Hat Tip: DProgram

by Maysaa Jarour, PT

This year saw an Israeli-US joint exercise “Juniper Cobra 10″ take place off the coast of Israel which involved the IDF and the US Navy 6th Fleet. The purpose of the exercise was to participate in countering simulated attacks by ballistic, medium-range and short-range missiles and rockets by Iran on Israel.

As part of this build up the US Military has more than doubled its stockpile of weapons in Israel which it states “Israel can use.” One would assume that just like the preparation in the build up to the Lebanon Crisis in 2006 and pre Cast Lead in 2008 that this is a very clear indication that both the US and Israel are preparing for a strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran. The US Navy already has a significant naval force in the Gulf and we are now seeing the slow deployment of Israeli Naval Vessels into the region. In order for the Israeli Navy to position to such a location it requires the permission of the Gulf States to enter their waters. One cannot fully understand how these Islamic States could allow Israeli vessels to transit their zone with the intention of carrying out an attack on another Islamic country (Iran). Nothing surprises me anymore when we saw those same states turn their back on Gaza and Palestine.

What I find amazing is that the UN and the world looks on without saying a word knowing that this action will probably take place as soon as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is ready for operational use. The Pentagon has been applying extreme pressure on Boeing to bring forward the development and testing of this massive bomb by June 2010 almost two years ahead of intended operations. It may also be the US intention to make use of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) which was intended for use in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is my understand that this is not just a simple action, to take out nuclear facilities, but rather an extremely dangerous situation that could not only lead to a major action or war but also cause catastrophic radiation contamination of the entire Middle East and the World. I will cover the environmental aspect in Part 2 followed by the Part 3 which will cover the economic damage that such action would cause to the UK and EU economies.

Militarily speaking this possible strike can erupt into a full scale war based on the proviso that if Israel and the US attack Iran that would be considered an act of war resulting in retaliatory action by the Iranian on Israeli and US targets. Make no bones about it Iran has a significant high tech military that can cause much damage on the invaders and once that step has been taken the US would then carry out further attacks resulting in War. My guess would be this is what the US, UK and NATO countries really want, which is a regime change……heard that before in Iraq and Afghanistan?

With the new NATO ground rules clearly in place “An attack on one is an attack on all” or what has recently been added to the rules “An attack on any military facility, oil/gas facility, pipeline or any other commercial entity is an attack on all” we can, as usual, see how the US can carefully manipulate this action into a total NATO involvement or should I say a possible WW3. I must emphasize that any such action by the US and Israel would be totally irresponsible leading to the possible death of millions of people in the region.

So lets again look at this very dangerous and complicated military scenario that is starting to unfold and fully understand who has to be involved in carrying out such an attack and the risks associated with its implementation.

First of all this type of operation is pushing the safety envelope of the Israeli Air Force to its maximum and can only be achieved with the involvement of the US Military. None of the existing IAF aircraft can make such a long range flight without transiting other Islamic States, stopping for fuel or in having in flight refueling provided by the US. The massive US fed munitions stockpile currently in Israel would be utilized by the IAF and they would have to take maximum weapons payload with minimum fuel. This mission would test both aircraft and their crews to the maximum with the main purpose of delivering their deadly payload to target and with no room to detour or carry out a defensive role if attacked by any Iranian aircraft. It would clearly mean that some of the Israeli aircraft would not return as a result of this high risk operation.

The weapons stockpiled by the US in Israel also contain weapons with uranium components such as “Bunker Buster” etc and the combination of such weapons hitting a nuclear facility would lead to terrible consequences in the Middle East. Then we have the question of the MOP which is specifically being tested for use in Iran. This bomb has the potential to not only call catastrophic damage but also has the ability to set off earthquakes in the region. All of the above weapons in that context could be classified as WMD’s and are totally indiscriminate in their application and thus are in breach of the Geneva Convention as well as breaching many other international laws. We have heard rumours that such weapons as the MOP and other penetrating type weapons could have triggered the earthquakes in California and also Haiti. Any weapon of this size when it enters the earth crust sends huge shockwaves deep into the earth and should this be in an area of existing rifts the resultant aftermath is self explanatory.

