Haditha Massacre Report:
US Commanders
See Killing Iraqi civilians
As “Cost Of Doing Business”

An unpublished report commissioned by the US military on the massacre carried out in the Iraqi town of Haditha by American marines in November 2005 is an unintended indictment of the entire war and occupation.

In its Saturday edition, the Washington Post published an article on Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell’s report, including excerpts from the document, a copy of which the newspaper had obtained. Bargewell makes clear that indifference to the fate of Iraqi civilians is pervasive in the military high command.

On November 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck an American Humvee near Haditha, in western Iraq, killing one of the marines on board. In response, according to eyewitnesses and local officials, the US forces went on a rampage, killing as many as 24 unarmed Iraqis in their houses, including seven women and three children.

A marine communiqué at the time claimed that the civilians had been killed in the blast and that “gunmen attacked the [US] convoy with small-arms fire.” The Bargewell report, completed in June 2006, makes clear that those who issued the news release knew from the outset that marines had killed the civilians.

Bargewell concluded that the Marine Corps chain of command ignored “obvious” signs of “serious misconduct” in Haditha. The Post reports that the general “found that officers may have willfully ignored reports of the civilian deaths to protect themselves and their units from blame.”

The general went on, in the most damning portion of the report cited by the Post, to underline the hostility and contempt felt by the American military command for the Iraqi population. “All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics,”

Bargewell commented. “Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get ‘the job done’ no matter what it takes.”

The Haditha massacre is a horrific event, but it is the inevitable product of a colonial war fought against a resisting population. How many more such episodes have gone unreported or undetected? Daily violence, often homicidal, is visited on the Iraqi population by US forces, who are themselves demoralized and brutalized.

http://wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/hadi-a24.shtml

Senate Leader:
Iraq War Is "Lost"

The US Senate Majority Leader has defended comments in which he called the war in Iraq a "lost" cause and branded President Bush a "liar”.

"I have no doubt the war cannot be won militarily and that's what I said last Thursday and I stick with that," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in an interview with CNN on Monday.

"General Petreaus has said the war cannot be won militarily. President Bush is doing nothing economically, he's doing nothing diplomatically, he's not doing even the minimal requested by the Iraq Study Group, so I stick with General Petreaus," Reid said.

His comments have triggered angry backlash from the White House and several Republican congressmen, some of whom say Reid's comments send the wrong message to US troops in Iraq.

"I do what I think is right and I think this war is headed in the wrong direction," Reid said during the televised interview. "And I'm going to speak out as often and as regularly as I can."

The Senate Majority Leader has been an outspoken critic of the president, in the past calling him a "loser" and a "liar".

"I don't back off that at all," he said. "If you say something that is untrue to me and in the right circumstances, I will call you a liar. I have no regret having called him a liar, because he lied."

In a speech in Washington Monday, Reid said Congress will send a supplemental war spending bill that would require the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq to commence by October 1 and be completed by April 1, 2008.

President Bush on Monday reiterated his pledge to veto any legislation that includes a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6436

Final Part:

Behind The Iran Crisis

Mark Weber
[Institute for Historical Review]

In 1941, military forces of Britain and the Soviet Union, with backing from the United States, invaded and occupied Iran in flagrant violation of international law. The British and Soviet Russian occupation forces removed the government in Tehran, which was considered too sympathetic to Germany, and installed the youthful Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as the country’s Shah, or monarch.

In 1953 the United States, operating through the Central Intelligence Agency, and acting in concert with the British, organized the overthrow of the popular government of prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, and brought back to power the Shah who had briefly fled the country.

From 1953 until 1979, the United States generously supported the Shah, a ruler who became increasingly out of touch with the interests and aspirations of his people. In 1979 he was overthrown in a popular uprising, and fled into exile. An Islamic Republic was proclaimed.

In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq ordered his armed forces to invade what he regarded as a weakened and vulnerable Iran. The war started by Iraq in September 1980 lasted nearly eight years, and was one of the most destructive of the twentieth century. Casualty figures are uncertain, though estimates suggest more than one and a half million war and war-related casualties. Iran acknowledged that nearly 300,000 people died in the war, and estimates of the Iraqi dead range from 160,000 to 240,000.

The US role in that conflict was a cynical one. While publicly lamenting the bloodshed, the United States at the same time provided aid and support to Iraq. To cement that support, Donald Rumsfeld, who later served as Secretary of Defense during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, flew to Baghdad in December 1983 as a special envoy of President Reagan, to meet and shake hands with Saddam Hussein, and to reaffirm US backing in the war against Iran.

Showdown

In the current US-Iran showdown, much of the world is mindful of the blatant double standard of US policy. While Washington threatens war against Iran for developing a nuclear program, it sanctions Israel ’s vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, and seemingly has no problem with a nuclear-armed China, Pakistan, Russia or India.

In fact, given its geo-political position, Iran would be foolish if it did not try to develop the most effective military force possible. On its eastern border is Pakistan, which now has nuclear weapons, and Afghanistan, which is currently under the control of the military forces of a nuclear-armed United States. On Iran’s western border is Iraq, which likewise is occupied by the armed forces of a nuclear US.

In the region, the only country that currently has a nuclear weapons arsenal, that occupies territory of its neighbors, and which is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions – is Israel.

In fact, if the United States held Israel to the same standards that it has applied to Iraq and now Iran, American bombers and missiles would be blasting Tel Aviv, and American troops would seize Israel’s leaders and punish them for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

When a society is healthy, its leaders – political, social, cultural and intellectual – speak to its citizens with honesty and candor. A sound social-political system encourages truth. In a sick and corrupt society, leaders resort to lies and deceit. And the more decayed the society, the more its leaders lie and deceive.

In our society, the official lies and deceptions are so numerous and so brazen, it’s difficult to enumerate them. I’ve already referred to its lies about the Baghdad regime in the months before the US invasion of Iraq. But it’s much worse than that.

Freedom

In the aftermath of the 2001 Nine Eleven terrorist attack, for example, President Bush on national television told the world that: “America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world." The next day he said that "freedom and democracy are under attack," and that the perpetrators had struck against "all freedom-loving people everywhere in the world." These are not just false statements. They are absurdly ignorant and deceptive ones.

The focus of the Walt-Mearsheimer paper, mentioned earlier, is, appropriately, the role of the Israel lobby in determining US policy in the Middle East. But this is no ordinary lobby. Its power and influence is much greater, more insidious, and more dangerous, than that of any other lobby. Far beyond determining US policy in the Middle East, it has a profound impact on every aspect of American social, political and cultural life. That’s one reason why, instead of talking about the “Israel Lobby,” I routinely speak instead of Jewish-Zionist power.

The Walt-Mearsheimer paper is much more than a trenchant analysis or persuasive critique of a particular lobby. It is implicitly a damning indictment of the American social-political system. The Jewish-Zionist grip on our nation is an expression of a profound and deeply rooted problem. Such a lobby or power – particularly one that represents the interests of a self-absorbed community that makes up no more than three or four percent of the population – could only gain such a hold on the governmental machinery of a society that is fundamentally sick and corrupt. No healthy society would permit a small minority to gain and hold such power, and wield it for its own particular interests.

The failure of virtually the entire American political and intellectual establishment to challenge this power is an expression of deep-rooted cowardice and corruption. Cowardice and corruption on such a scale is possible only in a society that is gravely ill – one that is beyond reform or redemption. This sickness is manifest not merely in the hijacking of our foreign policy, or in the corruption of our political system, but also in the squalor of our inner cities, in our nation’s high level of crime, in a culture that is ever more infantile and crass, and in the spreading vulgarity of our social life.

In every society, it is quite normal that most people are concerned with little more than the happiness, interests and well-being of themselves, their families, and their friends. In any society, only a small number of men and women have the wit and awareness to understand the social, political and cultural forces that shape the present and the future. Only a small minority has the soul or temperament to care about, and be seriously concerned for, the long-term health and well-being of the world, or even of their country.

Future

Normally, and understandably, we expect – and have every right to expect – that our political leaders are mindful of and planning for the long-term interests of the nation. Tragically, our leaders have proven themselves grossly derelict. With very few exceptions, our political leaders – Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal – show far more concern for their own welfare and for the outcome of the next election, than for the long-term interests of our people and the world.

We seek to raise public awareness of the great issues that confront us, that impact every aspect of our lives, and which have the most profound consequences for the future. We realize, of course, that our words will reach the minds and hearts of only a few. We know that we cannot hope to match the financial resources, influence and outreach of our adversaries. We cannot hope to compete, much less offset, the great power and influence of the media giants who control most of what we read, hear and view.

Our great task is to reach those who, first, think about the present and the past, and second, who care about our future. That is, we work to reach men and women, especially younger men and women, of unusual awareness and a higher sense of responsibility – the men and women who will be the leaders of the future, who can, and, if our children and grand-children are to live in a decent world, must assume power, replacing the failed leaders who have betrayed the people’s trust.

