear Britain’s predisposition to the use of these weapons. But the evidence is much more plain than that- the US nuclear doctrine has been transformed in order to put pre-emptive first strike nuclear attacks on the order of the day: hence the opposition of 1500 US scientists who have petitioned against it (http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/). All these modifications to US nuclear doctrine have been carefully monitored by journalists like Gordon Prather.( see antiwar.com)

Do they have a motive?

Obviously they think they do; Iran has been placed in “the axis of evil”.

In terms of the Bush doctrine is Iran with us or against us?

Iran is a large nation with a young, educated population and rich in natural resources. Left undisturbed one would expect it to become the dominant power in the Middle east. It has formed close diplomatic and commercial ties with countries ranging from China to Venezuela. It is planning to set up a euro spot market in oil which many see as a mortal threat to the US dollar. It appears to be prepared to take on the US head on. The US, as long as it conceives of itself as an empire, has a clear interest in eliminating a dangerous and resourceful rival.

Do the Anglo- Americans have opportunity?

This is, if you like, a silly question. Through the manipulation of media and terror ( see Ivashov’s speech translated on this blog ) they create opportunity. Iran is a virtual enemy in the virtual world of CNN, FOX and the BBC and the potential virtual author of another, unfortunately all too real, massacre of innocents.

So there you have it: means , history, predisposition, motive and opportunity.

But the sceptics object: “ Is this a reasonable thing to do?” “What do they have to gain from such recklessness?” “ Wouldn’t they themselves end up the losers themselves?”

I would answer: “It is the logic of a madman, the psycho-pathology of an elite who are themselves the expression of an empire which is doomed”

Let’s look at their predicament

They are obviously losing the war in Iraq. If they stay much longer their army will cease to exist. The US is bankrupt , has destroyed most of its productive capacity and the dollar is on the verge of collapse( just look at the explosive growth of the gold price). One option would be to renounce the whole imperial project and reinvent the USA( and Britain) as a sovereign nation coexisting with others on a basis of equality, not domination. No doubt , this will be the eventual choice but it cannot be carried out by this leadership who have burnt their boats and are totally committed to the present strategy, not least because of the crimes that have brought them thus far. As in Macbeth, the pursuit of power involves crimes, the immunity from which can only be bought by new crimes: regression is unthinkable, renunciation of power, fatal. The necessary policy shift away from empire therefore entails a revolution, albeit a legal and democratic one. Since, for the war party, things cannot go on as they are and retreat is not an option, escalation imposes itself as the only remaining option.

“Yes but,” you will object, “the army is not up to occupying Iran”

True. The army has already shown that it is not up to occupying Iraq. Its “occupation” has degenerated into the aerial destruction of a nation- in fact a genocide.The Anglo-American empire is basically an offshore, financial, maritime empire. Its strength never rested on its land army but in its navy and now, its air force and nuclear capability. The height of its power was its success in dividing Eurasia, pitting the armies of France and Germany against Russia. We must be clear about one thing – there will never be an Anglo-American world empire! Furthermore, since 1990 the strength of the US army has decreased immensely. As a military power today it is either nuclear or it is nothing, Rumsfeld’s drivel about special forces and mercenaries notwithstanding. If it is not a military power how much less is it an economic or diplomatic power. So it is not hard to see that to assert itself in the world requires a nuclear show of strength , or at least so it would be perceived in the minds of those for whom supreme US power is axiomatic. With or without an attempted occupation of Iran, the US appears poised to play to its one perceived strength in endeavouring to destroy Iran from the air. The argument put forward that failure in Iraq precludes an attack on Iran has been turned on its head by the War Party: failure against Iraq means upping the ante against Iran- escalating the war not just geographically but in terms of means employed.

You may object ,” this war is not good for business.”

In other words, the quaint old marxist notion that “our business is business”. Our business is war and has been since the Whig financiers took over England and created Great Britain. The Bank of England became the supreme instrument of war as contemporaries like Defoe and Swift could see. But there was flaw in the edifice of absolute power, a fissure whose opening, even as the vicious, ancestral strain reasserts itself for the last time, betokens the doom of the House of Usher. The imperial leadership faces an impossible conundrum which lies at the root of their delusional insanity – only empire will do but it can only ever fail.

