| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:27 pm Post subject: Cheney and Netanyahu Pushing : For War Against Syria |
| Syrian thought experiment
Xymphora
January 17, 2006
There are apparently still a few stragglers who refuse to accept the fact that the American multi-trillion dollar mistake in Iraq was made under the influence of Israeli agents in the White House (note this uncharacteristically stupid article by Stephen Zunes, containing every straw man in the book, and coming down to the fact that we can't speak the truth now as it sounds too much like untrue anti-Semitic attacks made in the past: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA11Ak01.html ). Of course there were many other reasons for the attack, and the politics of empire requires that many interest groups have to be serviced when such a major action is taken. No one can argue that the Israeli agents were the only reason for the attack. The Israeli agents were not a sufficient condition for the attack, but they were a necessary condition. The attack would never have occurred but for the actions of those working for Israel.
If you are still not convinced, consider the fact that the Americans are in the middle of using the United Nations and a false concern about the Hariri assassination to plot an attack against Syria (or here). Those who argue against an Israeli cause for the Iraq attack rely on other American possible reasons for wanting regime change in Iraq. What reason can the United States possibly have for attacking Syria?:
Does Syria have weapons of mass destruction? Nope.
Does Syria have a program to build weapons of mass destruction? Nope.
Does Syria have a nuclear program? Nope.
Does Syria have or plan to have nuclear weapons? Nope.
Does Syria pose any possible threat to the United States? Nope.
Does Syria have a strategically important quantity of hydrocarbons? Nope.
Does the United States need Syria as a place to build bases to control the Middle East? Nope.
Does control of Syria give the Americans any strategic benefits whatsoever? Nope.
Was Syria involved with the September 11 attack? Nope.
Is Syria connected to al Qaeda? Nope. In fact, the Syrian government is one of the biggest enemies of Islamist terrorist groups.
Did Syria try to blow up Bush's father? Nope.
All of the many reasons that the Zionists claim are the real reasons the Americans attacked Iraq simply do not apply to Syria. So why are John Bolton and the Americans well on their way to attacking Syria?
The answer is obvious. Israel. In Sharon's last interview (with the Japanese newspaper Nikkei) he was asked the question "Do you think the Golan Heights will stay under Israeli sovereignty forever?" and answered:
"I don't see any situation where Israel will not be sitting on the Golan Heights. For 19 years the northern part of Israel was under heavy war of attrition. We are not going to return to this situation, although Israel will never attack Syria."
This just repeats Sharon's position on the matter. It is an illegal position under international law, and one that is impossible to maintain unless the Syrian government is replaced by an American puppet. The post-Sharon Likud position calls for 'defensible borders', which includes permanent control of the Golan Heights. The next American war will unquestionably be fought solely for Israeli right-wing interests. Why does it continue to be so hard to accept the real necessary condition for the last American war?
The last attack is past, and the damage it caused can't be fixed, at least not by any possible present or future American government. I'm concerned about the future. Failure to acknowledge the real malign influence of Zionism over the American government is going to doom Syria - and no doubt many other Arabs in the Middle East - to the grim fate of the Iraqis. If you don't cast blame where it is due you are going to be morally responsible for the deaths which are clearly coming, all at the instance of Israel. Failure to acknowledge the truth based on some bad-faith concern about possible anti-Semitism also leaves you intellectually unable to answer some of the mysteries about American politics (it also falls into the Zionist trap of conflating an attack on Zionism with an attack on Jews, forgetting that the real power behind Zionism in the United States is Christian Zionism). Why did the Democrats support the attack on Iraq? Why do they turn down a perfect election issue and refuse - for the most part - to call for withdrawal from Iraq? Why is nobody saying anything about the upcoming holocaust against the Syrian people? There is only one answer for all these questions.
www.xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/01/syrian-thought-experiment.html
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Cheney and Netanyahu Pushing : For War Against Syria
by Jeffrey Steinberg
This article appears in the January 20, 2006 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
An ever-more-desperate Dick Cheney is pulling out all the stops to install "Clean Break" hawk Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu as the next Israeli Prime Minister, to push for an immediate confrontation between Israel and Syria. Israeli sources report that Cheney, as of Jan. 11, had an emissary in Israel, exploring the means to put "Bibi" and the Likud back in power, despite collapsing Israeli popular support for the extreme rightwing policies of the neo-con faction that Netanyahu represents.