A few of those who are here this evening have come, perhaps, out of simple curiosity, or to meet others who are attending. But most of us are here this evening because we care. We care about what is right and wrong. We care about what is true and not true.

We care about the past and, more importantly, we care about the future. We care about the world we live in. We feel a sense of responsibility for the world we’ve inherited, and for the world of the future. We want to make a difference – to make this a better world – a world that, even beyond our own lifetimes, is more just and right.

Peace

Some of us may feel a special concern for the cause of peace, mindful of the destruction, suffering, and death of war. Some may be moved by a strong concern for justice, perhaps especially for the people who have lived for decades under Zionist occupation. Some may have an unusually strong religious sensibility. Some may feel a special concern for the welfare and future of his or her own culture, race or nation, while others may feel a responsibility for the future of all mankind.

Regardless of the particular causes or principles that most move us, that are closest to our hearts, no issue is of greater urgency than breaking the Jewish-Zionist grip on American political, social and cultural life. As long as that power remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish-Zionist distortion of history and current affairs, the Jewish-Zionist corruption and domination of the US political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace.

We are engaged in a great, global struggle – in which two distinct and irreconcilable sides confront each other. A world struggle that pits an arrogant and malevolent power that feels ordained to rule over others, on one side, and all other nations and societies – indeed, humanity itself – on the other.

This struggle is not a new one. It is the latest enactment of a great drama that has played itself out again and again, over centuries, and in many different societies, cultures and historical eras. In the past this drama played itself out on a local, national, regional, or, sometimes, continental stage. Today this is a global drama, and a global clash.

It is a struggle for the welfare and future not merely of the Middle East, or of America, but a great historical battle for the soul and future of humanity itself. A struggle that calls all of us – across the country and around the world – who share a sense of responsibility for the future of our nation, of the world, and of humankind.

www.ihr.org/news/0704_weber.shtml http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6389http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6389

Part Two:

Behind The Iran Crisis

By Mark Weber
[Institute for Historical Review]

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports that the US is planning military action against Iran, and that President Bush is already intent on “regime change” there. Hersh wrote that the Bush administration is stepping up clandestine activities inside Iran, and has intensified planning for a major air attack. Hersh also concluded that the White House is considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran.

With regard to Iran, professors Walt and Mearsheimer wrote in their paper: “Israelis tend to describe every threat in the starkest terms, but Iran is widely seen as their most dangerous enemy because it is the most likely to acquire nuclear weapons. Virtually all Israelis regard an Islamic country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons as a threat to their existence… In late April 2003, [the Israeli daily] Ha’aretz reported that the Israeli ambassador in Washington was calling for regime change in Iran. The overthrow of Saddam, he noted, was ‘not enough’. In his words, America ‘has to follow through. We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran.’ The neo-conservatives, too, lost no time in making the case for regime change in Tehran … As usual, a bevy of articles by prominent neo-conservatives made the case for going after Iran…

“The Bush administration has responded to the Lobby’s pressure by working overtime to shut down Iran’s nuclear program. But Washington has had little success, and Iran seems determined to create a nuclear arsenal. As a result, the Lobby has intensified its pressure. Op-eds and other articles now warn of imminent dangers from a nuclear Iran, caution against any appeasement of a ‘terrorist’ regime, and hint darkly of preventive action should diplomacy fail... Israeli officials also warn they may take pre-emptive action should Iran continue down the nuclear road, threats partly intended to keep Washington’s attention on the issue.

“One might argue that Israel and the Lobby have not had much influence on policy towards Iran, because the US has its own reasons for keeping Iran from going nuclear. There is some truth in this, but Iran’s nuclear ambitions do not pose a direct threat to the US. If Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China or even a nuclear North Korea, it can live with a nuclear Iran. And that is why the Lobby must keep up constant pressure on politicians to confront Tehran. Iran and the US would hardly be allies if the Lobby did not exist, but US policy would be more temperate and preventive war would not be a serious option.”

Neocon

A good example of the “bevy of articles” referred to here by Walt and Mearsheimer is a prominently featured piece in the Los Angeles Times last November, entitled, “Force is the Only Answer.” Written by Joshua Muravchik, a prominent neocon associated with the pro-Israel “American Enterprise Institute” think tank, the essay begins with the sentence: “We must bomb Iran.”

In Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Iran an “existential threat,” and in January the London Sunday Times reported that the Israeli government is planning to attack Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.

In December the former commander of the artillery units of Israel’s armed forces, Brigadier General Oded Tira, has been candid in calling for a US attack against Iran on behalf of the Jewish state. General Tira declared:

“President Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran. As an American strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party and US newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure. We must turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they publicly support immediate action by Bush against Iran.”

Scott Ritter, an American who served as a senior United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, says in his new book, Target Iran: “The Bush administration, with the able help of the Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobby, has succeeded in exploiting the ignorance of the American people about nuclear technology and nuclear weapons so as to engender enough fear that the American public has more or less been pre-programmed to accept the notion of the need to militarily confront a nuclear armed Iran.” Ritter also writes: “Let there be no doubt: If there is an American war with Iran it is a war that was made in Israel and nowhere else.”

Unilateral

An attack against Iran by the United States, or Israel, would be, in the absence of an imminent threat, an illegal, unilateral act of war. If undertaken by the US without a formal congressional declaration of war, such an attack would be unconstitutional. A war against Iran would serve only Israeli and Zionist interests. For everyone else, war against Iran would be a catastrophe.

For many years now, American political leaders of both parties have declared themselves staunchly committed to Israel and its security. This unparalleled devotion to Israel – which is an expression of the Jewish-Zionist grip on America’s political and cultural life – seems to have reached an apex in the current administration.

In an address to pro-Israel activists at a convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), President Bush said: “The United States is strongly committed, and I am strongly committed, to the security of Israel as a vibrant Jewish state.”

President Bush’s worldview is shared by Condoleezza Rice, who served as his National Security Advisor, and is now US Secretary of State. In a May 2003 interview Rice made the astounding statement that the “security of Israel is the key to security of the world.”

It’s difficult to imagine an American leader making a similar statement about any other country. Imagine a US Secretary of State saying, for example, that the “security of Nigeria is the key to security of the world.” Or, that the security of Russia, Taiwan, or Serbia, is the key to security of the world. It’s unthinkable.

President Bush, in talking about the possibility of war against Iran, has sometimes “slipped” by candidly citing Israel as the sole or primary reason for taking military action against Iran.

Destroy

In an interview in February 2006, he was asked about his reaction to anti-Israel remarks by Iran’s president. Bush replied: “We will rise to Israel’s defense, if need be.” And he added, “You bet we’ll defend Israel."

In a speech in March 2006, Bush said: “Now that I’m on Iran … the threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. It’s a threat to world peace; it’s a threat, in essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I’ll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel.”

Such remarks have worried Jewish leaders – not because they do not agree with them, or because they doubt Bush’s sincerity, but because they believe that the President has been too candid, too open, in acknowledging Israel’s importance in determining American war policy. Jewish leaders are concerned that non-Jews might draw all-too-obvious conclusions from such statements.

In April 2006, the Jewish Week of New York reported: “President Bush is risking a backlash that could injure the Jewish community – and his own cause – by repeatedly citing Israel as his top rationale for possible US military conflict with Iran, Jewish leaders and Middle East analysts warned... Bush’s repeated, sometimes exclusive, focus on Israel could spark public fury against the Jewish state and Jews if US military action is accompanied by skyrocketing gas prices, terrorism at home or fallen GIs who might be seen as dying for Israel, some said.”

Another Jewish community paper, the influential Forward of New York reported in May 2006: “Jewish community leaders have urged the White House to refrain from publicly pledging to defend Israel against possible Iranian hostilities, senior Jewish activists told the Forward … [Jewish] communal leaders say that although they deeply appreciate the president’s repeated promises to come to Israel’s defense, public declarations to that effect do more harm than good.” Jewish leaders went on to express concern that such statements “could lead to American Jews being blamed for any negative consequences of an American strike against Iran.”

Taliban

George W. Bush, and others in his administration, have often lectured Iran about democracy. Well, that’s pretty rich coming from a man who became president after an election in which he received fewer votes than his opponent.

Contrary to the impression given by the Bush administration and neocon propagandists, Iran was never allied with, or even friendly to, the Al Qaeda organization or the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan. In fact, in 1999 Iran almost went to war against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan after Taliban fighters kidnapped and murdered nine Iranian diplomats.