So madness will prevail and if this horror doesn’t happen it will only be because someone gets to Cheney before Cheney gets to the button. We can hope or pray for this outcome but I prefer that we take matters in our own hands. What must we do?

Another anti-war movement is possible!

Nothing is happening because the War Party so fear the potential of opposition to their aggression that they have pulled out all the stops , standing down all the oppositional organisations which they can control or influence. Amazingly, this appears to be virtually all of them and they may now just be tying up some loose ends in the shape of both George Galloway’s Respect and the Lib-Dems. We are in a stranglehold from which we must break loose, breaking in the process the unnatural silence around the approaching danger. We must embark upon a massive publicity campaign to alert the public to what is happening. The internet is our best hope but we cannot rely on that alone. We need “Hands off Iran” committees set up in every town to organise leafletings, meetings, demos, pickets etc. We must act, inform , communicate and convince. No one supports what they are planning other than the deranged. We are the mainstream and must act as such. I am already encouraged by the amount of stuff circulating on the net. Let it become a torrent not just about what they are doing but what we are doing.

The die is cast and in reality it was cast long ago. Swift in his clairvoyance would have been unsurprised and unfazed by the pretty pass in which we find ourselves. To us has fallen the task of constraining the Whigs in the final delirium of their madness. We are entitled to fear the worst but also to hope for a new era of lasting peace if this madness can be stopped. Ironically, the Anglo-Americam globalisation of death and destruction has led to a counter- globalisation of life and construction throughout the rest of the world. As we look on from here in the heart of darkness it seems that we must only reach out to become part of it. But the evil remains and must be met head on. Let us acquit ourselves well for the sake of this new, emerging life, for future generations and for our own humanity which can only affirm itself against the prevailing cacophony of falsehood and betrayal.

2006-01-17T04:59:00.000-08:00

This posting was originally a reply to "Ask not what Stop the War can do for you -Ask what you can do for Stop the War" posted on Medialens.

Ask not what the left can do for us...

nothing! has to be our working assumption until proved wrong by their actions

...but what we can do to stop the planned genocide in Iran.

A lot of excellent stuff is going around on the net and that is all very encouraging but certainly will prove insufficient.It must be combined with action on the ground. I propose setting up local bodies of some form, however informal, but with a name, an E-mail address and preferably a website. These should not be regarded as being "left" organisations i.e. the domain of representatives of a single philosophical tendency, but should be open to people of all beliefs backgrounds, political persuasions and denominations. They are citizen bodies for those who realize that in a democracy we are ultimately reponsible for the actions carried out in our name, if the word democracy is to have any meaning at all.

Realistically these will consist only of a few, perhaps only one or two activists to begin with but matters is that they exist and people come to know about them.

Our first job is to inform and convince: we need an extraordinary publicity campaign to alert people to dangers of which they have probably only the faintest notion. However, the increasingly hysterical campaign against Iran makes our case more than credible.
I suggest that we should attempt to integrate web work with work on the ground, meetings , educationals, leafletings etc. so that they mirror and reinforce each other- I see some kind of multiplier effect here. We must be able to create as much stir as possible in as short a time as possible- time clearly is running out for us.Each body must act and communicate - the net must be saturated not only with analysis of what they, the war party, are doing but of reports of what we are doing in each locality. In the process we draw together a national network, laying the foundation for regional and national conferences.

Even if we are unable to stop the next phase of the war it is most important that we establish these networks in order to have oppositional and organisational forces in place as disastrous war plunges us into as immense political, economic and even, existential crisis.

To this end I have called a meeting in Glasgow this Thursday and I appeal to others to do something similar.

Colin Buchanan

2006-01-15T11:47:00.000-08:00

This is my translation of a speech given by General Ivashov at the Axis for Peace conference in Brussels in november 2005. Original in French on voltairenet.org or axisforpeace.net

As the global situation shows, terrorism appears wherever contradictions are exacerbated, be it through a change in social relations or of regime, the appearance of political, social or economic instability, the unleashing of aggresion, moral decline, the triumph of cynicism and nihilism or the legalization of vice and the explosion of criminality.

It is globalisation which creates the conditions for these extremely dangerous phenomena. It is within this framework that we see the new rupture within global geopolitics, the redistribution of global resources, the redrawing of national boundaries, the unraveling of the system of international law, the destruction of cultures and the impoverishment of spiritual life.

