UN Gives Green Light for Israel, Syria, Iran War

[whitemajikman]

Jerusalem----October 21......Israel has been living in a state of war with Syria for decades. Living under the constant threat of missile attacks from both Syria and Lebanon territory hour after passing hour. This tiny, democratic Jewish state has reached out for peace time and time again. Syria responded with Katusha rocket terror attacks across the Israel Lebanon border and the planning of Islamic terrorism inside both Israel and Lebanon.

Now the UN has provided clear proof that Syria has been an open aggressor in the Middle-East with its findings that the Syria government was directly involved in terrorism and the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Syria President Bashar al-Assad, who was educated in the UK, has had more than enough time to decide if he truly wanted peace in the region or was satisfied hanging onto lobster, fancy cars and ultimate power in Damascus. His expelling of Saddam Hussein's relatives this week will not save him from the same fate for which Saddam finds himself in today - facing criminal charges in an open, democratic court.

US Ambassador John Bolton said today that a UN inquiry into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister had presented hard-hitting findings on Syrian involvement in the killing. Bolton was consulting with fellow Security Council members on a wide range of possible responses, he said, but he would not say whether sanctions against Syria was among them. "This report is obviously very significant. It finds probable cause to believe that the assassination could not have been undertaken without the knowledge of senior figures in Syrian intelligence," Bolton told reporters. "It refers to a lack of cooperation by Syria with the investigation, which is diplo-speak for obstruction of justice. It is a very hard-hitting report," he said. Asked whether he was looking at U.N. sanctions, he responded, "We're considering still a range of options."

As the UN now debates a "doctored" a report which deleted the names of the Syria president's brother and others allegedly involved in the plot to assassinate Lebanon's former premier, Israel must take the necessary action to defend herself against more aggression by both Syria and Iran.

The 53-page UN report sent to the Security Council late on Thursday by U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis accused Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies of carrying out an intricate scheme to kill Rafik al-Hariri and 20 others in a February 14 truck bombing in Beirut. Perhaps the most explosive section of the report described an account of the plotting given by an unidentified Syrian witness.

The witness said that Maher Assad, the brother of Syria President Bashar al-Assad, and the president's brother-in-law, Maj. Gen. Asef Shawkat, were among a group of Syrian and Lebanese security officials who "decided to assassinate" Hariri in a mid-September 2004 meeting in Damascus. But while the names appeared in an early draft of the report, they were removed before the final version was released.

One version of the report circulated at the United Nations showed the precise details of the computerized editing process, identifying what was deleted and when the edits took place. The tracking details indicated that the names of Maher Assad, Shawkat and others had been deleted at the time Mehlis was meeting on Thursday with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had earlier promised not to edit the report. While Shawkat, widely seen as the No. 2 man in the Syria regime, was named in several parts of the report, Maher Assad's name appeared only once in the first draft and not at all in the final version. Mehlis and UN chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric quickly insisted that the editing had been done by Mehlis himself and not by Annan, who had transmitted the report to the Security Council about seven hours after receiving it from Mehlis.

"No one outside of the report team influenced those changes. No changes whatsoever were suggested by the secretary-general or by anyone at the United Nations," he said. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the flap was distracting the United Nations from the report's main findings, which he said showed "clear evidence" of Syrian obstruction of justice and "probable cause to believe that the assassination could not have been undertaken without the knowledge of senior figures in Syrian intelligence." "In the absence of serious Syrian cooperation on substantive matters, the mission can't get to the ultimate truth," Bolton told reporters. The report's substance "doesn't change no matter what version you have," he said.

And Bolton is entirely correct. The report clearly states that Syria dictator Bashar Assad and his government crossed every red line in Lebanon. Beyond occupying the Lebanese people for years under the pretense of defending Lebanon from an Israel army which left Lebanon soil in an unilateral peace move, consistently allowing Iran Hizbullah to attack Israel from the south, the murder of Rafik al-Hariri cannot and will not be excused by the international community.

Prominent Israel officials from both the Right and Left wings called today for the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The calls came following the publication of the United Nations report charging that high level Syria officials were involved in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and a key political ally of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for regime change in Damascus. "As far as I am concerned ... and here I have a dispute with some of the people in the security establishment, it is not just an American interest but a clear Israeli interest to end the Assad dynasty and replace Bashar Assad," he said, according to a report in the Israel newspaper Haaretz.

Ephraim Halevy, former chief of Israel's Mossad espionage agency under Sharon, said it was not necessary to prove a direct involvement by Assad. "The head of the Syrian pyramid is Bashar Assad," Halevy told Israel Army Radio. "I don't think ... there is any doubt that this was an extensive and coordinated operation that was planned for many months. Lots of people from the Syrian elite were involved."

The US and the UK could easily take out the present regime in Syria.

The Syria authorities must be held accountable for the death of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said today. Ms Rice said she was deeply troubled by a UN report implicating Syria in the assassination of Mr Hariri in a huge car bomb in Beirut on February 14. Ms Rice was speaking after the release of an interim report by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis that established a clear link between Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies in Hariri's murder.

She declined to discuss the probable next steps beyond saying that some kind of international mechanism must be established to ensure that Syria is held accountable. "Even an initial reading of the report is deeply troubling," Ms Rice said. "You have clearly a case in which there is an implication that Syria officials were involved in the assassination of Rafik Hariri. You also have a clear indication that the Syria government has not been cooperating. Accountability is going to be very important for the international community." The long-awaited investigation established "that many leads point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination".

As Syrian authorities angrily rejected the report as false, unprofessional and politicised, Israel needs not to wait for the US, England and the UN to act.

contnued..........

[whitemajikman]

The Syrian information minister, Mahdi Dakhlallah, said the report was "a political statement directed against Syria". The report was based on witnesses "who are well known for their anti-Syria stands," an official at Mr Dakhlallah's office said, claiming that the UN assessment lacked hard evidence and was based mainly on "gossip". George Jabbour, a Syrian politician, said the report was "extremely political" and harsh on Syria, while Elias Murad, the editor-in-chief of the ruling party's al-Baath newspaper, said it was a "political" rather than a judicial report.

The document claimed the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, received a phone call from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group in the minutes before the bombing. Mr Lahoud's office issued a statement "categorically" denying the claim, saying "there is no truth to it". Since the arrest of four Lebanese generals in August in connection with the killing, anti-Syrian groups have focused on Mr Lahoud and demanded his resignation. Lebanese politician Gebran Tueni said the report contained very "specific" evidence implicating Syria, noting that both Lebanon and Syria had agreed to a UN investigation into the killing. "We cannot reject the findings of the investigation just because we don't like it," he said.

The leader of a Damascus-based terror Palestinian group, whose name was mentioned in the report, also criticized the findings. Ahmed Jibril, of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said the report was "baseless and a big lie". He said neither he nor any member of his group were contacted by Mr Mehlis, and added: "We have nothing whatsoever to do with Hariri's assassination and challenge anyone to submit evidence to the contrary."

The Mehlis commission interviewed more than 400 people, reviewed 60,000 documents, identified several suspects and established numerous important leads in its first four months. The investigation has been extended by the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, until December 15. The report did not, however, mention General Ghazi Kanaan, the former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, who Syrian officials say committed suicide on October 12. Earlier this week, a US official and two UN diplomats said the US and France were preparing new security council resolutions critical of Syria over its alleged involvement in the Hariri assassination and the alleged supply of arms to militias in Lebanon.

Analysts say Bashar al-Assad could try to defuse the crisis by handing over any Syrians indicted and submitting to long-standing US demands that Syria stop foreign fighters crossing into Iraq and expel Palestinian militant groups based in Damascus. Or he could dig in and face mounting pressure that could imperil the Baathist system in power in Syria since a 1963 coup.

Assad told CNN in an interview last week he was willing to cooperate over Iraq, insisting he did not order Hariri's murder and saying any Syrians involved in it would be considered traitors and would face Syrian or international justice. Al-Assad denied reports that he had threatened Hariri and demanded that the former prime minister support a term extension for Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a Syrian supporter. "I'm a very quiet person. I'm very frank, but I wouldn't threaten," he said.

Al-Assad argued Syria didn't have the motive to kill Hariri, whom he said helped Damascus by working to keep Lahoud in power longer.Yet on Friday Damascus denied accusations aired in the U.N. report and criticized the investigation as politicised.

"They are in denial. They say it's politicised. I don't see how they can get out of it," said Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese analyst at London's Chatham House. "I also don't see how the international community can have a clear strategy of what to do with Syria. There are many regional implications and unknowns. If we are talking about regime collapse in Syria what is the strategy after that collapse?"

As the UN Security Council meets on Tuesday to discuss what to do next. The United States and its allies appear to be laying the ground for economic sanctions against Damascus, which was forced to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April amid intense international pressure.