In the barrage of alarmist anti-Iran and pro-war propaganda of recent months, we’ve heard a lot about how Iran is a great danger to Jews. To be sure, Jews do not have anything like the power and influence in Iran that they do here in the US, but the insinuation that Iran’s Jews are somehow terrorized or oppressed is rubbish. Jews have far more freedom in Iran than they do in several Middle East countries that are allied with the United States, such as Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Iran’s Jewish community of some 25,000 is represented in the nation’s parliament by a Jewish representative. There are 20 active synagogues in Tehran. The Jews of Iran, many of whom own and run successful businesses, have a standard of living that is above the country’s average.

To put this Iran “crisis” into some perspective, it’s worth noting that although Iran has not attacked another country in 200 years, it has itself repeatedly been a victim of aggression. A look at the historical record shows that Iran has at least some valid reason to be skeptical of Washington ’s policies and intentions.

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6389

Call For Universal Definition
Of Terrorism To Stop Bias

KUALA LUMPUR, 17 (Bernama) -- There must be a universal definition of terrorism before governments could embark on counter-terrorism measures based on fact-finding and intelligence-sharing.

South-East Asia Regional Centre For Counter-Terrorism (SEARCCT) director-general Datuk Md Hussin Nayan said this was to give the global community a basic understanding of what terrorism and terrorist groups were all about, but right now the west tended to associate these with Muslims.

"Right now the term does not differentiate terrorist groups from insurgent groups, or human rights or freedom fighters. And as long as there is no firm definition, people will continue to have problems with the matter."

Md Hussin even said that there should be an attempt to rebrand some of these groups as human rights or freedom fighters. "However, Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah have been branded as terrorists."

He said this via teleconferencing with the Pacific Area Special Operation Conference 2007 (PASOC 07) in Honolulu, Hawaii, from the United States embassy here.

Earlier, he said counter-terrorism should not merely be based on perceptions and assumptions but by fact-finding to ensure effectiveness of the plans and measures.

"Repeated use of assumptions would make people believe that something is fact, consequently creating public fear of Muslims or Islamophobia."

The other speakers were US Special Operations Command vice-commander Major- General Donald C. Wurster and Philippines' ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs senior vice-president Maria Ressa.

http://www.bernama.com/

Comment:

It is only appropriate and pertinent for Malaysia to urge the UN to have a universally-accepted definition on terrorism. But, who is going to listen to such a call? The US has already used the terminology “terrorism” - being defined according to its own sets of reasons and prejudices - to legitimize wars, destructions and bloodsheds in Afghanistan and Iraq. The same excuse has been used to legitimize series of bomb blasts, being conducted according to false flag propaganda, to destabilize Indonesia, a country with the biggest number of Muslim population in the entirely world.

The so-called War On Terror is actually not a war to combat international Muslim terrorists and/or terrorism. It is a propaganda war. It is an illegal war preemptively and unilaterally launched without the approval of the UN. It is a fake war. It is a full-scale and hyper nuclear war against phantom enemies. It is a war of lies and deceptions. It is a war which uses the term “terrorism” as an excuse to crush, wreck and occupy several “failed states” in the Muslim world. It is a war aimed at expanding western imperialism in the 21st century. It is a war being created to enable western oil cartel to control the petroleum wells in the West and Central Asian regions. It is a war to control crucial international waters for safe passage of their oil tankers and nuclear vessels. It is a war to firmly establish the US political, military and economic hegemonies in Asia. Last but not least, the War On Terror is a war to maintain the status-quo of the world’s balance of power against China, the rising dragon of the East.

So, the best solution to this madness called the War On Terror is for the UN to undergo a total revamp of its structure, functions and objectives. If the world community fails to do so, we will only be experiencing a merry-go-round scenario with the UN behaving like a toothless lion or even a paper tiger! – Ruhanie Ahmad

Part One:

Behind The Iran Crisis

By Mark Weber
[Institute for Historical Review]

In the months leading up to the March 2003 attack on Iraq, President Bush and other high-ranking US officials repeatedly warned that the Baghdad regime posed a threat to the US and the world – a threat so grave and imminent that the United States had to act quickly to bomb, invade and occupy that country.

On Sept. 28, 2002, for example, Bush said: “The danger to our country is grave and it is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given... This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.”

Shortly before the invasion, on March 6, 2003, the President declared: “Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country, to our people, and to all free people... I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat to the American people. I believe he’s a threat to the neighborhood in which he lives. And I’ve got good evidence to believe that. He has weapons of mass destruction... The American people know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”

These claims were untrue. As the world now knows, Iraq had no such arsenal, and posed no threat to the US. Alarmist suggestions that the Baghdad regime was working with the al-Qaeda terror network likewise proved to be without foundation. The claims by President Bush and other high-level American officials to justify the war, and their glib assurances about how “regime change” in Iraq would usher in a new dawn of democracy and freedom throughout the region have proven disastrously wrong.

Now, four years later, something of the scale of the calamity is clear. More than 3,000 American military personnel have lost their lives, along with many tens of thousands of Iraqis. Many more have been horribly wounded and maimed. The war and the occupation have cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In Arab and Muslim countries, it has fueled intense hatred of the US, and has brought many new recruits to the ranks of anti-American terrorists. Around the world, it has generated unmatched distrust and hostility toward the United States.

Skeptics

A few months after the attack, President Bush denounced as “revisionists” and “revisionist historians” the skeptics who questioned his claims that the Baghdad regime had an arsenal of weapons so vast and so dangerous that the US had to act quickly to attack and occupy Iraq. On that occasion, Bush was unintentionally telling the truth. Those who question government claims, particularly wartime claims, are indeed “revisionists” – that is, thinking men and women who question dogma, propaganda and political orthodoxy.

Today, virtually the entire world is “revisionist.” Regardless of what President Bush and his friends may snidely suggest, the revisionists were and are right, and revisionism – that is, thoughtful skepticism of official claims – is an honorable and essential feature of any free society.

In recent years, awareness of the Jewish-Zionist role in the war, of the reality of Jewish-Zionist power, and of its hold on US policy, has grown everywhere – an awareness that, once grasped, is obvious and confirmed anew each day with the unfolding of events.

More prominent individuals have been willing publicly to acknowledge this power. In Britain, a veteran member of the House of Commons bluntly declared in May 2003 that Jews had taken control of America’s foreign policy, and had succeeded in pushing the US into war. Tam Dalyell, a Labour party deputy and the longest-serving House member, said: “A Jewish cabal have taken over the government in the United States and formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist Christians… There is far too much Jewish influence in the United States.”

In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed declared in October 2003: “The Europeans killed six million Jews out of twelve million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”

Zionist

Here in the United States, John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard, issued in March of last year a carefully written, judiciously worded and copiously referenced paper, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy,” which has generated wide interest and spirited discussion.

Quickly, and predictably, the paper and its authors came under fierce attack from Zionist leaders and organizations – a response that underscored one of the paper’s main points. But the critics have been outnumbered by those who have welcomed this work as a landmark event and as an important breakthrough.

In their paper, professors Walt and Mearsheimer wrote: “For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history…

“The Israeli government and pro-Israel groups in the United States have worked together to shape the administration’s policy towards Iraq, Syria and Iran, as well as its grand scheme for reordering the Middle East. Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.”

Almost nothing in the Walt-Mearsheimer paper is new or original. Its main point about the dangerous role of what they call “The Lobby” is understood around the world by informed men and women who closely follow political affairs and history. The paper is significant because it was written by two scholars of eminence and stature.

Oppression

Another important contribution to the growing public awareness of the power and impact of the pro-Israel lobby has been the new book by former president Jimmy Carter. In this book, entitled Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, and in statements made in connection with the book’s appearance, Carter has spoken pointedly and critically about the pro-Israel lobby and its role in shaping US policy to support Israeli oppression and war.

Immediately following the book’s publication, the former president was predictably assailed with the usual smears, and by the usual crowd. Jewish writer David Horowitz, for one, wrote a widely-circulated essay entitled “Jimmy Carter: Jew-Hater, Genocide-Enabler, Liar,” a vicious item that reflects his outlook and the attitude of many other pro-Israel activists.

As it happens, I had a run-in myself with David Horowitz in December [2006], when I appeared with him as a fellow “guest,” if that’s the right word, on the nationally-broadcast radio show of Sean Hannity. I won’t go into details of that raucous appearance, except to mention that both Horowitz and Hannity were as ignorant and as bigoted as they were rude.

In recent months the most pressing international issue has been the question of a new war in the Middle East . The world is anxiously following the so-called crisis over Iran, or as Israel-firsters prefer to call it “The Iranian Threat.”

This crisis is artificial. It is every bit as phony as the one manufactured to provide a pretext for war against Iraq.

Propaganda

Once again our leaders prepare Americans for a new war. Once again we are told that another country that Israel regards as an adversary is a grave threat to peace.

Once again our politicians and a compliant media present a barrage of sensational and frightening propaganda claims – claims remarkably similar to those we heard in 2002 and 2003, and from the same Israel-friendly crowd.

For more than a year now, Washington has been pressuring Iran with economic sanctions and repeated threats of military attack to back its demand that the Tehran government give up its nuclear development program.