Analysing the process of globalization, in its essentials, as well as the political and military doctrines of the USA and certain other countries, proves that terrorism contributes to the attainment of global domination and the subordination of nation states to a global oligarchy.Thus, terrorism cannot be considered independantly of these global trends : it is , rather, an instrument, a means of imposing a unipolar world with a single centre of control, an expedient for eliminating national frontiers and inaugurating the rule of a new global elite. It is precisely this new elite which is the force behind international terrorism, its ideologue, its “godfather”. The target of this new elite is tradition , culture and history, the existing system of international relations, human civilization itself as founded within the nation state and national identity

.International terrorism as it now exists is a phenomena which combines the use of terror by state and non-state structures as a means of attaining political goals through intimidation, social and psychogical destabilisation , crushing the will of the organs of power to resist and the creation of conditions conducive to the manipulation of states and their citizens.

Terrorism is the means of waging a war of a new type. Together with the media, international terrorism becomes the controlling force in global developments. It is precisely this symbiotic relationship between terror and the media which creates the conditions allowing shifts in international politics, adjustments to the existing reality./

Analysing the events of September 11, 2001 in the USA in this context, one can draw the following conclusions :

These attacks were ordered from within political and business circles which had an interest in destabilizing the world order and had the means to finance this operation. This act had been shaped by tensions over the control of financial and other resources. The reasons for these attacks should be sought in the clash of interests within big capital at a transnational and global level, in those circles unhappy with the pace and direction of the globalization process. In contrast to traditional wars conceived by politicians and generals, those behind 9/11 were oligarchs and politicians subordinate to them.
Only the secret services and their present or retired heads( having maintained their influence inside state structures) are capable of planning and carrying out an operation of this order of magnitude. In general, it is the secret services who create, finance and control extremist organizations. Without their support these organizations can’t exist let alone carry out operations of this scope inside a particularly well protected country, To plan and put into effect an operation like this is extremely difficult.

Osama bin-laden and Al-quaeda cannot have organized or carried out the 9/11 attacks. They have neither the organization, the know-how or the personnel necessary. Consequently, a professional team must have been formed with the suicide bombers in the role of puppets to front the attacks. The 9/11 attacks changed the course of world events in a direction favourable to international oligarchs and the mafia.

The use of the term « international terrorism » aims to fulfill the following objectives :

► To conceal the aims of those forces throughout the world which seek global control and domination;

►To divert public opinion towards a war with uncertain goals against an invisible enemy; the destruction of international norms and to change the meaning of terms such as aggression, state terrorism, dictatorship or national liberation movement;

►To deprive peoples of their legitimate right to armed resistance against aggression and their right to take action against the subversive activities of foreign intelligence agencies;

►The renunciation of the priority of the defense of national interests in favour of the war against terrorism, replacing the logic of national defence through a system of alliances with the idea of a coalition against terrorism.

►The resolution of economic problems through military force under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

In order to oppose international terrorism effectively, it is necessary to take the following measures :

►reaffirm, at the General Assembly or the UN, the principles of the Charter of The United Nations and of international law as applying to all nations ;

►form a geostrategic alliance for civilization( possibly based the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Tajikhstan and Uzbekhistan) based on values opposed to those of the Atlanticists ; elaborate a strategy for development, a system of international security and another economic and financial model( to put the world back on a sound basis)

►bring together leading intellectuals, under the aegis of the UN, to draw up and promote a humanistist philosophy for the 21st century ;

►mediate between the world’s religions with a view to creating conditions favourable to human development, security and mutual support.

General Leonid Ivashov is vice –president of the Academy for Geopolitics. He was head of the Department of General affairs of the Defense Ministry of the Soviet Union, secretary of the Council of Defence Ministers of the Community of Independent States, head of the Department of military cooperation of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. He was Chief-of-staff of the Russian Armed forces on 11^th September , 2001.

2005-11-03T05:10:00.000-08:00

A reply to Comrade Callinicos

So a leading member of the Socialist Worker's Party, mainstay of the Stop the War Coalition and Respect has finally come up with a statement on the vexed question of whether there will be an escalation of the war with an attack on either Iran of Syria.

In a way it is odd the we are having a controversy at all about this issue and that so many leftists vehemently insist that this attack will not happen or studiously avoid reference to the possibility. One would have thought that preparing to prevent the worst would be most people's choice in a world where those who brought us Falluja, Abu Graib and Guantanamo are still in power and shouting from the rooftops their intention to continue in the same vein in their pursuit of war without end. But, anyway, what light can Callinicos's article shed on the SWP's thinking on this issue?