Four pro-Syrian Lebanese former security chiefs have already been arrested and charged in connection with the truck bombing that killed Hariri and 20 others in Beirut. The UN report suggested that Assad's brother-in-law and military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat may have figured in the plot and that Rustom Ghazali, the former Syrian security chief in Lebanon, may have played a key role. While Syria may be willing to sacrifice some lower-level officials to ensure its survival, analysts say there is no precedent for an international trial that could demand a government hand over some its most senior officials. Such officials have previously been tried only after their government has fallen, usually in war or occupation, they say. Washington says it wants "behavior change" not regime change in Damascus, but its demands would involve discarding policies crucial to its Arab nationalist creed and its struggle with Israel, which still occupies the Golan Heights.

"The question is how many spots do they want to change on this leopard because at a certain point behavior change becomes in essence regime change," said Landis, spending a year in Damascus where he runs the popular SyriaComment.com website.

"The Syrian government continually complains about what exactly is being demanded of them. They can't see a light at the end of this tunnel and they clearly suspect that the end-game is regime change," he said.

Israel Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Friday that it is time for a regime change in Syria following publication of a UN report implicating Damascus in the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri. 'I think Syria needs a change,' Peres told public radio.

'It is neither natural nor acceptable that a family representing a small minority should govern Syria in a brutal fashion.' That was a reference to President Bashar al-Assad and his father and predecessor, Hafez, who died five years ago after nearly three decades in power. The Assad family belongs to the small Allawite sect of Islam. 'If it is true that the Syrian government is implicated in the assassination of Rafiq Hairi, that will undermine the regime of the Assads,' Peres said.

He called on the United States and France, the former colonial power in Syria and Lebanon, to 'take the initiative for deciding an international response' to the UN report. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the report 'deeply troubling.' 'As to what we do next, that's what we are going to have to discuss,' she said, adding that 'the Security Council is going to have to be a focal point' for action.

President George Bush has asked Syria a few times: "are you with us or against us?"
Bush has stated repeatedly: "We expect Syria to do everything in her power to shut down the transshipment of suiciders and killers into Iraq." Al-Assad defiantly responds by saying that the United States cannot control its border with Mexico so Syria cannot be expected to keep people from sneaking into Iraq.

Bashar al-Assad, an eye doctor by training, has lost his own sight. The Middle-East can no longer afford a political leader who harbors Islamic terrorists who target the very essence of democracy and blindly leads the entire region into bloodshed with decades of continued war.

There was good reason that Syria's interior minister Ghazi Kanaan committed suicide. The man who led Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon for nearly 20 years. What did he know? What authorization did he receive directly from Al-Assad?

Israel will never forget those Israel Defense Forces soldiers who gave their lives pushing back Syrian tanks in 1948, 1967 or the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Nor will Israel forget that on October 23, 1983 at 6:22 a.m., a large delivery truck drove to the Beirut International Airport where the US Marine Barracks was located. After turning onto an access road leading to the compound, the Islamic terror driver rushed through a barbed-wire fence, passed between two sentry posts, crashed through the gate, and slammed into the lobby of the barracks. The driver detonated explosives with the power equal to more than 12,000 pounds of TNT. The explosion crumbled the four-story building, crushing service members to death while they were sleeping. The terrorist attack killed 220 Marines and 21 other U.S. service members who were stationed there to help keep the peace in a nation torn by war.

The Israel Ministry of Defense and the Israel Defense Forces have waited patiently for this day. There are few issues that Israel leaders will agree upon, but when Nobel peace prize winner Peres stands in complete agreement with the former head of the Mossad, you know that some kind of action will take place sooner rather than later.

This final war with Syria and Iran can be performed quietly from within as Syria and Iran leaders are given one last opportunity to work for peace, commerce and stability in the Middle-East or Israel fighter jets and IDF commandos can get the job done in hours. Hizbullah must and will be removed from the southern Lebanon border where they are presently arming themselves with missiles which can reach Haifa and beyond.

What Israel must carefully consider though is how to grab Bashar al-Assad alive and place him in a democratic, international court while at the same time being able to assure that democracy follows in Damascus in lieu of an Islamic terrorist regime.

Israel does not want war, but nor is it waiting for the next Syrian produced political assassination to occur in Jerusalem.

WMM

[halva]

Persian Fire
Israel’s special forces at the “highest stage of readiness”

by Chris Floyd

December 20, 2005
Moscow Times - 2005-12-16

So now we know: Next time the fire will come in Iran. The blow will be delivered by proxy, but that will not spare the true perpetrator from the firestorm of blowback and unintended consequences that will follow. Even now, the gruesome deaths of many innocent people in many lands are growing in futurity’s womb.

The Rubicon of the new war was crossed on Oct. 27. Oddly enough for this renewal of the ancient enmity between the heirs of Athens and Persia, the decisive event occurred on the edge of the Arctic Circle, at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, where a Russian rocket lifted an Iranian spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit. This launch, scarcely noticed at the time, has accelerated the inevitable strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities: Israel is now readying an attack for no later than the end of March, The Sunday Times reports.

The order, from embattled Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, puts Israel’s special forces at the “highest stage of readiness” for the strike. While Iran’s plan to begin enriching uranium — which will give it the capability of building a nuclear bomb — is the precipitating factor, the budding Iranian space program is a “point of no return” for Sharon, and that is what is driving the actual timing of the strike. The Sinah-1 is just the first of several Iranian satellites set for Russian launches in the coming months.

Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack, although it will still be a pale echo of the far more powerful Israeli and American space spies that can track the slightest movement of a Tehran mullah’s beard. What’s more, late last month Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs, the Sunday Times reports. This too will be ready in the next few months.

There is of course another “precipitating factor”: the Israeli elections on Mar. 28. Sharon, who has left the Likud Party to form his own cult-of-personality party, faces a fractious electorate, with his former comrades guaranteeing an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites if Sharon is too “weak” to do it before the vote. He may well decide to rally the nation — and stave off this lunge from the right — with a blow against Tehran. Such a move would doubtless be popular at home; everyone agrees that Iran cannot be allowed to have the kind of nuclear weapons that Israel itself possesses in such bristling abundance.

The move will be popular in Washington as well. Only a fool would believe that the fools in the Bush Regime have abandoned their bloody-minded ambitions for “full-spectrum dominance” in the Middle East, just because Iraq has turned to goo in their hands. To these schemers, Iraq has always been merely a stepping-stone toward the “far enemy,” Iran. Indeed, they used Saddam himself for years as a useful stick to bash the Iranians, until he stepped out of line with his attack on the Bush family’s longtime business partners, the Kuwaiti royals. Murder, torture and military aggression are always welcome in the service of Washington’s power elites, but defiance is not allowed.

Saddam’s defiance lasted only a few months before he was broken in the first Gulf War, but Iran has thumbed its nose at Washington for 25 years. To the Potomac power-junkies, Iran has never been properly punished for dumping their puppet, the Shah, and seizing the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. (The 600,000 Iranians killed by Saddam’s U.S.-backed armies don’t count in this brutal calculus; the Tehran regime still stands, unrepentant.) Yes, these things matter to those who seek to mask their inadequacies and magnify their importance by identifying their own psyches with some mass, abstract entity — the nation, the volk, the ummah, the tribe, etc. Like Osama, still smarting from the Crusades, the Bushists are equally willing to kill innocent people to assuage the psychic pain of past “humiliations.”

But while this endemic lunacy of our human kind plays its part, the real bottom line for the Bushists is, well, the bottom line. Iran itself is but a stepping-stone to the ultimate goal: putting U.S.-controlled hands on the spigots of Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil, thus providing a brake to control the political rise of China and India, and ensuring a “new American century” of unchallenged profit and privilege. For the elite, of course; as always, the suckers back home will get stuck with the bills and the body bags from these geopolitical games.

A nuclear-armed Iran would lie athwart this golden road to glory like a mighty Persian rampart, so the scaffolding must be swept aside soon, before the walls are complete. The Bush regime has already begun a “low-intensity” covert war against Iran, using the Mujahadeen el-Khalq terrorist group to map potential targets and carry out bombings, Common Dreams reports. MEK is a bizarre Iranian militarist cult that once murdered American officials, then allied with Saddam in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Afterwards, they remained in Saddam’s employ, acting as brutal enforcers in his crackdowns on Shiites and Kurds; the cruelty of their tortures was legendary. Yet Bush has eagerly taken these Saddamite terrorists into his service, Newsweek reports.

With hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — yet another made-to-order goon ripe for demonizing — as frontman for an odious regime, Bush and Sharon will have little trouble whipping up war fever for the attack. In the next few months, we’ll see the usual charade of “diplomacy” as military plans are finalized. But the fire is coming; the future is already groaning with death.

[halva]

Endemic lunacy of humankind is not an adequate explanation for all the above.

Is there a point to the question 'who is whose tool' in this US/Israel symbiosis?

[halva]

I am not going to engage with J. Raynolds any more on the subject of chemtrails, because I do not believe he is sincere in the statements he makes and he has no way of proving to me that he is.