The announcement last year that Iran had enriched a minute amount of uranium unleashed urgent calls for a preventive US military strike against that country. Officials in Washington ominously declare that “all options” are “on the table.” Vice President Cheney has said that Iran is “right at the top” of the world’s so-called dangerous countries, and he expressed the view that Israel “might well decide to act first” to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared: “The pursuit by the Iranian regime of nuclear weapons represents a direct threat to the entire international community, including to the United States and to the Persian Gulf region.” - To be continued in Part Two.

[An address by Mark Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review, delivered at an IHR meeting in Irvine, Califronia, on March 24, 2007]

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6389http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6389

The Freed British Sailors
And The Politics Of Storytelling

By Chandra Muzaffar
[www.tehrantimes.com]

The decision of the British Ministry of Defence to grant permission to the 15 naval personnel detained in Iran for 13 days recently to sell stories of their experience in captivity to the media has had far reaching implications for international politics.

A couple of the sailors had opined that the decision, which has since been rescinded, would have allowed them to ‘tell the truth’ to the world about what had happened to them during their captivity. Given the situation they were in, it is quite conceivable they felt ‘psychologically pressured’ to make statements that were favorably disposed to their captors. That captives are always under duress and respond to their circumstance in a certain manner is a fact that the Iranian government will have to accept.

Nonetheless, there is ample evidence to suggest that a lot of what some of the naval personnel are now saying borders on gross exaggeration and outright distortion. Television clips showing cheery, healthy-looking sailors admitting that they had intruded into Iranian waters and apologizing for their action cannot be dismissed as ‘fake’. Neither should one argue that the captured personnel were forced to play chess and table tennis for Iranian cameras. On her release, Faye Turney, for instance, who reportedly had sold the story of her ‘ordeal in Tehran’ to a British tabloid for an astronomical sum, told the Iranian people, “Just thank you for letting us go and apologies for our actions, but many thanks for having it in your hearts to let us go free… It was fantastic, we were treated well, we weren’t harmed in any way”. Another seaman, Lieutenant Felix Carman, who is now in the forefront of the campaign to expose the ‘mistreatment’ that he and his fellow military personnel suffered at the hands of the Iranian authorities, not only expressed gratitude to the Iranian government for his release but also added, “I can understand why you were insulted by our apparent intrusion into your waters.”

It is obvious that the huge royalties that await those sailors who have already gone to the media induced them to fabricate stories of their ordeal in Tehran. The more outlandish the spin, the greater the reward. This is why a number of British political leaders, social commentators and even retired military personnel criticized the original decision of the Ministry of Defence to commercialize the Tehran episode. They were right in emphasizing that it would undermine the credibility of the British armed forces.

But none of them have highlighted one of the other motives behind the crass move by the British government. Through the tales of the sailors, the government hopes to escalate the massive propaganda war against Iran. For some time now, a section of the British media, like a significant segment of the American media, has been on a rampage, denigrating the Iranian state and society as ‘backward’, ‘medieval’, ‘barbaric’ and ‘autocratic’. Indeed, a plethora of outrageous lies is being deliberately pedaled as part of a crafty plan to tarnish and isolate Iran in the eyes of world public opinion. The recent Hollywood film ‘300’, which distorts and disparages Persian history and culture, is integral to this campaign. It is a thinly veiled attempt to vilify contemporary Iran as it struggles to prevent the Washington-London-Tel Aviv Axis, abetted by its client rulers in the region, from establishing total hegemony over the Middle East.

Employing the media and the entertainment industry to target a nation while intensifying political pressure on it through the United Nations Security Council has become the Axis’s defined strategy in pursuit of global hegemony. It will be observed that in the last nine months, the UN Security Council has steadily expanded its sanctions against Iran in relation to the latter’s nuclear enrichment program. This will continue until Iran abandons its nuclear program for producing nuclear energy -- a right it enjoys under Article IV of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- or until it submits meekly to the Axis. In this regard, it should be remembered that the Axis manipulated that monstrous lie about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) through the media and the UN Security Council before it invaded and occupied Iraq in March 2003.

This is why we maintain that the crude commercialization of the Tehran sailors’ episode was part of a larger agenda. It was yet another maneuver designed to create an atmosphere unfavorable for Iran. In facing this challenge, the Iranian leadership has to show that it is capable of holding on to certain principles while remaining strategically intelligent.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/15/2007&Cat=14&Num=001

Comment:

I have been consistently following the developments of the War On Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq since late 2001. I observed that there is one very distinct pattern about the war – it is always being preceded by propaganda through the print, electronic and digital media.

The basic theme of this propaganda is that the West (the US and its allies) has every rights to bombard, destroy and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq because they are allegedly harboring Muslim terrorists accused by the US as being the group responsible for the 911 tragedy in the US.

This propaganda was amended before the war was launched against Iraq in 2003. That was why the US accused Iraq of having a huge stock of WMD which could destroy the entire western world. This accusation failed to be proven until today. Iraq, however, has been destroyed and occupied by the US troops and its allies. Iraq is now plagued with civil war as a result of the occupation by the West.

And now, the western propaganda is being focused onto Iran. Day in and day out, the international community is being fed with news items, video clips, talks shows and interviews over the Zionist controlled media that Iran’s nuclear reactor is geared to producing nuclear arms to be targeted to the West. This propaganda, to borrow the words of Noam Chomsky, is aimed at manufacturing consent to legitimized the US intending war on Iran in the coming months, if not year.

My question here, therefore, is: what is the OIC, the Arab League or even NAM’s move to counter this ever mounting propaganda? In the context of the above story by the Chandra Muzaffar in Tehran Times, will the Iranian officially express its displeasure to what the British government is doing – allowing its naval officers who were being captured and later being released by the Iranian authority, to sell their version of the stories - fabricated with lies - to the British media? – Ruhanie Ahmad

Iran’s Nuclear Victory

By Hassan Hanizadeh
[www.tehrantimes.com]

The Islamic Republic of Iran achieved the most significant scientific triumph in its history on April 9, 2007, when it launched the second cascade of centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility.

Bringing centrifuge cascades on stream is one of the most complicated technical operations in the nuclear industry.

This action will enable Iran to produce the fuel required for its nuclear power plants and allow it to avoid dependence on foreign countries for its nuclear fuel supply.

Despite the strict economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the West, Tehran’s attainment of this technology is a sign of Iranians’ resolute will to conquer the summits of scientific development in order to guarantee Iran’s national independence.

Civilization

Throughout its 7,000-year-old civilization, Iran has made many contributions to humanity in fields such as mathematics, astronomy, geography, and literature.

Therefore, it can undoubtedly utilize the most modern and up-to-date scientific discoveries and information to rejuvenate its ancient civilization that is intermingled with religious doctrines.

Attaining access to the complete nuclear fuel cycle, which is a significant part of the nuclear energy industry, is a national cause for which the Iranian nation will accept any hardship.

During the past two decades, Iran has acquired nuclear expertise by relying on the talent and innovation of its nuclear scientists because diversifying energy sources is the only logical way to maintain national independence.

Throughout this period of time, Iran has always worked to develop this complicated technology within the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations, without receiving any technical, financial, or scientific assistance from the West.

Realistic

Although the United States and some other Western countries have tried to deprive Iran of its inalienable right to possess nuclear technology by manipulating the United Nations Security Council, the Iranian people are determined to attain their goal.

Consequently, no foreign pressure can ever change Iranians’ national position or force them to back down.

Iranians believe that the United States and some other Western countries are trying to monopolize this essential technology so that they can oblige Islamic and Third World countries to obey them.

However, Iran has always had a realistic approach to global industrial developments and thus has understood that the development of nuclear technology is a crucial project that can guarantee national dignity for future generations of Iranians.

Therefore, despite the harsh response of the United States and some other Western countries and their military and economic threats, the Iranian nation has prepared itself to confront any possible hardship.

Celebration

The great nuclear celebration of Iran -- attended by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and other high-ranking Iranian officials -- that was held in Natanz on Monday marked a turning point in Iranian history.

The Iranian nation is entitled to a brilliant future and will never forgo its legitimate rights.

April 9, 2007 is a day that will be immortalized in the history of Iran’s national and political struggles since it is the day of triumph of Iranians’ firm willpower.

It was proven to the world on April 9, 2007 that the real victory belongs to those nations that love to live a dignified life.

Iran will definitely never use its nuclear expertise and technology for military purposes because such objectives have no place in the national and religious causes of Iranians.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/10/2007&Cat=14&Num=001

Comment:

Congratulation Iran! You definitely make most Muslims all over the world feel proud. You also have proven to the West - the US and Israel in particular - that will power is the basic pre-requisite to success. Your scientists really uphold the glory and fame of our medieval Muslim scholars, including pioneers in science and mathematics.

