When new recruits join British Petroleum (BP) they are fed romantic tales about how the company came into being.

William Knox D'Arcy, a Devon man, studied law and, after emigrating to Australia, made a fortune from the Mount Morgan gold-mining operations in the 1880s. Returning to England he agreed to fund a search for oil and minerals in Persia and negotiations with the Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar began in 1901. A sixty-year concession to explore for oil gave D'Arcy the oil rights to the entire country except for five provinces in northern Iran. The Iranian government would receive 16 percent of the oil company's annual profits.

Mozzafar ad-Din, seldom consulted on matters of state by his father, was naive in business matters and unprepared for kingship when the time came. He borrowed heavily from the Russians in order to finance his extravagant personal lifestyle and the costs of the state, and in order to pay off the debt, he signed away control of many Iranian industries and markets to foreigners. The deal D'Arcy cut was too sharp by far and would eventually lead to trouble.

He sent an exploration team headed by geologist George B Reynolds. In 1903 a company was formed and D'Arcy had to spend much of his fortune to cover the costs. Further financial support came from Glasgow-based Burmah Oil in return for a large share of the stock.

Drilling in southern Persia at Shardin continued until 1907 when the search was switched to Masjid-i-Souleiman. By 1908 D'Arcy was almost bankrupt. Reynolds received a last-chance instruction: "Drill to 1,600 feet and give up." On 26 May, at 1,180 feet, he struck oil.

It was indeed a triumph of guts and determination. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was soon up and running and in 1911 completed a pipeline from the oilfield to its new refinery at Abadan. But the company was in trouble again by 1914. The golden age of motoring had not yet arrived and the industrial oil markets were sewn up by American and European interests. The sulphurous stench of the Persian oil, even after refining, ruled it out for domestic use, so D'Arcy had a marketing problem.

Luckily, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was an enthusiast for oil and wanted to convert the British fleet from coal, especially now that a reliable oil source was secured. He famously told Parliament: "Look out upon the wide expanse of the oil regions of the world!" Only the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company, he said, could protect British interests. His resolution passed and the British Government took a major shareholding in the company. Just in time too, for World War I started a few weeks later.

During the war the government seized the assets of a German company calling itself British Petroleum in order to market its products in Britain. Anglo-Persian acquired the assets from the Public Trustee complete with a ready-made distribution network with hundreds of depots, railway tank wagons, road vehicles, barges and so forth. This enabled Anglo-Persian to rapidly expand sales in petroleum-hungry Britain and Europe after the war.

In the inter-war years Anglo-Persian profited handsomely from paying the Iranians a measly 16 per cent , and an increasingly angry Iran tried to renegotiate the terms. Getting nowhere, the Iranians cancelled the D'Arcy agreement and the matter ended up at the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague. A new agreement in 1933 provided Anglo-Persian with a fresh 60-year concession but on a smaller area. The terms were an improvement for the Iranians but still didn't amount to a square deal.

Iranian President Mohammad Mosaddeq, Time Magazine’s Man of the Year cover for 1951.

Iran's small share of the profits became a big issue and so did the treatment of its oil workers. 6,000 withdrew their labour in 1946 and the strike was violently put down with 200 dead or injured. In 1951 Anglo-Iranian declared £40 million profit after tax but gave Iran only £7 million. Meanwhile Arabian American Oil was sharing profits with the Saudis on a 50/50 basis. Calls for nationalisation were intensifying.

Iran nationalised its oil to achieve economic and political independence and combat poverty

In March 1951 the Iranian Majlis and Senate voted to nationalise Anglo-Iranian, which had controlled Iran's oil industry since 1913 under terms disadvantageous to Iran. Respected social reformer Dr Mohammad Mossadeq was named prime minister the following month by a 79 to 12 majority. On 1 May Mossadeq carried out his government's wishes, cancelling Anglo-Iranian's oil concession due to expire in 1993 and expropriating its assets.

His explanation, given in a speech in June 1951 (M. Fateh, Panjah Sal-e Naft-e Iran, p. 525), ran as follows...

Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries... have yielded no results this far. With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence.

The Iranian state prefers to take over the production of petroleum itself. The company should do nothing else but return its property to the rightful owners. The nationalization law provides that 25 per cent of the net profits on oil be set aside to meet all the legitimate claims of the company for compensation...
It has been asserted abroad that Iran intends to expel the foreign oil experts from the country and then shut down oil installations. Not only is this allegation absurd; it is utter invention...

For this he was eventually removed in a coup by MI5 and the CIA, imprisoned for 3 years then put under house arrest until his death.

In the meantime Britain orchestrated a world-wide boycott of Iranian oil, froze Iran's stirling assets and threatened legal action against anyone purchasing oil produced in the formerly British-controlled refineries. It even considered invading. The Iranian economy was soon in ruins. Attempts by the Shah to replace Mossadeq failed and he returned with more power, but his coalition was slowly crumbling under the hardships imposed by the British blockade.

At first America was reluctant to join Britain's destructive game but Churchill let it be known that Mossadeq was turning communist and pushing Iran into Russia's arms at a time when Cold War jumpiness was high. It was enough to get America's new president, Eisenhower, on board and plotting with Britain to bring Mossadeq down

Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran.

The Shah fled to Rome. When it was judged safe to do so he returned on 22 August 1953. Mossadeq was arrested, tried, convicted of treason by the Shah's military court and sentenced to death.

Mossadeq remarked ...

My greatest sin is that I nationalised Iran's oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world's greatest empire... With God's blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.

I am well aware that my fate must serve as an example in the future throughout the Middle East in breaking the chains of slavery and servitude to colonial interests.

The sentence was later commuted to three years' solitary in a military prison, followed by house arrest until he died on 5 March 1967. Mossadeq's supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed.

Zahedi's new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium to restore the flow of Iranian oil, awarding the US and Great Britain the lion's share - 40 per cent going to Anglo-Iranian. The consortium agreed to share profits on a 50-50 basis with Iran but, tricky as ever, refused to open its books for inspection or verification by Iranian auditors or allow Iranians to sit on the board.

Anglo-Iranian changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954.

A grateful US massively funded the Shah's government, including his army and secret police force, SAVAK.

The West's fun came to an abrupt halt with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the book closed on a chapter in British enterprise that started heroically, turned nasty and ended in tears.

The US is still hated today for reinstating the Shah and his vicious SAVAK, and for demolishing the Iranians' democratic system of government, which the Revolution unfortunately didn't restore. Britain, as the instigator and junior partner in the sordid affair, is similarly despised.

On top of that, Iran harbours great resentment at the way the West, especially the US, helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal and armed forces, and how the international community failed to punish Iraq for its use of chemical weapons against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. The US, and eventually Britain, tilted strongly towards Saddam in that conflict and the alliance enabled Saddam to more easily acquire or develop forbidden chemical and biological weapons. At least 100,000 Iranians fell victim to them.

This is how John King, writing in 2003 , summed it up...

The United States used methods both legal and illegal to help build Saddam's army into the most powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel. The US supplied chemical and biological agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians. The US supplied the materials and technology for these weapons of mass destruction to Iraq at a time when it was know that Saddam was using this technology to kill his Kurdish citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning information to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide, mustard gas and nerve agents. The United States blocked UN censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States did not act alone in this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but England, France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms and technology.

Which brings us to today... Why are we hearing non-stop, loud-mouthed sabre-rattling against Iran when we should be extending the hand of friendship and reconciliation?

David Cameron (b. 1966) wasn't even a twinkle in his father's eye when Britain crushed Iran's democracy, and was probably carousing with his Bullingdon Club pals at Oxford while Iranians were dying in their thousands from Saddam's poison gases. What does he know?

William Hague (b. 1961) seems similarly oblivious to the dirty tricks previous British foreign secretaries pulled on Iran.

Obama (b. 1961)? He was a community organiser in Chicago while the Iranians were being mustard-gassed by chemicals his country supplied to Saddam. What does he know?

As for Mrs Clinton (b. 1947), she's old enough to know better.

So why are they demonising Iran instead of righting the wrongs? Why not live and let live?

Because the political establishment is still smarting.

They are the new-generation imperialists, the political spawn of those Dr Mossadeq and many others struggled against.

They haven't learned from the past, and they won't lift their eyes to a better future. It's so depressing.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart.

By Dr. Dahlia Wasfi * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

We have an obligation to every last victim of this illegal aggression because all of this carnage has been done in our name. Since World War II, 90% of the casualties of war are unarmed civilians. 1/3 of them children. Our victims have done nothing to us. From Palestine to Afghanistan to Iraq to Somalia to wherever our next target may be, their murders are not collateral damage, they are the nature of modern warfare. They don't hate us because of our freedoms. They hate us because every day we are funding and committing crimes against humanity. The so-called "war on terror" is a cover for our military aggression to gain control of the resources of western Asia.

Video link: http://youtu.be/KGTJq8LnIQg

This is sending the poor of this country to kill the poor of those Muslim countries. This is trading blood for oil. This is genocide, and to most of the world, we are the terrorists. In these times, remaining silent on our responsibility to the world and its future is criminal. And in light of our complicity in the supreme crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ongoing violations of the U.N. Charter in International Law, how dare any American criticize the actions of legitimate resistance to illegal occupation.

Our so-called enemies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, our other colonies around the world, and our inner cities here at home, are struggling against the oppressive hand of empire, demanding respect for their humanity. They are labeled insurgents or terrorists for resisting rape and pillage by the white establishment, but they are our brothers and sisters in the struggle for justice. The civilians at the other end of our weapons don't have a choice, but American soldiers have choices, and while there may have been some doubt 5 years ago, today we know the truth. Our soldiers don't sacrifice for duty-honor-country, they sacrifice for Kellogg Brown & Root.

They don't fight for America, they fight for their lives and their buddies beside them, because we put them in a war zone. They're not defending our freedoms, they're laying the foundation for 14 permanent military bases to defend the freedoms of Exxon Mobil and British Petroleum.

They're not establishing democracy, they're establishing the basis for an economic occupation to continue after the military occupation has ended. Iraqi society today, thanks to American "help" is defined by house raids, death squads, check-points, detentions, curfews, blood in the streets, and constant violence. We must dare to speak out in support of the Iraqi people, who resist and endure the horrific existence we brought upon them through our bloodthirsty imperial crusade. We must dare to speak out in support of those American war-resisters, the real military heroes, who uphold their oath to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, including those terrorist cells in Washington DC more commonly known as the Legislative, Executive & Judicial branches.

"If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress"

Frederick Douglass said

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both ... but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

Every one of us, every one of us must keep demanding, keep fighting, keep thundering, keep plowing, keep speaking, keep struggling until justice is served. NO justice, NO peace.

* Dahlia Wasfi was born in the United States in 1971 to an American Jewish mother and an Iraqi Muslim father. She earned her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. Dr. Wasfi speaks out in support of immediate, unconditional withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and the need to end the occupation "from the Nile to the Euphrates." Her website is www.liberatethis.com .

By James Petras* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Introduction

Most accounts of the Arab revolts from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Iraq and elsewhere have focused on the most immediate causes: political dictatorships, unemployment, repression and the wounding and killing of protestors. They have given most attention to the "middle class", young, educated activists, their communication via the internet, (Los Angeles Times, Feb. 16, 2011) and, in the case of Israel and its Zionists conspiracy theorists, "the hidden hand" of Islamic extremists (Daily Alert Feb. 25, 2011).

What is lacking is any attempt to provide a framework for the revolt which takes account of the large scale, long and medium term socio-economic structures as well as the immediate 'detonators' of political action. The scope and depth of the popular uprisings, as well as the diverse political and social forces which have entered into the conflicts, preclude any explanations which look at one dimension of the struggles.

The best approach involves a 'funnel framework' in which, at the wide end (the long-term, large-scale structures), stands the nature of the economic, class and political system; the middle-term is defined by the dynamic cumulative effects of these structures on changes in political, social and economic relations; the short-term causes, which precipitate the socio-political-psychological responses, or social consciousness leading to political action.

The Nature of the Arab Economies

With the exception of Jordan, most of the Arab economies where the revolts are taking place are based on 'rents' from oil, gas, minerals and tourism, which provide most of the export earnings and state revenues(Financial Times, Feb. 22, 2011, p. 14). These economic sectors are, in effect, export enclavesWorld Bank Annual Report 2009). These export sectors do not have links to a diversified productive domestic economy: oil is exported and finished manufactured goods as well as financial and high tech services are all imported and controlled by foreign multi-nationals and ex-pats linked to the ruling class (Economic and Political Weekly, Feb. 12, 2011, p. 11). Tourism reinforces 'rental' income, as the sector, which provides 'foreign exchange' and tax revenues to the class – clan state. The latter relies on state-subsidized foreign capital and local politically connected 'real estate' developers for investment and imported foreign construction laborers. employing a tiny fraction of the labor force and define a highly specialized economy (

Rent-based income may generate great wealth, especially as energy prices soar, but the funds accrue to a class of "rentiers" who have no vocation or inclination for deepening and extending the process of economic development and innovation. The rentiers "specialize" in financial speculation, overseas investments via private equity firms, extravagant consumption of high-end luxury goods and billion-dollar and billion-euro secret private accounts in overseas banks.

The rentier economy provides few jobs in modern productive activity; the high end is controlled by extended family-clan members and foreign financial corporations via ex-pat experts; technical and low-end employment is taken up by contract foreign labor, at income levels and working conditions below what the skilled local labor force is willing to accept.

The enclave rentier economy results in a clan-based ruling class which 'confounds' public and private ownership: what's 'state' is actually absolutist monarchs and their extended families at the top and their client tribal leader, political entourage and technocrats in the middle.