On the subject of Israel however, I believe that Reynolds does make sincere postings and I will override my ignore-listing of him on this subject (and on this subject only).

I would welcome feedback from Jay Reynolds on the following propositions:

1) Israel should seek entry into the European Union and the European Union should seek to have Israel as a member.

2) The European Union should become nuclear-weapons free (perhaps in a bilateral deal with Russia) and renunciation of nuclear weapons by Israel should be set as a prerequisite for membership of the nuclear-weapons-free European Union.

3) Laws against 'holocaust denial' should be abolished in any European Union states which have made 'holocaust denial' illegal.

There are many other security issues to be factored into the general conception sketched here, but in general terms it would not be contrary to the spirit of the proposal as I see it that the United States could continue to have security obligations in relation to Israel. Also renunciation of nuclear weapons by the United States is not something I insist on, though I defend the American people's right to raise such a demand if they choose to.

[halva]

No surprise at Reynolds' silence.

Take this from Aki Orr:

Israeli nukes, their history and politics

by Aki Orr

In July 1956 President Nasser of Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal.

This was a major event in world politics – and history.
Anthony Eden's government in Britain and Guy Mollet's government in France saw this as a major blow to their prestige and interests. They decided to invade Egypt, overthrow Nasser, conquer the Canal, and hand it back to the Suez Canal Company in which they were major shareholders. However, most British and French citizens opposed this policy. They did not want their sons to risk their lives in a war for a colonial empire in which they no longer believed. After WW2 the era of empires and colonies was over. The people of the colonies had information, and ability, to become free, and struggles for national liberation started in every colony of Britain, France, Portugal, Holland, and Belgium.

The US too opposed an invasion of Egypt. It wanted Egypt to join the Baghdad Pact directed against the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union provided arms and political support to most liberation struggles against Colonial Powers. It agreed to finance and to build the High Dam in Aswan. Nasser saw no reason to antagonize it. He refused to join the Baghdad Pact.
The US wanted to change Egyptian policy by economic pressure, not by use of force.

So Eden and Mollet decided to disguise their war as a "Peace keeping operation".

They agreed with Ben-Gurion, Israel's PM, that first Israel will invade Egypt, conquer the Sinai Peninsula, approach the Suez Canal from the east and only then will they issue an ultimatum to both Israel and Egypt to withdraw 10 miles from either side of the Canal, to "ensure freedom of passage in the Canal to ships of all nations". They knew Nasser could not accept this ultimatum while Egypt was invaded yet Ben-Gurion will accept it as it invites him to annex the Sinai. Ben-Gurion flew to Paris on 22.10.1956 and signed this secret pact with Eden and Mollet. In Israel he denied he did so and kept denying this till his death in 1973.

So too did Shimon Peres, who only admitted this 30 years later, in 1986.

Israel, itself a product of British Imperial politics in the Middle-East in WW1, always depended on political, financial, and military support of foreign powers dominating the M-E. Military presence of the British Army in the region enhanced Israel's security. BG opposed the departure of the British from Egypt, Iraq, Cyprus and Jordan and of the French from Algeria and Tunisia. .The Israeli secret service used contacts with Jewish communities in North Africa to help the French in their struggle against the liberation movements in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Most Israeli citizens did not know about these clandestine operations and would have opposed them, had they known about them. BG knew this and therefore withheld the truth from them. In 1956 most Israelis opposed collaboration with colonial powers. So BG. used Shimon Peres - who was not a member of the Cabinet or Knesset - as his personal messenger to France to bypass the Cabinet, the Knesset, and the Press. One of the bonuses France offered Israel was - to construct a nuclear reactor in Israel capable of producing Plutonium for nuclear bombs.
B.G. was afraid the majority in the Knesset and in his Cabinet will oppose his decision to invade Egypt, and also his decision to construct nuclear weapons in Israel.

So Peres never informed the Cabinet or the Knesset about his negotiations in Paris. He commuted between Paris and Jerusalem to negotiate the military agreement between B.G. Mollet and Eden and reported only to B.G. On October 29, 1956 Israeli paratroopers under the command of Ariel Sharon landed in the Sinai, Israel conquered the Sinai as planned and reached the Suez Canal. Eden and Mollet issued their ultimatum and their troops invaded the Suez Canal zone.

At first it looked as if the plan is going to succeed. But President Eisenhower of the US was outraged and forced Israel, Britain, and France to withdraw from Egypt. The whole affair ended in a fiasco. Eden and Mollet had to resign but BG stayed in power as he presented this war to the Israelis as a "Preventive War" that prevented an Egyptian war on Israel. Actually, Nasser offered BG a peace treaty rather than a war…He offered this in a public statement in the Bandung Conference in 1955.

Despite being forced by the US to withdraw from the Sinai (and from the Gaza strip) BG (and Peres) considered the construction of the nuclear reactor in Dimona by France to be a major achievement well worth the losses in this war.

They did not say this to the families of the soldiers killed in this war.

The decision to build nuclear weapons in Israel was never discussed or debated in the Knesset, in the Cabinet, in the Army, in the Press, or in the Security Service.

This decision was taken by one man alone - Ben-Gurion. In 1956 the Israeli population was around 1.5M. The surrounding Arab States had many millions of citizens, their armies were much bigger, and had plenty of Soviet weapons. BG feared that a combined attack by Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, could destroy Israel. He decided to build atom bombs as an insurance policy against such a possibility. In 1956 France agreed to sell Israel a nuclear reactor of the type it just installed at Marcoule, near Avignon. Built in 1952, the G1 reactor in Marcoule was France's first plutonium production reactor; it used natural uranium, graphite moderated, and gas-cooling. Its first plutonium separation plant was known as UP1. Two reactors were built. One in Marcoule, the other in Dimona, Israel. The Israeli reactor began to produce Plutonium in the early 1960s. The French G1 reactor was dismantled after 30 years of service. The Israeli one continues to work for 50 years and has become a health hazard, causing many deaths by cancer to its workers. So far the Israeli government refuses to compensate them.

B.G. knew that the US is opposed to nuclear proliferation and being dependent on US support he denied construction of nuclear weapons. Israel's official policy is neither to deny nor to admit that it has - and builds - nuclear weapons. This policy of "Ambivalence" is presented in Israel as profound wisdom. Actually it fools no one. Its only purpose is not to embarrass the US where Senator Stewart Symington introduced an amendment forbidding the US to provide economic aid to countries producing or keeping nuclear weapons.

This policy was never applied to Israel.

Of course the US knows very well what Israel's nuclear capabilities are. But an open Israeli admission that it has nuclear weapons would embarrass the US and expose the duplicity of the nuclear non-proliferation policy of the USA. Actually, already in the 1960s the U2 spy planes of the CIA photographed the Dimona reactor as it was built and President Eisenhower knew about it in 1960. However, the US did nothing to stop construction of the reactor nor did it force Israel to accept international inspection of it. Israel has always refused to sign the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) or to allow any international inspection of its nuclear facilities and continues to do so also today.
Israeli nuclear capability forced many Arab States to seek weapons of mass destruction - mostly biological and chemical ones - to counter the Israeli nuclear capability.

So Israel started an arms race for mass-destruction weapons in the Middle-East.

BG did not consider the possibility that an Arab State might acquire nuclear weapons.

He knew that neither the US nor the Soviet Union will give such weapons to an Arab State. He did not believe the Arabs could build such weapons themselves. The collapse of the Soviet Union (making nuclear weapons available for money) and the construction of nuclear weapons by Pakistan and Iran were possibilities he failed to foresee.

When this happened the situation changed. Israel's nuclear deterrent changed from an asset into a liability. Israel's small area and high population density, especially the urban areas of Tel-Aviv and Haifa can be destroyed by just two H-Bombs - one on each centre.

The destruction of these two urban centers amounts to the destruction of Israel.

[halva]

This is the area where most of the Israeli economy and population are concentrated and after a nuclear attack they will be uninhabitable for years. Iran – with its vast mountainous territory cannot be destroyed like this and is far less vulnerable. Even if Israel launches a second strike after being attacked it cannot destroy Iran. Israeli second-strike capability, recently achieved by acquiring two nuclear submarines from Germany, will not repair the damage caused to Israel by just 2 H-Bombs nor will it deter Iranian religious fanatics. It is therefore essential for Israel to change its nuclear policy from threatening Iran and continuing the nuclear arms race into a policy for making the entire M-E a nuclear-free zone under international control. This does not seem imminent.

The Iranian nuclear threat has been described recently by Dr. Yuval Steinitz, Chairman of the Knesset committee for Foreign policy and defense. He said: "Iran plans to set up 54000 centrifuges for enriching Uranium. This means that they want to become a nuclear world-power capable of producing 20 to 30 bombs per year, not 2 or 3 bombs that will make them a regional power." ("Ma'ariv" 9.10.2005, p.24)

Facing this situation – and the coming Israeli elections in March 2006 - there is a growing concern among Israelis about Iranian long range missiles, capable of reaching Israel, and the imminent ability of Iran to build nuclear weapons.