Let’s now look at this evil bomb currently under test in the US. The MOP is around 20.5 feet long and a total weight of just under 30,000lbs. The weapon carries 5,300lbs of explosives. It is carried aboard a US Air Force B-2 Bomber and is guided to its target by its onboard global positioning navigation system.

Reader will note that the only aircraft capable of carrying this weapon is the USAF B-2 Stealth Bomber and therefore if Israel attacks Iran (which is what the US wants them to do) then the US will definitely be involved in the delivery of this bomb. The B-2 will be able to carry two MOP’s and thus would be a prime target to attack as it approached Iranian airspace. The B-2 would fly at high altitude and release the weapons some distance from target.

It is also my belief that whilst Israel and the US are on a war footing they may also possible carry out strikes on Gaza, Lebanon and Syria during 2010. As with all conflicts the whole purpose is to divide and conquer and Israel is right in the middle of a very unstable area. Should they choose to carry out such action I am sure this could well see the end of Israel.

Part 2 of this series will cover the environmental aspect of such an attack. It will show how the catastrophic fallout will initially consume the entire Middle East from Turkey – Afghanistan – Pakistan – India and from North of the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Armenia – Georgia – Azerbaijan – Turkmenistan – Uzbekistan -Tajikistan – Kyrgyzstan – China – Nepal – Syria – Iraq – Kuwait – Saudi Arabia – Bahrain – Lebanon – Israel – Palestine – Jordan – Egypt – Qatar – UAE – Oman – Yemen. Not one country in the Middle East will be spared.
All of this contamination will take place within the first couple of days and within 7-10 days will be around the world.

I ask the UN, UK, EU, Russia, China, Japan and all of the above countries to address this problem with the utmost urgency and ensure that the US and Israel do not attack Iran and that diplomacy without threat is the only way to come to some compromise. Maybe if the US and the rest of the world applied the same pressure on Israel as they do on Iran we may see fair play. Surely if Israel has unlimited and uncontrolled nuclear capabilities they would be considered a threat to the Islamic world so common sense must prevail here. As it stands at the moment it is just pure US/Israeli aggression as we have seen so many times before.

Keep watching this space for the horrific details of Part 2 – Environmental Impact of such action.

Read the rest at this link.

by Stephen M. Walt,  HezekialWyman

Probably the most controversial claim in my work with John Mearsheimer on the Israel lobby is our argument that it played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Even some readers who were generally sympathetic to our overall position found that claim hard to accept, and some left-wing critics accused us of letting Bush and Cheney off the hook or of ignoring the importance of other interests, especially oil. Of course, Israel’s defenders in the lobby took issue even more strenuously, usually by mischaracterizing our arguments and ignoring most (if not all) of the evidence we presented.

So I hope readers will forgive me if I indulge today in a bit of self-promotion, or more precisely, self-defense. This week, yet another piece of evidence surfaced that suggests we were right all along (HT to Mehdi Hasan at the New Statesman and J. Glatzer at Mondoweiss). In his testimony to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., former Prime Minister Tony Blair offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas in April 2002. Blair reveals that concerns about Israel were part of the equation and that Israel officials were involved in those discussions.

Take it away, Tony:

As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this.”

Notice that Blair is not saying that Israel dreamed up the idea of attacking Iraq or that Bush was bent on war solely to benefit Israel or even to appease the Israel lobby here at home. But Blair is acknowledging that concerns about Israel were part of the equation, and that the Israeli government was being actively consulted in the planning for the war.

Blair’s comments fit neatly with the argument we make about the lobby and Iraq. Specifically, Professor Mearsheimer and I made it clear in our article and especially in our book that the idea of invading Iraq originated in the United States with the neoconservatives, and not with the Israeli government. But as the neoconservative pundit Max Boot once put it, steadfast support for Israel is “a key tenet of neoconservatism.” Prominent neo-conservatives occupied important positions in the Bush administration, and in the aftermath of 9/11, they played a major role in persuading Bush and Cheney to back a war against Iraq, which they had been advocating since the late 1990s. We also pointed out that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli officials were initially skeptical of this scheme, because they wanted the U.S. to focus on Iran, not Iraq. However, they became enthusiastic supporters of the idea of invading Iraq once the Bush administration made it clear to them that Iraq was just the first step in a broader campaign of “regional transformation” that would eventually include Iran.