These are "closed ruling classes". Entry is confined to select members of the clan or family dynasties and a small number of "entrepreneurial" individuals who might accumulate wealth servicing the ruling clan-class. The 'inner circle' lives off of rental income, secures payoffs from partnerships in real estate where they provide no skills, but only official permits, land grants, import licenses and tax holidays.

Beyond pillaging the public treasury, the ruling clan-class promotes 'free trade', i.e. importing cheap finished products, thus undermining any indigenous domestic start-ups in the 'productive' manufacturing, agricultural or technical sector.

As a result there is no entrepreneurial national capitalist or 'middle class'. What passes for a middle class are largely public sector employees (teachers, health professionals, functionaries, firemen, police officials, military officers) who depend on their salaries, which, in turn, depend on their subservience to absolutist power. They have no chance of advancing to the higher echelons or of opening economic opportunities for their educated offspring.

The concentration of economic, social and political power in a closed clan-class controlled system leads to an enormous concentration of wealth. Given the social distance between rulers and ruled, the wealth generated by high commodity prices produces a highly distorted image of per-capital "wealth"; adding billionaires and millionaires on top of a mass of low-income and underemployed youth provides a deceptively high average income (Washington Blog, 2/24/11).

Rentier Rule: By Arms and Handouts

To compensate for these great disparities in society and to protect the position of the parasitical rentier ruling class, the latter pursues alliances with, multi-billion dollar arms corporations, and military protection from the dominant (USA) imperial power. The rulers engage in "neo-colonization by invitation", offering land for military bases and airfields, ports for naval operations, collusion in financing proxy mercenaries against anti-imperial adversaries and submission to Zionist hegemony in the region (despite occasional inconsequential criticisms).

In the middle term, rule by force is complemented by paternalistic handouts to the rural poor and tribal clans; food subsidies for the urban poor; and dead-end make-work employment for the educated unemployed (Financial Times, 2/25/11, p. 1). Both costly arms purchases and paternalistic subsidies reflect the lack of any capacity for productive investments. Billions are spent on arms rather than diversifying the economy. Hundreds of millions are spent on one-shot paternalistic handouts, rather than long-term investments generating productive employment.

The 'glue' holding this system together is the combination of modern pillage of public wealth and natural energy resources and the use of traditional clan and neo-colonial recruits and mercenary contractors to control and repress the population. US modern armaments are at the service of anachronistic absolutist monarchies and dictatorships, based on the principles of 18^th century dynastic rule.

The introduction and extension of the most up-to-date communication systems and ultra-modern architecture shopping centers cater to an elite strata of luxury consumers and provides a stark contrast to the vast majority of unemployed educated youth, excluded from the top and pressured from below by low-paid overseas contract workers.

Neo-Liberal Destabilization

The rentier class-clans are pressured by the international financial institutions and local bankers to 'reform' their economies: 'open' the domestic market and public enterprises to foreign investors and reduce deficits resulting from the global crises by introducing neo-liberal reforms (Economic and Political Weekly, 2/12/11, p. 11).

As a result of "economic reforms" food subsidies for the poor have been lowered or eliminated and state employment has been reduced, closing off one of the few opportunities for educated youth. Taxes on consumers and salaried/wage workers are increased while the real estate developers, financial speculators and importers receive tax exonerations. De-regulation has exacerbated massive corruption, not only among the rentier ruling class-clan, but also by their immediate business entourage.

The paternalistic 'bonds' tying the lower and middle class to the ruling class have been eroded by foreign-induced neo-liberal "reforms", which combine 'modern' foreign exploitation with the existing "traditional" forms of domestic private pillage. The class-clan regimes no longer can rely on the clan, tribal, clerical and clientelistic loyalties to isolate urban trade unions, student, small business and low paid public sector movements.

The Street against the Palace

The 'immediate causes' of the Arab revolts are centered in the huge demographic-class contradictions of the clan-class ruled rentier economy. The ruling oligarchy rules over a mass of unemployed and underemployed young workers; the latter involves between 50% to 65% of the population under 25 years of age (Washington Blog, 2/24/11). The dynamic "modern" rentier economy does not incorporatethe street as venders, transport and contract workers and in personal services. The ultra- modern oil, gas, real estate, tourism and shopping-mall sectors are dependent on the political the newly educated young into modern employment; it relegates them into the low-paid unprotected "informal economy" of and military support of backward traditional clerical, tribal and clan leaders, who are subsidized but never 'incorporated' into the sphere of modern production. The modern urban industrial working class with small, independent trade unions is banned. Middle class civic associations are either under state control or confined to petitioning the absolutist state.

The 'underdevelopment' of social organizations, linked to social classes engaged in modern productive activity, means that the pivot of social and political action is the street. Unemployed and underemployed part-time youth engaged in the informal sector are found in the plazas, at kiosks, cafes, street corner society, and markets, moving around and about and outside the centers of absolutist administrative power. The urban mass does not occupy strategic positions in the economic system; but it is available for mass mobilizations capable of paralyzing the streets and plazas through which goods and services are transported out and profits are realized. Equally important, mass movements launched by the unemployed youth provide an opportunity for oppressed professionals, public sector employees, small business people and the self-employed to engage in protests without being subject to reprisals at their place of employment – dispelling the "fear factor" of losing one's job.

The political and social confrontation revolves around the opposite poles: clientelistic oligarchies and de clasé masses (the Arab Street). The former depends directly on the state (military/police apparatus) and the latter on amorphous local, informal, face-to-face improvised organizations. The exception is the minority of university students who move via the internet. Organized industrial trade unions come into the struggle late and largely focus on sectoral economic demands, with some exceptions – especially in public enterprises, controlled by cronies of the oligarchs, where workers demand changes in management.

As a result of the social particularities of the rentier states, the uprisings do not take the form of class struggles between wage labor and industrial capitalists. They emerge as mass political revolts against the oligarchical state. Street-based social movements demonstrate their capacity to delegitimize state authority, paralyze the economy, and can lead up to the ousting of the ruling autocrats. But it is the nature of mass street movements to fill the squares with relative ease, but also to be dispersed when the symbols of oppression are ousted. Street-based movements lack the organization and leadership to project, let alone impose a new political or social order. Their power is found in their ability to pressureseize power and protect the entire rentier state and economic structure while sustaining their ties with their imperial mentors. existing elites and institutions, not to replace the state and economy.

Hence the surprising ease with which the US, Israeli and EU backed Egyptian military were able to seize power and protect the entire rentier state and economic structure while sustaining their ties with their imperial mentors.

Converging Conditions and the "Demonstration Effect"

The spread of the Arab revolts across North Africa, the Middle East and Gulf States is, in the first instance, a product of similar historical and social conditions: rentier states ruled by family-clan oligarchs dependent on "rents" from capital intensive oil and energy exports, which confine the vast majority of youth to marginal informal 'street-based' economic activities.

The "power of example" or the "demonstration effect" can only be understood by recognizing the same socio-political conditions in each country. Street power – mass urban movements – presumes the streetlocus of the principal actors and the takeover of the plazas as the place to exert political power and project social demands. No doubt the partial successes in Egypt and Tunisia did detonate the movements elsewhere. But they did so only in countries with the same historical legacy, the same social polarities between rentier – clan rulers and marginal street labor and especially where the rulers were deeply integrated and subordinated to imperial economic and military networks. as the economic

Conclusion

Rentier rulers govern via their ties to the US and EU military and financial institutions. They modernize their affluent enclaves and marginalize recently educated youth, who are confined to low paid jobs, especially in the insecure informal sector, centered in the streets of the capital cities. Neo-liberal privatizations, reductions in public subsidies (for food, unemployment subsidies, cooking oil, gas, transport, health, and education) shattered the paternalistic ties through which the rulers contained the discontent of the young and poor, as well as clerical elites and tribal chiefs. The confluence of classes and masses, modern and traditional, was a direct result of a process of neo-liberalization from above and exclusion from below. The neo-liberal "reformers" promise that the 'market' would substitute well-paying jobs for the loss of state paternalistic subsidies was false. The neo-liberal polices reinforced the concentration of wealth while weakening state controls over the masses.

The world capitalist economic crises led Europe and the US to tighten their immigration controls, eliminating one of the escape valves of the regimes – the massive flight of unemployed educated youth seeking jobs abroad. Out-migration was no longer an option; the choices narrowed to struggle or suffer. Studies show that those who emigrate tend to be the most ambitious, better educated (within their class) and greatest risk takers. Now, confined to their home country, with few illusions of overseas opportunities, they are forced to struggle for individual mobility at home through collective social and political action.

Equally important among the political youth, is the fact that the US, as guarantor of the rentier regimes, is seen as a declining imperial power: challenged economically in the world market by China; facing defeat as an occupying colonial ruler in Iraq and Afghanistan; and humiliated as a subservient and mendacious servant of an increasingly discredited Israel via its Zionist agents in the Obama regime and Congress. All of these elements of US imperial decay and discredit, encourage the pro-democracy movements to move forward against the US clients and lessen their fears that the US military would intervene and face a third military front. The mass movements view their oligarchies as "third tier" regimes: rentier states under US hegemony, which, in turn, is under Israeli – Zionist tutelage. With 130 countries in the UN General Assembly and the entire Security Council, minus the US, condemning Israeli colonial expansion; with Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and the forthcoming new regimes in Yemen and Bahrain promising democratic foreign policies, the mass movements realize that all of Israel's modern arms and 680,000 soldiers are of no avail in the face of its total diplomatic isolation, its loss of regional rentier clients, and the utter discredit of its bombastic militarist rulers and their Zionist agents in the US diplomatic corps (Financial Times 2/24/11, p. 7).

The very socio-economic structures and political conditions which detonated the pro-democracy mass movements, the unemployed and underemployed youth organized from "the street", now present the greatest challenge: can the amorphous and diverse mass becomes an organized social and political force which can take state power, democratize the regime and, at the same time, create a new productive economy to provide stable well- paying employment, so far lacking in the rentier economy? The political outcome to date is indeterminate: democrats and socialists compete with clerical, monarchist, and neoliberal forces bankrolled by the U.S.

It is premature to celebrate a popular democratic revolution....

* James Petras' latest books, Global Depression and Regional Wars (Atlanta, Clarity Press, 2009) is the third in a series, including Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2008) and The Power of Israel in the United States (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2006), analyzing the influence of militarism and Zionism in American foreign policy.

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"This must be a world of democracy and respect for human rights, a world freed from the horrors of poverty, hunger, deprivation and ignorance, relieved of the threat and the scourge of civil wars and external aggression and unburdened of the great tragedy of millions forced to become refugees"
--Nelson Mandela, Acceptance Speech of Nobel Peace Prize, 1993

Four Arab Dictators from Left to Right: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Tunis: GONE); Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen: On the Way); Muammar Al Gaddafi (Libya: On the Way); Hosni Mubarak (Egypt: GONE)

What a difference a few decades make in the Arab world that had patriotic heroes fighting European colonialism in the past only to replace such occupiers with homegrown dictators. What a difference between the martyred, beloved, highly intelligent, well educated, and revered leader of Libya's revolt against Italy, Omar Al Mukhtar, and today's mad delusional psychotic leader of Libya, Muammar Al Gaddafi.

"We the Mujahids (fighters) swore to Allah that we would fight until we die one after the other. We do not surrender nor do we quit. I have never surrendered and I will continue to fight"
–Omar AlMukhtar; A hero fighting foreign occupiers

"I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents... I will die as a martyr at the end to my last drop of blood....You men and women who love Gaddafi... Get out of your homes and fill the streets....Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs. The police cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them ...for the defense of the revolution and the defense of Gaddafi."
– Muammar Al Gaddafi, on State TV, February 22, 2011; A madman fighting and killing his own people.

The greatest gain from today's Arab Revolutions sweeping across the Middle East is the "Arab Awakening"; from a demoralized dormancy of mind and spirit and a stagnation from hope. The Arab youth are strong, determined, and dedicated to dust off their silence and subservience to tyrants who never knew nor cared that they had a population to serve. They served themselves; they served America's interests and thereby served Israel.

My beloved Arab brothers and sisters, be steadfast, be patient, and never surrender again to fear; with God's promise to help those oppressed you will be victorious. Victory only comes from God. Many of you may die or be injured, but no revolution is without sacrifice, without suffering, hunger, and thirst, Many more have died over the decade's rule of European colonialists, American invasions and hegemony, Israeli genocides, and most egregious of all, at the hands of our tyrannical dictators who like all oppressors see the lives of their people as cheap and expendable. Millions of Arabs and Muslims have been killed by the West, Israel, and their tyrants. They are the forgotten "Unpeople", but not in the hearts and minds of their families, their brethren, and in the larger Arab and Muslim world. They all will be held accountable on this earth and in the hereafter. With divine justice they are the ultimate losers not the martyred innocent who died as victims of western arrogant greed.

Europe and the U.S.'s urgent fear concerning Libya's revolution has nothing to do with civilian casualties and everything to do with the rise in gas prices. The western economies are in a recession and a rise in gas prices could sink them deeper into recession thereby jeopardizing the reelection chances of Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, and others. Hence the contemplation of a military intervention although they are highly sensitive and aware that such an operation is not viewed as another Iraqi invasion and occupation. The Arab world must, must reject any western intervention and continue its revolts against their American doormats, i.e. their tyrants, fighting on their own to liberate their countries. If you let a western nation into your life be prepared to live in perpetual occupation and domination.