So election candidates propose various Israeli nuclear policies to attract voters.

The Israeli daily "Ma'ariv" reports on 5.12.2005, the following statements:

P.M. Ariel Sharon, leader of the new "Kadimah" Party is quoted as saying:

"We shall not accept a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons. We act with Europe and the USA. The correct expression on this matter was Bush's statement where he said that he does not think this matter can be left without treating its foundations. I hope the Security Council will soon decide to impose sanctions on Iran to stop the process"

But Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, Dan Halutz, commented that the diplomatic efforts to stop the process will fail and raised a second possibility of applying physical pressure, or military pressure, to Iran. He is reported as saying:
"Who will apply the military options? This is not a question I shall answer.

When will this option be applied? I shall not answer this either. But there are options"

Benjamin Netanyahu, the candidate of the "Likud" Party declared:

"I shall lead the next government to stop the Iranian threat, including all the necessary operations. If this will not be done by the present government I intend to lead the next government to stop this threat. This includes all operations necessary to stop Iran from threatening us with nuclear weapons."

Amir Perez, the new Chairman of the Labor Party said:
"I hope the Israeli government will do whatever is required ignoring foreign consideration" The Minister of Defense, Mofaz, said:

"The latest statements on this issue are irresponsible. The nuclear issue must not be part of the election campaign". ("Ma'ariv" 5.12.2005 p.1 and 2)

However, since the Israeli public is worried about the issue no candidate can ignore it.

The crucial - and revealing - point is the fact that no Israeli politician, journalist, or academic, proposed the simple option of declaring Israeli support for a nuclear-free Middle-East under international control. This omission also exposes the hypocrisy of US policy on this issue.

The honesty of US nuclear policy in the M-E is proportional to the pressures it puts on Israel to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and support a nuclear-free M-E.

As long as the US does not apply any such pressure its policy cannot be accepted as honest.

A recently published US report (funded by the Pentagon) proposes that Israel switch its nuclear policy. Its authors, Henry Sokolsky and Patrick Clawson in their 314 page document ("Getting ready for a nuclear-ready Iran") say "the idea is not that Israel give up its nuclear weapons unilaterally hoping that others will too. Instead, Israel should simply take a small, reversible, step, in an effort to promote a reciprocal process that would de-escalate the region's nuclear arms race." But Israeli officials dismissed the idea that Israel would lead a regional nuclear disarmament process in response to a nuclear-ready Iran. Israel's position, an official said, is that a nuclear-free Middle-East could be achieved only through comprehensive regional peace treaties.

In 1986 Israeli nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu provided technical proof to the London "Sunday Times" that Israel had some 200 nuclear war heads. Today this number is much higher. Israel's persistent refusal to allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities renders all attempts to force Iran to do so as sheer hypocrisy.

Vanunu joined the "Nuclear Research Centre" in Dimona in 1978 as a technician.

At this time he was a follower of the Religio-Nationalist Rabbi Kahana. Like every candidate for a job in Dimona he was checked by the Israeli Secret Service. His support for Rabbi Kahana was not seen by the Israeli Secret Service as a hindrance. After working a few years he became a student of Philosophy in the Be'er-Sheeva University. As a project for a Master's degree he chose the issue of "Moral issues in the nuclear era". Reading material on this issue he gradually became convinced that nuclear weapons are immoral since their main use is against civilian populations. They are weapons to destroy whole cities. He also discovered that in Israel there was never a public debate and a democratic decision for building nuclear weapons. The decision to do this was the private decision of one man - David Ben-Gurion. Vanunu therefore decided to resign from his job in Dimona and protest in the Israeli Press about the secret – and illegal - activity in Dimona. To prove his claim he took some photos of his work before leaving his job. He resigned in 1986. He soon realized that if he informs any Israeli Newspaper he will be arrested. He therefore decided to leave Israel. For a few months he traveled in Europe, passed through the Soviet-Union, and finally reached Australia where he converted to Christianity. He never approached any Foreign Embassy to offer the photos he took in Dimona. After a few months in Sidney a friend convinced him to inform the "Sunday Times" in London. He did so and the "Sunday Times" invited him to London to check the reliability of his information. He was interviewed by nuclear specialists who checked his photos and information and concluded that they are reliable and Israel manufactured some 200 nuclear bombs. Vanunu was not paid for this information. His aim was to warn the world and Israel's citizens - about the illegal activity of producing nuclear weapons in Israel. This activity is illegal because it was never endorsed by any majority representing the Israeli citizens. The "Sunday Times" published Vanunu's report in October 1986 and the Israeli Secret Service began to hunt him down. Finally they lured him to Italy, from there they hijacked him to Israel. He was tried in secrecy, no journalist was allowed into the courtroom. Finally he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
In 2004 he was released after serving the full sentence (11 years in solitary confinement) but he is not allowed to leave Israel or to talk to journalists.
The Vanunu trial was a travesty of Justice since Israel does not admit it has nuclear weapons.
How can someone be punished for revealing something that does not exist?

From a nationalistic perspective Vanunu rendered Israel a service. As the purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons is to deter Israel's enemies from destroying it these enemies must be convinced that Israel has such weapons. They will not be deterred without proof Israel has such weapons. Whoever provides such proof renders Israel a service. For this reason there were observers in Israel, like former General turned Historian Meir Pa'eel who insisted Vanunu was an agent of the Secret Service and his revelations were organized by the Secret Service. But as Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in prison, and served the full sentence (unlike criminals who get a remission of one third of their sentence) this raises questions about the treatment of Secret Service agents by their own government. To reward a man who rendered a service to his country by an 18 years prison sentence is unusual, to say the least.

Those who really want to create a nuclear-free M-E must apply international diplomatic pressure, including economic sanctions, to ALL M-E governments to accept international inspection of all their nuclear research facilities.

Economic, political, and PR pressures must be applied to every country that opposes international inspection of its nuclear facilities.

This is a minimal demand since "inspection" is not "disarmament".

Israel persistently and emphatically opposes any international inspection of its nuclear facilities. So far no one has put ANY pressure on Israel to sign the NPT and declare its support for a nuclear-free M-E. although such a declaration alone is still a long way from dismantling nuclear weapons.

[halva]

The latest farce in this saga is the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to ElBaradie and the International Atomic Energy Authority for their efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear energy.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 was awarded to IAEA and Mohamed ElBaradei for their "efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way".

Why did the Nobel Prize Committee prefer ElBaradei to Mordechai Vanunu who was 18 years in Israeli prison for informing the world press about Israel's nukes?
Awarding the Peace Prize to Vanunu would have been a bold step against nuclear armament.

It seems the Nobel Peace Committee is afraid of antagonizing the Israeli government, or -
of being branded as anti-Semitic.

Yet what are the facts?

1. Israel was the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the M-E and thus started the nuclear
Arms race in the Middle-East.

2. For 40 years Israel refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

3. Israel refuses to allow an IAEA inspection of its Dimona nuclear pile.

Those who REALLY want to stop the nuclear arms race in the M-E must take active steps, like economic sanctions, political pressure, severing diplomatic relations, etc. against Israel to make it sign the NPT and allow an IAEA inspection of Dimona.

This will indicate to all other governments in the region that the efforts to make the M-E a nuclear-free zone are not biased.

If Israel persists in its refusal to sign the NPT, and its refusal to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities and refuses to hand back to Norway the 30 tons of Heavy Water lent for nuclear research on the condition that it is not used for the production of nuclear weapons, then the same steps the USA and IAEA applied to Iraq must be applied to Israel.

What did ElBaradei do about Israeli nukes? Nothing.
What did he say about Israel's refusal to sigh the NPT? Nothing
What did he say about Vanunu being jailed for 18 years for informing the world Press about Israel's nukes? Nothing

He visited Jerusalem and refused to meet Vanunu lest this antagonize the Israeli government.
No wonder Israel congratulated ElBaradei and the IAEA on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

The IAEA applied to Israel a very different policy from the one it applied to Iraq.

It tries to solicit co-operation on nuclear disarmament from a government that refuses for 40 years to do so. This policy has failed for 40 years. Why continue with it?
Why reject any pressure on such a government to make it change its nuclear policy?

The USA, IAEA, and the Nobel Committee know very well that Israel has nuclear weapons and keeps building them in Dimona, and refuses to sign the NPT and refuses an IAEA inspection of Dimona. Yet the USA, IAEA, and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee adamantly refuse take any step against Israeli nuclear policy.
This makes them accomplices to Israeli nuclear policy.
Israel persists in its refusal to sign the NPT, ElBaradei and the IAEA do not even criticize this - and get the Nobel Peace Prize.

Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and Niels Bohr, would have denounced such duplicity.

Very impartial. Or, as Niels Bohr used to say: "VERY interesting"

The M-E doomsday clock is ticking.

Today the danger of nuclear war in the M-E is greater than it ever was in the past.

An Israeli academic recently tried to calm down those worried about nuclear war in the M-E. Dr.Ephraim Kam, Head of the Yaffe Centre for Strategic Studies in Tel-Aviv University said: "We must not forget that even when Iran will have nuclear weapons it will live under major constraints, mainly American deterrence. If Israel succeeds to make the U S declare that it will consider a nuclear attack on Israel as an attack on the U S it will improve deterrence of Iran. But even without such a declaration the Iranians know that by launching a nuclear attack on Israel they risk a U S attack on them. They will also take into account an Israeli retaliation that will destroy Teheran. During the cold war mutual deterrence prevented war between the US and the USSR" ("Ma'ariv" 9.10.2005. p.24)

This ignores the profound differences between world politics and regional M-E politics. M-E Politicians lack a sense of responsibility for Humanity that Kennedy and Khrushchev had during the Cuban nuclear missile crisis in 1962.

In the M-E, politics - and leaders - are motivated by considerations of honor, nationalism and religion, rather than by concern for all humanity.

If outside pressures are not applied to ALL M-E States a nuclear war in the M-E will be unavoidable. Its consequences will not be confined to the M-E.

30.11.2005 By Aki Orr (http://www.oi-ki-a.gr/hddf/july2ddm.html)

(Member of the Israeli Committee for a M-E free of all weapons of mass-destruction )

[halva]

Despite being forced by the US to withdraw from the Sinai (and from the Gaza strip) BG (and Peres) considered the construction of the nuclear reactor in Dimona by France to be a major achievement well worth the losses in this war.


It is said that John Kennedy's opposition to Israel acquiring nuclear weapons (a continuation of Republican Eisenhower's policy) was a key factor behind his assassination.


Israel has always refused to sign the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) or to allow any international inspection of its nuclear facilities and continues to do so also today.


This is true, but the Non-Proliferation Treaty is a lame duck anyway. The United States refuses to give up nuclear weapons and it will always be able to mobilise "anti-globalist" domestic political support to stymie any attempt to make the United Nations the arbitrator of what it perceives as such key issues of US national sovereignty. The only way this could be changed would be by some other 'superpower' displacing the United States. We can't wait for that to happen, or depend on it happening. And we don't want other 'superpowers' acquiring and using power the way the United States does. That would gain us precisely nothing.


Ben Gurion did not believe the Arabs could build such weapons themselves. The collapse of the Soviet Union (making nuclear weapons available for money) and the construction of nuclear weapons by Pakistan and Iran were possibilities he failed to foresee.


But the political currents (including the European anti-nuclear movements) who worked for the changes that caused collapse of the USSR should have foreseen, and reacted to, the consequences of that collapse, including the loss of control of Soviet nuclear weapons. Even Margaret Thatcher favoured prompt and decisive intervention to bring all Soviet nuclear weapons under 'international community' control. Yeltsin was in favour of abolishing Soviet nuclear weapons. But by 1991 Thatcher was no longer a key player. And the Western European anti-nuclear movements did NOTHING in 1991 to help Yeltsin in his objective of getting rid of as much of the Soviet nuclear arsenal as possible.

The Western anti-nuclear movements also did nothing to help Benazhir Bhutto get rid of Pakistani nuclear weapons. Quite the opposite: by supporting India's 'defiant' opposition to American 'hypocrisy' over the Non-Proliferation Treaty they facilitated Bhutto's overthrow. Pakistan had been much more willing to ignore American 'hypocrisy' and comply with 'international community' demands.


"The nuclear issue must not be part of the election campaign". ("Ma'ariv" 5.12.2005 p.1 and 2)

However, since the Israeli public is worried about the issue no candidate can ignore it.


Pacifism will always come off second best in an electoral contest with nuclear weapons fear-mongering. The entire nuclear weapons issue has to be removed from the electoral arena in ALL states.


The crucial - and revealing - point is the fact that no Israeli politician, journalist, or academic, proposed the simple option of declaring Israeli support for a nuclear-free Middle-East under international control. This omission also exposes the hypocrisy of US policy on this issue.


And it is unrealistic to expect that Israeli public opinion ever would support such a policy of giving up nuclear weapons. There is no solution to this problem other than a return to the ostensible US policies prior to the assassination of Kennedy: No US support for nuclear weapons possession by ANY other state.


Israel persistently and emphatically opposes any international inspection of its nuclear facilities. So far no one has put ANY pressure on Israel to sign the NPT and declare its support for a nuclear-free M-E. although such a declaration alone is still a long way from dismantling nuclear weapons.


As indicated before, my position is that the NPT is not getting anywhere anyway, so to encourage Israeli support for it is to encourage support for something that is not working.

Anyway, the NPT demands that the US give up nuclear weapons. Israel is less unlikely to give up its own nuclear weapons if the US continues to have nuclear weapons.

Aki Orr indicates recognition of this in his quoting from the Israeli academic Dr.Ephraim Kam, Head of the Yaffe Centre for Strategic Studies in Tel-Aviv University, who said: "We must not forget that even when Iran will have nuclear weapons it will live under major constraints, mainly American deterrence. … The Iranians know that by launching a nuclear attack on Israel they risk a U S attack on them.

Where Aki Orr is really wrong in his invocation of “the sense of responsibility for Humanity that Kennedy and Khrushchev had during the Cuban nuclear missile crisis in 1962.”

To attribute to Khruschev a “sense of responsibility for humanity” in his handling of the Cuban missiles issue is as farcical as awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Mohamed ElBaradei. If Aki Orr were to read Servando Gonzalez’ persuasive account of the Cuban Missile Crisis ‘The Nuclear Deception’ he would realise that Khruschev’s motives in installing Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were to trigger an American invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Castro. Kennedy’s decision not to invade Cuba but to threaten nuclear retaliation against the USSR put an end to this game. After that Khrushchev simply went to pieces, giving as convincing a demonstration as has ever been given of the utter nonsensicality of the theory of ‘nuclear deterrence’.

[jayreynolds]

I am not going to engage with J. Raynolds any more on the subject of chemtrails, because I do not believe he is sincere in the statements he makes and he has no way of proving to me that he is..

Well, well, well. You said you wanted to debate the issue and that you would "bury me" about two years ago.

Now you have surrendered.

Guess what?

I won!

[halva]

Raynolds I removed you from the ignore list to read the above posting and see that you still have your head as far up your asshole as ever.

I will know better than to do it again on this thread (in any case I don't do it anywhere else).

You have ONE more chance to say something of significance.

[halva]

From Aki Orr:

23.12.2005

Reply to the reply by Wayne Hall to my article on "Israel's nukes"

Wayne wrote

Quote:
Despite being forced by the US to withdraw from the Sinai (and from
the Gaza strip) BG (and Peres) considered the construction of the
nuclear reactor in Dimona by France to be a major achievement well
worth the losses in this war.

Reply:
It is said that John Kennedy's opposition to Israel acquiring nuclear
weapons (a continuation of Republican Eisenhower's policy) was a key
factor behind his assassination.


Aki: First I want to thank Wayne for his useful and informative comments and criticism of my article "Israeli nukes – their policy and history".
I welcome it and urge others to delve into this issue.

As for the particular comment:
This is highly improbable since any evidence for this would cause immediate termination of Israel's relations with the US – and with US Jewry. Israel would never take such a risk. The more probable plot is the CIA-Mafia agreement to assassinate JFK for undermining the Cuba-invasion plot which he inherited from Eisenhower. JFK refused to provide US air cover for the invasion and OKd the assassination of its leader. This effectively caused its failure. Both the CIA and the Mafia were furious about this. JFK also planned to reduce US presence in Vietnam. This created an anti-JFK coalition that used the Mafia to carry out the assassination.
Until confirmed by clear evidence the issue remains open.

Quote:
Israel has always refused to sign the Nuclear non-proliferation
treaty (NPT) or to allow any international inspection of its nuclear
facilities and continues to do so also today.

Reply:
This is true, but the Non-Proliferation Treaty is a lame duck anyway.
The United States refuses to give up nuclear weapons and it will
always be able to mobilise "anti-globalist" domestic political
support to stymie any attempt to make the United Nations the
arbitrator of what so many Americans perceive as key issues of national
sovereignty. The only way this could be changed would be by some
other 'superpower' displacing the United States. We can't wait for
that to happen, or depend on it happening. And we don't want
other 'superpowers' acquiring and using power the way the United
States does. That would gain us precisely nothing.

Aki: The NPT is far from an ideal tool. But it helps to prevent local conflicts from becoming nuclear. Without the NPT many governments would try to construct – or buy – nukes.
The aim must be – total abolition of all Nuclear weapons.
This does not imply that a policy of enforcing the NPT is useless.