Part of Cheney's growing desperation stems from the fact that the recent plea agreement between U.S. Justice Department prosecutors and super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, threatens to bring down the entire political dirty-money empire of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), which has been Cheney's principal power base since coming in as Vice President and de facto head-of-state in January 2001. Cheney and DeLay were shown by a recent EIR exclusive story to be politically "joined at the hip" (see EIR, Dec. 30, 2005). The Vice President is so deeply implicated in the DeLay/Abramoff dirty-money machine that the legal defense funds of DeLay and Cheney's ex-chief of staff Lewis Libby are headed by the same two Republican lobbyists, Wayne Berman and former Congressman Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.).
But Israeli sources report, and Washington insiders confirm, that Netanyahu himself is so closely tied to Jack Abramoff that the fallout from Abramoff's plea may bring him down as well, as the international web of money-laundering fronts, tax-exempt charities, and no-bid contractors put together by Abramoff unravels under U.S. prosecutors' scrutiny.
West Bank Story
The first published clue about the Netanyahu/Abramoff links actually surfaced last year, when Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff revealed on May 2, 2005 that one of Abramoff's tax-exempt charities, Capital Athletic Foundation, had funnelled $140,000 to a West Bank settlement, to finance the purchasing of security equipment, including "camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager, and other material."
Funds for the Capital Athletic Foundation, ostensibly an Abramoff family charity dedicated to helping inner-city youth, came largely from Indian tribe clients of Abramoff.
The security gear was provided to the West Bank town of Beitar Illit, which Isikoff described as "a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors."
Beitar Illit is the home of Schmuel Ben-Zvi, a rightwing American who moved to the West Bank, and who was a close high school pal of Abramoff in Hollywood. The $140,000 was paid to an Israeli group called Kollel Ohel Tiferet, which is not publicly registered in Israel.
While Ben-Zvi denied any links to the $140,000 West Bank payoff, an exchange of emails between him and Abramoff told a different story. On receiving the money, Ben-Zvi wrote to Abramoff: "I feel like the tank commanders in the Yom Kippur war, who when hearing over the radio that reinforcements were coming, felt so great that they raised their seats higher out of the tank hatch and went forward." To which Abramoff wrote back: "If only there were another dozen of you the dirty rats would be finished," referring to the Palestinian neighbors of Beitar Illit.
When questions arose over what Israeli entity to pass the money to, Ben-Zvi proposed to write a letter to the Capital Athletic Foundation, on the letterhead of his Snipers Workshop, which he described as "an educational entity of sorts."
Informed of the West Bank funding, Indian tribal lawyer Henry Buffalo told Newsweek, "This is almost like outer-limits bizarre. The tribe would never have given money for this."
FBI sources told Newsweek's Isikoff that the bulk of the $4 million listed as the Abramoff fund's tax-exempt gifts went to a now-defunct Maryland yeshiva where Abramoff's two sons went to school.
Wiring Congress
Another contributor to the Capital Athletic Foundation was an Israeli telecom startup company, Foxcom, which kicked in $50,000 to the Abramoff fund. Foxcom received a $3-million contract to install wireless antenna systems at the U.S. Congress, in a deal pushed through by Abramoff crony Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Administration Committee. The Washington Post revealed on Oct. 18, 2005 that Foxcom had paid Abramoff $280,000 in lobbying fees around the time they got the Congressional contract. An American company, LGC Wireless, which had lost the bid to Foxcom, went to the FBI and charged that the bidding process had been rigged by Ney.
Newsweek reported on Aug. 22, 2005 that U.S. officials had rushed to indict and arrest Abramoff on Aug. 11, because they feared he would flee to Israel, as two of his business partners had already done.
And still to be unravelled are the Abramoff connections to the Russian oil company Naftasib, which laundered $1 million to another Abramoff "charity," the U.S. Family Network, through a London law firm, James and Sarch, in 1998. Two top Naftasib executives, Marina Nevskaya and Alexander Koulakovsky, spent "quality time" with Tom DeLay in Moscow, shortly before the laundered payoff to Abramoff. The Russian "oil company" lists the Russian Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior as Naftasib's two main clients. Some of the military equipment delivered to the West Bank settlement of Ben-Zvi came from Russia, hinting at Russian Mafiya ties in the background of the Abramoff saga.
Senior Washington sources have cautioned that it would be a mistake to presume that the Abramoff money flow to Israel and Russia primarily went out of the United States. Abramoff's takeover of the gambling cruise ship line SunCruz gave him a perfect instrument for laundering millions of dollars a day through the offshore gambling tables.