The U.S. will never leave Iraq given that it has spent trillions of dollars to "liberate" it from Saddam and its oil The same applies in Afghanistan. God willing all Arab nations will achieve their freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights. Once national, patriotic, and democratically elected governments, legislatures and an independent Judicial system are established, a total reassessment and revision of political, economic, military, social and infrastructure development is done. Budget priorities are set with an eye to return much of the trillions of dollars currently residing in western government bonds, banks, and financial institutions. Domestic and Foreign policies are developed in the national interest not to serve foreign interests. They must support the development of the private sector rather than continue the wasteful and corrupt public sector, currently the major employer in the region. Education must be the number one priority, especially for girls, for it is the sole provider of financial and social stability and future progress. The health sector is non-existent and measures must be developed to ensure quality primary, preventive, and tertiary care is provided.

The Arab world is facing a massive crisis of water shortage which must be addressed immediately. The region must be viewed as starting from scratch and thus short and long term plans must be developed utilizing the expertise of national and international institutions especially from nations that have turned their economies around or developed rapidly since their near total destruction during World War II. People must feel free and secure in their lives thus basic freedoms must be constitutionally guaranteed and all previous security, police, and intelligence services used by the tyrants to oppress their populace must be eliminated immediately. We can take the best the west has to offer in education, industry, technology, and administration but never comprise our faith, culture, or values.

Omar AlMukhtar

Our tyrants for too long have supplied Europe the U.S. and Israel with cheap gas and oil. For too long they've kept America's economy flourishing through the purchase of hundreds of billions of military arms that are simply stored in desert hangers due to a most illiterate, corrupt, untrained, well compensated and fat military leaders who couldn't shoot straight if a target is at arms length. Thus the Arabs have four vital resources to use as political and economic leverage on the West, especially the United States.

1. Oil
2. Military Weapon Sales
3. Trillions of Dollars invested in U.S. Treasury Bonds, Banks, Financial Institutions, Corporations, Real Estate, Media, Casinos, Hotels, and Hollywood.
4. Vast Importation of diverse American and European products.

Western nations are money driven and money is their driving "national interest". They would sell and drop their mothers to make money or prevent the loss of profit. With a legal, smart, rational, and selective strategies of a mixture of political, economic, and military pressure with the subtle hint that Arab resources are easily marketed elsewhere if political gains that serve the Arab national interest are not met, there is no doubt that America will respond positively.

No politician wants to be responsible for an economic crisis; not while America is collapsing under the overwhelming weight of foreign debt, enormous trade and budget deficits at all government levels, high unemployment, and an ever growing gap between the rich and the poor. China is a prime example of how to use economic policies to extract American concessions. If the Arab world, both governments and populations, are united and fully dedicated to such strategies in an unwavering manner with the backbone and courage to say 'NO' to America's demands, America will capitulate.

We must keep in mind that America's demographics will undergo a historic change within forty years where today's minorities will become the majority and thus potentially can become the majority in the government. Building strong bridges with these minority communities now will bring important dividends in the future.

Now, let's take a leap of faith after assuming such a scenario is achieved. A free Arab world with enough strength and pressure on the United States can only lead to the greatest freedom of all in modern world history-the FREEDOM OF PALESTINE-from the grip of Israel and its domination of U.S. politics. America for decades has had its cake and eaten it too. It managed to blindly support the rogue terroristic State of Israel as it commits constant genocides, ethnic cleansing, and illegal occupation of Palestine, a land to which it has no claim, given that the Jews of today are not the Hebrews of the Bible promised a land in Palestine; while simultaneously owning the silent submissive Arab Tyrants who have greedily and cowardly surrendered to America's will. ENOUGH! There needs to be a heavy cost to America for it to change its policies in the Middle East. Given that it owns the Arab tyrants it can easily ignore the legitimate and just cause of the Palestinians and simply concentrate on meeting the needs and demands of Israel and its powerful Israeli lobbies, especially the feared AIPAC, America's shadow government, that is destroying it from within.

A free Arab world that has political, economic, and military unity can easily break the shackles and bond between the U.S. and Israel. Here's what the U.S. will face as a choice.

EITHER: Choose Israel and continue your loss of independence to a foreign nation that you've showered with trillions of dollars, the latest weapons and technology, allowed its constant spying on government national secrets as well as industrial espionage, cast countless Vetoes to protect its militaristic Zionist expansionism and send your youth and treasure to fight its enemies, be internationally and constantly embarrassed by having to support it even when it commits "war crimes", as well as have an annual trade deficit where you are forced to buy its products while it receives any American product free. Israel has nothing to offer the U.S. except constant wars.

OR: Partner with the Arab and Muslim world in a mutually beneficial relationship that begins with an end to America's blind support of Israel and together with the rest of the world demand once and for all Israel end its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and thus establish a FREE INDEPENDENT PALESTINE. If it refuses then it must be isolated with the U.N. Security Council, imposing trade and travel sanctions, cut off of all financial, military and intelligence aid it receives from any nation, and freeze all its financial assets around the world. Much like America does quite easily against Arab and Muslim nations, from Iraq, to Iran, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Libya, and Afghanistan.

Here's what America will receive in return for this partnership compared to Israel:

Oil-Military Sales-Vast Import of products by 57 Muslim nations with sales to 1.6 Billion Muslims (compared to Israel's 6 million Jews) -Investments in America-Employment for over one million Americans in the oil and petrochemical industry-and peace in the Middle East because in a democratic Arab and Muslim world all extremist and terrorist groups will end either peacefully or by war. America, your passionate attachment to Israel is the greatest threat to your national interest and security. America, it's your choice.

The Arab Muslim world provides you with enormous benefits while Israel serves as a constant liability to your national interest. To my Arab Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters I pray that in victory you do not take vengeance into your own hands. Be gentle and magnanimous to your enemies but seek Justice in court for the murderers, rapists, thieves, and traitors who killed, harmed, raped, stole, or injured the innocent. That is what our beautiful faith and beloved Prophet taught us.

* Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim born in the Middle East. He is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

Cartoon by Jeremy Nell "Jerm", The New Age, South Africa

By Fidel Castro | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.  It was their main weapon when they decided to easily liquidate the Cuban Revolution as soon as the first just and sovereign laws were passed in our Homeland: depriving it of oil.

Upon this energy source today’s civilization was developed.  Venezuela was the nation in this hemisphere that paid the highest price.  The United States became the lord and master of the huge oil fields that Mother Nature had bestowed upon that sister country.

At the end of the last World War, it started to extract greater amounts of oil from the oil fields of Iran, as well as those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Arab countries located around them.  These became the main suppliers.  World consumption progressively increased to the fabulous figure of approximately 80 million barrels a day, including those being extracted on United States territory, to which later gas, hydro and nuclear energies were added.  Until the beginning of the twentieth century, coal had been the basic source of energy that made industrial development possible, before billions of automobiles and engines consuming the liquid fuel were produced.

The squandering of oil and gas is associated with one of the greatest tragedies, not in the least resolved, which is suffered by humankind: climate change.

When our Revolution arose, Algeria, Libya and Egypt were not yet oil producers and a great part of the abundant reserves of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and the United Arab Emirates were still to be discovered.

In December of 1951, Libya becomes the first African country to attain its independence after WW II, during which its territory was the stage for important battles between the troops of Germany and the United Kingdom, conferring fame and glory on Generals Erwin Rommel and Bernard L. Montgomery.

Ninety-five percent of its territory is completely made up of desert.  Technology permitted the discovery of vital oilfields of excellent quality light oil that today reach one million 800 thousand barrels a day along with abundant deposits of natural gas.  Such riches allowed it to reach life expectancy that is almost at 75 years of age and the highest per capita income in Africa.  Its harsh desert is located over an enormous lake of fossil waters, equivalent to more than three times the land area of Cuba; this has made it possible to construct a broad network of pipelines of fresh water that stretch from one end of the country to the other.

Libya, which had a million inhabitants when it attained independence, today has somewhat more than 6 million.

The Libyan Revolution took place in the month of September of the year 1969. Its main leader was Muammar al-Gaddafi, a soldier of Bedouin origin who, in his early years, was inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.  Without any doubt, many of his decisions are associated with the changes that were produced when, as in Egypt, a weak and corrupt monarchy was overthrown in Libya.

The inhabitants of that country have age-old warrior traditions.  It is said that ancient Libyans were a part of Hannibal’s army when he was at the point of destroying Ancient Rome with the troops that crossed the Alps.

One can agree with Gaddafi or not.  The world has been invaded with all kinds of news, especially using the mass media.  One has to wait the necessary length of time in order to learn precisely what is the truth and what are lies, or a mixture of events of every kind that, in the midst of chaos, were produced in Libya.  For me, what is absolutely clear is that the government of the United States is not in the least worried about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate in giving NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a matter of hours or a few short days.

Those who with perfidious intentions invented the lie that Gaddafi was headed for Venezuela, just as they did yesterday afternoon on  Sunday the 20th of February, today received an fitting response from Foreign Affairs Minister  Nicolás Maduro when he literally stated that he was “wishing that the Libyan people would find, in the exercise of their sovereignty, a peaceful solution to their difficulties, that would preserve the integrity of the Libyan people and nation, without the interference of imperialism...”

As for me, I cannot imagine that the Libyan leader would abandon his country; escaping the responsibilities he is charged with, whether or not they are partially or totally false.

An honest person shall always be against any injustice being committed against any people in the world, and the worst of all, at this moment, would be to remain silent in the face of the crime that NATO is getting ready to commit against the Libyan people.

The leadership of that war-mongering organization has to do it.  We must condemn it!

Fidel Castro Ruz

February 21, 2011
10:14 p.m.

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Ghaddafi Will Go: 3 Down-19 to Go

In a few days, or less, Libya will be free from the 42 year rule of the mentally unstable, psychotic, arrogant, divisive, condescending, megalomaniacal leader and self proclaimed "King of Africa." –Muammar Al-Ghaddafi.

Unlike the deposed Tunisian and Egyptian leaders, Al Ghaddafi is despised by all other Arab tyrants. thus he'll have no home outside of Libya unless some African nation has pity on this butcher of his people. In just 5 days he's killed more than 300 civilians using snipers, secret police, Arab and African mercenaries, even his air force to bomb unarmed peaceful protesters

His son, Saif Al Islam, took to the airwaves on Sunday to give the most arrogant, incoherent, rambling and condescending speech---like father, like son.

In it he blamed outside agitators, Islamists, drugged men and children, drunkards, those taking hallucinogens. the Arab media, Facebook, emails, thugs hired by millionaire businessmen, and anything else he could think of on the spur of the moment. All Arab tyrants when faced with opposition use these lies to explain the protests and justify their murderous crackdown.

He said the army had to defend itself against these mobs and thus killed a few Libyans, much less than was reported.

He warned of a civil war and a division of Libya. Incredibly he gave credit to American oil companies for the unity of Libya. "American Oil Companies played a big part in unifying Libya. Who will manage this oil?"

He warned of Neo-Colonialism in Libya if an Islamic Government takes over (the bogeyman that frightens the West):

"The British FM called me. Be ready for a new colonial period from America and Britain. You think they will accept an Islamic Emirate here"

The West will come and occupy you. Europe & the West will not agree to chaos in Libya, to export chaos and drugs so they will occupy us."

But true to the family's tradition of eliminating and killing any opposition he threatened the Libyan people with this dire warning.

"Now comes the role of the National Guard and the Army...We will flight to the last man and woman and bullet. We will not lose Libya. We will not let Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and BBC trick us."

This is a desperation speech. Al Gaddafi has lost Eastern Libya (Benghazi) with some military units joining the protesters. The largest tribe in Libya has supported his downfall and other tribes have cut off oil pipelines. Libyans by the tens of thousands are protesting in the capitol, Tripoli braving the bullets.

Shockingly but not unexpectedly, the U.S. and Europe took a few days to utter the mildest of comments against the slaughter of hundreds of Libyans and the injured thousands. They simply asked for "restraint" to avoid more deaths.

If one Israeli soldier was hit by a stone in his America paid boot thrown by an elderly women who just lost her seven children to an Israeli missile you can depend on Obama at 3 a.m. to come out to the Rose Garden and issue this statement:

"Let me be clear. Palestinian terrorism against innocent Israeli soldiers who are simply defending themselves and their lives against horrendous attacks must be condemned yesterday, today, and tomorrow. There is no room for such violence and terrorism at a time when Prime Minister Netanyahu and I are working hard to restart the Peace Process which unfortunately the Palestinians are refusing using the excuse that I vetoed a simple U.N. Security Council Resolution against "illegal" settlements, when in fact they are not "illegal", but as I've said all along, are "illegitimate". As our Ambassador to the U.N. Dr. Susan Rice so eloquently stated, passing such a Resolution would have led to more "illegitimate" settlements being built. Thank You."

Of Blood and Oil

With so many European and American oil companies doing business in Libya; Al Gadaffi can kill with impunity.

Ever since Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Persian Gulf the region has endured European colonialism, Cold War competition, and finally total American hegemony of the region since 1956.

Oil is the life blood of the entire world but none more so historically than in Europe and the U.S. .Both are willing to launch wars and massacre millions if necessary to obtain cheap oil for their factories, transportation system, and personal vehicles. Without oil America's economy will die adding more fuel to the already bankrupt nation.

America has and will spill precious Arab blood to extract the oil from under their feet and sand dunes. That's what American Presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt established as America's premiere "national interest" in the region.

President Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz bin Saud of Saudi Arabia in February 14, 1945 aboard the USS Quncy in the Red Sea to come to a simple agreement: You give us cheap oil, we'll protect your monarchy and we won't interfere in the Palestinian issue.

Later, President Jimmy Carter established The Carter Doctrine which declared the Persian Gulf and its oil fields of vital interest to the United States, and that any outside attempt to gain control in the area would be "repelled by use of any means necessary, including military force."