Quote:
Ben Gurion did not believe the Arabs could build such weapons
themselves. The collapse of the Soviet Union (making nuclear weapons
available for money) and the construction of nuclear weapons by
Pakistan and Iran were possibilities he failed to foresee.


Reply:
But the political currents (including the European anti-nuclear
movements) who worked for the changes that caused collapse of the
USSR should have foreseen, and reacted to, the consequences of that
collapse, including the loss of control of Soviet nuclear weapons.
Even Margaret Thatcher favoured prompt and decisive intervention to
bring all Soviet nuclear weapons under 'international community'
control. Yeltsin was in favour of abolishing Soviet nuclear weapons.
But by 1991 Thatcher was no longer a key player. And the Western
European anti-nuclear movements did NOTHING in 1991 to help Yeltsin
in his objective of getting rid of as much of the Soviet nuclear
arsenal as possible.

The Western anti-nuclear movements also did nothing to help Benazhir
Bhutto get rid of Pakistani nuclear weapons. Quite the opposite: by
supporting India's 'defiant' opposition to American 'hypocrisy' over
the Non-Proliferation Treaty they facilitated Bhutto's overthrow.
Pakistan had been much more willing to ignore American 'hypocrisy'
and comply with 'international community'demands.

Aki: No Sovietologist, Marxist, Communist or anti-Communist - foresaw the collapse of the USSR. Andrei Amalrik's book "Can the USSR last till 1984" was the only exception but no one took it seriously.
As no one foresaw this collapse, no one foresaw its side effects.
Both the US and Russia are dismantling most (not all) of their nukes.
But Russia's financial crisis and its gangsters make nukes available for money. An immigrant from Russia to Israel who turned into a drug dealer in Miami said in an interview in the Israeli Press that Colombian drug dealers asked him to buy a former Soviet nuclear submarine in Russia for smuggling drugs into the US.
When he made enquiries in Russia the answer was positive + the question: "You want it with nuclear missiles or without them"

Quote:
"The nuclear issue must not be part of the election campaign".
("Ma'ariv" 5.12.2005 p.1 and 2)

However, since the Israeli public is worried about the issue no
candidate can ignore it.

Reply:
Pacifism will always come off second best in an electoral contest
with nuclear weapons fear-mongering. The entire nuclear weapons issue
has to be removed from the electoral arena in ALL states.

Aki: The man who protested against the use of nuclear policy in the election campaign is not a pacifist and did not object for pacifist reasons. He is Israel's current Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz.

Quote:
The crucial - and revealing - point is the fact that no Israeli
politician, journalist, or academic, proposed the simple option of
declaring Israeli support for a nuclear-free Middle-East under
international control. This omission also exposes the hypocrisy of US
policy on this issue.

Reply:
And it is unrealistic to expect that Israeli public opinion ever
would support such a policy of giving up nuclear weapons. There is no
solution to this problem other than a return to the declared US
policies prior to the assassination of Kennedy: No US support for
nuclear weapons possession by ANY other state.

AKI: In Israel there never was a public debate on nuclear policy.
Officially – Israel has no nuclear weapons and will not be the first to introduce them to the M-E. Everyone knows this is a lie.
A public debate in Israel today on Israel's nuclear policy would force many Israelis to reconsider their original support for BGs secret decision in 1956 - to build nukes
The reason for this re-consideration is the change in circumstances - sooner or later Iran – or other states – will have nukes and this will not create a "BALANCE OF TERROR" in the M-E like the one that existed between USA and USSR during the "Cold War" because Israel can be destroyed by just 2 H-Bombs, one on T-A, the other on Haifa.
This will tempt Muslim rulers to strike a first blow WHATEVER THE ISRAELI RETALIATION MIGHT BE. No retaliation will reconstruct Israel nor will it deter rulers who prefer Paradise to Earth.
In the M-E a second-strike capability is not an effective deterrence…
I advise people in Europe and the US to think this over very carefully.

Quote:
Israel persistently and emphatically opposes any international
inspection of its nuclear facilities. So far no one has put ANY
pressure on Israel to sign the NPT and declare its support for a
nuclear-free M-E. although such a declaration alone is still a long
way from dismantling nuclear weapons.

Reply:
As indicated before, my position is that the NPT is not getting
anywhere anyway, so to encourage Israeli support for it is to
encourage support for something that is not working.

Anyway, the NPT demands that the US give up nuclear weapons. Israel
is less unlikely to give up its own nuclear weapons if the US
continues to have nuclear weapons.

[halva]

Aki Orr shows recognition of this in his quoting from the Israeli
academic Dr.Ephraim Kam, Head of the Yaffe Centre for Strategic
Studies in Tel-Aviv University, who said: "We must not forget that
even when Iran will have nuclear weapons it will live under major
constraints, mainly American deterrence. … The Iranians know that by
launching a nuclear attack on Israel they risk a U S attack on them.

Where Aki Orr is really wrong in his invocation of "the sense of
responsibility for Humanity that Kennedy and Khrushchev had during
the Cuban nuclear missile crisis in 1962."

To attribute to Khruschev a "sense of responsibility for humanity" in
his handling of the Cuban missiles issue is as farcical as awarding
the Nobel Peace Prize to Mohamed ElBaradei. If Aki Orr were to read
Servando Gonzalez' persuasive account of the Cuban Missile
Crisis `The Nuclear Deception' he would realise that Khruschev's
motives in installing Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were to trigger
an American invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Castro. Kennedy's
decision not to invade Cuba but to threaten nuclear retaliation
against the USSR put an end to this game. After that Khrushchev
simply went to pieces, giving as convincing a demonstration as has
ever been given of the utter nonsensicality of the theory of `nuclear
deterrence'.

AKI: Demanding that ALL M-E States sign the NPT has at least one advantage - it exposes the hypocrisy of US policy on Iranian nukes. Whether Israel bends under US pressure – or not – is another matter. The issue today is the fact that the US applies NO PRESSURE ON ISRAEL
To sign the NPT or to accept international inspection of its nuclear capability. This point is a major embarrassment to the Bush administration and emphasizing it could prompt the Bush administration into putting pressure on Israel.

Khrushchev's placing of medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962
Gave him cards to ask a tit-for-tat from Keneddy:
For withdrawing the Soviet missiles Kennedy agreed to two things:
1. Not to invade Cuba
2. To withdraw the US medium—range nuclear missiles from Turkey

K did not "Go to pieces" because of this but lost the power struggle in the Politburo to the conservatives who opposed all his policies (particularly vis-à-vis China)
All this is another story. I never supported K or JFK.


Postscript:
On the subject of Israel my views are as follows:.

1) Israel should seek entry into the European Union and the European Union should seek to have Israel as a member.

2) The European Union should become nuclear-weapons free (perhaps in a bilateral deal with Russia) and renunciation of nuclear weapons by Israel should be set as a prerequisite for membership of the nuclear-weapons-free European Union.

3) Laws against 'holocaust denial' should be abolished in any European Union states which have made 'holocaust denial' illegal. This is an elementary principle of freedom of speech.

There are many other security issues to be factored into the general conception sketched here, but in general terms it would not be contrary to the spirit of the proposal as I see it that the United States could continue to have security obligations in relation to Israel. Also renunciation of nuclear weapons by the United States is not something I insist on, though I defend the American people's right to raise such a demand if they choose to.


AKI: I don’t advise governments. I mobilize grass-roots support
against government decisions – and against others deciding for us.
It is time that all citizens, not Ministers, decide all policies.
Every policy that affects all citizens must be decided – directly – by all citizens.
Aki ORR

[halva]

Aki: No Sovietologist, Marxist, Communist or anti-Communist - foresaw the collapse of the USSR. Andrei Amalrik's book "Can the USSR last till 1984" was the only exception but no one took it seriously. As no one foresaw this collapse, no one foresaw its side effects. Both the US and Russia are dismantling most (not all) of their nukes. But Russia's financial crisis and its gangsters make nukes available for money. An immigrant from Russia to Israel who turned into a drug dealer in Miami said in an interview in the Israeli Press that Colombian drug dealers asked him to buy a former Soviet nuclear submarine in Russia for smuggling drugs into the US.

When he made enquiries in Russia the answer was positive + the question: "You want it with nuclear missiles or without them"

Wayne: Here are some quotes from Rudolf Bahro ‘From Red to Green’ (1984)

p. 228 “In view of the development of the scientific-technological revolution, there is a very serious risk that the Soviet Union will lose the arms race in the next ten or fifteen years. I don’t think they will succeed in the field of electronic mass production. But if they do, as Castoriadis has suggested, it will be at the cost of a tremendous concentration in one sector which drains the rest of the economy in such a way that the whole system begins to fall apart.”

p.229 “If American economic expansion successfully carries itself over into the military sphere and allows Washington to construct a defensive umbrella over the United States, then Moscow will be driven into a truly hopeless situation.”

p.230 “The long-term Soviet goal, that Eastern Europe should be happy with the Soviet Union, has already ended in failure. In the final analysis even the GDR will be lost.”

