| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 10:58 pm Post subject: Report: US Rejects Israeli Aid Request for Iran Attack |
| Report: US Rejects Israeli Aid Request for Iran Attack
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/13/headlines
The Bush administration has reportedly turned down an Israeli request for military assistance with a strike on nuclear sites in Iran. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli officials asked President Bush for specific military equipment and other backup during Bush’s visit to Israel in May. White House officials are said to have refused the request and insisted Israel give prior notice before planning any attack on Iran. Israel reportedly rejected the request and said it reserves the right to attack Iran if nuclear talks fail. | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 6:19 am Post subject: |
| 'Iran war doomsday scenario for PG'
Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:57:55
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=67142§ionid=351020205
A Kuwaiti think-tank has suggested that any attack on Iran by the US or Israel would set fire on the entire Persian Gulf region.
The Diplomatic Center for Strategic Studies believes that a military confrontation between Iran and Israel or the US is looming on the horizon and that such a conflict would extend to the entire region, the Kuwaiti daily al-Watan reported.
The think-tank has urged Persian Gulf states to take precautionary measures and brace themselves for such a scenario.
According to the report, the US would doubtlessly try to target Iran's nuclear facilities and any such move by Washington would prompt Iran to launch counterattacks against US bases in the Persian Gulf littoral states--including those in Kuwait.
The report predicts that Iran would use its missile power to reduce the density of US strikes on its territory.
The think-tank warns that among the catastrophic consequences of this war would be an economic disaster for Kuwait because it would jeopardize the security of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Kuwaiti research center has urged the member states of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council to promote a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear issue by reducing the tension between the concerned sides.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Israel raises alarms of new Lebanon war (will Syria and Iran be drawn into such as CBS News consultant Michael Oren warned last week on CBS radio nationally?)
Date: Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 7:05 PM
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=67027§ionid=351020202
Israel raises alarms of new Lebanon war
Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:17:54
Israel threatens to wage a new war against Lebanon unless the country restrains Hezbollah from gaining more political power.
"If Hezbollah gains more strength, we will no longer place any limitations on ourselves," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned at Home Front Command headquarters on Tuesday.
He said, "In the Second Lebanon War we had much greater means and capabilities which we avoided using since we fought against an organization and not a country."
Referring to future confrontations with Lebanon, Olmert said "We will be forced to bring a quick end to conflict, at the smallest possible cost, using our comparative advantage."
He also said a future war against Lebanese will be conducted differently, noting that "Gone are the days when wars were fought on remote and hidden battlefields while life in the cities carried on as usual."
On Aug. 12, the Lebanese parliament overwhelmingly approved a national unity government. The elected government agreed on a manifesto that gives Hezbollah the right to keep its arms to defend the nation and liberate its land from Israeli occupation.
Israel fought a 33-day war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006 after Hezbollah captured two of its soldiers. First it vowed to destroy Hezbollah resistance movement and secure the release of the two captured soldiers.
However, Israel failed to achieve any of its goals and it suffered the first-ever defeat in the Middle East. Hezbollah victory shattered the myth of the invincibility of Zionist army.