President Reagan established regional CENTCOM's (Central Commands around the world, renaming Carter's initial "Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force: RDJTF).

Today CENTCOM is based in Qatar while the Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain with military bases in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, among other nations.

The main purpose of CENTCOM, other than prosecuting the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, is to protect the oil flow out of the Persian Gulf, 30% of the world's oil, and to contain any Iranian threat, even if it means the launching of an Israeli driven third American war.

Bottom Line:

America will protect its Oil Dictatorships even if it means the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Arabs. As former Secretary Madeleine Albright said in an interview with Leslie Stahl on the American TV Program "60 minutes" when asked about the death toll of Iraqi sanctions.

Lesley Stahl: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it." (60 Minutes (5/12/96)

To America the premiere policy in the MidEast is not establishing democracy but supporting and stabilizing the Status Quo.

American policy has always been short sighted, counter-productive, and frankly stupid in the Arab world.

Its umbilical cord ties to Israel where money and weapons flow from the American mother to the Israeli child has cost it dearly for 62 years.

Israel can do no wrong and American politicians are the most cowardly men and women in world politics, unable to even utter the word "no" to Israel as it unleashes American weapons into the hearts and brains of Palestinian children.

America's long term support of Arab dictators resides on the simpleton principle: As long as you give us cheap oil, allow our military bases in your lands, and fight "Islamic Fundamentalism", you may annihilate the entire population for all we care.

The revolutions sweeping the Arab world, and shortly the Muslim world, starting with Pakistan, are a direct result of such American political stupidity and imperialism in the region.

Submitting to Israel and its genocidal policies and providing protection to murderous Arab tyrants if not changed will be the undoing of American interests in the region.

Given America's political history it's not hopeful that America will change its policy in the near future, but once the Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia fall, America will be the biggest loser of these revolutions and it will pay the heaviest price for its blind subservience to Israel.

America, make room for China, India, Russia, Brazil, and Japan, which will rapidly dump you as fast as you dump your dictators once they're usefulness ends, in exchange for Arab oil and its economic survival.

Future beleaguered America generations will look upon this history and damn the day Israel occupied America and its lobby and Neocons ran its foreign policy.

"And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;"
--Star Spangled Banner, America's National Anthem

The Rockets and Bombs must end, our relation with Israel and dictators must end, and we must start a respectful mutually beneficial relationship with 1.6 billion Muslims yearning for freedom and peace, and who in unity will end all Muslim terroristic groups.

You're choice. Change now or forever hold your tongue and bombs. Time is running out.

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

A Look Behind The Curtain

By Gordon Duff * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

In a unique interview with an official at the highest policy levels of the Pentagon, White House and, eventually, CIA, we are offered a unique "behind the curtains" look at areas of policy making during the period between 1999 and 2007. Extensive notes have been taken of meetings with President Bush and all his top policy advisors. This is only a teaser.

A highly placed source within the White House and CIA confirmed, in an interview, that the invasion of Iran was sheduled for 2006 but planned in 1999. We have heard some of this before but not with so many pieces and, I am told, more to come. In an interview with a Bush administration policy official:

Q. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your work at the White House? You have read my articles, what do you think of my take on things?

A. You are closer than anyone else in understanding how things worked, the only person willing to simply put it out there. You also come at things like the Pentagon people I have worked with, the ones who stood against Bush, Cheney and the AIPAC gang at the NSC (National Security Council.) I can also see that you don't have background material that you need. Some of it you have wrong, particularly the motives for Iraq. It was always Iran, Iraq was simply a door.

"The Iraq invasion was a 'done deal' in 1999, but not as you thought to steal oil and bilk billions, that was all gravy. Iraq, the entire Bush presidency, had one purpose, to remove Iran from the picture."

Q. You talk about journalists. What has your experience been?

A. I have good friends at the New York Times, Time Magazine, the Washington Post and others. They know all of this. They aren't fooled. They could write anything but it would never hit print.

Q. Back to the 2000 election. The first impediment was, I am told, removing John McCain from the picture. Was this the case?

A. "He was enemy # 1, stubborn, unpredictable and already tarnished by the Keating 5 scandal, with all his faults, he didn't have the serous skeletons in his closet that would fit the bill. McCain couldn't be blackmailed like Bush, thus McCain is a risk. Unless you can be controlled, blackmailed or bought or both, you will go nowhere in Washington.

McCain is a womanizer, the real thing. For a war hero, with McCain's charm that's nothing, he would never fall into the kind of trap Clinton did. Rove was assigned the job of getting rid of McCain. We all saw what was done in South Carolina. It was a masterful job."

Q. When you talk about McCain not being vulnerable, he certainly was in South Carolina, a few rumors and smears and he was gone. You say Bush is more vulnerable?

A. "A window into a lot of this can be found in the Rosen-AIPAC lawsuit. Bush has serious issues, let's just leave it at that.

As for Rosen, he just wasn't an AIPAC lobbyist, he sat inside the National Security Council until 2005 as the Rand Corporation's Director of Foreign Policy. When the press talks about an AIPAC employee and spying, he didn't join AIPAC until later, after his arrest.

The FBI investigation and his indictement for spying covered a time when he was at the center of the Bush administration, a key policy formulator at the highest levels of government. Rosen, indicted in 2004 for spying for Israel, was responsible for formulating American policy in the Middle East and largely responsible for the fate of the Palestinian people, a bit of a conflict of interest for an Israeli lobbyist and accused spy."

Q. Rosen has made some accusations, says AIPAC spies all the time and that they do nothing but watch pornography there. You worked with this guy, what do you know?

A. "Rosen has dirt on absolutely everyone. His divorce depositions are fascinating reading. They are sealed now but there are copies out there. I know that reporters at Time Magazine have them, others too. The FBI has tons, they were after Rosen for years. As for AIPAC, Rosen told me of their spy operations many times, but nobody needed telling, they were more than obvious to all of us.

Q. You talk about Rosen and his "black book," that he has dirt on "everyone." The news stories mentioned only porn. That doesn't sound so serious. Dirt, not just porn, what kind of dirt?

A. "Mostly sex stuff, gay bondage, clubs, expense money being spent on sex, liasons in public restrooms, that kind of thing. Many of the key people around the president are involved and there is FBI surveillance, massive amounts of it, photographs, videos, and one or more undercover informants recorded conversations with top National Security Council members. Spying, nuclear secrets passed to Israel, this was common place.

I witnessed, with two others, the top Bush counter-terrorism official, actally primary advisor to Bush on counter-terrorism, who had served Clinton and others, pass nuclear weapons plans to an Israeli agent, like it was nothing."

Q. Did the FBI know about this?

A. "For years, FBI agents, I have a list of names, worked to stop this. Then I learned that the Department of Justice killed the prosecution, Rosen's lasted into the Obama administration before it was dropped. Witnesses were threatened with prosecution and the guilty, the spies, were allowed to keep doing what they are doing. This is what Rosen knows and what he is talking about when he says AIPAC was involved in spying. It isn't just that AIPAC is said to receive information it is that it came from top administration officials."

Q. What do you know about 9/11?

A. "9/11 was planned as early as 1999 or before, to be executed as soon as the Bush team was in place. One meeting in April 2001, a meeting outlining the invasion of Iraq, may have been the green light.' Chalibi was in place early on, from day number one. I remember telling them he was a known crook, totally disreputable and that things in Iraq would fall apart immediately. Nobody in the National Security Council ever spoke about what they would do once Saddam was overthrown. Nobody really seemed to care.

Of course, none of those people have real experience with military issues or, in fact, much of anything else."

Q. How was the Iran invasion supposed to work?

A. "This is where so many have it wrong. In fact, there was never serous discussion about terrorism or Al Qaeda or bin Laden. These things weren't even a sideshow. The only talk about any of it was how it could be used to justify going into Iraq and then attacking Iran.

Q. The intel on Iraq, we all know it was wrong. When was that learned?

A. "The administration didn't believe false intelligence, it created it, order it in place before the election to be ready for, well I guess, 9/11. Silencing Plame and Joe Wilson, those were the same people who planned the creation of the phony intelligence. There was never a discussion of a serious terrorist threat against the United States. These guys would have fallen off their chairs laughing themselves to death. It was all a joke to them, 9/11, the Iraq invasion, all of it."

Q. Back to Iran, how was the invasion to start?

A. "Everything was going to happen in Bahrain. Plans were to attack Americans, blow up clubs, restaurants. There were plans to stage a "Tonkin Gulf' type attack and blame it on Iranian torpedo boats. Guys in the military were aware of this and there was strong opposition. Marine Colonel Joe Molofsky was the real hero here. He did more to scramble administration plans than anyone else, Molofky and General Mattis. These were really straight shooters, how I learned to trust the Marine Corps.

The government there, their security services, I believe they were deeply involved. It would have been good to see something about this in Wikileaks."

Q. You said that war had to start by 2006. Was there a timetable?

A. "Absolutely. General Petraeus was sent to Iraq to quiet things down, not to win a war or create a lasting peace, nothing like that. His job was to shut things down so an operation against Iran could be staged from Iraq."

Q. But that never got off the ground...

A. "No kidding, and Bush was enranged. It was the only reason he was put in office in the first place, as long as Iran survived, he was a failure, no matter what happened to the US."

Q. Didn't they know that war with Iran would have driven oil to $300 a barrel and collapsed the American economy?

A. "There were never briefings on that like there were never briefings on stabilizing Iraq. Nobody cared, nobody noticed and it was never discussed. It was really all about Iran and orders came in and people did what they were told like good little soldiers."

Q. Orders? From where?

A. "All of it, all foreign policy issues, were out of AIPAC, they ran everything in the Bush adminsitration. That was the whole point of it. We never were told why we had to destroy Iran only that it had to be done. Nobody ever asked why. Nobody ever believed Iran had a credible nuclear program and, eventually, we were all very certain they never would. There was never an issue about Iran being a threat or not. There was never an issue of motive of any kind. These were orders, plain and simple, the administration that will come into office in 2001 will be tasked with destroying Iran, tasked by AIPAC who will control all key position in the administration."

Q. Was there talk about Lebanon and the threat of Hizbollah?

A. "There really weren't talks at all, only planning on how to follow policy, never on what policy should be or what was right or wrong. There was never a discussion about the United States, what was good for America or bad for America. People were generally oblivious to there being an America."

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

By Dr. Elias Akleh * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Palestinians in the Israeli occupied West Bank face waves after waves of Israeli terror campaigns throughout the year. These terror waves are committed by Israeli extremist settlers (colonizers) as well as the Israeli army. The most common attacks include violent trespassing on Palestinian properties during the night, stone throwing at civilians and their homes, physical assaults on farmers, children and women, destruction of all types of properties, burning civilian structures, crops and trees, shooting livestock, poisoning wells, and theft of crops and cutting fruit trees. The worst of these Israeli terror attacks are committed during harvest seasons, especially during olive season.

Olive trees are very important part of the Palestinian agricultural economy. They have been a major source of livelihood for Palestinians for thousands of years. Olive groves are spread all over the country and every Palestinian house has a couple of olive trees in its front or backyards. Many olive trees are thousands of years old.

As one of their key sources of income, the olive harvest season is a time of critical importance for Palestinians. Harvesting olives is a Palestinian communal activity that involves all classes of population. All family members; children as well as seniors, can be seen working in the fields. School students also volunteer to help farmers during the season. Olive mills and pressers open for business during this season to produce oil, to can pickled olives, and to export the products to other countries. The whole country becomes as busy as a bee hive. Over the last decades olive harvesting has become increasingly difficult due to Israeli settlers (colonizers) and army attacks.

Israeli governments as well as extremist settlers (colonizers) understand that Palestinians get more attached to their country during harvest season, especially during olive harvest. In order for the Zionist Israeli transfer/eviction plan of Palestinians to succeed, this Palestinian sacred attachment to the land must be broken. Thus the Palestinian economy and especially farm land is targeted by the Israeli government as well as the terrorist settlers (colonizers).

To destroy Palestinian farm land the Israeli government designates fields as closed military areas, surround it with barbed wires, and prevent entry to Palestinian farmers. The Israeli apartheid/separation wall had also isolated Palestinian farmers from their land. Although Palestinians resort to Israeli High Court requesting permissions to access their land during harvest seasons, yet no access has ever been granted. Neglected and unattended the fields and the trees become spoiled. After few years the Israeli government claims custodianship of the fields according to the Israeli law of "Absentees' Property". Israeli contractors, then, uproot all fruit trees and build colonies.

Israeli armed extremist terrorist settlers (colonizers) build their colonies on usurped Palestinian land and start terrorizing the adjacent Palestinian villages. Understanding the value and importance of the olive groves to the Palestinian farmers, those extremist Israeli terrorists target this major economic source in an attempt to drive Palestinians away. They invade olive groves with their tractors and bulldozers to harvest the olives for themselves, to uproot trees, to cut branches, to poison water wells, to set fire to crops, and to attack all Palestinians, who attempt to protect their fields. Many times, at the beginning of harvest season, they spray the fruit trees with chemicals to spoil the harvest and to kill the trees.

The terror attacks of settlers (colonizers) during harvest time has been gradually increasing every years until lately it had become a widespread phenomenon. The Israeli Haaretz noted that Israeli police reports have shown that settlers attacks against Palestinians during olive harvest season this year is the highest for the last ten years. I have counted in the media at least 35 terrorist attacks throughout the West Bank specifically related to olive harvest since the beginning of month of October. Many other attacks have not been reported due isolation and to media obstruction. Such number is a clear indication of a wide spread systematic plan of targeting Palestinian farmers during their olive harvest.