All these, as being correctly said by Hassan Hanizadeh, are achievements made by Iranian nuclear scientists “despite the strict economic sanctions” imposed on Iran by the West since many years ago.

I believed “Iran will definitely never use its nuclear expertise and technology for military purposes because such objectives have no place in the national and religious causes of Iranians.”

But, I am still of the opinion that such an honorable statement of truth will surely continue to be viewed by the US and Israel with the outmost prejudice.

Why? As Hassan Hanizadeh said, because “the US and some other Western countries are trying to monopolize this essential (nuclear) technology so that they can oblige Islamic and Third World countries to obey them.”

Once again, congratulation Iran. But please be on the alert all the times because the on-going fitnahs from your enemies are endless since they want to legitimize their propaganda that Iran is really and actually “an axis of evil”, not such much due to Iran’s evil doings, but because Iran is a great stumbling block in their painful efforts to re-mapped the entire West Asia region according to the hegemonic design of the neo-conservative’s herd in President George W. Bush’s closet.

- Ruhanie Ahmad

Iran Charges Washington
With Sponsoring Terrorist Attacks

By Bill Van Auken
[www.wsws.org]

A leading government official in Teheran charged Thursday that the Bush administration is sponsoring terrorist attacks as a means of ratcheting up its campaign of aggression against Iran.

The charge by the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Gholamali Haddadadel, followed a report by ABC News in the US that Washington has been covertly aiding and advising a militant Pakistani Islamist group that has carried out a string of terrorist attacks against Iranian targets.

“There is no doubt in our minds that the United States spares no efforts to put pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Haddadadel told reporters following a meeting with Pakistani officials in Islamabad.

“The best indication of United States support to a particular terrorist group is that one of the leaders of his terrorist group was given the opportunity to speak on VoA [Voice of America] after committing the crime.”

In its report aired first on Tuesday night, ABC charged that a group known as Jundullah (Army of God), a Sunni militant organization made up of members of the Baluchi tribe, “has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005” as it has carried out its deadly operations inside Iran.

Trafficking

According to numerous published reports, this US-backed terrorist group has close ties to both Al Qaeda and the Taliban, supposedly the principal enemies in Washington’s “global war on terrorism.”

The organization is also believed to be involved in narcotics trafficking across the porous Iranian-Pakistani border.

Jundullah’s attacks have centered on the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan, which borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In February, Jundullah terrorists carried out a car bomb attack on a bus in the Iranian city of Zehedan, killing at least 11 Iranians, most of them apparently members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Another 31 people were wounded in the blast.

Other bloody attacks included a May 2006 bombing of a motorcade, which claimed the lives of at least 20. The group has also filmed the beheadings of captured Iranian soldiers and officials.

According to the ABC report, Pakistani intelligence sources said that the covert terror campaign was a central topic of discussion when US Vice President Dick Cheney met Pakistan’s dictator, President Pervez Musharraf, in February.

When asked by the Reuters news agency about this account, a spokeswoman for Cheney replied, “We don’t discuss conversations between the vice president and foreign leaders.”

Militants

Haddadadel, who was in Islamabad in part to seek Pakistani cooperation in stemming the cross-border attacks, dismissed this aspect of the ABC report.

“Some of the militants...are active in our border areas and we should work with Pakistan in order to increase security cooperation,” he said. “There is no news, no evidence, and we don’t have any reason to believe that the military establishment in Pakistan is also supporting such militant groups.”

ABC indicated that the US-sponsored terrorism is an “off-the-books” operation, which some officials told the network was reminiscent of the illegal covert US “contra” war against Nicaragua under the Reagan administration in the 1980s.

Money, according to ABC’s sources, is funneled through Iranian exile groups in Europe and elsewhere to Jundullah’s leader, Abd el Malik Regi. Counterrorism expert Alexis Debat told ABC that Regi “used to fight with the Taliban. He’s part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist.”

The purpose of this arrangement, US officials told the network is to avoid the necessity of “an official presidential order or ‘finding’ as well as congressional oversight.”

Conflict

It is evident that the covert US links with Jundullah are only part of a broader destabilization campaign being waged by Washington with the aim of fomenting conflict between Iran’s Shia majority and a Sunni minority that accounts for nearly 12 percent of the country’s 70 million people. The largest component of this Sunni population is made up of Kurds, followed by the Baluch and then the Turkoman, based in the northeast.

The CIA is also reportedly funding the Iran-based Kurdistan Free Life party to destabilize the Iranian government. And Washington has come into conflict with the Iraqi regime over the presence in Iraq of some 3,800 expatriate Iranian members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, which has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks against Iran.

Even though the State Department has classified the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization, and the Iraqi regime accuses it of acting as an arm of the Saddam Hussein regime security forces, the Pentagon and CIA have provided it with protection at a base outside Baghdad and have reportedly sponsored its operations inside Iran.

Propaganda

Washington’s covert terror war against Iran is aimed at furthering a goal of “regime change” in Teheran. It is likewise designed to pave the way for a far more direct US military intervention.

As ABC aired its report of US-sponsored terrorism, a third US nuclear aircraft carrier battle group set sail for the Persian Gulf. The USS Nimitz and its accompanying warships left San Diego on Monday, supposedly to relieve the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. The John C. Stennis Strike Group is also in the Gulf. Obviously, the Pentagon has the option of reversing the order to withdraw the Eisenhower, thereby concentrating unprecedented firepower against Iran.

The preparations for a US war against Iran are being carried out—with support from both Democrats and Republicans in Washington—under the same propaganda slogans used to justify the attack on Iraq: the threat from a supposed drive to build “weapons of mass destruction” and terrorist ties.

But, as the ABC report indicates, Washington itself appears to be pursuing its militarist policy by funding and advising a terrorist group connected to Al Qaeda, the organization blamed for the September 11, 2001, attacks.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/iran-a06.shtml

Comment:

I am least surprised to know about what has happened in Iran lately. After all, the US is well-known for her black operations or false-flag operations being launched against its enemies or adversaries all over the world since the cold war era. Even Indonesia under the leadership of the late President Sukarno was once the victim of such operations in 1950s.

What is important to the US is that the means always justify the end – world hegemony. In the case of Iran, this Islamic republic has to be crushed to the ground. Not so much because of her alleged possession of nuclear weapons. But, because of her consistent defiance of the US.

Iran’s days are numbered. Iran is currently being sandwiched. The US and its allies are already in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran is the ultimate target of the so-called US-led war on terror. It is so because the US and other western neo-imperialists want to monopolize Iran’s vast petroleum and gas resources. It is so because the western neo-imperialists want to establish a full-pledged military, economic and political hegemonies in the West Asia-Central Asia-South Asia regions.

But, if the US launches a full-scale war against Iran in the coming months, will this war escalates into a full-blown world war? If Iran is being attacked by the US and its neo-imperialist allies, especially Britain, will Russia and China jump into the same band wagon? If Iran is being bombarded by the US tomorrow, what will be the reactions and stands of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the United Nations and other world bodies?

- Ruhanie Ahmad

US Reiterates Opposition To
Iran-Pak-India Pipeline Project

ISLAMABAD, April 7 (Bernama) -- US has reiterated its opposition to the US$7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project to bring gas to the Indian sub-continent, but was ready to help Islamabad overcome its energy crisis through "financial and technical support".

Responding to queries on the project, Gordon W. Weynand, a US energy expert and a senior official in the US Agency for International Development (USAID), was quoted by PTI as saying that Washington was against associating the Iranian regime with the IPI gas project and was ready to help Islamabad meet its energy needs.

"Next three years are going to be very difficult and challenging for Pakistan to resolve its energy crisis for which we are ready to offer our financial and technical support," said Weynand, who is on a two-week visit to Islamabad.

The Bush administration, which has declined to sign a civil nuclear pact with Pakistan on the line of the India-US civil nuclear deal, has offered Pakistan financial and technical assistance to overcome its energy shortage.

Weynand said the US had decided to help Pakistan import electricity from Central Asia, especially Tajikistan. The US energy expert said that the World Bank planned to provide financial assistance while the Asian Development Bank would be extending technical support to help Pakistan import 1,000 megawatts of electricity from Tajikistan.

"Our mission is to put together economic growth strategy for Pakistan for the next five years and to see how energy fits into the Pakistani economy," Weynand was quoted Friday by the Dawn daily as saying.

In regard to the security concerns about the Afghan transit route for the energy project, he said: "These are some difficult issues but then we will make sure that every thing goes normal in Afghanistan and Pakistan gets this electricity from Tajikistan and also from Kyrgyzstan."

-- BERNAMA
http://www.bernama.com

Comment:

In my humble opinion, the above news item is reflective of the hidden agenda of the US in the Central and South Asia regions in the 21st century. The agenda are:

To exert the divide-and-rule principles to selected nations. Example: The US “has declined to sign a civil nuclear pact with Pakistan” but had already established one “India-US civil nuclear deal.”