At that point top Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum became cheerleaders for the invasion, and they played a prominent role in helping to sell the war here in the United States. Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington, DC in April 2002 and spoke in the U.S. Senate, telling his audience “the urgent need to topple Saddam is paramount,” and that the campaign “deserves the unconditional support of all sane governments.” (It sure sounds like he was well aware of the discussions in Crawford, doesn’t it?) In May, foreign minister Shimon Peres said on CNN that “Saddam Hussein is as dangerous as bin Laden,” and that the United States “cannot sit and wait.” A month later, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post recommending that the Bush administration “should, first of all, focus on Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein.”

This chorus continued through the summer and fall, with Barak and Netanyahu writing additional op-eds in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, each calling for military action to topple Saddam. Netanyahu’s piece was titled “The Case for Toppling Saddam” and said that “nothing less than dismantling his regime will do.” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s official spokesman, Ra’anan Gissen, offered similar statements during this period as well, and Sharon himself told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee in August 2002 that Iraq was “the greatest danger facing Israel.” According to an Aug. 16 article by Aluf Benn in Ha’aretz, Sharon reportedly told the Bush administration that putting off an attack would “only give [Saddam] more of an opportunity to accelerate his program of WMD.” Foreign Minister Peres reiterated his own warnings as well, and told reporters in September 2002 that “the campaign against Saddam Hussein is a must.” (For sources, see pp. 233-38).

If that’s not enough evidence of where Israel’s leaders were in the run-up to the war, consider that former President Bill Clinton told an audience at an Aspen Institute meeting in 2006 that “every Israeli politician I knew” (and he knows a lot of them) believed that Saddam Hussein was so great a threat that he should be removed even if he did not have WMD. Nor is this testimony at all surprising, given that we are talking about the leader who had fired Scud missiles into Israel during the first Gulf War in 1991 and had been giving money to the families of suicide bombers. If the Bush administration was bent on taking him out and then turning its gun-sights on Syria and Iran, one can easily understand why Israelis would welcome it.

Read the rest at this link.

Bibi says, send the Iranians American T.V. That will screw them up.

by Keith Johnson

Kill ‘em all, and let God sort ‘em out

–Anonymous

As the drums beat against the backdrop of a U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf, war with Iran seems more inevitable than it does likely.  But does Iran pose a real threat to our national security or are they being used as a convenient scapegoat to divert the American people’s attention away from an impending financial collapse here at home?

War has always been used as a good exit strategy from the economic turmoil our banking masters create for us.   Both world wars were initiated to face down fiscal meltdowns and it appears likely that they are using that same strategy to justify a third.  But don’t expect to hear any mention of that once the shelling begins.  It will be all about Ahmadinejad and the fictitious nuclear weapons program he has stashed away in his basement.  That’s right!  Same lie…different guy.

Truth is always the first casualty of war.  Our kids come next.   With fewer jobs to go around, social unrest becomes more certain especially among our nation’s youth.  And what better way to quell the young and the restless from a potential uprising than to send them off to the front lines?  Of course some will go reluctantly while others will consider it an honor to serve.  Certainly there will be proud parents; they’ll slap a yellow “Support Our Troops” sticker on the back of their truck and break down in tears every time they hear “I’m proud to be an American” at the NASCAR track.  But they will never acknowledge that their son is being used as cannon fodder for the banking cartels or worse yet–  as Henry Kissinger describes them – “…dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns of foreign policy”.