Other terrorist attacks such as setting fire to schools and mosques, shooting Palestinian civilians, intentional vehicular hit and run of Palestinian children, violent night raids against Palestinian homes, and eviction of Palestinian families and forceful occupation of their homes are still rampant although not counted in this article.

The majority of settlers' terrorist attacks (90%) took place in areas where Israeli army has security jurisdiction under the Oslo Accord. The increasing frequencies of the attacks indicate at least an intentional failure of the Israeli security forces to protect Palestinians. Under international law an occupying power (Israel in this case) is responsible for the safety of the people under occupation (the Palestinians). The attacks keep on happening in the same areas over and over again. If willing, the Israeli government could send security forces to these areas to prevent clashes. In its complicity the Israeli government encourages terrorist settlers (colonizers) to continue their attacks.

Those terrorist settlers (colonizers) are not restricted to one certain segment of Israelis, rather they come from the whole social spectrum of Israelis; religious, orthodox, secular and mixed colonizers. Their terrorism reflects the true genocidal nature of the Zionist ethnic cleansing philosophy and plan for establishing Greater Israel in an Arab-free Middle East.

Pictures and videos all over the internet show the presence of Israeli soldiers watching settlers attacking Palestinians and don't break up the clashes except to defend settlers, and to harass, beat, arrest Palestinians who dare to defend their groves, and to confiscate the whole harvested crops claiming it as evidence. In cases were arson is involved the Israeli soldiers usually obstruct access of Palestinian firefighters at nearby roadblocks.

Many Palestinian farmers had resorted to the Israeli police reporting the attacks and requesting protection. Since the job of the Israeli police is to protect settlers (colonizers) rather than Palestinians, they ignore such reports. The Israeli Yesh-Din organization (Volunteers for Human Rights) released a study showing that over 90% of police alleged investigations into settlers' attacks against Palestinians fail to produce any indictment and were closed on the grounds of "unknown perpetrators" or insufficient evidence.

The phenomenon of terrorist attacks by Israeli settlers (colonizers) against Palestinian farmers have been noticed by international human rights organizations such as International Solidarity Movement (ISM), who have arranged to send international volunteers to help and to protect Palestinian farmers while harvesting olives. The presence of such international volunteers, with their cameras, had in some areas, deterred and prevented violent settlers (colonizers) and Israeli soldiers from attacking Palestinian farmers. In other areas ISM volunteers, themselves, were specifically targeted by extremist settlers (colonizers) and had sustained injuries even during the presence of Israeli soldiers, who just stood there watching the attacks.

Since attacking ISM volunteers have been captured on cameras and broadcasted throughout European countries the Israeli government had adopted strict and harsh measures to deny international volunteers entry at the airport. The Israeli army had also issued orders to Palestinian villages warning them that housing international activists is illegal and would result in arrests. It was also reported through Palestinian radio that large fines of 6000 NIS have been sentenced against farmers who had invited international activists to accompany them during the olive harvest.

After the harvest Palestinian farmers either sell their olives as is, or press them and sell them as olive oil. Another Israeli method of destroying Palestinian olive harvest is by imposing high fees and taxations against the export of Palestinian olive products. Since Israeli army controls all border terminals the Israeli government hinders and delays the export of olive. In many occasions the products would be stored in warehouses until they get spoiled while waiting for export permits. Meanwhile Palestinians are charged high fees and taxes for storing and exporting their olives. Farmers end up selling their products locally for very cheap prices. Israeli companies would also buy the products from the farmers then turn around and sell them abroad as Israeli products making a lot of profits.

Israeli government always put the responsibility on Hamas government or Lebanese government for any border violent incident against Israeli settlers. Yet it does not take any responsibility for their terrorist settlers attacking Palestinian farmers, stealing their crops, and burning their trees. On the contrary Palestinian farmers are taken to Israeli courts, charged with attacking settlers, and forced to pay large amounts of fines. Such actions send a clear encouraging message to settlers to continue their terrorist crimes.

Settlers' (colonizers) attacks have become as a guaranteed phenomenon as the harvest season itself. Those terrorist settlers (colonizers) are funded by large segments of the American Jewish community and by American tax exempted Jewish organizations with the knowledge and protection of both the Justice Department and Department of Home Land Security. Such funding encourages more terrorism and counter-terrorism rather than peace the Obama administrations claims to pursue in the Middle East.

* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the "Nakba" of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the "Nakseh" of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.

By Alan Hart * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

On 25 September I wrote a piece headlined Obama speaks at the UN… Goodbye to peace. Since then I’ve seen no need for me to contribute to the debate about the farce that President Obama’s push for peace is and was always going to be. But the Arab League’s decision to give Obama a one-month deadline to rescue the direct talks between Abbas and his quisling administration and Netanyahu and his deluded coalition government demands a comment or two.

Arab leaders know that with America’s mid-term elections fast approaching, there is no way a humiliated, increasingly desperate and isolated Obama can even think about applying real pressure on Israel. (I am still of the opinion that he did not enter the Oval Office programmed to do Zionism’s bidding. His real problem was that he was too inexperienced and naïve. As a consequence of that he was bound to become the prisoner of the Zionist lobby and its stooges in Congress. At the time of writing, and given his counter-productive escalation of targeted assassinations by armed drones, I am beginning to wonder if Obama will go down in history as one of the worst presidents America has ever had).

So why are they, Arab leaders, going through the motions?

The short answer is that once again they are seeking to cover the ugly nakedness of their impotence.

The most relevant question, it seems to me, is what, in theory, could Arab leaders still do to give themselves a reasonable chance of countering Zionism’s influence on American policy for the Middle East?

Prefaced by a summary statement of all the initiatives the Arabs including the Palestinians have taken for peace on terms which any rational government and people in Israel would have accepted with relief, they could threaten to

• Sever their diplomatic relations with the U.S.
• Withdraw their financial support for America’s broken economy
• Turn off the oil taps

As I have written and said on more than a few occasions in the past, Zionism’s key players know how to play the cards they were dealt and Arab leaders don’t.

Zionism’s four main cards were and are the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust for blackmail purposes; money (virtually unlimited funds) and the influence it buys; the organized Jewish vote; and, more generally speaking, breathtakingly, brilliant organization and co-ordination.

The Arabs have always had an ace that would trump all of Zionism’s cards. OIL.

Imagine what would have happened in the immediate aftermarth of the 1967 war if Arab leaders had put their act together and sent one of their number secretly to Washington DC to say something very like the following to President Johnson behind closed doors: “If you don’t get Israel back behind its pre-war borders, we’ll turn off the oil taps.”

If Johnson had believed that Arab leaders were united and serious, he would have replied with something very like the following: “I can’t guarantee swift action on Jerusalem but give me two or three weeks for the rest.”

If the Zionists had been in the Arab position, that IS how they would have played their hand. And that is not pure speculation on my part. Over the years I have been told so by a number of Israeli leaders including former Directors of Military Intelligence.

The main point I’m making is that if Johnson had believed that Arab leaders were united and serious, they would not have had to turn off the oil taps. A secret, credible threat to do so would have been enough to cause Johnson (or any president) to put America’s own best interests first.

Will Arab leaders ever learn how to play their cards (if only to best protect their own longer term, real interests)?

I fear not.

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

By Michel Chossudovsky* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Humanity is at a dangerous crossroads. War preparations to attack Iran are in "an advanced state of readiness". Hi tech weapons systems including nuclear warheads are fully deployed.

This military adventure has been on the Pentagon's drawing board since the mid-1990s. First Iraq, then Iran according to a declassified 1995 US Central Command document.

Escalation is part of the military agenda. While Iran, is the next target together with Syria and Lebanon, this strategic military deployment also threatens North Korea, China and Russia.

Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America's NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated.

This is a coordinated endeavor of the Pentagon, NATO, Israel's Defense Force (IDF), with the active military involvement of several non-NATO partner countries including the frontline Arab states (members of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative), Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, among others. (NATO consists of 28 NATO member states Another 21 countries are members of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), The Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative include ten Arab countries plus Israel.)

The roles of Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (within the extended military alliance) is of particular relevance. Egypt controls the transit of war ships and oil tankers through the Suez Canal. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States occupy the South Western coastlines of the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. In early June, "Egypt reportedly allowed one Israeli and eleven U.S. ships to pass through the Suez Canal in ....an apparent signal to Iran. ... On June 12, regional press outlets reported that the Saudis had granted Israel the right to fly over its airspace..." (Muriel Mirak Weissbach, Israel's Insane War on Iran Must Be Prevented., Global Research, July 31, 2010)

In post 9/11 military doctrine, this massive deployment of military hardware has been defined as part of the so-called "Global War on Terrorism", targeting "non-State" terrorist organizations including al Qaeda and so-called "State sponsors of terrorism",. including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan.

The setting up of new US military bases, the stockpiling of advanced weapons systems including tactical nuclear weapons, etc. were implemented as part of the pre-emptive defensive military doctrine under the umbrella of the "Global War on Terrorism".

War and the Economic Crisis

The broader implications of a US-NATO Israel attack on Iran are far-reaching. The war and the economic crisis are intimately related. The war economy is financed by Wall Street, which stands as the creditor of the US administration. The US weapons producers are the recipients of the US Department of Defense multibillion dollar procurement contracts for advanced weapons systems. In turn, "the battle for oil" in the Middle East and Central Asia directly serves the interests of the Anglo-American oil giants.

The US and its allies are "beating the drums of war" at the height of a Worldwide economic depression, not to mention the most serious environmental catastrophe in World history. In a bitter twist, one of the major players (BP) on the Middle East Central Asia geopolitical chessboard, formerly known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, is the instigator of the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Media Disinformation

Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc "punitive" operation directed against Iran's nuclear facilities rather than an all out war. War preparations include the deployment of US and Israeli produced nuclear weapons. In this context, the devastating consequences of a nuclear war are either trivialised or simply not mentioned.

The "real crisis" threatening humanity, according to the media and the governments, is not war but global warming. The media will fabricate a crisis where there is no crisis: "a global scare" -- the H1N1 global pandemic-- but nobody seems to fear a US sponsored nuclear war.

The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others. It is not viewed as a threat to "Mother Earth" as in the case of global warming. It is not front-page news. The fact that an attack on Iran could lead to escalation and potentially unleash a "global war" is not a matter of concern.

The Cult of Killing and Destruction

The global killing machine is also sustained by an imbedded cult of killing and destruction which pervades Hollywood movies, not to mention the prime time war and crime TV series on network television. This cult of killing is endorsed by the CIA and the Pentagon which also support (finance) Hollywood productions as an instrument of war propaganda:

"Ex-CIA agent Bob Baer told us, "There's a symbiosis between the CIA and Hollywood" and revealed that former CIA director George Tenet is currently, "out in Hollywood, talking to studios." (Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, Lights, Camera... Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood, Global Research, January 31, 2009).

The killing machine is deployed at a global level, within the framework of the unified combat command structure. It is routinely upheld by the institutions of government, the corporate media and the mandarins and intellectuals of the New World Order in Washington's think tanks and strategic studies research institutes, as an unquestioned instrument of peace and global prosperity.

A culture of killing and violence has become imbedded in human consciousness.

War is broadly accepted as part of a societal process: The Homeland needs to be "defended" and protected.

"Legitimized violence" and extrajudicial killings directed against "terrorists" are upheld in western democracies, as necessary instruments of national security.

A "humanitarian war" is upheld by the so-called international community. It is not condemned as a criminal act. Its main architects are rewarded for their contributions to world peace.

With regard to Iran, what is unfolding is the outright legitimization of war in the name of an illusive notion of global security.

A "Pre-emptive" Aerial attack directed against Iran would lead to Escalation

At present there are three separate Middle East Central Asia war theaters: Iraq, Af-Pak, and Palestine.

Were Iran to be the object of a "pre-emptive" aerial attack by allied forces, the entire region, from the Eastern Mediterranean to China's Western frontier with Afghanistan and Pakistan, would flare up, leading us potentially into a World War III scenario.

The war would also extend into Lebanon and Syria.

It is highly unlikely that the bombings, if they were to be implemented, would be circumscribed to Iran's nuclear facilities as claimed by US-NATO official statements. What is more probable is an all out air attack on both military and civilian infrastructure, transport systems, factories, public buildings.

Iran, with an an estimated ten percent of global oil and gas reserves, ranks third after Saudi Arabia (25 %) and Iraq (11 %) in the size of its reserves. In comparison, the US possesses less than 2.8 % of global oil reserves. The oil reserves of the U.S. are estimated at less than 20 billion barrels. The broader region of the Middle East and Central Asia have oil reserves which are more than thirty times those of the U.S, representing more than 60% of the World's total reserves. (See Eric Waddell, The Battle for Oil, Global Research, December 2004).

Of significance is the recent discovery in Iran of the second largest known reserves of natural gas at Soumar and Halgan estimated at 12.4 trillion cubic feet.

Targeting Iran consists not only in reclaiming Anglo-American control over Iran's oil and gas economy, including pipeline routes, it also challenges the presence and influence of China and Russia in the region.

The planned attack on Iran is part of a coordinated global military road map. It is part of the Pentagon's "long war", a profit driven war without borders, a project of World domination, a sequence of military operations.

US-NATO military planners have envisaged various scenarios of military escalation. They are also acutely aware of the geopolitical implications, namely that the war could extend beyond the Middle East Central Asia region. The economic impacts on the oil markets, etc. have also been analyzed.

While Iran, Syria and Lebanon are the immediate targets, China, Russia, North Korea, not to mention Venezuela and Cuba are also the object of US threats.