Even those who unlike Bahro, could not see very far ahead or predict what was going to happen next, could see the way events were unfolding. Any non-aligned anti-nuclear-weapons activist who had during the nineteen eighties been applying the principle that ‘there are no good or bad nuclear weapons’ and on that basis opposing ‘peace-loving’ Soviet nuclear weapons diplomacy should have perceived that the August 1991 coup against Gorbachev was the signal for the Western anti-nuclear movements to demand TOTAL NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT OF THE SOVIET UNION.

The pro-Soviet-nuclear-weapons forces had their backs to the wall. Yeltsin, who throughout the preceding period had enjoyed the support of the Western European Far Left and ecologists, was clearly not inclined to try to defend Soviet nuclear weapons. Western peace-movement support for Yeltsin’s anti-nuclear-weapons policies should have continued. It is a disgrace that only someone like Margaret Thatcher had sought to apply in practice what she had said rhetorically throughout the 80s about Soviet nuclear weapons. And it is predictable that she was left crying in the wilderness by her previous backers from this point on.

Why didn’t ecologists and Leftists leap at the chance, in 1991, to put British Tories on the spot? Throughout the eighties they had been telling the Left to ‘recommend unilateral nuclear disarmament to the Soviet Union’.

AKI: In Israel there never was a public debate on nuclear policy. Officially – Israel has no nuclear weapons and will not be the first to introduce them to the M-E. Everyone knows this is a lie. A public debate in Israel today on Israel's nuclear policy would force many Israelis to reconsider their original support for Ben Gurion’s secret decision in 1956 - to build nukes

The reason for this re-consideration is the change in circumstances - sooner or later Iran – or other states – will have nukes and this will not create a "BALANCE OF TERROR" in the M-E like the one that existed between USA and USSR during the "Cold War" because Israel can be destroyed by just 2 H-Bombs, one on T-A, the other on Haifa.

This will tempt Muslim rulers to strike a first blow WHATEVER THE ISRAELI RETALIATION MIGHT BE. No retaliation will reconstruct Israel nor will it deter rulers who prefer Paradise to Earth. In the M-E a second-strike capability is not an effective deterrence… I advise people in Europe and the US to think this over very carefully.

Wayne: Even in the case of the Soviet Union second-strike capability did not provide effective deterrence against NATO’s ‘first-strike’ Pershing II missiles. Quite the opposite. The‘limited nuclear war’ scenario that won the Cold War for NATO would have been impossible without the prior existence of the Soviet nuclear arsenal to act as a ‘trigger’ between the counterforce first-strike and the hypothetical ‘strategic’ second-strike retaliation to it.

And this kind of Western ‘double-whammy’ strategy can always be applied again, against ANY nuclear weapons state.

“Nuclear deterrence” is a Western myth which was for long resisted by Soviet strategic theorists, who accurately saw it as a deceitful excuse for Western unwillingness to abandon nuclear weapons. Only the threat of a Western escalation in ‘defensive’ systems persuaded the Soviets, in the context of the SALT negotiations, to espouse the dogma of ‘nuclear deterrence’ as part of a package deal that would acknowledge a Soviet right to ‘parity’.

If any ‘Muslim rulers’ are so naïve as to think they can escape the fate that befell the Soviet Union on account of its pursuit of nuclear weapons ‘parity’ with ‘the West’ then they must have been placed where they are by the same forces that are planning future nuclear wars against them.

Another problem with the line Aki is taking is that it is predicated on FEAR that Muslims might be able to wipe out Israel with nuclear weapons. It will thus be perceived as a 'pacifist' argument which 'tough guy' politicians will be able to caricature and demagogically discredit.

AKI: Demanding that ALL M-E States sign the NPT has at least one advantage - it exposes the hypocrisy of US policy on Iranian nukes.

Wayne: The tactic of ‘exposing US hypocrisy’ presupposes the existence of some more powerful judge who can be suitably horrified at the hypocrisy thus exposed. There is no such judge. The United Nations does not enjoy enough autonomy from the United States to make it worthwhile to try to ‘expose’ the United States to the judgement of the UN.

AKI: Whether Israel bends under US pressure – or not – is another matter. The issue today is the fact that the US applies NO PRESSURE ON ISRAEL.

Wayne: It may be less futile to try to upgrade the European Union into a potential arbitrator. To make any demands of today’s US leadership seems to me an exercise in masochism.

AKI: To sign the NPT or to accept international inspection of its nuclear capability. This point is a major embarrassment to the Bush administration and emphasizing it could prompt the Bush administration into putting pressure on Israel.

Wayne: As indicated, I am not interested in petitioning today’s US rulers.

[halva]

AKI: Khrushchev's placing of medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 Gave him cards to ask a tit-for-tat from Keneddy:
For withdrawing the Soviet missiles Kennedy agreed to two things:
1. Not to invade Cuba
2. To withdraw the US medium—range nuclear missiles from Turkey

K did not "Go to pieces" because of this but lost the power struggle in the Politburo to the conservatives who opposed all his policies (particularly vis-à-vis China)

All this is another story. I never supported K or JFK.

Wayne: This is a retrospective cosmetic interpretation designed to bolster Khruschev’s destroyed prestige and to prevent too much examination of what really happened during the Cuban missile crisis. As far as the Turkish missiles are concerned, Chomsky (END papers 1, ‘War, Crisis and the Bomb’), says that ‘the US missiles in Turkey were obsolescent missiles for which a withdrawal order had already been issued, before the crisis erupted, since they were to be replaced by Polaris submarines’.

It is true that the Soviet leadership that succeeded Khrushchev were even worse than Khrushchev because they drew precisely the wrong lesson from the Cuba crisis: not that the Soviet Union should GET OUT of the nuclear arms race, but that it should seek ‘strategic nuclear PARITY’ with the United States. But how much are they themselves to blame for this error and how much blame is due to the false story, flattering to Khrushchev, that has become the official account of what happened? If they realized that Khrushchev had tried to use Soviet nuclear weapons for HIS OWN PURPOSES (albeit for the overthrow of Castro) and not merely for the purposes of the West, who needed a nuclear scarecrow called the Soviet Union), and that he had found it IMPOSSIBLE TO USE SOVIET NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR THE ACHIEVEMENT OF ANY OBJECTIVE, then they might have come to see his failure in a different light:

Not that Soviet nuclear weapons would acquire ‘deterrent’ qualities once ‘parity’ was achieved with the United States, but that the more nuclear weapons the Soviet Union acquired, the weaker they would become.

It is worth bearing in mind that the height of self-confidence in Soviet diplomacy was the period towards the end of Stalin’s reign when the United States possessed a MONOPOLY on nuclear weapons (and a theory justifying NATO reliance on nuclear weapons on a basis of purported Soviet conventional military superiority).

Postscript:
On the subject of Israel my views are as follows:.

1) Israel should seek entry into the European Union and the European Union should seek to have Israel as a member.

2) The European Union should become nuclear-weapons free (perhaps in a bilateral deal with Russia) and renunciation of nuclear weapons by Israel should be set as a prerequisite for membership of the nuclear-weapons-free European Union.

3) Laws against 'holocaust denial' should be abolished in any European Union states which have made 'holocaust denial' illegal. This is an elementary principle of freedom of speech.

There are many other security issues to be factored into the general conception sketched here, but in general terms it would not be contrary to the spirit of the proposal as I see it that the United States could continue to have security obligations in relation to Israel. Also renunciation of nuclear weapons by the United States is not something I insist on, though I defend the American people's right to raise such a demand if they choose to.


AKI: I don’t advise governments. I mobilize grass-roots support
against government decisions – and against others deciding for us.
It is time that all citizens, not Ministers, decide all policies.
Every policy that affects all citizens must be decided – directly – by all citizens.

Wayne: I agree with Rudolf Bahro when he said: “We should sweep away the illusion that those institutions on which we rely are in any way in a position to fulfil their ostensible aim. They are, on the contrary, constitutionally incapable of it.” We should not wait for governments to make decisions and then mobilize against them. We should make decisions and force governments to mobilize against us.

This is particularly so in Europe today.

[halva]

Nuclear War against Iran
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20CH20060103&articleId=1714

by Michel Chossudovsky

January 3, 2006
GlobalResearch.ca


The launching of an outright war using nuclear warheads against Iran is now in the final planning stages.

Coalition partners, which include the US, Israel and Turkey are in "an advanced stage of readiness".

Various military exercises have been conducted, starting in early 2005. In turn, the Iranian Armed Forces have also conducted large scale military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf in December in anticipation of a US sponsored attack.

Since early 2005, there has been intense shuttle diplomacy between Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara and NATO headquarters in Brussels.

