Wayne Madsen Report & Paul Craig Roberts & Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed / Information Clearing House – 2006-07-31 23:42:42
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle=MAD20060724=2801
Israel’s Invasion of Lebanon Planned with Top Bush Officials
Wayne Madsen / Wayne Madsen Report
(July 24, 2006) — The Israeli invasion of Lebanon was planned between top Israeli officials and members of the Bush administration. On June 17 and 18, former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Likud Knesset member Natan Sharansky met with Vice President Dick Cheney at the American Enterprise Institute conference in Beaver Creek, Colorado. There, the impending Israeli invasions of both Gaza and Lebanon were discussed.
After receiving Cheney’s full backing for the invasion of Gaza and Lebanon, Netanyahu flew back to Israel and participated in a special “Ex-Prime Ministers” meeting, in which he conveyed the Bush administration’s support for the carrying out of the “Clean Break” policy — the trashing of all past Middle East peace accords, including Oslo. Present at the meeting, in addition to Netanyahu, were current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir is very old and suffers from dementia and Ariel Sharon remains in a coma after a series of strokes.
After the AEI meeting, Sharansky, who has the ear of Bush, met with the Heritage Foundation in Washington and then attended a June 29 seminar at Philadelphia’s Main Line Haverford School sponsored by the Middle East Forum led by Daniel Pipes. Sharansky appeared with Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum who this past Thursday was beating the war drums against Syria, Iran, and “Islamo-fascism” in a fiery speech at the National Press Club attended by a cheering section composed of members of the neocon Israel Project, on whose board Santorum serves along with Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Virginia GOP Rep. Tom Davis.
Our Washington sources claim that the U.S.-supported invasions of Gaza and Lebanon and the impending attacks on Syria and Iran represent the suspected “event” predicted to take place prior to the November election in the United States and is an attempt to rally the American public around the Bush-Cheney regime during a time of wider war.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. www.globalresearch.ca
© Copyright Wayne Madsen, Wayne Madsen Report, 2006
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Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon
Bush’s Plan for “Serial War” Revealed by General Wesley Clark
A Concerned Citizen / GlobalResearch.ca
(July 23, 2006) — According to General Wesley Clark–the Pentagon, by late 2001, was Planning to Attack Lebanon
In the book Winning Modern Wars (page 130) General Clark states the following:
“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.
…He said it with reproach — with disbelief, almost — at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. …I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned.”
Of course, this wholly consistent with the US Neocons’ master plan, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” published in August 2000 by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
And, as PNAC’s website ( http://www.newamericancentury.org ) notes, that the lead author of that plan, Thomas Donnelly, was a top official of Lockheed Martin — a company well acquainted with war and its profit potential.
It’s no surprise that Republicans are starting to talk about withdrawing troops from Iraq; the troops will be needed in Lebanon. And maybe Sudan and Syria?
Note: More on General Clark — and his failure to mention all this in his pre-Iraq war commentary on CNN — is in Sydney Schanberg’s 9/29/03 article “The Secrets Clark Kept: What the General Never Told Us About the Bush Plan for Serial War” at http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0340,schanberg,47436,1.html
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. www.globalresearch.ca
© Copyright A Concerned Citizen, GlobalResearch.ca
US Complicit in Destruction of Lebanon
Paul Craig Roberts
(July 24, 2006) — There never was any doubt of the Bush regime’s complicity in Israel’s naked aggression against the Lebanese civilian population. Bush has protected Israel from world condemnation. Bush has blocked those who attempted to bring a stop to Israel’s bombing of residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure, and now Bush rushes more bombs for Israel to drop on Lebanon.
On July 22, the New York Times revealed the full extent of the Bush regime’s participation in the heinous war crimes being inflicted on the Lebanese people:
“The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign. … The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said.”
Obviously, Bush and his government do not think Israel has yet murdered enough Lebanese. Bush denounces Syria and Iran for allegedly arming Hezbollah, while he rushes more deadly weapons to Israel. The entire world is appalled at the Bush regime’s support for Israel’s policy of expanding its borders through naked aggression. Every Arab and Muslim now knows that the U.S. is Israel’s enabler. Arab hopes are dead that the U.S. will pressure Israel to behave more humanely toward people not armed with American fighter planes, tanks, and high explosives.