To subtly forced Pakistan to become the reluctant ally of the US in the Central and South Asia regions through various aids and technical assistance.

To block any business deals between Iran and nations in the Central and South regions aimed at marginalizing Iran from spreading its sphere of influence in both regions.

All the above are some of the ways to ensure that the US military, economic and political hegemonies in Central and South Asia, which were indirectly established through the launching of the war against international muslim terrorists in 2001, will remain intact and free from interferences by nations considered as unfriendly to the US.

Therefore, it is interesting to see what will be the ultimate response of Pakistan to such a statement that the US opposes the US$7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project to bring gas to the Indian sub-continent. Will Pakistan accept the US offer of "financial and technical support" to help her overcome her energy crisis?

– Ruhanie Ahmad

2,252 Victims Of Violence
Buried In ’Mass Graves’
In Karbala

By Muslim Abdulhameed
[www.azzaman.com]
April 5, 2007

IRAQ: The government is burying en mass hundreds of bodies of victims of violence which have been lying in Baghdad morgue for several months.

Government sources, refusing to be named for fear or retribution said, at least 2,252 bodies have been buried in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.

But the government itself is making no secret of the burials. A government-related website said on Wednesday that 93 more bodies were buried in Karbala.

It said they were all numbered and pictured before burial. It also said, the 93 bodies could not be identified and have been lying in the morgue for a long period. No one has come forward to claim them.

The dead were victims of current sectarian strife in the country. It is not clear why so many bodies had remained in the morgue for so long period without anyone asking for them.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2007-04-05\kurd.htm

Comment:

This will not happen if President George W Bush did not launched the US-led pre-emptive war against Iraq beginning 2003 – a war based on falsehood and deception. This will also not happen if The United Nations Security Council is not being dominated by superpowers like the US and Britain – neo-imperialists of the 21st century. – Ruhanie Ahmad.

U.S. Could Strike Iran
But Not Win
- Russian General
[www.tehrantimes.com]

MOSCOW (Reuters) -- The United States cannot inflict a military defeat on Iran and any attack would be a huge political mistake, Russia's top general said on Tuesday.

"It is possible to damage Iran's military and industrial potential, but it is impossible to win," Russian news agencies quoted General Yuri Baluyevsky, head of the Russian general staff, as saying.

"The United States has a contingent in the region capable of launching a strike on Iranian territory.

"However, such possible strikes would be a huge political mistake. Shockwaves from this attack could be felt around the world."

Washington and its Western allies claim Iran wants to build nuclear bombs, a charge vehemently denied by Tehran.

Russia sells weapons to the Iranian military and is helping Tehran build a nuclear power station on the Persian Gulf although work there is on hold over a payment dispute.

Russian media late last month quoted unnamed sources in Russian military intelligence as saying the United States could launch a strike on Iran as early as April 6.

RIA news agency quoted a Russian security source as saying Moscow has military intelligence reports that the U.S. has already approved a list of Iranian targets for bomb and missile strikes. The source said a land operation could follow.

Baluyevsky said military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan showed the United States would face a fiasco if it took on Iran as well. "The Americans must think twice (about attacking Iran)," he said.

"They have already got stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq."

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/4/2007&Cat=2&Num=005

Australia Bars Radical Sheik
From Entering Country

MELBOURNE, April 4 (Bernama) -- The Australian government has banned a radical Muslim sheik from entering Australia to speak at a major Islamic conference in Melbourne on the weekend, a newspaper reported.

The Herald Sun said Sheik Bilal Philips, who has been linked to the 1993 World Trade Centre bombings in New York, was refused a visa at the last moment by Department of Immigration officials

It is believed that the department acted on advice from national security agencies.

Sheik Philips, 50, a Canadian citizen who lives in Qatar, once wrote: "Western culture, led by the United States, is the enemy of Islam."

The US government named him as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 bombings that killed six people and injured 1000. He was deported from the US in 2004.

A second speaker billed to attend the first annual Australian Islamic Conference at Melbourne University on Easter weekend had been asked to show cause why he should be allowed to enter the country, the newspaper said.

Sources said it was unlikely that Sheik Jaafer Idris, a Saudi-based academic, would be able to provide information in time.

-- BERNAMA
http://www.bernama.com

Indonesia Floats
Muslim Solution To Iraq
By Muklis Ali

BOGOR, Indonesia (Reuters) - Muslim nations should ultimately replace coalition forces in Iraq after a period of national reconciliation, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told a meeting of Islamic clerics on Tuesday.

Yudhoyono, who is keen to see Indonesia take a bigger role in global issues and in particular in the Middle East, first floated his proposals on Iraq at a joint news conference with U.S. President George W. Bush last November in Bogor.

"The spiral effect of violence has dreadfully eroded the national tradition of religious tolerance and mutual respect. This is not the natural state of affairs between the Sunnis and Shi'ites of Iraq," he said in a speech to about 20 clerics from around the world gathering at the Bogor presidential palace to discuss Iraq.

"The first and most vital track in this proposed solution is the launching and unrelenting pursuit of reconciliation," added Yudhoyono, a former general who spent years training in U.S. military bases.

"Once the national reconciliation is achieved, the second track is the withdrawal of the coalition forces replaced by a new coalition of forces comprising of like-minded Muslim countries," said Indonesia's first directly elected president.

Yudhoyono also joined Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in January in backing a new Muslim initiative to resolve turbulence and violence in the Middle East.

Since Yudhoyono outlined his Iraq proposal on Bush's second visit to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, there has been little evidence of it gaining much traction.

Under the Bush administration's new Iraq policy announced earlier this year, the Pentagon has increased force levels in Iraq by about 30,000 troops in an attempt to regain control of security and reduce sectarian violence.

But opposition Democrats who hold the majority in the U.S. congress are seeking to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq in the near future.

Some Bush policies, especially in the Middle East, are deeply unpopular in Indonesia, where 85 percent of the population follows Islam. Jakarta has consistently criticised the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Copyright © 2007 Reuters
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/4/4/worldupdates/2007-04-03T194743Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-293074-1&sec=Worldupdates

Solomons Hit By Tsunami
After Powerful Pacific Quake

HONIARA (AFP) - A tsunami spawned by a strong 8.0-magnitude undersea earthquake pounded the Solomon Islands Monday, sweeping over villages and leaving several people dead or missing, officials and locals said.

Witness reports spoke of waves washing up to 200 meters (yards) inland and destroying houses, triggering landslides and forcing residents to evacuate to higher land.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami warning for a series of countries in the region. Japan's Kyodo News, quoting Solomons officials, said some 60 buildings had collapsed in and around the town of Gizo, just 45 kilometres (28 miles) from the quake's epicentre.

A spokesman for the Solomon Islands Office of Emergency Management said there were reports of several people missing after two villages were flooded or hit by associated mudslides in the far west of the archipelago.

"We have unconfirmed reports of a tsunami washing parts of the most western end of the Solomons, where two villages ... near Bougainville are reported to be completely inundated," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The UN-funded communications project Solomon Islands People First Network quoted one of its workers saying villages on the western island of Simbo had been destroyed. "(The worker) estimated waves washed inland a distant of about two hundred meters from the shoreline," the People First Network said. "He estimates almost every building of Tapurai village on the island has been washed away," it added, as well as houses in Marusu village and a school classroom.

It said Gizo was reported to have been inundated by the tsunami. The town has reported unconfirmed deaths, while a female is thought to have been killed in a landslide.

In the capital Honiara, news of the quake and tsunami sent people running screaming from waterfront markets, said Daniel Evans, an Australian lawyer. "I just saw everyone on the street start to run and scream," he told AFP in Sydney. "But people are just back to normal now. People are down along the shoreline looking at the water but everyone's fine. No one is panicking."

The Solomon Islands, 2,575 kilometres east of Australia, has a little over half a million people living on dozens of islands.

It is part of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where continental plates meet and frequently experiences volcanic and seismic activity. The US Geological Survey reported a series of aftershocks measuring up to 6.7.

A resident from Noro, near Gizo, reported further tremors, causing high seas in the affected areas, People's First Network said. Boats had been swept up on to nearby roads, it added.

A news report in Japan said three people were dead following the tsunami, but officials could not confirm the toll. The Office of Emergency Management's deputy director, Janet Batee, told AFP officials were having trouble contacting the stricken area. "We haven't got solid information from the affected area because of communication problems," she said. "We are still waiting for reliable casualty and damage reports."

A state of emergency was expected to be declared later Monday, Batee said. Solomons police spokesman Mick Spinks said the town of Taro had been hit by a large wave and there were reports of buildings being damaged. The settlement of Lofung also reported being hit with residents evacuating to higher ground, Spinks said.