It has to be said that an unforgivable error underlies Callinicos's article from the start; he takes at face value the neo-cons programme of bringing democracy to the Middle East. Does he really think it is this which drives them? Would regime change really bring governments sympathetic to the US when even their puppet government in Iraq is beginning to be troublesome? All the indications are that the neocons intend " to redraw the map of the Middle East" destroying, not reforming, states like Iraq, Syria and Iran; fragmenting them into weak and manageable vassal states.

Starting from this false premise Callinicos then assesses likely US actions on the respective possibilities of regime change in Syria and Iran almost as if he was planning one of his own revolutions.

" a combination of external pressure- sanctions, threats of military action", he advises with regard to Syria, " might be sufficient to destabilise the regime"

That's one taken care of: what about the prospects for regime change in Iran?

Here , even though " many people see Ahmadinejad as a creature of the clerical establishment" Callinicos correctly points out that he has a firm base of support in the the country and concludes that " you would have to be a very stupid neo-con to want to invade Iran"

You would have to be a very stupid antiwar activist to ignore repeated statements from the neocons indicating that that is exactly what they want to do.

So Callinicos doesn't look too bothered about all this and there I go, silly old me, getting myself in a tizzy about all this World War III stuff- I really am cutting a pathetic and isolated figure these days.

However , he does make one important proviso. They won't attack Iran- "unless, of course, things get so bad for Bush that another Middle East war comes to be seen like a way out." But , wait a minute, isn't everyone saying just that!- that things really are getting desperate in Iraq. People like General William Odom, Sir Michael Rose, Tim Collins and Simon Jenkins amongst many others. I would have thought there was enough there to bring Callinicos's proviso into play and for a realization that we all have to prepare to stop this terrifying possibility of a greater war. Or is it just that Callinicos wants to hedge his bets retaining some credibility if an attack does come?

So will Callinicos's piece convince SWPers that their passivity in the face of clear and present danger is justified?I hope not! What would ol' Tony Cliffe have made of this dithering bit of sophistry? Come on you Swoppies!- remember how you came out heads held high as Cliffe exhorted you to be "the defiant ones". The moment for revolution is here and its not in Iran or Syria. Now is the moment to expunge the warmongers from the body politic in this country. After all, wasn't that exactly what Lenin did in Russia in 1917?

2005-10-30T03:44:00.000-08:00

Stop Blair!

The outlines of a new reality in this crisis are beginning to take shape in the light of the events of this week. The War Party is now centred in London and the illusion that Tony Blair is merely Bush's lapdog has suddenly dissipated. Blair's Hampton court speech signals his emergence as the leader of the drive to attack Iran and thereby endeavour fulfil one of the longstanding aims aims of the War Party - the destruction of that country. As many commentators have noted his words amounted to nothing less than a threat of military action and one can only wonder at the relative equanamity with which they have been received such would be the consequences of such a reckless piece of folly.

Meanwhile,the Scottish Daily Express heads its Saturday edition with this extraordinary headline:-" Maniac Plots World War III". This is not a reference to Blair but to Ahmadinejad who according to a British Intelligence " expert"

"believes that anyone who dies for Islam goes to heaven and gets the 72 virgins that are due to all martyrs".

He goes on

"even without nuclear weapons"[ he] "could set off a Middle East war which we all get sucked into"

I would have thought that we were already embroiled in a Middle East war - the illegal, crimnal and disastrous Iraq venture that we chose and were certainly not sucked into. The question I have raised already on this blog is how we respond to this monumental cockup- by escalating or withdrawing. If there was ever much doubt about this surely it has now been dispelled- all we need now is the" threat" to Britain.

We have already heard how Iran is supposedly endangering our troops lives in Iraq but now through this same quality news sheet ( the Express) we have it that " spy agencies"

"believe Iran is soon to take delivery of North Korean missiles able to carry nuclear weapons over 2,200 miles, putting London near the fringe of Tehran's range"(of course, that's logical- another of the "Axis of Evil" countries!)