MMS/PA
--------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: CBS News consultant: Israel to go after Hezbollah in Lebanon again with Syria and Iran being dragged into the war as a result
Date: Monday, August 18, 2008, 9:49 AM
Forwarded:
I just happened to be driving at the right time last week and was listening to the CBS affiliate as the news update at the top of the hour came on.. Israeli 'historian' Michael Oren was discussing how Israel will more than likely go back into Lebanon after Hezbollah sooner rather than later. Oren is the American Jew who was born in New Jersey and immigrated to Israel as he wrote the truth distorted chapter about the USS Liberty attack (see http://tinyurl.com/64aoy9 ) in his book about the Six Day War (he spoke on behalf of the Israeli military in his Israeli military uniform when Lara Logan interviewed him for CBS when Israel was bombing the heck out of Lebanon back in 2006). Anyway he is now a 'consultant/expert' for CBS and appears on a regular basis from what I have seen. Again, he said that Israel will more than likely be going back into Lebanon after Hezbollah because Hezbollah had built up an arsenal of 40,000 rockets which were a threat to Israel. He said that Syria would more than likely get dragged into it and then Iran would as well and that Americans should be prepared for such a wider war scenario in the Middle East.. Again, he said that nationally on CBS radio.. Such would be right in accordance with the rest of the 'A Clean Break' agenda too.. Can access the 'A Clean Break' link on the right of www.neoconzionistthreat.com if interested further... | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:50 pm Post subject: |
| August 20, 2008
Why Bush Will Pardon AIPAC for Espionage
by Grant F. Smith
In 2005, Col. Lawrence Franklin was indicted alongside two executives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for allegedly violating the 1917 Espionage Act. Franklin later pled guilty to passing AIPAC a classified presidential directive and other secrets concerning America's Iran policy. AIPAC then allegedly forwarded the highly sensitive information to Israeli government officials and selected members of Washington's media establishment. This covert leaking appears to be just one of many AIPAC programs designed to encourage tougher U.S. policies toward Iran, from financial boycotts to naval blockades and possibly even military strikes.It hasn't worked out very well for Franklin. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Curiously, Franklin remains free pending the outcome of the repeatedly postponed criminal trial against AIPAC's Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. On Oct. 28, 2008, the prosecution is scheduled to appeal the ruling judge's order that it prove the alleged leaks harmed the United States. This is a far tougher standard of proof than the Espionage Act actually requires. Nevertheless, observers and critics hope the trial will provide insight into Middle East policy formulation – but there is diminished reason for this hope. A passel of musty documents from an earlier, long-secret Department of Justice attempt to hold the Israel lobby accountable was declassified on June 10, 2008. The files reveal that stalling tactics – and most critically, regime change in Washington – provide ample opportunity for the Israel lobby to subvert due process.In 1962, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigated foreign lobbyists active in the United States. The committee hired tough investigators, including Walter Haskell Pincus, now the Washington Post's national security journalist. These investigators played hardball with the American Zionist Council (AZC) by going after its hidden financial flows. The Senate investigators rifled through the filing cabinets of the Israeli government's colonization and charitable fundraising partner, the Jewish Agency, American Section, based in New York. This raised howls of protest from Isaiah L. Kenen, then editor of a lobbying newsletter, the Near East Report.The Senate investigation forced the Jewish Agency, American Section, regulated since 1938 under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), to file more detailed biannual activity declarations.