At stake is the structure of military alliances. US-NATO-Israel military deployments including military exercises and drills conducted on Russia and China's immediate borders bear a direct relationship to the proposed war on Iran. These veiled threats, including their timing, constitute an obvious hint to the former powers of the Cold War era not to intervene in any way which could encroach upon a US-led attack on Iran.

Global Warfare

The medium term strategic objective is to target Iran and neutralize Iran's allies, through gunboat diplomacy. The longer term military objective is to directly target China and Russia.

While Iran is the immediate target, military deployment is by no means limited to the Middle East and Central Asia. A global military agenda has been formulated.

The deployment of coalition troops and advanced weapons systems by the US, NATO and its partners is occurring simultaneously in all major regions of the World.

The recent actions of the US military off the coast of North Korea including the conduct of war games are part of a global design.

Directed primarily against Russia and China, US, NATO and allied military exercises, war drills, weapons deployments, etc. are being conducted simultaneously in major geopolitical hotspots.

-The Korean Peninsula, the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan Straits, the South China Sea threatening China.

-The deployment of Patriot missiles in Poland, the early warning center in the Czech republic threatening Russia.

-Naval deployments in Bulgaria, Romania on the Black Sea, threatening Russia.

- US and NATO troops deployments in Georgia.

- A formidable naval deployment in the Persian Gulf including Israeli submarines directed against Iran.

Concurrently the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caribbean, Central America and the Andean region of South America are areas of ongoing militarization. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the threats are directed against Venezuela and Cuba.

US "Military Aid"

In turn, large scale weapons transfers have been undertaken under the banner of US "military aid" to selected countries, including a 5 billion dollar arms deal with India which is intended to build India's capabilities directed against China. (Huge U.S.-India Arms Deal To Contain China, Global Times, July 13, 2010).

"[The] arms sales will improve ties between Washington and New Delhi, and, intentionally or not, will have the effect of containing China's influence in the region." quoted in Rick Rozoff, Confronting both China and Russia: U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010)

The US has military cooperation agreements with a number of South East Asian countries including Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia, involving "military aid" as well as the participation in U.S.-led war games in the Pacific Rim (July -August 2010). These agreements are supportive of weapons deployments directed against The People's Republic of China. (See Rick Rozoff, Confronting both China and Russia: U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010).

Similarly and more directly related to the planned attack on Iran, the US is arming the Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) with land-based interceptor missiles, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) as well as sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors installed on Aegis class warships in the Persian Gulf. (See Rick Rozoff, NATO's Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran, Global Research, February 10, 2010).

The Timetable of Military Stockpiling and Deployment

What is crucial in regards to US weapons transfers to partner countries and allies is the actual timing of delivery and deployment. The launch of a US sponsored military operation would normally occur once these weapons systems are in place, effectively deployed with the implementation of personnel training. (e.g India).

What we are dealing with is a carefully coordinated global military design controlled by the Pentagon, involving the combined armed forces of more than forty countries. This global multinational military deployment is by far the largest display of advanced weapons systems in World history.

In turn, the US and its allies have established new military bases in different parts of the world. "The Surface of the Earth is Structured as a Wide Battlefield". (See Jules Dufour, The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases , Global Research, July 1, 2007).

The Unified Command structure divided up into geographic Combatant Commands is predicated on a strategy of militarization at the global level. "The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries. In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide." (See Jules Dufour, The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases , Global Research, July 1, 2007.

Source: DefenseLINK-Unified Command Plan. (Click to enlarge)

World War III Scenario

"The World Commanders' Areas of Responsibility" (See Map above) defines the Pentagon's global military design, which is one of World conquest. This military deployment is occurring in several regions simultaneously under the coordination of the regional US Commands, involving the stockpiling of US made weapons systems by US forces and partner countries, some of which are former enemies, including Vietnam and Japan.

The present context is characterised by a global military build-up controlled by one World superpower, which is using its numerous allies to trigger regional wars.

In contrast, the Second World War was a conjunction of separate regional war theaters. Given the communications technologies and weapons systems of the 1940s, there was no strategic "real time" coordination in military actions between broad geographic regions

Global warfare is based on the coordinated deployment of a single dominant military power, which oversees the actions of its allies and partners.

With the exception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Second World War was characterized by the use of conventional weapons. The planning of a global war relies on the militarization of outer space. Were a war directed against Iran to be launched, it would not only use nuclear weapons, the entire gamut of new advanced weapons systems, including Electrometric Weapons and Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) would be used.

The United Nations Security Council

The UN Security Council adopted in early June a fourth round of sweeping sanctions against The Islamic Republic of Iran, which included an expanded arms embargo as well "tougher financial controls". In a bitter irony, this resolution was passed within days of the United Nations Secrity Council's outright refusal to adopt a motion condemning Israel for its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters.

Both China and Russia, pressured by the US, have endorsed the UNSC sanctions' regime, to their own detriment. Their decision within the UNSC contributes to weakening their own military alliance, the Shanghai Cooperation organization (SCO), in which Iran has observer status. The Security Council resolution freezes China and Russia's respective bilateral military cooperation and trade agreements with Iran. It has serious repercussions on Iran's air defense system which in part depends on Russian technology and expertise.

The Security Council resolution grants a de facto "green light" to wage a pre-emptive war against Iran.

The American Inquisition: Building a Political Consensus for War

In chorus, the Western media has branded Iran as a threat to global security in view of its alleged (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. Echoing official statements, the media is now demanding the implementation of punitive bombings directed against Iran so as to safeguard Israel's security.

The Western media is beating the drums of war. The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people's inner consciousness, the notion that the Iranian threat is real and that the Islamic Republic should be "taken out".

A consensus building process to wage war is similar to the Spanish inquisition. It requires and demands submission to the notion that war is a humanitarian endeavor.

Known and documented, the real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance, yet realities in an inquisitorial environment are turned upside down: the warmongers are committed to peace, the victims of war are presented as the protagonists of war. Whereas in 2006, almost two thirds of Americans were opposed to military action against Iran, a recent Reuter-Zogby February 2010 poll suggests that 56 % of Americans favor a US-NATO military action against Iran.

Building a political consensus which is based on an outright lie cannot, however, rely solely on the official position of those who are the source of the lie.

The antiwar movement in the US, which has in part been infiltrated and co-opted, has taken on a weak stance with regard to Iran. The antiwar movement is divided. The emphasis has been on wars which have already occurred (Afghanistan, Iraq) rather than forcefully opposing wars which are being prepared and which are currently on the Pentagon's drawing board. Since the inauguration of the Obama administration, the antiwar movement has lost some of its impetus.

Moreover, those who actively oppose the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, do not necessarily oppose the conduct of "punitive bombings" directed Iran, nor do they categorize these bombings as an act of war, which could potentially be a prelude to World War III.

The scale of antiwar protest in relation to Iran has been minimal in comparison to the mass demonstrations which preceded the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq.

The real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance.

The Iran operation is not being opposed in the diplomatic arena by China and Russia; it has the support of the governments of the frontline Arab states which are integrated into the NATO sponsored Mediterranean dialogue. It also has the tacit support of Western public opinion.

We call upon people across the land, in America, Western Europe, Israel, Turkey and around the world to rise up against this military project, against their governments which are supportive of military action against Iran, against the media which serves to camouflage the devastating implications of a war against Iran.

The military agenda support a profit driven destructive global economic system which impoverishes large sectors of the world population.

This war is sheer madness.

World War III is terminal. Albert Einstein understood the perils of nuclear war and the extinction of life on earth, which has already started with the radioactive contamination resulting from depleted uranium. "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

The media, the intellectuals, the scientists and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate the untold truth, namely that war using nuclear warheads destroys humanity, and that this complex process of gradual destruction has already commenced.

When the lie becomes the truth there is no turning backwards.

When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor, Justice and the entire international legal system are turned upside down: pacifism and the antiwar movement are criminalized. Opposing the war becomes a criminal act.

The Lie must be exposed for what it is and what it does.

It sanctions the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children.

It destroys families and people. It destroys the commitment of people towards their fellow human beings.

It prevents people from expressing their solidarity for those who suffer. It upholds war and the police state as the sole avenue.

It destroys both nationalism and internationalism.

Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force.

This profit driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies.

Let us reverse the tide.

Challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corproate lobby groups wich support them

Break the American inquisition.

Undermine the US-NATO-Israel military crusade.

Close down the weapons factories and the military bases.

Bring home the troops.

Members of the armed forces should disobey orders and refuse to participate in a criminal war.

Part II of this essay published here.

Towards a World War III Scenario? The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran (Part II The Military Road Map)

* Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America's "War on Terrorism" (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

By Mark Morford | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

By Monte Wolverton

I come bearing fabulous news. There is no longer any need to concern yourself with pesky trifles like love, a mortgage, child rearing, planting a garden, dreams, money, shoes, wristwatches, parking spaces, mysterious rashes, foreign policy, baseball, bridge tolls or generally caring about much of anything in particular.

I am delighted to report it will all be over soon. If not sooner. It's true.

And it's a good thing, too, because I was just reading up on six of the worst-case scenarios resulting from the BP spill, all sorts of horrors and tragedies, abuses and unspeakables, from dire seafood shortages to horrifying ecosystem destruction, wildlife mutilation to all the years and decades before the gulf region will be anywhere near recovered. These scenarios all were, in a word, bleak. They were, in three more, thoroughly f--ing depressing.

They were also, whoops, from about two months ago. So I clicked around and quickly found another, far more recent worst-case scenario article, and boy, were its scenarios worse indeed. So awful that they effectively made the earlier batch seem meek and laughable and even sort of quaint.

So it's come to this. Every day in the media, a sort of deranged, comical footrace to figure out which worst-case scenario is really the worst, because every day comes a new stat, prediction, photo, possibility for abject horror we hadn't even conceptualized yet because, well, we've never exactly been here before, not at this scale. How bad can it all get, really? No one has a clue. Joy!

But I'm not at all worried. Because the fact is, almost none of those worst-case scenarios will actually come to pass. Do you know why? Because there are two or three even worse worst-case scenarios that easily trump any you might be reading about anywhere. Ultra, mega, super worst-case scenarios that make all the rest seem like a little splotch on your pretty new iPhone 4.

So, just what are these supermegaworst-case scenarios? They all have one thing in common: Each one of them, all by itself, spells the end of modern life as we know it. Utter annihilation. The End. I am so not kidding. OK, maybe a little. But only until we all die. After that, not kidding at all.

BP Will Kill Us All Scenario #1: Everyone knows that, early on in the spill, BP was thoughtful enough to pump millions of gallons of a horrible chemical dispersant called Corexit 9500 into the gusher, a violently toxic compound so notoriously lethal it's been banned for years by the European union. Obama & Co finally caught on to BP's tactic and told them to knock it off.

Too late. Obscure Russian scientists tell us Corexit's deadly compounds are now breaking up and evaporating into North American rainclouds, which will shortly begin raining down complete toxic hell on us all, poisoning all crops, babies, cats, Christians, Starbucks baristas and none-too-bright redneck videographers -- though it will somehow magically spare the really good jazz clubs in Louisiana and that one guy who scored the goal for the USA in the World Cup, because he's a freakin' hero.

These scientists say the toxic rain could be so poisonous, it will destroy the entire food chain and plunge North America into chaos, rendering the entire region unlivable, with any straggling survivors crawling desperately up to Canada, where they will be promptly made into slave labor to build hockey arenas and drink lager and fade into the woods.

Does that sound dubious? Totally implausible? Fine. No problem. For there is another, even better backup apocalypse scenario, even more melodramatic and wickedly cinematic, and therefore much more likely to come to pass.

BP Will Kill Us All Scenario #2: Apparently, deep in the ocean floor, just beneath the gushing oil, lives a massive bubble of methane gas the size of... oh, let's just say Texas. Maybe Oklahoma. South Carolina. Someplace gassy and slightly rancid and always ready to explode at the poke of a big phallic stick.

This is the drama: All our mucking around on the ocean floor could trigger a methane explosion so gargantuan, it will cause a tsunami. Not just any tsunami, mind you, but a "supersonic tsunami" so ultra-awesomely massive it will effortlessly wipe out the much of the gulf coast states, killing millions and completely destabilizing the nation and inducing zombie riots in the streets as everyone wails over the loss of Florida. Or, you know, not.

So there you have it. Toxic rain and supersonic tsunamis, the end of North America as we know it. Done. Finished. Certainly, one of those two scenarios is guaranteed to come to pass, right? Maybe, if we're really lucky, even both?

All right, fine. In the off-off chance that invisible Russian scientists and nutball doomsayers are wrong (impossible!), well, there is one more glorious mega scenario to consider. There is a backup to the backup to the backup. Hey, we're Americans. When it comes to dorky apocalyptic visions, we got you covered.

Here is your grand finale: A new survey says that a disturbingly large percentage of Americans -- 40 percent, to be exact -- actually believe Jesus will return by 2050, likely riding on the back of a flaming asteroid (30 percent think one will hit us by then), waving a cowboy hat and yodeling as he careens toward our hapless blue dot of inequity, pain and lousy AT&T reception.

Jesus will then crash land in Texas, wink at Dubya and Sarah Palin, and then sweep up all the True Believers in their beige Dodge minivans just as the earth shudders and implodes, just like one of those swirling black holes in "Star Trek."

How cool will that be? Answer: It will be very cool indeed. It is so cool, in fact, it totally wipes out the need to care much about anything at all. See how easy? Now, who wants pie?