Iran don't have nuclear weapons and I would have thought it was a fair bit over 2,200 miles from London but these are mere details. What matters is that Ahmaninejad is a threat, a thoroughly unpleasant sort who has had posters of David Beckam torn down. And now he's going to launch a nuclear war just as we were thinking about lanching one ourselves.

And why does it have to be a World War- couldn't it just be a question of wiping another Islamic country off the map( without commiting the indelicacy of talking about it beforehand). Well, the Express has noticed that Russia and China are now close allies of Iran. This is the factually accurate part of the article: but the inference which it draws from this information is really off the beam and in a way gives the game away. Yes, if Britain, the US of Israel attacked Iran, Russia and China could well come to its aid plunging all into a possible nuclear armageddon(Blair/Cheney have made it clear that the use of nukes is envisaged). But this scenario would only apply if US/UK were the agressors. In the unlikely case of Iran attacking Britain ( with one of its non-existent nukes, for example) Iran would be left completely isolated and would no doubt be completely destroyed. But the Express envisages world war because it envisages a US or UK agression such as has been mooted for some time and about which so many people have tried to warn us.

So ,in summary of the Express article, Ahmadinejad's undiplomatic utterances are precisely the pretext we need to push ahead with an attack on Iran and the subsequent global war will be their fault.

These are dramatic and dangerous developments and I suspect they are related to equally dramatic evemts in Washington. A whole series of threads are coming together in a way which could spell the end for Cheney and the neocons. We may well be witnessing a carefully crafted counter coup which could knock out the War Party in Washington. This is not only a mortal threat to the now notorious neocons round Cheney but spells doom for Blair who has entirely thrown in his lot with them and would be left twisting in the wind were these extraordinarily malign forces to be finally purged from the body politic. His awareness of this is the driving force behind his personal crusade for a larger war. If the Americans are indeed stumbling along the path to Armageddon, his intervention can remedy matters- he can bounce them into it perhaps with the help of our trusty Israeli friends whose patience has been fraying for some time now.

In a sense the consequences of the last elections on both sides of the Atlantic are now making themselves felt. Bush was already burnt out and had to be replaced. However, things didn't work out- he got back with the help of substantial fraud. Blair, however, was still the War Party's choice , the sole legitimate representative of the neocons in Britain and was duly returned in a shocking testimony to the advanced senility of the Great British Nation. So nothing is more appropriate than that Blair take over the mantle of warmonger- in -chief. Reckless, half-insane, a liar without peer, its mad dog himself in the chariot of fire and its to us that has fallen the task of removing this menace to the peace of the world and his accomplices from power.

The signs are not good. The mainstay of the antiwar movement ,such as it is, the Socialist Worker's Party thinks that they are only going to bomb Iran because they are already overextended in Iraq. Well, I don't know about" only". They are going to bomb Iran and bomb them with nuclear weapons because they are overextended in Iraq. I'm puzzled as to why they draw consolation from this.

Certainly all is not well in Catatonia but surely there must be some living forces, people who still have the wherewithal to see danger and to have some notion of the legacy we risk leaving new generations. The events in Washington show that there is a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. If only, we could have one last push to isolate and neutralise Blair and his gang.

2005-10-09T01:10:00.000-07:00

An appeal to the antiwar movement

I spent much of the summer trying to raise the question of the looming Iran confrontation mainly through interventions at antiwar meetings. And I must say it has been an utter failure. Once again the antiwar movement is behaving enigmatically and the issue of Iran seems to have become a taboo. This despite the gallant efforts of Tony Benn to warn us all of the impending danger. Reported in The Big Issue, not an organ of the anti-war movement,I may add, Benn warned that Bush

" is planning an atomic attack with a release of radioactivity and consequences that would make previous wars shrink into insignificance."

He also expects Britain to go along with this venture.

One would have thought that The Stop the War coalition, of which Benn is president, would take this as a cue for an immediate and vigorous response. But no: at public meeting after public meeting I have heard platforms stashed with anti-war personalities simply ignore the issue.
The other major figure of the antiwar movement, George Galloway, speaking about the coming Iran attack on Alex Jones Radio Show, referred to

“some kind of provocation being staged by those elements who want to propel the US into an even more disastrous invasion”

At a recent meeting in Glasgow he reaffirmed his belief that an attack on Iran will come.

But this it would appear is still not sufficient to put this issue on the agenda. When I raised it at an activists meeting everyone seemed to agree that there was a serious threat: but still nothing happens. One leading SWP member explained that when they raise the question of Iraq it is understood that Iran is also included.