The quake struck at 7:40 am local time (2040 GMT Sunday) centred about 350 kilometres west-northwest of the capital Honiara at a depth of 10 kilometres, the US Geological Survey and Hong Kong Observatory said. "An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines in the region near the epicentre within minutes to hours," the tsunami warning centre said.

The warning covers the Solomons, Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Nauru, Chuuk, New Caledonia, Pohnpei, Kosrae, Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, with countries as far away as Japan on alert. Australia issued urged residents on its northeast coast to move to higher ground, while authorities in New Caledonia, some 1,000 kilometres south of the Solomons, evacuated schools in threatened areas.

© AFP 2007
http://www.bernama.com

Operation Bite - April 6 Sneak Attack
By US Forces On Iran Planned
- Russian Military Sources Warn

By Webster G. Tarpley
25 March 207


WASHINGTON DC -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 AM on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly "Argumenty Nedeli." Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.

The attack is slated to last for twelve hours, according to Uglanov, lasting from 4 AM until 4 PM local time. Friday is a holiday in Iran. In the course of the attack, code named Operation Bite, about 20 targets are marked for bombing; the list includes uranium enrichment facilities, research centers, and laboratories.

The first reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, where Russian engineers are working, is supposed to be spared from destruction. The US attack plan reportedly calls for the Iranian air defense system to be degraded, for numerous Iranian warships to be sunk in the Persian Gulf, and the for the most important headquarters of the Iranian armed forces to be wiped out.

The attacks will be mounted from a number of bases, including the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Diego Garcia is currently home to B-52 bombers equipped with standoff missiles. Also participating in the air strikes will be US naval aviation from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, as well as from those of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. Additional cruise missiles will be fired from submarines in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of the Arabian peninsula. The goal is allegedly to set back Iran's nuclear program by several years, writes Uglanov, whose article was re-issued by RIA-Novosti in various languages, but apparently not English, several days ago. The story is the top item on numerous Italian and German blogs, but so far appears to have been ignored by US websites.

Observers comment that this dispatch represents a high-level orchestrated leak from the Kremlin, in effect a war warning, which draws on the formidable resources of the Russian intelligence services, and which deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness by pro-peace forces around the world.

Asked by RIA-Novosti to comment on the Uglanov report, retired Colonel General Leonid Ivashov confirmed its essential features in a March 21 interview: "I have no doubt that there will be an operation, or more precisely a violent action against Iran." Ivashov, who has reportedly served at various times as an informal advisor to Putin, is currently the Vice President of the Moscow Academy for Geopolitical Sciences.

Ivashov attributed decisive importance to the decision of the Democratic leadership of the US House of Representatives to remove language from the just-passed Iraq supplemental military appropriations bill which would have demanded that Bush come to Congress before launching an attack on Iran. Ivashov pointed out that the language was eliminated under pressure from AIPAC, the lobbing group representing the Israeli extreme right, and of Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni.

"We have drawn the unmistakable conclusion that this operation will take place," said Ivashov. In his opinion, the US planning does not include a land operation: " Most probably there will be no ground attack, but rather massive air attacks with the goal of annihilating Iran's capacity for military resistance, the centers of administration, the key economic assets, and quite possibly the Iranian political leadership, or at least part of it," he continued.

Ivashov noted that it was not to be excluded that the Pentagon would use smaller tactical nuclear weapons against targets of the Iranian nuclear industry. These attacks could paralyze everyday life, create panic in the population, and generally produce an atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty all over Iran, Ivashov told RIA-Novosti. "This will unleash a struggle for power inside Iran, and then there will be a peace delegation sent in to install a pro-American government in Teheran," Ivashov continued. One of the US goals was, in his estimation, to burnish the image of the current Republican administration, who would now be able to boast that they had wiped out the Iranian nuclear program.

Among the other outcomes, General Ivashov pointed to a partition of Iran along the same lines as Iraq, and a subsequent carving up of the Near and Middle East into smaller regions. "This concept worked well for them in the Balkans and will now be applied to the greater Middle East," he commented.

"Moscow must expert Russia's influence by demanding an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to deal with the current preparations for an illegal use of force against Iran and the destruction of the basis of the United Nations Charter," said General Ivashov. "In this context Russia could cooperate with China, France and the non-permanent members of the Security Council. We need this kind of preventive action to ward off the use of force," he concluded.

http://fr.rian.ru/world/20070319/62260006.html
http://www.rense.com/general75/bite.htm

The Coming Shakedown
Of The US And Iran

By Henry Makow Ph.D
March 30, 2007

[www.thetruthseeker]

If Russian warnings are correct, at this time next week the US could be at war with Iran. Let us be clear that this war is really an assault by the Illuminati on both countries.

The top rung of Freemasonry, the Illuminati Order is an international satanic cult that aims to subdue humanity by pitting nations against each other. It represents an ancient occult conspiracy of international finance and many "leading families" of Europe and America.

Empowered by the central banking cartel, the Illuminati Order has the resources to infiltrate both sides of every conflict and steer them according to the New World Order agenda. They call this a "dialectical process." They were on both sides of both world wars, the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam.

Iran's nuclear ambitions are merely a pretext. The real object is to degrade both the US and Iran so citizens will forfeit political, economic and spiritual rights to Illuminati banker "world government."

As you know, in 1871 Albert Pike, the Grand Commander of US Freemasonry wrote a letter to Giuseppe Mazzini, his European counterpart, foretelling three world wars. He was correct about the first two.

"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" [agents] of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists [i.e. Americans] and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam and political Zionism mutually destroy each other."

I don’t see this conflict starting WWIII. Like the Spanish Civil War, it is a dress rehearsal. In turn, the Israel attack on Lebanon last July was a dry run for this attack on Iran. It may even have been part of an Israeli-American quid pro quo.

And just as Israel suffered some humiliating setbacks at the hands of the Hezbollah, I wouldn’t be surprised if the US "victory" is also Pyrrhic.

The important thing is that a satanic cult covertly controls all countries and wages a covert war against humanity. Thus, people are too busy to recognize that their real enemies are among their own leaders, the mass media and the bankers who own both.

This is a possible Iran scenario: Like all wars, the conflict will be orchestrated. It will take place in the next month or two and probably resemble the Lebanon war. Iran and the US will both suffer serious losses; the price of oil will sky rocket and the stock market will take a hit. Israel and Iran may exchange fire but I don't foresee any invasions. If Iran goes into Iraq, all bets would be off.

I'd like to be %100 wrong about this, and free to enjoy the Spring weather.

ORCHESTRATIONS

Here are some articles that suggest the Illuminati is orchestrating both sides:

Some observers have noted that the British female sailor was interviewed by the BBC and The Independent just hours before she was taken prisoner. How convenient. At least the BBC didn't broadcast the capture before it took place.

Some have suggested the capture is so unlikely that both sides may have staged it, or it was a trap laid by the British. This would explain the lack of resistance. The parallel between the prisoner-takings that started the Lebanon war, and the present situation is obvious.

In a recent article, Seymour Hersh reveals that Dick Cheney has been running an Iran-Contra style operation that includes support for groups linked to al Queda. They are also engaged in clandestine operations in Iran and the kidnapping of hundreds of Iranians.

Isn't it strange that the Iranians have never captured any of the Americans involved in this? Why haven't the Iranians demanded a prisoner exchange, particularly for the ex-Deputy Minister of Defense kidnapped in Turkey?

Hersh also says the US is trying to repackage the Iraq war as a regional Shiite-Sunni conflict in which the US finds itself an innocent peace keeper. This has put the US in the contradictory position of having installed a pro-Iranian Shiite government in Iraq; and now supporting the Sunni and Al Qaeda insurgents, who are its enemies. It doesn’t make any sense unless you see the war as an end in itself.

David Icke received the shocking picture of Ahmadinejad from an aghast Iranian. "What's going on? This doesn't have anything to do with Islam!" he exclaimed.

In his exclusive newsletter, Icke recently wrote that Ahmadinehad seems to be a Illuminati puppet: "The propaganda war against Iran really picked up after the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of the Islamic Republic in 2005. After he took office in the August he was soon making speeches that the American propagandists and spinners must have dreamed of. I cannot believe this was a fortuitous coincidence. He defeated the one-time favourite, the former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani whose reputation and record would have made it almost impossible to demonize Iran as a threat to America or anyone else."

Icke continues: "Mehdi Karroubi, a Reformist candidate seeking to open Iranian society and oppose the extremes of hard-line Islam, finished a good third in the first round of voting. He then alleged that a network of mosques, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij militia forces had illegally generated support for Ahmadinejad and specifically named Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the Supreme Leader Ayatolla Khamenei, as being involved in this election fraud. The Ayatollah told Karroubi that the allegations were below his dignity and he would not allow the crisis in Iran that they could cause.Karroubi wrote back, resigning from all his political posts and some Reformist newspapers were [banned] for publishing Karroubi's letter."