[i] FARA is a disclosure law requiring all agents of foreign principals to detail their activities in reports filed at a public office within the U.S. Department of Justice. The Jewish Agency functioned as a quasi-governmental organization whose executive board was composed of Israelis (including government officials) and Americans. It not only received government funding, but had influence over internal policy and legal matters before they went to the Knesset under a 1953 "covenant" agreement with the Israeli government.Sen. Fulbright, who led the investigation, was outraged at the idea that U.S. foreign aid and tax-preferential charitable funds were being funneled back into the U.S. to multiply foreign aid through lobbying and a massive stealth public relations campaign. At the time, Israel was far from the only violator. The Senate committee also caught the Philippines playing the same game through Washington lobbyists doling out campaign contributions in exchange for enormous WWII reparations payments funded by U.S. taxpayers. But Israel's covert lobbying and public relations venture was truly massive. By the time Fulbright's public Senate hearings ended in 1963, it had been established that the Jewish Agency laundered over $5 million (around $35 million today) into U.S. public relations and lobbying initiatives over a two-year period. The true scope of the campaign was never revealed, in spite of diligent attempts at law enforcement.As in the Rosen and Weissman espionage incident, the FBI and Justice Department initially pressed the case forward. Their law enforcement efforts and internal deliberations work were largely invisible to the American public, but many sent letters urging that the American Zionist Council be registered as a foreign agent. On Nov. 21, 1962, before the full extent of the stealth PR and lobbying campaign was publicly exposed in Senate hearings, the head of the DOJ's Internal Security Section, J. Walter Yeagley sent a two-page letter and foreign agent registration forms [.pdf] to the American Zionist Council by certified mail.[ii] The DOJ formally demanded that the Israel lobby's top umbrella organization openly register and disclose all of its U.S. activities as an agent of influence.The AZC at the time – as the nonprofit umbrella corporation for the Zionist Organization of America, Hadassah, and other elite Zionist organizations in the United States – was the Israel lobby. It was almost completely dependent upon Jewish Agency-directed funds, some with special earmarks from the executive in Jerusalem to AIPAC founder Isaiah L. Kenen. Other recipients of the funding included New York Times media personalities, exiles from the shah's regime in Iran living in the U.S., tenured professors at Harvard, and authors active in churning out hundreds of "scholarly" books about Arab terrorism and Israel's special role as an ally to the U.S. in the Cold War.[iii]The Justice Department, directed by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), insisted that the AZC register as the Jewish Agency's American foreign agent. RFK and his top advisers felt the documented funding flows had "compromised" the lobby so much that they would quietly agree to file registration statements and disclosures. They did not count on the lobby's response. The lobby saw the registration demand as an "extinction-level event," like one of Hollywood's massive asteroids cinematically falling toward Earth. The lobby's outside lead counsel, Simon Rifkind of the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, was apoplectic: FARA registration would be a "noose around the neck of his client" and "choke the very life out of it."[iv] The lobby's response was quiet, asymmetrical, and successful. The parallels with the 2005-2008 AIPAC espionage saga are uncanny.In 2005, the Department of Justice's chief prosecutor on the espionage case, Paul McNulty, was suddenly and inexplicably promoted within the DOJ after he backed off on criminally indicting AIPAC as a corporation. That would have led to AIPAC's immediate demise as a going concern, just as earlier indictments doomed Enron and Arthur Andersen. A February 16, 2005 defense team communication between Rosen's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, and Nathan Lewin, AIPAC's legal counsel, revealed that U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty "would like to end it with minimal damage to AIPAC." Lewin further told Lowell that McNulty was now on AIPAC's side "fighting with the FBI to limit the investigation to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman and to avoid expanding it."[v] After discussing restricting the scope of the prosecution with AIPAC's lawyer and shortly after handing down only individual indictments (Aug. 4, 2005), McNulty was nominated to the position of deputy attorney general on Oct. 20, 2005. He was sworn into office on March 17, 2006. Why McNulty fought so hard to restrict the scope of the FBI's investigation is now less of a mystery. He was simply following the successful career path first blazed by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach 40 years earlier.Back in the 1960s, Katzenbach had also suddenly risen within the DOJ, becoming attorney general on Jan. 26, 1965, after he helped unwind the Israel lobby FARA registration demand within the DOJ. During the calamitous period after the Cuban missile crisis and John F. Kennedy's assassination, Katzenbach brokered an unprecedented deal. The American Zionist Council could register a "sample" Foreign Agent Registration Act declaration for a "representative" time period of its own choosing. Unlike every other filing open for public inspection at the FARA section, the AZC's would be kept in a special folder, with a secret name key linking the individuals and entities receiving Jewish Agency funding kept separate from the disbursement filing.