So we have not just a "don't talk about the Iran war" tendency but the entire anti-war movement in denial about the most serious danger we face , perhaps the most serious danger humanity has ever faced. This perplexing ommision could not have been made more graphic than by the appearance of an editorial in the Daily Mirror warning against the Iran attack- just the kind of stuff you would hope to find in Socialist Worker. The Mirror has noticed Blair's preparatory machinations - after all its only two or three years since we saw the same piece of theatre being used to set up Iraq - and been able to arrive at the fairly obvious conclusion that something dangerous and crazy is brewing.

" the voices Mr Bush needs to listen to are not the from the heavens but from the people of the world begging him not to start another, even more terrible, war."

So as in the early momths of 2003, the Mirror is placing itself in the vanguard of the opposition to the war: the capitalist press as the tribune of the people railing against the madness of this "capitalist war", as the left would have it. Meanwhile the left is finally beginning to stir over the Iraq War whilst ignoring its most important aspect just as it is becoming terrifyingly clear : I refer to the danger that it will escalate into a greater Middle East, if not global, war.

This is all very worrying and , above all , enigmatic but, unfortunately, it is not at all uncharacteristic. The left's response to the whole war crisis has been grossly inadequate and I won't enter into the litany of failure that it has represented. Nor will I try to speculate about the motives which have lead the left to spurn the long awaited opportunity which this war provides them to emerge from obscurity to leadership. I would simply appeal to the antiwar movement in its entirety, the Stop the War Coalition, CND,Respect , the church organizations and all individuals who have played a role in mobilising against the war to take cognisance of the gravity of this situation and to understand that more than ever their experience and dedication is required. One can only view our current actions by envisaging how future generations, if there are to be any, look back on how we have acquitted ourselves in this, the moment of truth. So far, it looks as if they will remember us, if at all, as being blinded by dogma and complacency .

2005-10-06T00:42:00.000-07:00

The Iraq War: withdrawal or escalation

The coalition now appears to have arrived at a critical moment in their misadventure in Iraq, recently characterised as " the greatest strategic disaster in US history" by Lieutenant - General Odom. Despite serial destruction of Iraqi towns and the discharging of something like 100,000 bullets per resistance fighter they are no where near to being in control of the situation on the ground; nor are they likely to be. Being caught red-handed carrying out terrorist bombings doesn't help but perhaps those astounding events in Basra last Monday may have, in a perverse way, shown a way forward for the hapless coalition: they can blame there misfortunes in Iraq on the Iranians and thereby escalate the conflict burying failure in Iraq in the rubble of a greater middle east war.
Of course, the idea of attacking Iran is not new and much has already been accomplished in terms of preparing the terrain. Iran has for some time been assiduously courted as the next victim of the US/ UK rampage through the Middle East in what looks remarkably like a rerun of the ouvertures to Iraq in the run up to 2003's fateful invasion. However there is a feeling of spontaneity and improvisation here as the good Brits show they're no slouches when it comes to raising the ante; disaster has been turned into opportunity. All pointers now indicate that, mad as it is, our leaders are close to embarking on a venture even more reckless and dangerous than the Iraq debacle itself.
The only way to make sense of this is to examine the alternatives, or rather, the alternative. Withdrawal from Iraq following the necesary humiliating negotiations with "the terrorists" to enable safe passage out would mean nothing less than the end of the globalisation project, the collapse of the dollar and the collapse of US/UK credibility. It would also leave the architects of this war facing the abyss. The neocons have constituted themselves as the "no way back tendency": they've put all their eggs in the basket of "war without end" and anything so much as a whiff of peace would leave them reeling as from the effects of some alien and toxic vapour. Peace is not an option. Nor is defeat in Iraq; but that is inevitable. So escalation it is. This infernal logic can only be undone through a revolution against the war party.
There has been a recent flurry of troops out activity but the slogan "troops out of iraq" is almost a bit dated now: we're onto the next phase and the antiwar movement must concentrate on stopping the drive towards a greater war. The consequences of an attack are unknowable but it seems reasonable to regard ourselves as being in a pre-World War III scenario. Of course, virtually the entire human race will oppose such madness but it could be too late by then. We have to highlight the danger now in the hope that somehow it can be stopped.