Syria War Diversion
The Cheney push to install Netanyahu as Israel's next Prime Minister, replacing the now-incapacitated Ariel Sharon, is, according to Israeli sources, part of Cheney's desperate move to "change the subject" from his growing political problems in Washington.
Netanyahu is pledged, according to the Israeli sources, to a war with Syria, to divert attention, and to move ahead with the decade-old "Clean Break" scheme, drafted for Netanyahu in July 1996 by a group of American neo-con allies of Cheney. The "Clean Break" strategy paper was co-authored by Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Douglas Feith, and others, and called for the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, followed by similar "regime changes" in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. David Wurmser, the single most vociferous advocate of "regime change" in Damascus, is now a senior Middle East policy aide to Cheney. He previously served under Doug Feith at the Pentagon, when Feith was Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the first Bush-Cheney Administration.
Cheney's war scheme against Syria also implicates Abramoff, according to a Jan. 11, 2006 story by Justin Raimondi, posted on antiwar.com. "One investigator, eager to obtain information about the neo-con-sponsored Reform Party of Syria, led by one Farid Ghadry, the Syrian version of Ahmed Chalabi" Raimondo wrote, "stumbled on the Abramoff connection: 'When repeated calls to [Ghadry's] organization went unanswered, I visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the RPS. Reform Party of Syria is in the office of super-Zionist lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Middle Gate Ventures, Abramoff's political advisory company, partners with RPS."
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2006/3303cheney_bibi.html
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Time: Bush-Abramoff Photos "Suggest A Level Of Contact Between Them That Bush's Aides Have Downplayed"... :
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/01/22/time-bushabramoff-photo_n_14246.html
Last edited by Alpha on Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:31 am; edited 4 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 8:13 pm Post subject: Iran president arrives in Syria |
| Iran president arrives in Syria
(CNN) -- The presidents of Iran and Syria were meeting for talks in Damascus on Thursday -- two regional allies facing prospects of showdowns with the U.N. Security Council.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived for an official two-day visit aimed at holding talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara welcomed Ahmadinejad at Damascus' airport, the news agency said, and Al-Assad was to host a welcome ceremony for Ahmadinejad at the presidential palace within hours.
"Tehran and Damascus have a common stance on Islamic and regional issues," Ahmadinejad told reporters before departing for Damascus, according to IRNA.
Relations between the two countries have improved, he said, following the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.
Ahmadinejad said that during his visit, he and al-Assad will confer on "bilateral, regional and international issues," IRNA reported, and the two will sign documents for economic and cultural cooperation.
Both Iran and Syria have recently faced international pressure: Iran over its nuclear program and Syria over its leaders' possible involvement in the February. 14 bombing assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
In November, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi voiced support for Syria, although he noted those responsible for Hariri's death should be brought to justice.
"Syria is one of our friends," Asefi said, as reported by the semi-official Mehr news agency. "The actions that are taking place against this country, headed by Israel, is an injustice."
Syrian officials have denied any involvement in Hariri's death and has dismissed a report from a U.N. investigator that found evidence of involvement by Syrian leaders as false and politically motivated.
Iran, meanwhile, faces the threat of possible referral to the U.N. Security Council after it resuming research at its Natanz nuclear enrichment plant.
Tehran insists it is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program, but the United States and the three European nations that conducted failed negotiations with Iran -- Britain, France and Germany, known as the EU3 -- want Iran to halt all nuclear activity, fearing it may try to build a nuclear weapon under the guise of a nuclear energy program.
Iran has refused, standing by its right to nuclear research, and is calling for an immediate resumption of negotiations with the EU3 to iron out any misunderstandings on its nuclear program.
The EU3, backed by the United States, has refused to resume negotiations until Iran replaces the seals on the Natanz plant and returns to its previous, voluntary moratorium on nuclear activity.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/19/syria.iran/index.html?section=cnn_latest | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 8:35 pm Post subject: Rice demands (for Israel) UN action on Iran nuclear dispute |
| Rice demands (for Israel) UN action on Iran nuclear dispute
By Alistair Lyon
Thu Jan 19, 11:07 AM ET
The United States on Thursday demanded swift action to drag Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its atomic ambitions, while Russia and China urged caution.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began a visit to Syria in a signal to the world that the two regional allies, each facing threats of referral to the council, will not be cowed.
"On Iran, we have been very clear that the time has come for a referral to the Security Council," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in Washington.