[vi] This deal was derisively referred to as "the caveat" within the FARA section. It was the DOJ's and America's first and only "nonpublic" FARA disclosure. Many dedicated members of the FARA section, such as Nathan Lenvin and Irene Bowman, fought hard against this corruption of their transparency mandate. They lost. The Israel lobby's meager disclosure and internal files about the incident were classified and kept secret, only released under the Freedom of Information Act on June 10, 2008.This subversion of the very essence of FARA heralded its subsequent demise as a serious buffer between Congress, the executive, and the American people and Israel's stealth lobbying campaigns. Analysis of the core documents related to the case reveals how seriously the Israel lobby managed to compromise the U.S. Department of Justice's enforcement efforts while it was vulnerable – during the Johnson administration's 1964 reelection campaign. FARA now serves only to pick off the most tangential of foreign schemers out of favor with the administration, such as those laundering Venezuelan "campaign contributions" through the U.S. to Argentina. The showdown with the Israel lobby and subsequent lobby-driven amendments gutted serious FARA enforcement in the early 1970s.This calamity also produced an unprecedented career opportunity for Isaiah L. Kenen. Until the FARA battle, he was a long-term public relations operator for the nascent Israel lobby. The investigation traumatized Hadassah and the ZOA and exposed them to serious legal risks; it necessitated a corporate reshuffling because the need for an elite organization to spearhead Israel lobbying was still acute. Folding the AZC would leave a power vacuum in Washington. The AZC's stealth lobbying programs and public relations activities were subsequently transferred to a fledgling organization originally established as a unit within the AZC that was internally referred to as "the Kenen Committee."[vii] This became the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Its prerogatives have expanded such that in light of history, trade secrets theft [viii] and eventual run-ins with election law [ix], not to mention the Espionage Act, now seem all but inevitable. The Justice Department's reticence to prosecute AIPAC, given its painful but secret FARA experience, seems understandable, though not necessarily forgivable.The approaching criminal prosecution of Rosen and Weissman is no doubt again considered an extinction-level event by AIPAC and the rest of the Israel lobby, even in its highly robust present configuration. The lobby will have little time in 2009 for another cumbersome reorganization to rebuild credibility, not with soaring military aid demands, concerns over Iran, and its need to secure a semi-permanent U.S. military presence in the heart of the Middle East . But there is one problem. As years pass, it has become more difficult to score any viable legal strategy for dismissing the criminal case against Rosen and Weissman that would appear legitimate to the American public. The case docket [.pdf] reveals many defense team attempts to throw the case out on technical quibbling and how much classified U.S. national security information Rosen and Weissman may expose in their defense. Time also reveals that presiding Judge T.S. Ellis has been neither cowed by the potential graymail that typically plagues cases involving classified information nor intimidated by the lobby's allies in the news media.Both the Republican and Democratic parties desperately need this case to go away long before the next president is sworn in. From their standpoint, it would be unseemly to have U.S. officials subpoenaed and actually put on the witness stand to reveal how Middle East policy is really crafted in the height of an election season dominated by narratives of hope, change, and restoring integrity. But hiring away the U.S. attorneys prosecuting the case, always a viable strategy, is now pretty much exhausted. One key member of the government's prosecution team has already left for the private sector.