Source: ICH

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

To millions of Americans, the "end times" seem to be on us. The BP disaster in the Gulf may leave 25% of America virtually uninhabitable, eco-systems destroyed for sure but maybe much more, a destroyed sea floor, toxic gas clouds moving inland and warnings of something worse, a geological disaster of biblical proportions sitting offshore like a ticking time bomb. Millions of American believe the president is a foreign born Muslim, a puppet of the terrorists while millions believe he is working for Israel. Every speech, every state visit, everything done is seen to support one side or another, sometimes both. The destruction of the American presidency is only part of it, part of a program of racial division, fear, hate and a descent into class warfare and violence.

The end result of the disasters, political infighting, religious extremism, the total collapse of trust in America's system of government and the infiltration of terrorist elements into every institution, America's military and political core, financial terrorists working to destroy America's standard of living, its industrial base, its currency and, eventually the last of its freedoms will be the division of America, starting with an apartheid state and ending in "Balkanization" and the world's largest nuclear arsenal being unleashed on the world. This has been heard before, it is a story that faith based broadcasting has been sending out to the American people for the past thirty years. The biblical flood began when the money disappeared.

ECONOMIC APOCALYPSE

The serious side is the economic meltdown. Even with the hundreds of billions Americans borrowed to give to our "banksters" who our "congress critters" decided were too big to allow to fail, we have no banks, simply depositories for stolen money while it waits to be shipped overseas. Money is taken in, none loaned out, not for jobs in America anyway. All the government did was to push the burgeoning debt left us by the Bush/Cheney failures even higher, topping $13 trillion dollars this month, money we owe to pay back money we never got from people who had no right to print it in the first place.

More and more Americans are becoming aware of the fact that our system, the Federal Reserve, is nothing but a racket where foreign bankers, all thinly disguised Rothschilds, sell us our own money while maneuvering us into debt, really a massive mortgage on America's future, we can never keep up the payments on. America has been systematically destabilized, the most powerful nation in the history of the earth, living on borrowed money and, frankly, borrowed time.

TOO MUCH TO STOMACH, BP BUYING OUR GOVERNMENT AND LIEBERMAN CONTROLLING THE INTERNET

When Americans look at television and see half their politicians crying about BP, a company that laid waste to more of the planet than any in history, they see a world upside down. They know their politicians take money, everyone knows this, but to think they would be brazen enough to scream out "yes, we are crooks, what are you going to do about it?" is more than that. It is an announcement that anyone in government can do anything they want, anything, and never answer for it, not even face reelection problems. The more crooked a politician, the more favorable press he gets, the more the Israel lobby supports him, the more the Tea Baggers support him, the more "heroic" he is portrayed by the pundits and fear mongers.

Things have gotten so bad that Senator Josef Liebermann (I-srael) has introduced a bill that would allow the internet to be closed down in case of "emergency." Liberman talks about terrorism or espionage but the real problem was that the "corporate press" got caught lying over the Freedom Flotilla massacre and millions of Americans have turned to the internet for the news, news sometimes bizarre, conspiratorial and fringe, often however, much more accurate and truthful than the newspapers and TV networks. His bill, written in Tel Aviv, is designed to make Americans who depend on the internet for news and communication feel helpless, isolated and ready to turn to violence.

Picture yourself going to the computer. Your email is blocked, nothing in, nothing out. You are looking at one screen, the same thing on every computer in the country. The logo, a simply, DHS, Department of Homeland Security. In the middle of the screen is a new search engine, "Safety Friendly Family Approved Searches." Below that are approved news stories, linking you to ABC, CNN, FOX, CBS, MSNBC, the WSJ, NYT, WP and Family Security Matters.org. Below that is a warning:

"Your microphone and webcam are in active mode. Do not attempt to mute, shield or disable under penalty of law."

Senator Lieberman is trying to start a civil war, more than just planting the seeds, this is a provocation, a clear and present danger to American freedom.

BUILDING THE MECHANISM OF APOCALYPSE, THE MOVE TO APARTHEID

Let's talk about "social cohesion." Israel has shipped their five million Palestinians to Jordan, Lebanon or Gaza to have social cohesion, one country, one race, one religion, no room for outsiders, no matter how long they have been around. America did the same thing with the Indians (Native Americans), eventually wiping most of them out in a series of wars, treaties and resettlement programs. However, America's problems with social cohesion are far greater than Israel's or even those of America during the pioneering years. Today, we are a society divided on, not only race and ethnicity but region, religion and, worst of all, extremist political views. The government that is supposed to join us together and the constitution that is meant to guarantee our belief in equal justice for all have been ground into the dust, twisted, bought, obliterated and disfigured.

America is heading for a meltdown. Another civil war is possible, even likely. 40% of states are bankrupt. This means they can't pay police or teachers or fix roads except with borrowed federal money. It also means their pension plans, all that is meant to keep millions of Americans out of dire poverty in retirement, are gone. The states lost their pension plans in the 2007 collapse. Only federal bail outs, which aren't going to happen, will cover this massive shortfall. Eventually, workers, hundreds of thousands of families who worked and saved for financial security will be told it isn't there anymore. This isn't the future, it happened, its real and it can't be hidden very long.

There is no federal government to step in and carry the load. Wars have left it drowning and political corruption has crippled America to where it is no more stable than many of the nations of Africa. Hiding behind years of scare tactics, terrorism, tiny countries with nuclear weapons, or the real problem of Mexico's collapse under the rule of drug lords and the millions flooding into our country, financial criminals have looted America and a worldwide criminal conspiracy of financial criminals, headquartered in Tel Aviv and New York, protected by congress and Mossad death squads traveling the world with German passports. The press, something we generously call either the "mainstream media" or "corporate controlled press" isn't just a mechanism for censorship, its part of a long term effort to destroy the faith Americans have in their own ability as people to rule themselves and trust, not the criminals presented to vote for in elections, but their own ability to reject the lot of them.

THE MANY FACES OF THE AMERICAN TALIBAN

Radicalization of America has been the goal all along. Who would have ever believed that internet conspiracy theory would end up being, not only more believable, but more fair and certainly more balanced than traditional media sources that have been discredited to such a degree in recent months. A key area of division in America has been religion. For awhile, financed by the Israeli lobby and the "bankster" criminal elements, the "neo-cons" were able to build a bridge uniting Evangelical Christians with Christian Zionists, groups that are, from a scriptural standpoint light years apart. To this, the abortion/women's rights issue drew many Catholics to abandon their traditional values and join with these groups which had shared little in common with them. Catholics are urban, typically well educated with a Euro-centric culture, while Evangelicals shun higher education for religious instruction.

The first American Taliban may have been the Puritans but they have been eclipsed in American history by the atavism of the Mormon Church, whose beliefs deeply parallel the most frightening and profound heresies of Islam, church over state, no rights for women and an undercurrent of violence unrivaled by any sect seen in a western society since the Albigensians. Mormons, chased across America, seized much of the Southwest and set up a defacto government, one with little in common with the rest of America. As the Mormon regions of America come into conflict with the massive Hispanic Catholic population, the roots of dissolution, border wars, draconian race laws and eventually full apartheid will take hold. It will start in Arizona and spread through the American West.

Perhaps the largest threat is the religious theory of Zionism. Originally a race theory based on Jewish racial superiority and political supremacy, offshoots of Zionism have entered Evangelical Christian belief systems creating the heresy known as Christian Zionism. Original Zionism, a violent and radical offshoot of Judaism is more racial than religious or political in nature. Though a minority of American Jews practice Zionistic beliefs, most are coerced into either financial support or even into sending children into military servitude in Israel in order to avoid social ostracism.

As the result of the founding of Israel in Judea or Palestine, a slow decline in social,cultural and intellectual traditions has infected the Jewish community in America, one known for the advancement of social causes and broad advocacy of American freedoms. With the increased radicalization of America and her economic decline, many Jews have looked to Israel as an anchor, failing to take into account the role Israel has played in the onset of the entropy they fear. This situation could be equated with burning down your home to save your garage.

Christian Zionists have only anecdotal similarities with the Judaic variety. They tend to be rural, poorly educated, envious and resentful, not only of what they call "elites" but many other groups as well but primarily African Americans. The basis of Christian Zionism is hatred of African Americans. All other monikers or descriptions are a subterfuge to escape the labels these same groups had been associated with in the past, Klan, racist or bigot.

Hiding behind tortured and obscure biblical references and using bizarre stories of disaster and apocalypse, stories oddly well supported by current times, these simple rural people unable to grasp much of the complex modern world. They have been melded into a political front serving the interests of Israel, a state they understand poorly, and the class of economic criminals, many associated with Israel but also with the movement in America called "conservatism." Their political role has been to serve as a vocal and sometimes violent front for the economic oligarchy, a very real monied elite, that has assumed broad control over America's policitcal and social life.

THE DOOM SO MANY PRAYED SO HARD FOR IS HERE

America's security has been tied, for 65 years, to NATO. Today, our newspaper and TV gurus are telling us to dissolve NATO. With the breakdown of the alliance between Israel and Turkey, Israel, who controls 444 members of congress and 50% of America's wealth has demanded that America either throw Turkey out of NATO or leave herself. As yet, Israel is allowing the United States to remain in the United Nations because America's security council veto, used hundreds of times to save Israel from sanctions for war crimes or nuclear proliferation violations, is vital to the welare of Israel.

This week, Israel was discovered on the verge of bombing Iran. Little real damage would have been done. Iran has no nuclear infrastructure tied to weapons manufacture. The intent would be, as Israel had planned it, to enter Iran from the north where there are few defenses, bomb useless and remote targets, safe targets so all planes could return and claim a major victory, destroying that which did not exist. As Saudi Arabia has already been set up as the fall guy, said to have allowed the attack in advance, something the Saudis deny, they would become hated among Muslim nations.

Israel's plan is to force Iran to attack Saudi Arabia, close the Straits of Hormuz and push America and Western Europe into total collapse. With 60% of the world's oil supply eliminated, world financial and currency markets would collapse and the world's armaments industry would explode with orders. Israel is the third largest exporter of weapons. Israel prides itself as the inventor of "game theory," the method of strategic planning making use of deception, manipulation, "false flag attacks," assassinations, bribery and blackmail in a complex chess match meant to bring the world to a chaotic state subject to their mathematical models. Israel is filled with Nobel Prize winners. This is what they work on.

The apolcalypse that Christian Zionists prayed for, the "end times" though to begin with a series of natural disasters has been hurried along. Pushing for a nuclear war has always been a part of it but the possiblity, not yet proven, that the BP disaster in the Gulf could eventually turn the Gulf Stream and leave Europe uninhabitable is a continual subject of discussion with America's religious broadcast community.

HOW DESTABILIZATION BECOMES APARTHEID

With collapse in the trust in America's institutions, a Supreme Court with five neo-Fascist judges, congress with 444 "Israeli-firsters," and millions of Americans believing the president is the Anti-Christ, one more economic disaster, the one Israel is attempting to stage right now, would make the 2007 collapse seem like a joke. With the broadcast media having worked the country into fear, distrust and ready to pick up weapons to use against their neighbors, all carefully staged, the scripts have been passed out.

You will know when you see the face of Sarah Palin on every network, perhaps in a pantsuit with a miltiary cut. Do you think she will be wearing a beret? There will be a flag behind her and the Star Spangled Banker will fade to silence as she makes the announcements.

Nuclear arsenals will be seized by patriotic groups from within our military, led by Israeli commandos and helped by our armies of private defense contractors. Those secret "FEMA/UN" prisons will suddenly turn out to be real, with local police in riot gear, American flags on their cars and uniforms, hunting down journalists, activists and, eventually, the educated.

Senator Lieberman will pull the plug on the internet. Private logins will carry arrest lists.

After the educated classes and politially progressive groups are rounded up, then the African Americans and Hispanics will be cataloged, given travel restrictions. Pass laws will be enacted.

Then, surprise of surprises, they will start rounding up Jews.

Welcome to the hell of your own making.

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

By Maidhc Ó Cathail* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

This month marks the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Despite the passage of time, there is still much confusion, some of it deliberate, about why America made that fateful decision. The following questions are intended to clarify who's to blame for the Iraq war.

1. Ahmed Chalabi, the source of much of the false "intelligence" about Iraqi WMD, was introduced to his biggest boosters Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz by their mentor, a University of Chicago professor who had known the Iraqi con man since the 1960s. Who was this influential Cold War hawk who has an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) conference centre named in his honour?

2. In 1982, "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s" appeared in Kivunim, a journal published by the World Zionist Organization, which stated: "Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel." Who wrote this seminal article?

3. "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," a report prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, recommended "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq-an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." Which then member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board was the study group leader?

4. A November 1997 Weekly Standard editorial titled "Saddam Must Go" stated: "We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it's time to start thinking the unthinkable." The following year, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, published a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a "hazard" to "a significant portion of the world's supply of oil." The co-founders of PNAC were also the authors of the "Saddam Must Go" editorial. Who are they?

5. In Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, published by AEI Press in 1999, he argued that Clinton policies in Iraq were failing to contain the country and proposed that the US use its military to redraw the map of the Middle East. Who was this Mideast adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003 to mid-2007?

6. On September 15, 2001 at Camp David, the Deputy Defense Secretary attempted to justify a US attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan because it was "doable."
In the lead-up to the war, he said that it was "wildly off the mark" to think hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to pacify a postwar Iraq; that the Iraqis "are going to welcome us as liberators"; and that "it is just wrong" to assume that the United States would have to fund the Iraq war. Who is this chief architect of the Iraq war?

7. On September 23, 2001, which US senator, who had pushed for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that there was evidence that "suggests Saddam Hussein may have had contact with bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network, perhaps [was] even involved in the September 11 attack"?

8. A November 12, 2001 New York Times editorial called an alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague an "undisputed fact"? Who was the columnist, celebrated for his linguistic prowess, who was sloppy in his use of language here?