Finally Icke says: "British and American military intelligence ousted Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 in a CIA-planned coup called Operation Ajax; imposed the vicious Shah of Iran as a dictator; and then removed him for the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. Why would the same forces not continue to be involved in election manipulation in Iran when they so badly needed Ahmadinejad to defeat Rafsanjani for their 'Axis of Evil' plan to work?"

Switching to the domestic front, an example of the Illuminati "dialectic" at work is Rosie O'Donnell's recent pronouncements on 9-11. The Lesbian poster girl sounds like Alex Jones. Though appearing heroic, her function is to recast the present debate in the image of the 1960's anti-war movement, focusing blame on the fall guy Bush and "the government" instead of the long-term international Masonic conspiracy ultimately responsible. Celebrities seem to perform an elite political function these days.

You also see Zbigniew Brzezinski saying the war on terror "has undermined democracy" in the banker-owned Washington Post. That's pretty funny coming from one of the architects of this policy. He is trying to distance himself and his Rothschild-Rockefeller sponsors from their handiwork.

Meanwhile Democrats in Congress try to placate an angry electorate with timetables for withdrawal. This is a diversion. US democracy is a charade. The US will never willingly withdraw from Iraq. The US is the Illuminati's goon.

CONCLUSION

If the Illuminati have so much power, why don't they just proclaim their world dictatorship now? It's the process, which is both necessary and incredibly profitable. Humanity must be gradually transformed so it sees slavery as freedom and embraces the NWO shibboleths, world government, diversity, the anti Christ etc.

War is the Illuminati's cement mixer. They just throw in nations, women, children, cultures, religions; break and mix and then reset in their own mold. They call it "creating order out of chaos" but first they create chaos.

They envisage a Middle East including Israel as conformist and vapid as the EU today. Middle East-EU union is already on the drawing board. Wars also kill a lot of innocent people as well as pesky idealists.

The greatest barrier to understanding world events is our failure to imagine the dimensions of evil, and how readily most people will serve Satan.

If we have a war against Iran, it will be instigated by an international satanic cult, to further degrade destroy and demoralize humanity, especially in Iran and the US.


Henry Makow Ph.D. is the inventor of the game Scruples and author of "A Long Way to go for a Date." His articles exposing fe-manism and the New World Order can be found at his web site www.savethemales.ca He enjoys receiving comments, some of which he posts on his site using first names only. hmakow@gmail.com

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=6285

The Human Costs
Of Four Years Of War
Part Two:

The US invasion has caused
nearly three-quarter million
Iraqi deaths
[www.wsws.org]


In addition to those who have lost their lives, one must assume that more than a million Iraqis have suffered some form of physical injury as a consequence of the bloodshed unleashed by the US invasion.

This still does not encompass the full scale of the human tragedy for which the US is responsible. An estimated two million refugees have fled Iraq, creating one of the most severe refugee crises anywhere on the planet. At least another 1.7 million are internal refugees, driven from their homes by the war and the uncontrolled and savage ethnic cleansing operations taking place throughout the country.

Given these figures, it is likely that a quarter of the Iraqi population has been killed, wounded or turned into refugees.

This is the real context in which the working class in the US and around the world must view Bush’s calls for “more time” to implement his “new strategy” of escalation, Condoleezza Rice’s statement Monday that the Iraq war is “worth the sacrifice,” or the Democrats claims that the only way to end the war is to give the White House another $100 billion to wage it.

What has taken place in Iraq and what is continuing and escalating is a crime of blood-curdling proportions. The so-called “surge” of some 30,000 additional troops into Baghdad and Anbar province will only mean an escalation of this mass killing, maiming and uprooting of Iraqis.

In the end, the US intervention in Iraq has amounted to an exercise in sociocide, the unleashing of violence, death and destruction on such as a scale as to traumatize, deform and even destroy Iraqi society.

Devastated

This finds its expression in every area of life in occupied Iraq. The country’s economy remains devastated, with between 50 and 75 percent of the population unemployed. Poverty has soared, and with it child malnutrition and infant mortality. According to the Catholic relief agency Caritas, nearly one third of Iraqi children are going hungry. Press reports from Iraq indicate that legions of war orphans and impoverished children have taken to the streets of Baghdad and other cities to beg for food.

Essential services such as clean water and electricity are less available to the average Iraqi now than they were before the US invaded the country four years ago, when conditions were already vastly deteriorated as a result of a decade of international sanctions and the widespread destruction inflicted during the first Persian Gulf War and subsequent US missile attacks.

Meanwhile, the national health care system, once considered one of the best in the region, has largely collapsed, leading to countless more unnecessary deaths. In an open letter published earlier this year, Iraqi doctors and foreign aid professionals wrote: “. . . children are dying in Iraq for want of medical treatment . . . Sick or injured children, who could otherwise be treated by simple means, are left to die in their hundreds because they do not have access to basic medicines or other resources. Children who have lost hands, feet, and limbs are left without prostheses. Children with grave psychological distress are left untreated.”

The desperate conditions created by the US intervention in Iraq found fresh expression in a poll released Monday by a group of major US and European news organizations, showing that fully 53 percent of Iraqis report having had family member or close friends killed or wounded. Close to 90 percent say that they live in fear of someone in their own family becoming a victim.

Moreover, in virtually every area of life, the poll pointed to a dramatic deterioration in the past two years. Thus, while in a poll taken in 2005, 54 percent said that their electricity supply was inadequate or non-existent, now the figure is 88 percent. Similar changes were recorded in relation to jobs, water supply and hopes for the future. Not surprisingly, the attitude towards US occupation forces also registered a sharp shift, with 51 percent expressing the view that it was “acceptable” to attack them, triple the rate recorded three years ago. Nearly 80 percent opposed their presence on Iraqi soil.

War Crimes

The desperate social and economic conditions prevailing in Iraq, as well as the killing and maiming of Iraqi civilians, constitute war crimes committed by Washington. They are a blatant violation of the Geneva Accords, which imposes upon an occupying power the “duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population,” and a special responsibility to ensure the maintenance, care and education of its children.

Far from reconstructing Iraq, the US occupation has unleashed upon the ravaged country all that is corrupt, sick and criminal within American society itself. This has included the sadism and perversity of Abu Ghraib, the psychotic massacres and rapes for which some lower-ranking enlisted personnel are now being tried and, on a far more massive scale, the outright theft and embezzlement carried out by a host of politically connected contractors, foremost among them Halliburton, whose former bagman is now vice president of the United States.

These are the crimes not just of an administration in the White House, but of the entire political establishment and the social order as a whole.

Every significant institution in American society bears responsibility for this criminal enterprise, from the right-wing leadership that conspired to launch the war, to the Democratic Party, which voted the administration unlimited war powers and hundreds of billions of dollars in war funding, to the mass media, which transformed itself into a conduit for lies and war propaganda, both before the invasion and after.

Behind these political institutions stand the major economic forces within US society—the banks, corporations and, most immediately, the giant energy conglomerates—all of which saw in the Iraq war a means of reversing the relative decline of US capitalism on the world market by means of military aggression and plunder.

As both the Bush administration and leading Democratic politicians like Senator Hillary Clinton of New York issue demands and threats to compel the Iraqi regime to speedily enact a new petroleum law opening up the country’s vast reserves to exploitation by ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and ConocoPhillips,, etc, the already transparent motives underlying the US invasion four years ago are becoming ever more explicit.

Guilty

These companies are just as guilty in relation to the pillaging and mass slaughter in Iraq as the German firms IG Farben, Krupp and Flick were in the atrocities of Hitler’s Third Reich, crimes for which their directors were convicted - if less than adequately punished -at Nuremberg.

These are the real issues confronting American society on this fourth anniversary of a war characterized by unspeakable criminality and filth.

The so-called debate between the Bush White House and the Democratic leadership in Congress over how best to salvage US interests from the debacle in Iraq does not begin to confront these questions. Both Bush’s escalation and Democratic proposals for reducing US forces, while continuing the occupation, are based on a continued strategy of conquest and on the conception that, eventually, the mass killing and repression will force the Iraqi people to submit. Both parties express the interests and methods of an American capitalist class that has enriched itself through parasitism and methods of violence and criminality, employed both at home and abroad to effect the transfer of vast amounts of wealth from the working population of the world to a tiny financial aristocracy.

An end to the immense and tragic crisis that now exists in Iraq is unthinkable outside of the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all US troops. Moreover, no real settlement can be contemplated outside of those who conspired to carry out this illegal war being held politically and legally responsible, including through prosecution for war crimes.

Such a solution cannot be achieved through the existing political institutions and the two major parties in the US, all of which have Iraq blood on their hands. It requires the independent political mobilization of working people, both in the US and internationally, in a class-conscious socialist movement.

On this, the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq, the Socialist Equality Party and the World Socialist Web Site pledges to intensify the struggle to build such a movement to put an end to war and the profit system that creates it.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/iraq-m20.shtml