Americans have been breeding soldiers since day one and as long as there is land to steal, property to seize and people to kill, there will always be a demand for more. But the United States government does not want to wait until your son’s 18th birthday to sell him on a military career — they want to get him young!  And recruitment starts the minute you set the boy down in front of that television set.  Since 9/11 the United States government and the American media have unilaterally orchestrated a massive campaign to win the hearts and minds of the young and prepare them for war!  Graphically violent television programs and movies have made our children indifferent to death and destruction.  Video games, particularly “first person shooter games”, actually teach kids to kill reliably and without hesitation after they condition their minds to make firing a weapon an “automatic response”.

Our nation has been in a constant state of war since 1991 and many young adults have no memory of a time when we have been at peace.  Add that to all the virtual reality mayhem that’s been force-fed into their minds and it’s no wonder we see the level of aggression and recklessness from today’s youth.  And you don’t have to even have kids of your own to witness a demonstration of this kind of behavior.  Just check out popular youth-centric reality shows like “Jersey Shore” or “the Ruins” to get a glimpse into the lives of the modern young adult: blackout drinking, multiple sex partners, fits of rage and violence.  And it’s not just the men engaged in these things.  The girls can be just as scary.

Now compare them to the young adults who grew up before the war with Iraq, back when one of the first youth-centric reality shows made its debut:

In 1992, MTV launched “The Real World”, the longest running program in MTV history.  Every episode starts off the same with a voice-over running simultaneously with a collage of scenes from that particular season’s show:

“This is the true story… of seven strangers… picked to live in a house…work together and have their lives taped… to find out what happens… when people stop being polite… and start getting real…The Real World.”

This was one of the first “reality” shows I remember seeing that dealt with average, ordinary young adults engaged in average, ordinary affairs that we can all relate to.  It’s sort of a microcosm of contemporary American “pop culture”.  Take a look at the characters from that first season.  Sure they had their spats but, at least for the most part, they treated each other with a lot more respect than what we see today.  These young people seemed more interested in art, careers and relationships than the drug-induced fistfights, date rapes and drunken tirades we see now.  It’s a rather frightening example of just how morally bankrupt we’ve allowed our children to become in such a short period of time.   But don’t worry!  While your kids might not make functional members of society they just might find themselves right at home in the United States Armed Forces.  There they can complete their life-long indoctrination and then be sent off to take out all their pent up rage on the young Iranian population…who are being subjected to their own brand of Western brain-washing.

Those who would believe that Iran is such a great threat to our American way of life and believe them to be at the forefront of a rising Islamic conspiracy to take over the world should take the time to examine the youth of that nation.  After all, once their parents die off they will be the next in line to carry such a thing out.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to follow the daily lives of seven Iranian youths…

…picked to live in a house…work together and have their lives taped… to find out what happens… when people stop being polite… and start getting real…

What do you think that might look like?  Well, if slurs like “Sand Nigger”,“Camel Jockey” or “Rag head”dominate your vernacular then you may imagine these youths to be engaged in daily rituals of flag desecration, effigy burning and beheadings.  Maybe you envision them to be part of a society of radical jihadists who quote passages from the Qur’an advocating the killing of the“infidels”. Perhaps you suspect their waking hours are spent polishing their hand grenades and brushing up on the latest ways to carry out suicide bombings on American troops.  If this is your perception, then you are not living in the real world.  Iran, and more particularly its largest city Tehran, has a youth culture much like our own.  They lead secular lives that are often at odds with the ruling regime.  They have parties, wear western clothes, dance to western music and even drink alcohol and use drugs.  The regime itself acknowledges that young Iranians have distanced themselves from their Islamic faith much like the youth here have distanced themselves from their Christian faith.  Like their western counterparts, the Iranian kids are not interested in politics and world domination.  They’re kids! They want simple things: music and art, food and drink, affection and comfort.

But you may be wondering how something like this could happen in a place that is seen by many as an extremely repressive theocratic dictatorship?  Well, the Iranian government has complained, for years, about the Westernization of their culture.  Some may argue that that is a good thing.  There certainly are beautiful aspects of Western Civilization but it’s not the virtues of liberty and freedom that are being propagated on the Iranian people.  What they are being enticed to embrace are the secular aspects: sexual promiscuity, entertainment, indulgence and vanity.