[x] The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, formerly a wholly owned subsidiary of the Jewish Agency, recently called out for a popular uprising in Rosen and Weissman's defense. But like the Wall Street Journal's own earlier editorial page clemency plea directly to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, it has produced no tangible results. It is now up to the president himself to pardon Rosen and Weissman and end the trial before it can begin.If President George W. Bush waits to pardon Weissman and Rosen until shortly before leaving office, it would be too late for AIPAC's most precious asset: its reputation as an entity engaged in lawful activities. The administration also has an overriding self-preservation interest in seeing this case vanish: it is the singular judicial process for determining whether AIPAC goes too far in agitating for wars – whether in Iraq, Lebanon, or Iran. For Americans a trial would be a very healthy process for determining whether powerful Washington think tanks and corporate news personalities blithely trafficking in our most sensitive national defense information for their own profit should ever be held accountable. But in the waning days of the Bush administration, short-circuiting public accountability for war decisions and the system that produces them is now the overriding doctrine. The pressure is on. Judge Ellis approved subpoenas for Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz as well as National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Richard Armitage to appear as witnesses for the defense. Pardoning AIPAC would mean that Col. Lawrence Franklin, a member of Douglas Feith's infamous Pentagon policy shop and a crucial witness for the prosecution, walks free.The decision to let the Israel lobby walk in 1965 was three years in the making. The initiative quietly gained momentum through similar appeals, stalling, and law enforcement delays. It was finalized during regime change in Washington. The calendar's pages are now inevitably turning toward a brief, singular moment for another special Israel lobby deal from a sitting U.S. president, a president who has little to gain by such public exercises in justice, and much to lose. However, unlike the secret Foreign Agents Registration Act deal of the 1960s, a presidential pardon will be impossible to keep secret. The possibility that a pardon could at last mass-mobilize the American people out of their unknowing tolerance for the lobby's dangerous foreign subversions may even be reason to welcome it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i]Senate Foreign Relations Committee Investigation into the Activities of Agents of Foreign Principals in the United States, Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, Aug. 1, 1963, pp. 1,704-1,709.[ii]Certified letter from Assistant Attorney General Internal Security Division G. Walter Yeagley to the American Zionist Council Nov. 21, 1962 [.pdf], released under Freedom of Information Act on June 10, 2008.[iii] Smith, Grant F., America's Defense Line: The Justice Department's Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government, p. 173.[iv] Memo from Thomas K. Hall, executive assistant, Internal Security Division to Files, p. 2, Jan. 24, 1962, released under Freedom of Information Act on June 10, 2008.[v] Judge T.S. Ellis III, U.S. vs. Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, memorandum opinion, Aug. 9, 2006.[vi] Smith, Grant F., America's Defense Line: The Justice Department's Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government, pp. 177-178.[vii]Senate Foreign Relations Committee Investigation into the Activities of Agents of Foreign Principals in the United States, 88th Congress, 1st session, Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, May 23, 1963, p. 1,343.[viii] "FBI Investigates Leak on Trade to Israel Lobby," Washington Post, Aug. 3, 1984.[ix] "Papers Link Pro-Israel Lobby to Political Funding Efforts," Washington Post, Nov. 14, 1988.[x] "Top Prosecutor in AIPAC Case Quits," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Feb. 28, 2008.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/gsmith.php?articleid=13327 | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 3:52 am Post subject: |
| 08/13/08
ALERT: Take Action Now to Stop War on Iran - U.S. Naval Armada heading towards Iran
Source: Stop War On Iran
Growing threat - Join us in mobilizing to Stop War on Iran!
As we write, the arrival of new U.S. warships will mark the largest build-up of Naval forces in the Gulf since the 1991 Gulf War.
The aircraft carriers USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ronald Reagan, along with the USS Iwo Jima, an Amphibious Assault Ship are sailing toward the Persian Gulf to reinforce the US strike forces in the region, along with a British Royal Navy carrier battle group and a French nuclear hunter-killer submarine.
This move follows the ominous Operation Brimstone, a massive military exercise involving more than a dozen warships from the US, England, and France in the Atlantic Ocean in preparation for a possible confrontation with Iran.
The USS Roosevelt, which participated in the just-concluded exercise, and the USS Ronald Reagan will join two US naval battle groups in the area: the USS Abraham Lincoln with its Carrier Strike Group Nine ; and the USS Peleliu, and Amphibious Assault Ship with its expeditionary strike group.