America’s complicity in Israel’s war crimes is more than America’s UK lapdog can stand. According to the French news service, AFP, “The United States is starting to look isolated in its refusal to rein in Israel’s attacks on Lebanon with key ally Britain criticizing the wholesale killing of Lebanese civilians and widespread destruction.” AFP reports that Britain’s deputy foreign minister Kim Howells “questioned Israel’s military tactics and slammed Israel’s killing of ‘so many children and so many people. If Israel is chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don’t go for the entire Lebanese nation.'”
But is Israel after Hezbollah, or is Israel after the real estate that comprises southern Lebanon?
Right-wing Israelis say Israel needs southern Lebanon as a buffer against Hezbollah. If Israel were to succeed in driving Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, Israel would then want a buffer for southern Lebanon, where Israeli settlements would quickly spring up, and after that buffer, another, just as Israel has gobbled up Palestine.
The American people need to understand what everyone else in the world understands: The Bush regime is empowering the Israeli state to push out its borders by stealing land from other people.
This Israeli policy is the source of the Middle East conflict. It is ignorant and immoral to blame the conflict on Hamas and Hezbollah. These organizations were created by Israeli aggression. Lacking American jet fighters, tanks, ordinance, and resupply, these organizations resort to terror, which is the only weapon that they have. Otherwise, the world would pay no attention as Arabs are ground under by Israeli expansion. The fault is America’s more than Israel’s. The American government and the brainwashed American public are the source of the conflict. If America did not enable Israeli aggression, Israel would have to behave responsibly and endeavor to coexist with its neighbors.
Israel is an artificial state created in Arab lands by European colonial powers after World War II. Instead of working to win acceptance and overcoming Arab hostility to Europe shipping off “the Jewish problem” to the Middle East, Israel has antagonized its Middle East neighbors. Israel can play the bully-boy role because the U.S. acts as Israel’s big brother. With its policy of fang and claw, Israel endangers its own right to exist.
Many distinguished Israelis came to this conclusion long before I did. I am only repeating what can be read in more eloquent writings of distinguished Israelis.
Israel’s greatest friends are its own peace movement and those few in America who dare to criticize Israel’s self-destructive policies. It is not anti-Semitic to hold Israel to the same standards as other civilized countries or to report facts instead of Israeli propaganda.
Israel’s greatest enemies are the American neoconservatives, who hold the power in the Bush regime. What we are witnessing in the Middle East is the unfolding of the neocon plan to destroy all vestiges of Arab/Muslim independence and to remove all opposition to Israel’s agenda. Can 5 million Israelis, even when backed by the United States, forever suppress hundreds of millions of humiliated Muslims stewing in their humiliation? This is a recipe for perpetual conflict and the eventual destruction of Israel.
Neocons believe that deception of the American public is a legitimate way for them to achieve their plan. Bush’s so-called “war on terror” is the cloak for neocon deception.
Bush’s war is not on terror. Bush’s war is on Muslim states not ruled by American puppets.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14170.htm
UK Govt Sources Confirm War With Iran Is On
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed / Information Clearing House
In the last few days, I learned from a credible and informed source that a former senior Labour government Minister, who continues to be well-connected to British military and security officials, confirms that Britain and the United States”… will go to war with Iran before the end of the year.”
(July 24, 1006) — As we now know from similar reporting prior to the invasion of Iraq, it’s quite possible that the war planning may indeed change repeatedly, and the war may again be postponed. In any case, it’s worth noting that the information from a former Labour Minister corroborates expert analyses suggesting that Israel, with US and British support, is deliberately escalating the cycle of retaliation to legitimize the imminent targeting of Iran before year’s end.
Let us remind ourselves, for instance, of US Vice President Cheney’s assertions recorded on MSNBC over a year ago. He described Iran as being “right at the top of the list” of “rogue states”. He continued: “One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked… Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.”
But the emphasis on Israel’s pre-eminent role in a prospective assault on Iran is not accurate. Israel would rather play the role of a regional proxy force in a US-led campaign. “Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East…” reports Seymour Hersh. He quotes a former high-level US intelligence official as follows:
“This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we’re going to have the Iranian campaign. We’ve declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah-we’ve got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism.”