On September 12, 2002, current, but then former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.S. House’s Government Reform Committee and, according to a UPI article of the time titled “Netanyahu: Subvert Iran with Television”:

“…called upon the United States to effect regime change in both Iraq and Iran, prescribing a military invasion to topple the government in Baghdad and the transmission of ribald television programming via satellite into Persia, where he said the influx of pop culture would prove “subversive” to the conservative Islamic regime.

Citing the hundreds of thousands of satellite television dishes in Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu told the House Government Reform Committee that the United States could incite a revolution against the conservative Iranian clergy through the use of such Fox Broadcasting staples as “Melrose Place” and “Beverly Hills 90210? — both of which feature beautiful young people in varying states of undress, living, glamorous, materialistic lives and engaging in promiscuous sex”.

“This is pretty subversive stuff,” Netanyahu told the committee. “The kids of Iran would want the nice clothes they see on those shows. They would want the swimming pools and fancy lifestyles.”

And this suggestion did not fall on deaf ears.  During the Bush Administration the US Congress voted $120 million for anti-regime media broadcasts into Iran, and about $75 million funding opposition parties.  According to then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice:

“The United States wishes to reach out to the Iranian people and support their desire to realize their own freedom and secure their own democratic and human rights”.

And how has this strategy worked out over the years?  Well apparently it’s working.  In 2006, CBS News did an expose about the recent epidemic of nose jobs that has become popular with the young men and women in Tehran and reported that some young Iranian women are more obsessed with their appearance than their counterparts in the west.  And you thought that the only part of an Iranian woman you can see are her eyes!

“A Western nose is more beautiful”, says one young woman in Farsi.

The report goes on to say that Newsha Tavakolian, a photographer working on a book about the phenomenon, stated that the nose craze started with satellite TV from the West.

“Everyone saw how the Western women, they have very small nose and look almost like Barbie, and the Iranian women, they see them and they say, ‘Oh, I want to look like them’.  They want to make their nose small”.

A more recent example of how Western influence has impacted the Iranian culture can be seen during the 2009 Iranian Presidential election when thousands of young adults took to the streets of Tehran to protest the re-election of President Ahmadinejad.  To those who get their world news from the MSM, this appeared to be a grass-roots demonstration of a nationwide sentiment of dissatisfaction and distrust of the Regime and the voting process.  But this was no organic uprising.  Prior to the elections, tens of thousands of tweets began pouring into the popular Internet social site “Twitter”.  They claimed that these “tweets” originated in Iran but were written in English by only a few recently registered users with the same photo profile.  These “tweets” painted an exaggerated picture in support of the protests and stinks of the meddling of billionaire Rothschild stooge George Soros and his “Open Society Foundation”. Using this seemingly humanitarian NGO as a front, Soros and his group regularly outfit and fund opposition parties inside so-called repressive regimes that he wants to destabalize.  These “color revolutions” have sprung up all over the Middle East and Europe and have been successful in fomenting dissent among the populations of Moldova, Greece, Georgia and the Ukraine among others. Soros operative Evgeny Morozov is on the board of the OSI’s “Information Program” that openly uses the internet to instigate democratic movements inside closed societies in order to destabilize governments.  On his personal blog, Morozov admits that he regularly visits targeted nations with the intent of “studying opportunities that information technology and Internet networking present for overthrowing authoritarian regimes”.

But of all the assaults perpetrated against the Iranian people, none is more destructive then the rise in the nation’s drug problem.  Since the deployment of U.S. troops into Afghanistan opium production has increased ten fold.  Iran is the main supply route for product headed to Europe and tons of it ends up on the streets of Tehran on a daily basis.  The Iranian government has accused the U.S. of supporting the drug trade as a way of maintaining a level of  insecurity in order to justify their presence in the region.  Besides that, the same Tribal leaders that helped the U.S. fight the Taliban are the ones who operate the biggest poppy fields.  Allowing them to continue growing is part of their payment.  We also know there to be a significant CIA presence in Afghanistan and there is no reason to doubt that they are engaged in flooding drugs into Iran just like they’ve been known to do over here for decades.  And it’s not just Opium that is finding it’s way on the streets of Tehran.  The very American drug Methamphetamine and the very Israeli drug MDMA (also known as Ecstacy) are also prevalent among the designer drugs finding its way into the hands of the Iranian youth.  And, as you might suspect, this has contributed greatly to the moral collapse of that nation.  With few jobs to turn to, kids are finding nothing better to do than get high; and along with that comes the associative problems of prostitution and violent crime.