Naval forces now heading towards the Gulf include:
Carrier Strike Group Nine:
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing Two
Destroyer Squadron Nine:
USS Mobile Bay (CG53) guided missile cruiser
USS Russell (DDG59) guided missile destroyer
USS Momsen (DDG92) guided missile destroyer
USS Shoup (DDG86) guided missile destroyer
USS Ford (FFG54) guided missile frigate
USS Ingraham (FFG61) guided missile frigate
USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG60) guided missile frigate
USS Curts (FFG38) guided missile frigate
Plus one or more nuclear hunter-killer submarines
Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group:
USS Peleliu (LHA-5) a Tarawa-class amphibious assault carrier
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD52) assult ship
USS Dubuque (LPD8) assult ship/landing dock
USS Cape St. George (CG71) guided missile cruiser
USS Halsey (DDG97) guided missile destroyer
USS Benfold (DDG65) guided missile destroyer
Carrier Strike Group Two:
USS Theodore Roosevelt (DVN71) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing Eight
Destroyer Squadron 22:
USS Monterey (CG61) guided missile cruiser
USS Mason (DDG87) guided missile destroyer
USS Nitze (DDG94) guided missile destroyer
USS Sullivans (DDG68) guided missile destroyer
USS Springfield (SSN761) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine
IWO ESG ~ Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Iwo Jima (LHD7) amphibious assault carrier with its Amphibious Squadron Four
and with its 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit
USS San Antonio (LPD17) assault ship
USS Velia Gulf (CG72) guided missile cruiser
USS Ramage (DDG61) guided missile destroyer
USS Carter Hall (LSD50) assault ship
USS Roosevelt (DDG80) guided missile destroyer
USS Hartfore (SSN768) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine
Carrier Strike Group Seven:
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN76) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing 14
Destroyer Squadron 7:
USS Chancellorsville (CG62) guided missile cruiser
USS Howard (DDG83) guided missile destroyer
USS Gridley (DDG101) guided missile destroyer
USS Decatur (DDG73) guided missile destroyer
USS Thach (FFG43) guided missile frigate
USNS Rainier (T-AOE-7) fast combat support ship
This massive deployment means that hundreds of nuclear-armed warplanes, thousands of troops, and destroyers capable of launching cruise missiles carrying nuclear weapons, bunker busters, or fragmentation bombs will be available for a strike on Iran. While Russia is bogged down with the crisis in Georgia, and China is occupied with the Olympics, the Bush Administration may believe that this is an opportune time to strike. This massive deployment is occurring as both Houses of Congress are set to approve resolutions that would mandate a U.S. blockade (which is an act of war under international law).
The time to act is now:
Please sign the petition online at http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml
And please help us get the word out - use the Tell a Friend Link at http://stopwaroniran.org/friend.shtml
Also, in the next few days and weeks, we will be mobilizing in the streets against an attack on Iran. As we write, we are preparing placards, banners, and printed material to take to the Republican and Democratic national conventions. We know that the only force that will stop the warmongers in Washington is a grassroots peoples movement. We need your help to take the message to the conventions and to mobilize for other emergency actions. Please consider making a donation to help with expenses at http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
... Payvand News - 08/13/08 ... | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 3:54 am Post subject: |
| 08/13/08
ALERT: Take Action Now to Stop War on Iran - U.S. Naval Armada heading towards Iran
Source: Stop War On Iran
Growing threat - Join us in mobilizing to Stop War on Iran!
As we write, the arrival of new U.S. warships will mark the largest build-up of Naval forces in the Gulf since the 1991 Gulf War.
The aircraft carriers USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ronald Reagan, along with the USS Iwo Jima, an Amphibious Assault Ship are sailing toward the Persian Gulf to reinforce the US strike forces in the region, along with a British Royal Navy carrier battle group and a French nuclear hunter-killer submarine.
This move follows the ominous Operation Brimstone, a massive military exercise involving more than a dozen warships from the US, England, and France in the Atlantic Ocean in preparation for a possible confrontation with Iran.
The USS Roosevelt, which participated in the just-concluded exercise, and the USS Ronald Reagan will join two US naval battle groups in the area: the USS Abraham Lincoln with its Carrier Strike Group Nine ; and the USS Peleliu, and Amphibious Assault Ship with its expeditionary strike group.