She did not mention Russia, but she was speaking a day after the European Union said it was mulling a Russian proposal that would stop short of formally referring Iran to the council.
A formal referral would mean Iran could face sanctions over the West's suspicions it is pursuing a nuclear bomb. Tehran says its only goal is to produce atomic energy for civilian use.
Moscow wants Iran to be simply "reported" to the council, which could then discuss its case but there would be a lack of legal weight and there would no potential for "consequences," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana explained on Wednesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's board is due to debate Iran at an emergency meeting on February 2, but no consensus has emerged on what the U.N. nuclear watchdog should do.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took a cautious line, saying his country's position at the meeting would be guided by the IAEA's own assessment of Iran's behavior.
"The main principle is not to cause harm, not to cause harm to the international community, not cause harm to the system of non-proliferation," he said after talks on Iran with his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy in Moscow.
Iran's Ahmadinejad has scorned a resolution drafted by EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany, asking the IAEA to send the Iranian nuclear dossier to the Security Council.
The Islamic republic is waging a high-stakes diplomatic battle with the West to head off any U.N. censure or sanctions.
China reiterated its preference for a diplomatic solution.
"We hope all parties will exercise restraint and patience and appropriately resolve the Iran nuclear issue through peaceful means," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
CHINESE, RUSSIAN MISGIVINGS
China and Russia, both permanent council members with veto powers like the United States, France and Britain, have big trade interests in Iran and are wary of any full-scale embargo.
"What Russia and China are concerned about is a shadow cast over Iran and their commercial stakes if this case goes to the council," a Vienna-based EU diplomat said.
"The Russians are very reluctant," he said. "For them, our draft leaves too much room for maneuver and interpretation to allow the Security Council to do much more than they want."
Iran, whose decision last week to remove U.N. seals on uranium enrichment equipment prompted the EU to break off two years of talks, has taken a defiant stance, aware of its muscle as the world's fourth biggest oil exporter in a volatile market.
Its top nuclear negotiator said his country was willing to discuss the West's concerns, but not to scrap nuclear fuel research, which could advance a quest for atomic power or bombs.
"They should not ask a brave nation with very good scientists to expect not to engage in nuclear research," Ali Larijani told the British Broadcasting Corporation. "If they want guarantees of no (military) diversion of nuclear fuel we can reach a formula acceptable to both sides in talks."
He was apparently referring to a Russian proposal to enrich uranium in a joint venture on Iran's behalf. Talks on this are due to resume in Moscow on February 16, although Western officials have expressed skepticism about Iran's intentions.
China favors reviving talks between Iran and the EU trio, but EU and U.S. officials say this is impossible unless Tehran returns to a moratorium on sensitive nuclear work.
In Damascus, Ahmadinejad won support from President Bashar al-Assad, a beleaguered ally who also risks confrontation with the Security Council over the killing of a Lebanese ex-premier.
"We support the right of Iran and any state in the world to acquire peaceful technology," Assad said after talks with his Iranian guest. "Countries which oppose this gave no convincing reason, regardless of whether it is legitimate or not."
Neither Iran nor Syria faces an imminent threat of military action or broad sanctions at the council, but will come under more diplomatic pressure on every front, analysts say.
Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be wiped out have heightened Western alarm about Iran's nuclear intentions.
Germany's foreign intelligence agency believes Iran is at least three or four years away from getting an atom bomb if it wants one, a source familiar with the BND agency's view said.
(Reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Louis Charbonneau in Berlin, Mark Heinrich in Vienna and Oliver Bullough in Moscow) | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2006 8:43 pm Post subject: Iran threatens oil crisis in nuclear standoff |
| Iran threatens oil crisis in nuclear standoff
1 hour, 13 minutes ago
Iran warned of a world oil crisis if sanctions are imposed over its nuclear program even as the United States and Europe struggled to get support for UN Security Council action.
"In case of sanctions, other countries will suffer as well as Iran," Oil Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari said, according to the official news agency, IRNA.
"One of the consequences will be the unleashing of a crisis in the oil sector and particularly a price hike."
Iran, the number two oil exporter in OPEC with oil revenue last year of 42 billion dollars, risks being referred to the United Nations Security Council over what the West suspects is a covert nuclear weapons drive.
World oil prices this week hit a near-four-month high in New York, partly on fears of Iran sanctions.
The nuclear standoff came to a head when Iran broke international seals last week to restart uranium enrichment research which had been suspended for two years under deals with the Europeans.