So what can we conclude from all this?  Certainly the West has contributed to the almost certain death of Iran without having to drop one bomb.  Patience would eventually see the country collapse under the weight of its own internal struggles.  And even if they continued to exist, can anyone take all this into account and still insist that the dreaded Islamic threat to take over the world is being orchestrated within the borders of Iran?  An often bantered about concept I hear from Islamophobes is that the Muslim population is exploding at a rate that will eclipse all other races and result in the world being delivered into the bondage of “Sharia Law”.  Well, if that’s true, it’s unlikely that such a thing will originate out of Iran, whose collapsing birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever.

But all of these facts won’t stop the west because as far as they’re concerned, Iran isn’t dying fast enough.  And when the bombs start dropping, maybe the youth of Iran will end their fascination with the West and realize that all their gifts were actually Trojan Horses.  And when those kids wake up to that reality, America really will have something to worry about.

by Mike Adams, NaturalNews

It’s the bubble you’ve probably never heard of: The rare earth bubble. And it’s due to pop in 2012, potentially devastating the industries of western nations that depend on these rare elements.

What industries are those? The automobile industry uses tens of thousands of tons of rare earth elements each year, and advanced military technology depends on these elements, too. Lots of “green” technologies depend on them, including wind turbines, low-energy light bulbs and hybrid car batteries. In fact, much of western civilizationdepends on rare earth elements such as terbium,lanthanum and neodymium.

So what’s the problem with these rare elements? 97 percent of the world’s supply comes from mines in China, and China is prepared to simply stop exporting these strategic elements to the rest of the world by 2012.

If that happens, the western world will be crippled by the collapse of available rare earth elements. Manufacturing of everything from computers and electronics to farm machinery will grind to a halt. Electronics will disappear from the shelves and prices for manufactured goods that depend on these rare elements will skyrocket.

These 17 rare earth elements (REE) — all of which are metals — are strategic resources upon which entire nations are built. In many ways, they are similar to rubber — a resource so valuable and important to the world that many experts call it the “fourth most important natural resource in the world,” right after water, steel and oil. Without rubber, you couldn’t drive your car to work or water your lawn. Many medical technologies would cease to work and virtually all commercial construction would grind to a halt.

Many of the strategic battles fought in World War II were fought, in fact, over control of rubber, most of which now comes through Singapore and its surrounding regions (Malaysia and Indonesia).

Global shortage of Rare Earth Elements coming…

Now, by threatening to cut off the world’s supply of rare earth elements, China appears to be attempting to monopolize this extremely important strategic resource. According to information received by The Independent, by 2012 China may cease all exports of rare earth elements, reserving them for its own economic expansion.

An article in that paper quotes REE expert Jack Lifton as saying, “A real crunch is coming. In America, Britain and elsewhere we have not yet woken up to the fact that there is an urgent need to secure the supply of rare earths from sources outside China.”

And yet virtually no one has heard of this problem! People are familiar with peak oil, global warming, ocean acidification, the national debt and the depletion of fossil water, but very few are aware of the looming crisis in rare metals… upon which much of western civilization rests.

For those who still aren’t convinced this is a big deal, consider this: Without rare earth elements, we would have no iPhones. Yeah, I know. That’s a disaster, huh?

We would have no fiber optic cables, either. No X-ray machines, no car stereos and no high-tech missile guidance systems for the military. And here’s the real kicker: No electric motors.

Demand outstrips supply

The problem with the supply of rare earth elements is that demand has skyrocketed over the last decade from 40,000 tons to 120,000 tons. Meanwhile, China has been cutting its exports. Now, it only exports about 30,000 tons a year — only one-fourth of the demand the world needs.

Read the rest at this link.