Naval forces now heading towards the Gulf include:
Carrier Strike Group Nine:
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing Two
Destroyer Squadron Nine:
USS Mobile Bay (CG53) guided missile cruiser
USS Russell (DDG59) guided missile destroyer
USS Momsen (DDG92) guided missile destroyer
USS Shoup (DDG86) guided missile destroyer
USS Ford (FFG54) guided missile frigate
USS Ingraham (FFG61) guided missile frigate
USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG60) guided missile frigate
USS Curts (FFG38) guided missile frigate
Plus one or more nuclear hunter-killer submarines
Peleliu Expeditionary Strike Group:
USS Peleliu (LHA-5) a Tarawa-class amphibious assault carrier
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD52) assult ship
USS Dubuque (LPD8) assult ship/landing dock
USS Cape St. George (CG71) guided missile cruiser
USS Halsey (DDG97) guided missile destroyer
USS Benfold (DDG65) guided missile destroyer
Carrier Strike Group Two:
USS Theodore Roosevelt (DVN71) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing Eight
Destroyer Squadron 22:
USS Monterey (CG61) guided missile cruiser
USS Mason (DDG87) guided missile destroyer
USS Nitze (DDG94) guided missile destroyer
USS Sullivans (DDG68) guided missile destroyer
USS Springfield (SSN761) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine
IWO ESG ~ Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Iwo Jima (LHD7) amphibious assault carrier with its Amphibious Squadron Four
and with its 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit
USS San Antonio (LPD17) assault ship
USS Velia Gulf (CG72) guided missile cruiser
USS Ramage (DDG61) guided missile destroyer
USS Carter Hall (LSD50) assault ship
USS Roosevelt (DDG80) guided missile destroyer
USS Hartfore (SSN768) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine
Carrier Strike Group Seven:
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN76) nuclear powered carrier with its Carrier Air Wing 14
Destroyer Squadron 7:
USS Chancellorsville (CG62) guided missile cruiser
USS Howard (DDG83) guided missile destroyer
USS Gridley (DDG101) guided missile destroyer
USS Decatur (DDG73) guided missile destroyer
USS Thach (FFG43) guided missile frigate
USNS Rainier (T-AOE-7) fast combat support ship
This massive deployment means that hundreds of nuclear-armed warplanes, thousands of troops, and destroyers capable of launching cruise missiles carrying nuclear weapons, bunker busters, or fragmentation bombs will be available for a strike on Iran. While Russia is bogged down with the crisis in Georgia, and China is occupied with the Olympics, the Bush Administration may believe that this is an opportune time to strike. This massive deployment is occurring as both Houses of Congress are set to approve resolutions that would mandate a U.S. blockade (which is an act of war under international law).
The time to act is now:
Please sign the petition online at http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml
And please help us get the word out - use the Tell a Friend Link at http://stopwaroniran.org/friend.shtml
Also, in the next few days and weeks, we will be mobilizing in the streets against an attack on Iran. As we write, we are preparing placards, banners, and printed material to take to the Republican and Democratic national conventions. We know that the only force that will stop the warmongers in Washington is a grassroots peoples movement. We need your help to take the message to the conventions and to mobilize for other emergency actions. Please consider making a donation to help with expenses at http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
... Payvand News - 08/13/08 ... | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject: |
| See the PressTV.com article referenced after the following as Israel going back into Lebanon after Hezbollah would be in accordance with the 'A Clean Break' agenda mentioned in the following youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE2g4tsY54Q&feature=PlayList&p=165FCC486C9D64D8&index=0&playnext=1
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/6kqr5q
Don't Let the Neocon Agenda Get US into Wider Middle East War (Click on the pic of Joe Biden at the following URL to access the youtube and take a look at the comments section at the bottom there as well):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/08/dont-let-neocon-agenda-get-us-into.html
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/593tgg
--------------------------------------------------------------
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM
Just saw the following at PressTV.com
Hezbollah: Israel strike on Iran 'sheer folly'
Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:25:37
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=67524§ionid=351020101
A top Hezbollah official has responded to speculation that Israel will strike Iran, saying starting a war would have dire consequences.
Iran will defend its sovereignty and give a crushing response to any attack, leader of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Raad, said on Sunday.
Israel is well aware of this fact and therefore cannot contemplate waging a war against Iran. It would be sheer folly to do so, he opined.
According to Iranian commanders, he said, Israel would be targeted with 11,000 missiles if it attacks the country.
A senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Mahmoud Chaharbaghi, warned late last year that Iran would respond to any attack on its soil by firing as many as 11,000 missiles at 'enemy bases' within the first minutes of the act of aggression.
Speculation of an attack on Iran has been high in the media since early June, when Israel conducted a military maneuver over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece in what Pentagon officials have suggested, according to major news outlets, to be in preparation for aerial strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Over 100 Israeli F-16s and F-15s partook in the exercise, which spanned some 900 miles, roughly the distance between their airfields and a nuclear enrichment facility in the central Iranian city of Natanz.