9. A November 20, 2001 Wall Street Journal op-ed argued that the US should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism, claiming, "Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped al Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly (including an assassination attempt against the first President Bush) and developed weapons of mass destruction." Who is the professor of strategic studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University who made these spurious claims?

10. George W. Bush's January 2002 State of the Union address described Iraq as part of an "axis of evil." Who was Bush's Canadian-born speechwriter who coined the provocative phrase?

11. "Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power"? Who is the longtime editor of Commentary magazine who made this assertion in a February 2002 article titled "How to win World War IV"?

12. Which Pentagon Defense Policy Board member and PNAC signatory wrote in the Washington Post on February 13, 2002, "I believe that demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk"?

13. "If we win the war, we are in control of Iraq, it is the single largest source of oil in the world. We will have a bonanza, a financial one, at the other end, if the war is successful." Who is the psychiatrist-turned- Washington Post columnist who tempted Americans with this illusory carrot on August 3, 2002?

14. In a September 20, 2002 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "The Case of Toppling Saddam," which current national leader claimed that Saddam Hussein could be hiding nuclear material "in centrifuges the size of washing machines" throughout the country?

15. "Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990-it's the threat against Israel." Despite this candid admission to a foreign policy conference at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002, he authored the National Security Strategy of September 2002, which provided the justification for a preemptive war against Iraq. Who was this member of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board?

16. According to a December 7, 2002 New York Times article, during Secretary of State Powell's efforts to negotiate a resolution on Iraq at the United Nations, this Iran-Contra conspirator's role was "to make sure that Secretary Powell did not make too many concessions to the Europeans on the resolution's wording, pressing a hard-line view." Who was this senior director of Near East and North African affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration?

17. Who was Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, until he was indicted for lying to federal investigators in the Valerie Plame case, who drafted Colin Powell's fraudulent February 5, 2003 UN speech?

18. According to Julian Borger's July 17, 2003 Guardian article titled "The spies who pushed for war," the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (OSP) "forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel" to provide the Bush administration with alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq. Who was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who headed the OSP?

19. Which British-born professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, whose 1990 essay "The Roots of Muslim Rage" introduced the dubious concept of a "Clash of Civilizations," has been called "perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq"?

20. Apart from their key role in taking America to war against Iraq, what do the answers to questions 1 to 19 all have in common?

Answers: 1. Albert Wohlstetter 2. Oded Yinon 3. Richard Perle 4. William Kristol and Robert Kagan 5. David Wurmser 6. Paul Wolfowitz 7. Joseph Lieberman 8. William Safire 9. Eliot Cohen 10. David Frum 11. Norman Podhoretz 12. Kenneth Adelman 13. Charles Krauthammer 14. Benjamin Netanyahu 15. Philip Zelikow 16. Elliott Abrams 17. Lewis "Scooter" Libby 18. Douglas Feith 19. Bernard Lewis 20. They are all Jewish Zionists.

* Maidhc Ó Cathail is a widely published writer based in Japan.

Source: Islam Times

By Dr. Stephen Sniegoski* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Two articles, one by anti-war conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan and the other by neoconservative Daniel Pipes, deal with the issue of Obama moving toward war on Iran for political reasons. In "Will Obama Play the War Card?," Patrick Buchanan points out that this option is certainly a political temptation for Obama especially since Congress is pushing him in that direction. Buchanan cites Congress' effort to impose very stiff sanctions on refined petroleum exports to Iran as a move toward war.

[On January 28, 2010, the U.S. Senate passed by voice vote the "Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2009" (S. 2799). The bill now goes to conference committee to be reconciled with a similar bill from the House of Representatives, the "Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act" (H.R. 2194), which passed the House in December 2009. Because of the similarity of the two bills and the strong bipartisan support in both Houses of Congress, a final bill incorporating the essence of the Senate bill is almost guaranteed to be passed by both houses of Congress. The Obama administration has expressed objections, but there is no indication that Obama would dare to veto the final bill-and given the overwhelming congressional support, any presidential veto could be easily over-ridden.]

"Senate bill 2799," Buchanan writes, "would punish any company exporting gasoline to Iran. Though swimming in oil, Iran has a limited refining capacity and must import 40 percent of the gas to operate its cars and trucks and heat its homes." He argues that "cutting off a country's oil or gas is a proven path to war." And he cites the examples of Japan attacking the US in 1941 after the US embargo on oil supplies and Israel attacking Egypt in 1967 after Nasser threatened to close the Straits of Tiran through which Israel received 95 percent of its oil. While the implementation of the current sanctions would not cause Iran to attack the United States, it certainly would increase tensions and help to lead to war. Iran will certainly try to get around the sanctions and any American naval efforts to prevent gasoline from entering Iran could precipitate war.

"The Senate," Buchanan writes, "is trying to force Obama's hand, box him in, restrict his freedom of action, by making him impose sanctions that would cut off the negotiating track and put us on a track to war."

Buchanan also hits the mark by pointing out that "U.S. interests would seem to dictate supporting those elements in Iran who wish to be rid of the regime and re-engage the West. But if that is our goal, the Senate bill, and a House version that passed 412 to 12, seem almost diabolically perverse." The sanctions obviously will tend to unify the country behind the regime. Of course, the neocon/Israel goal is not to bring in the reformers-who also tend to support the Palestine resistance and seek to develop nuclear power-but to destabilize the country by war. This can best be achieved by keeping the demonized Ahmadinejad in power.

In the second article, "How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran," neocon Daniel Pipes naturally encourages Obama to opt for war. "He [Obama] needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.

"Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran's nuclear-weapon capacity."

Pipes candidly admits that the imposition of "crippling" sanctions on Iran would not contribute to a peaceful settlement but would help to put the United States "on an escalator to confrontation that could lead straight to war."

Pipes correctly observes that "Obama's attempts to 'reset' his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics." There are no simply no easy answers for the economic problems that beset America.

Now Pipes is obviously not out to help Obama, but what he says about the political benefits of war are certainly true. If Republican Party leaders were half-way intelligent, they would realize that pushing the country to war is not in their political interest. But the Republican Party is not called the "stupid party" for nothing, and it is in the thrall of the neoconservatives-at least indirectly, since the neocons control Murdoch's Fox News and strongly influence the popular right-wing radio broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh. Republicans already did irreparable damage to their party by giving whole-hearted support for the war on Iraq, so the Republicans are quite likely to snatch defeat from the hands of victory.

Pipes presents something on the order of the spurious claim of Saddam's super dangerous WMD to justify the need for a US bombing attack on Iran. "Eventually, they [Iran] could launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American's friends and enemies." Of course, an Iranian electromagnetic pulse attack is highly theoretical. A high altitude explosion would cause damage to electronic communication devices (a nuclear atmospheric test explosion 800 miles from Hawaii in 1962 knocked out a small percentage of the island's civilian electronic devices) but that it would disrupt all communications devices to the point of preventing a devastating counter strike is highly questionable. Perhaps China, Russia, and the US possess the capability of developing a weapon that could deliver a knockout blow that would prevent nuclear retaliation (though tests to determine this with certitude would seem almost impossible to conduct), but the likelihood that Iran could do this or would dare to take such a risk would seem very remote compared to threats from other countries against the US that would increase every time the US made an unprovoked attack on another country-the more the US engages in allegedly preventive wars, the more likely it is for a fearful nuclear power to launch a preventive war against the US.

Despite the fantasy aspect of an Iranian electromagnetic pulse threat, it is reasonable to believe that such a claim, if publicized widely, could resonate with a substantial proportion of the American public and help to cause the US to launch a preventive war. In fact, this would seem to be the element that is currently lacking in the existing war propaganda -the American people have not yet been made to believe that Iran really threatens the US homeland.

* Dr. Stephen J. Sniegoski is a historian and author of The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel.

By Aijaz Zaka Syed* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

How right Edward Gibbon was when he said history is little more than the register of crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. But perhaps no register is enough to chronicle the crimes double-speaking and double-dealing politicians routinely commit against humanity.

Look at Tony Blair. You would think two years out of power would have narrowed down the gap between the former British prime minister and what is commonly known as common sense. But then there's no antidote to hubris.

In the countdown to the Iraq invasion and long since, Blair insisted ad nauseam that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Speaking in the world's oldest parliament, a grim faced Blair solemnly warned the British public - and the world - that Saddam had the capability and the intent to launch a WMD attack against Britain "within 40 minutes."

In fact, with his gift of the gab the man once known as Britain's most successful politician played a crucial role in building the case for Iraq war, and gifting the much-needed legitimacy to with-us-or-against-us Bush and his cowboy coalition.

Without Britain's support, it's just inconceivable how Bush would have put together his Coalition of the Willing and gone to war against Iraq. As Ken Macdonald, one of Blair's senior public servants and Britain's former chief public prosecutor, wrote in the Times this week, the British leader used "alarming subterfuge with his partner George W Bush" to take the world to war.

A sham war that has totally destroyed Iraq, unleashing chaos that continue to rock the Arab country and the Middle East from one end to another!

Blair and Bush told us this war had been absolutely critical to the security and stability of the 'civilized world.' Just like the morally bankrupt politicians before them did, they told us the war was necessary for peace!

Even when the whole world stood up against the war, from Americas to Asia, the coalition stuck to its guns, insisting the war on Iraq-already on the brink after two major wars and years of devastating Western sanctions-was essential to rid the world of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction!

And now Blair turns around to tell us WMD or no WMD, the Coalition of the Willing would have invaded Iraq anyway. Ironically though, in doing so, the man who has turned the old-fashioned deceit and lying into a refined art, may be telling the truth for a change!

In a now infamous interview with BBC's Fern Britton that captured Blair at his smug best, he gloated: "I would still have thought it right to remove him (Saddam). I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat."

Can this get any more disingenuous? No wonder Blair's claim has reignited the Iraq war debate with some familiar names associated with the circus that preceded the invasion joining the fray.

While individuals like Ken Macdonald, whose conscience hasn't gone to sleep, have blasted the former premier for his lies, deception and sucking up to Bush, there are more revelations from those close to the former prime minister that the Atlantic allies were indeed determined to attack Iraq, WMD or no WMD. This is what anti-war groups, human rights activists and majority of peace-loving people around the world have been saying all along.

This war never had anything to do with Saddam's mythical weapons or his alleged links to Al Qaeda. The West just wanted to invade Iraq and was looking for an excuse to hit it. In fact, it didn't even need an excuse to do so.

According to fresh testimony before Britain's new Iraq inquiry, Blair had signed on to America's Iraq war mission during his visit to Bush's Texas ranch in June 2002. That was a year before the Iraq invasion-and long before Secretary of State Colin Powell swore before the United Nations that Iraq was a 'clear and present danger' to world peace. Remember Powell's claim about Saddam moving around his 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' on trucks?

Sir Christopher Meyer, UK's envoy in Washington during that critical year, told the Iraq inquiry this week that Bush and Blair had 'signed in blood' their Iraq pact during that meeting.

The oil, the Israeli lobby, Bush's Oedipal complexes or old-fashioned hegemonic ambitions, whatever drove the coalition, clearly Iraq had been in its sights right from the day one. This was a war based on and driven by lies and treachery right from the word go.

And Blair's BBC interview has nailed this monumental lie on which this sham war was built. What more do we need? Is that not enough to put him and other leading lights of the coalition in the dock for crimes against Iraqi people and for crimes against humanity? Blair is supposed to appear before the Iraq inquiry later next year. But he has already confessed to his crimes, hasn't he? Blair and Bush are not just guilty of war crimes against Iraqi people but are also guilty of misleading the international community.

It was their WMD claim that persuaded the United Nations and the world community to give that fig leaf of 'international mandate' to Iraq invasion.

Would the United Nations, ineffective and toothless as it is, have given its blessings to the invasion, if its august members had known Saddam didn't have all those frightening weapons that Bush and Blair claimed he had?

The UN Resolution 678 approved use of force against Iraq, only if it failed to 'disarm' itself of its weapons of mass destruction. The coalition used this Security Council resolution, passed in the 1990s during the first Gulf War, to justify the war.

Denuded of that legal and moral cover, the Iraq invasion is nothing but war crimes against a helpless, defenceless people. Which it essentially was! International law doesn't allow any country to force a regime change in other countries even on humanitarian grounds.

As former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, who desperately pleaded with the UN and Western powers to give more time to Iraq for disarming itself and a diplomatic solution, writes in the Guardian this week, "The responsibility for launching the war must be judged against the knowledge (about Iraq's non-existent weapons) that the allies had when they actually started it."

This was a 'criminal enterprise,' as Ken Macdonald puts it. And there exists a strong war crimes case against all those who planned and visited this calamitous war on a country that posed no threat to anyone, let alone the powerful, nuclear-armed Western countries or even Israel. It's time to hold them to account

Otherwise, another toothless British inquiry is not going to bring any succor or hope to Iraqi people. After all, this is the fourth inquiry that is looking into the legality and morality of the Iraq war. Another round of harmless testimonies and pointless brainstorming by retired civil servants and diplomats is hardly going to make Blair and his old friends and allies lose their sleep.

What we need is a Yugoslavia style tribunal. The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia has been trying political leaders who plotted 'large-scale violence' against civilians for collaborating in a 'joint criminal enterprise'.

What's happened in Iraq in the name of democracy, freedom and human rights is far worse than what happened in the Balkans more than a decade ago. More innocents have died - and continue to die - in Iraq than in Kosovo or Bosnia Herzegovina.

In fact, there's no comparison between what happened in the Balkans and what's still going on in Iraq. One was a scene from the Hell-Dante's Inferno, if you will. And the other is a living hell itself. It still is.

* Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times and can be reached at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com