But the United States and Europe are facing resistance, particularly from permanent UN Security Council members China and Russia, to their push for a referral to the world body and possible sanctions.
"We have been very clear that we believe the time has come for a referral of Iran to the Security Council," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington.
Rice said Iran had been given adequate opportunities to resolve the nuclear issue through negotiations and prove to the world that it was not seeking nuclear weapons.
Russia, which is Iran's main partner in the growing civil nuclear program, has been trying to steer away from a UN showdown. China has also opposed such a step.
Britain, France and Germany, backed by the United States, have called for an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on February 2, a first step before possible UN Security Council referral.
Iran insists it is not seeking to build nuclear weapons and that it has the right to develop atomic energy. It has threatened to suspend snap inspections by the IAEA if it is brought before the Security Council.
But the Western powers have rejected Iran's call for a return to direct talks, Britain describing it as "vacuous," unless there is a return to the fuel cycle suspension.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy met with resistance when he held talks in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to get support for UN action.
"We must simultaneously be united but also firm, to tell the Iranians to return to reason, to stop these dangerous nuclear activities and to let us negotiate together," Douste-Blazy told reporters after the talks.
But Lavrov reiterated Russia's attempts to strike a less confrontational stance.
"We need to act exactly as in medicine," he told journalists. "First understand what method is the most effective -- the scalpel or therapy. Only then do you understand all the aftereffects of further steps. Only then should you act."
As the world powers appeared split, Iran secured backing from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who pledged support for Iran's nuclear program and rejected pressure on Tehran.
"We expressed our support for Iran in its pursuit of peaceful nuclear technology and we back the idea of a dialogue with international parties," Assad said after talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"We also reject the pressure being exerted on this country" over its nuclear program, he said.
A US senator said he planned to introduce a bill calling on President George W. Bush's administration to press governments around the world to shun Iran over its nuclear program.
Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, speaking on US television, said he plans to introduce his resolution Friday, calling for Iran to be excluded from international forums and events and asking the administration to urge other governments to sever economic relations with Tehran. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 10:24 am Post subject: |
| How convenient as the following would be right in accordance with the 'A Clean Break' (war for Israel) agenda that esteemed US intelligence author James Bamford discusses on pages 261-269/321 of his 'A Pretext for War' book (the recently released paperback version of 'A Pretext for War' discusses - on page 403 - the AIPAC/Israel espionage via the Pentagon which the serving Israel first US press/media is hardly covering either):
'A Clean Break' (war for Israel) agenda (from pages 261-269 of James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book - scroll down to such at the following URL):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php
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Iran and Syria behind Tel Aviv bomb: Israel's Mofaz
By Ori Lewis
Fri Jan 20, 1:50 AM ET
Israel's defense minister accused Iran and Syria of being directly responsible for Thursday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv which wounded 30 people, newspaper reports said on Friday.
The Haaretz daily reported that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israeli authorities had "decisive proof that that the attack in Tel Aviv was a direct result of the Axis of Terror that operates between Iran and Syria."
Mofaz was also quoted as saying that Iran had funded the attack while the operational orders to the suicide bomber, who came from the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, were issued at the Islamic Jihad headquarters in Damascus.
Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Mofaz as saying that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who is on a two-day visit to Syria, was holding a "terrorism summit" with his host, President Bashar al-Assad.
Army Radio reported that Israel had already shared the evidence of Iran's and Syria's involvement with officials in the United States, Europe and Egypt.
Islamic Jihad, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv bombing, the first in the Jewish state since an 11-month truce expired at the end of last year.
The bombing raised tensions five days before a Palestinian election and confronted interim Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with a major test.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the attack was aimed at sabotaging the January 25 parliamentary election. Violence could complicate the poll, in which the militant group Hamas is expected to make a strong showing against his Fatah movement.
Hours after the attack, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian on the side of a road near the West Bank city of Hebron, the army and Palestinian security sources said.
An army spokesman said soldiers fired at two Palestinians who had lit a petrol bomb, killing one man. They arrested the other.
Abbas, who engineered the truce to help smooth the way for Israel's Gaza withdrawal in September, said the bombing was a "flagrant violation" of the truce and was aimed to try to derail the Palestinian vote.
"Whoever stands behind this operation will be pursued," he told reporters in Ramallah.
Authorities said the bomber was the only fatality but one person was in serious condition. The other injuries were mostly light to moderate, medics said. | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