Iran responded by launching its own maneuvers, a large part of which focused on demonstrating Iranian advancements in missile technology. The commander of the IRGC Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brigadier General Seyyed Mohammad Hejazi, described Iranian missile capabilities as a 'defensive tool against invasions' in mid-July.
Iranian Air Force Commander, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, had also confirmed in early July that Iran's missile systems are operative but positioned in a defensive array.
The US and Israel, both possessors of nuclear weapons, accuse Non-Proliferation Treaty signatory Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program. The UN nuclear watchdog, however, has confirmed that there is no link between the use of nuclear material and the 'alleged studies' of weaponization attributed to Tehran by such countries.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran enriches uranium to 3 percent, a rate consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant.
AR/AA/BGH | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 12:31 pm Post subject: Congress is about to pour lighter fluid on Iran |
| Congress is about to pour lighter fluid on Iran
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/27827654.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:Ug8P:Pc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUr
By William O. Beeman September 3, 2008
The U.S. Congress may inadvertently lay the foundations for war against Iran when it reconvenes in Washington this month.
Two essentially identical nonbinding resolutions call upon President Bush to "immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities."The House resolution has more than 200 cosponsors, including Minnesota Reps. Michele Bachmann, John Kline and Jim Ramstad. The Senate resolution has more than 30 cosponsors, including both Minnesota senators, Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar.The methods for increased pressure differ slightly in the two resolutions. The House resolution calls for "stringent inspection requirements" of all goods entering or leaving Iran. The Senate resolution does not call for the inspection of all goods but joins the House resolution in calling for an embargo of refined petroleum products to Iran, which lacks the refining capacity to meet its need for gasoline. Achieving either goal would require a naval blockade — a de facto act of war on the part of the United States, though paradoxically both resolutions explicitly exclude authorization for military action.Other provisions call for an economic embargo of banking operations, with the House resolution adding a prohibition of international movement on the part of Iranian officials.Both resolutions have begun to cause alarm throughout the United States, and have caused several representatives to withdraw their cosponsorships. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., summed up the concerns in an article for the Huffington Post: "It is clear that despite carefully worded language in H. Con. Res. 362 that ‘nothing in this resolution should be construed as an authorization of the use of force against Iran’ that many Americans across the country continue to express real concerns that sections of this resolution will be interpreted by President Bush as ‘a green light’ to use force against Iran."According to the Jewish Daily Forward, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., offered an apology to a representative from the antiwar group Peace Action, saying, "I regret the fact that I did not read this resolution more carefully." He further told the Valley Advocate of Northampton, Mass., that he’s "all for stricter sanctions against Iran, but the blockade part goes too far. I’m going to call the sponsors and tell them I’m changing my vote."Both Wexler and Frank are assuming some risk, because they are opposing the powerful American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which had a strong hand in the drafting of both resolutions. Just days before the resolutions were introduced, AIPAC issued a memo outlining what should be done to put more pressure on Iran. The language of the memo mirrors the language of the resolutions. The introduction of the resolutions also conveniently coincided with AIPAC’s annual policy conference during which it had more than 7,000 people on Capitol Hill to lobby. Its top legislative priority was for cosponsorship of the resolutions. AIPAC is careful to avoid direct calls for military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities but makes no secret that it would support such an action by the United States or Israel.The most unfortunate aspect of the two resolutions is that they contain numerous outright falsehoods, misinformation and alarmist exaggeration about Iran and its nuclear development program. Of the 23 clauses in the Senate resolution, only five present incontrovertible statements of fact. The many legislators who have signed on as cosponsors, having subscribed to this false information, could be attacked by the Bush administration if they oppose a later request for military attack, as happened in the Iraq invasion.Sadly, these resolutions make it clear that the battle to stop a war with Iran is not over.William O. Beeman is a professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, and is president of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association. He has lived and worked in the Middle East for more than 30 years. His most recent book is "The ‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other."
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Paul Revolution - Secret Crowds (NO WAR WITH IRAN!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otwKWzdu7Ps
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Find-Freedom.htm?At=037895 | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