Are these just the fanatical pipedreams of the neoconservative faction currently occupying (literally) the White House?
Unfortunately, no. The Iraq War was one such fanatical pipedream in the late 1990s, one that Bush administration officials were eagerly ruminating over when they were actively and directly involved in the Project for a New American Century. But that particular pipedream is now a terrible, gruelling reality for the Iraqi people. Despite the glaring failures of US efforts in that country, there appears to be a serious inability to recognize the futility of attempting the same in Iran.
The Monterey Institute for International Studies already showed nearly two years ago in a detailed analysis that the likely consequences of a strike on Iran by the US, Israel, or both, would be a regional conflagaration that could quickly turn nuclear, and spiral out of control. US and Israeli planners are no doubt aware of what could happen. Such a catastrophe would have irreversible ramifications for the global political economy.
Energy security would be in tatters, precipitating the activation of long-standing contingency plans to invade and occupy all the major resource-rich areas of the Middle East and elsewhere (see my book published by Clairview, Behind the War on Terror for references and discussion).
Such action could itself trigger responses from other major powers with fundamental interests in maintaining their own access to regional energy supplies, such as Russia and particularly China, which has huge interests in Iran. Simultaneously, the dollar-economy would be seriously undermined, most likely facing imminent collapse in the context of such crises.
Which raises pertinent questions about why Britain, the US and Israel are contemplating such a scenario as a viable way of securing their interests.
A glimpse of an answer lies in the fact that the post-9/11 military geostrategy of the “War on Terror” does not spring from a position of power, but rather from entirely the opposite.
The global system has been crumbling under the weight of its own unsustainability for many years now, and we are fast approaching the convergence of multiple crises that are already interacting fatally as I write. The peak of world oil production, of which the Bush administration is well aware, either has already just happened, or is very close to happening.
It is a pivotal event that signals the end of the Oil Age, for all intents and purposes, with escalating demand placing increasing pressure on dwindling supplies. Half the world’s oil reserves are, more or less, depleted, which means that it will be technologically, geophysically, increasingly difficult to extract conventional oil.
I had a chat last week with some scientists from the Omega Institute in Brighton, directed by my colleague and friend Graham Ennis, who told me eloquently and powerfully what I already knew, that while a number of climate “tipping-points” may or may not have yet been passed, we have about 10-15 years before the “tipping-point” is breached certainly and irreversibly. Breaching that point means plunging head-first into full-scale “climate catastrophe”.
Amidst this looming Armageddon of Nature, the dollar-denominated economy itself has been teetering on the edge of spiralling collapse for the last seven years or more. This is not idle speculation.
A financial analyst as senior as Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan’s immediate predecessor as chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently confessed “that he thought there was a 75% chance of a currency crisis in the United States within five years.”
There appears to have been a cold calculation made at senior levels within the Anglo-American policymaking establishment: that the system is dying, but the last remaining viable means of sustaining it remains a fundamentally military solution designed to reconfigure and rehabilitate the system to continue to meet the requirements of the interlocking circuits of military-corporate power and profit.
The highly respected US whistleblower, former RAND strategic analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who was Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam conflict and became famous after leaking the Pentagon Papers, has already warned of his fears that in the event of “another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a US attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners and their quote ‘sympathizers’, critics of the President’s policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights.”
So is that what all the “emergency preparedness” legislation, here in the UK as well as in the USA and in Europea, is all about? The US plans are bad enough, as Ellsberg notes, but the plans UK scene is hardly better, prompting The Guardian to describe the Civil Contingencies Bill (passed as an Act in 2004) as “the greatest threat to civil liberty that any parliament is ever likely to consider.”
As global crises converge over the next few years, we the people are faced with an unprecedented opportunity to use the growing awareness of the inherent inhumanity and comprehensive destructiveness of the global imperial system to establish new, viable, sustainable and humane ways of living.
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (London: Duckworth, 2006). He teaches courses in International Relations at the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, where he is doing his PhD studying imperialism and genocide. Since 9/11, he has authored three other books revealing the realpolitik behind the rhetoric of the War on Terror, The War on Freedom, Behind the War on Terror and The War on Truth. In summer 2005, he testified as an expert witness in US Congress about his research on international terrorism. Visit his website http://www.independentinquiry.co.uk/
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