In recent developments, CIA Director Porter Goss on a mission to Ankara, requested Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan "to provide political and logistic support for air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets." Goss reportedly asked " for special cooperation from Turkish intelligence to help prepare and monitor the operation." (DDP, 30 December 2005).

In turn, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has given the green light to the Israeli Armed Forces to launch the attacks by the end of March:

All top Israeli officials have pronounced the end of March, 2006, as the deadline for launching a military assault on Iran.... The end of March date also coincides with the IAEA report to the UN on Iran's nuclear energy program. Israeli policymakers believe that their threats may influence the report, or at least force the kind of ambiguities, which can be exploited by its overseas supporters to promote Security Council sanctions or justify Israeli military action.

(James Petras, Israel's War Deadline: Iran in the Crosshairs, Global Research, December 2005)

The US sponsored military plan has been endorsed by NATO, although it is unclear, at this stage, as to the nature of NATO's involvement in the planned aerial attacks.

"Shock and Awe"

The various components of the military operation are firmly under US Command, coordinated by the Pentagon and US Strategic Command Headquarters (USSTRATCOM) at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska.

The actions announced by Israel would be carried out in close coordination with the Pentagon. The command structure of the operation is centralized and ultimately Washington will decide when to launch the military operation.

US military sources have confirmed that an aerial attack on Iran would involve a large scale deployment comparable to the US "shock and awe" bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:

American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq. Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying direct from the United States, possibly supplemented by F-117 stealth fighters staging from al Udeid in Qatar or some other location in theater, the two-dozen suspect nuclear sites would be targeted.

Military planners could tailor their target list to reflect the preferences of the Administration by having limited air strikes that would target only the most crucial facilities ... or the United States could opt for a far more comprehensive set of strikes against a comprehensive range of WMD related targets, as well as conventional and unconventional forces that might be used to counterattack against US forces in Iraq

(See Globalsecurity.org at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iran-strikes.htm

In November, US Strategic Command conducted a major exercise of a "global strike plan" entitled "Global Lightening". The latter involved a simulated attack using both conventional and nuclear weapons against a "fictitious enemy".

Following the "Global Lightening" exercise, US Strategic Command declared an advanced state of readiness (See our analysis below)

While Asian press reports stated that the "fictitious enemy" in the Global Lightening exercise was North Korea, the timing of the exercises, suggests that they were conducted in anticipation of a planned attack on Iran.

Consensus for Nuclear War

No dissenting political voices have emerged from within the European Union.

There are ongoing consultations between Washington, Paris and Berlin. Contrary to the invasion of Iraq, which was opposed at the diplomatic level by France and Germany, Washington has been building "a consensus" both within the Atlantic Alliance and the UN Security Council. This consensus pertains to the conduct of a nuclear war, which could potentially affect a large part of the Middle East Central Asian region.

Moreover, a number of frontline Arab states are now tacit partners in the US/ Israeli military project. A year ago in November 2004, Israel's top military brass met at NATO headqaurters in Brtussels with their counterparts from six members of the Mediterranean basin nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. A NATO-Israel protocol was signed. Following these meetings, joint military exercises were held off the coast of Syria involving the US, Israel and Turkey. and in February 2005, Israel participated in military exercises and "anti-terror maneuvers" together with several Arab countries.

The media in chorus has unequivocally pointed to Iran as a "threat to World Peace".

The antiwar movement has swallowed the media lies. The fact that the US and Israel are planning a Middle East nuclear holocaust is not part of the antiwar/ anti- globalization agenda.

The "surgical strikes" are presented to world public opinion as a means to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

We are told that this is not a war but a military peace-keeping operation, in the form of aerial attacks directed against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Mini-nukes: "Safe for Civilians"

The press reports, while revealing certain features of the military agenda, largely serve to distort the broader nature of the military operation, which contemplates the preemptive use of tactical nuclear weapons.

The war agenda is based on the Bush administration's doctrine of "preemptive" nuclear war under the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review.

Media disinformation has been used extensively to conceal the devastating consequences of military action involving nuclear warheads against Iran. The fact that these surgical strikes would be carried out using both conventional and nuclear weapons is not an object of debate.

[halva]

According to a 2003 Senate decision, the new generation of tactical nuclear weapons or "low yield" "mini-nukes", with an explosive capacity of up to 6 times a Hiroshima bomb, are now considered "safe for civilians" because the explosion is underground.

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of "authoritative" nuclear scientists, the mini-nukes are being presented as an instrument of peace rather than war. The low-yield nukes have now been cleared for "battlefield use", they are slated to be used in the next stage of America's "war on Terrorism" alongside conventional weapons:

Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states.[Iran, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent. ( Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004)

In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing "collateral damage". The Pentagon has intimated, in this regard, that the ‘mini-nukes’ (with a yield of less than 5000 tons) are harmless to civilians because the explosions ‘take place under ground’. Each of these ‘mini-nukes’, nonetheless, constitutes – in terms of explosion and potential radioactive fallout – a significant fraction of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Estimates of yield for Nagasaki and Hiroshima indicate that they were respectively of 21000 and 15000 tons ( http://www.warbirdforum.com/hiroshim.htm

In other words, the low yielding mini-nukes have an explosive capacity of one third of a Hiroshima bomb.
The earth-penetrating capability of the [nuclear] B61-11 is fairly limited, however. Tests show it penetrates only 20 feet or so into dry earth when dropped from an altitude of 40,000 feet. Even so, by burying itself into the ground before detonation, a much higher proportion of the explosion energy is transferred to ground shock compared to a surface bursts. Any attempt to use it in an urban environment, however, would result in massive civilian casualties. Even at the low end of its 0.3-300 kiloton yield range, the nuclear blast will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area.

http://www.fas.org/faspir/2001/v54n1/weapons.htm


Gbu 28 Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28)

The new definition of a nuclear warhead has blurred the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons:

'It's a package (of nuclear and conventional weapons). The implication of this obviously is that nuclear weapons are being brought down from a special category of being a last resort, or sort of the ultimate weapon, to being just another tool in the toolbox,' said Kristensen. (Japan Economic News Wire, op cit)

We are a dangerous crossroads: military planners believe their own propaganda.

The military manuals state that this new generation of nuclear weapons are "safe" for use in the battlefield. They are no longer a weapon of last resort. There are no impediments or political obstacles to their use. In this context, Senator Edward Kennedy has accused the Bush Administration for having developed "a generation of more useable nuclear weapons."

The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of World Peace.

"Making the World safer" is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.

But nuclear holocausts are not front page news! In the words of Mordechai Vanunu,

The Israeli government is preparing to use nuclear weapons in its next war with the Islamic world. Here where I live, people often talk of the Holocaust. But each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples. (See interview with Mordechai Vanunu, December 2005).

Space and Earth Attack Command Unit

A preemptive nuclear attack using tactical nuclear weapons would be coordinated out of US Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, in liaison with US and coalition command units in the Persian Gulf, the Diego Garcia military base, Israel and Turkey.

Under its new mandate, USSTRATCOM has a responsibility for "overseeing a global strike plan" consisting of both conventional and nuclear weapons. In military jargon, it is slated to play the role of "a global integrator charged with the missions of Space Operations; Information Operations; Integrated Missile Defense; Global Command & Control; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Global Strike; and Strategic Deterrence.... "

In January 2005, at the outset of the military build-up directed against Iran, USSTRATCOM was identified as "the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction."

To implement this mandate, a brand new command unit entitled Joint Functional Component Command Space and Global Strike, or JFCCSGS was created.

JFCCSGS has the mandate to oversee the launching of a nuclear attack in accordance with the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, approved by the US Congress in 2002. The NPR underscores the pre-emptive use of nuclear warheads not only against "rogue states" but also against China and Russia.

Since November, JFCCSGS is said to be in "an advance state of readiness" following the conduct of relevant military exercises. The announcement was made in early December by U.S. Strategic Command to the effect that the command unit had achieved "an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons." The exercises conducted in November used "a fictional country believed to represent North Korea" (see David Ruppe, 2 December 2005):

"The new unit [JFCCSGS] has 'met requirements necessary to declare an initial operational capability' as of Nov. 18. A week before this announcement, the unit finished a command-post exercise, dubbed Global Lightening, which was linked with another exercise, called Vigilant Shield, conducted by the North American Aerospace Defend Command, or NORAD, in charge of missile defense for North America.

'After assuming several new missions in 2002, U.S. Strategic Command was reorganized to create better cooperation and cross-functional awareness,' said Navy Capt. James Graybeal, a chief spokesperson for STRATCOM. 'By May of this year, the JFCCSGS has published a concept of operations and began to develop its day-to-day operational requirements and integrated planning process.'

'The command's performance during Global Lightning demonstrated its preparedness to execute its mission of proving integrated space and global strike capabilities to deter and dissuade aggressors and when directed, defeat adversaries through decisive joint global effects in support of STRATCOM,' he added without elaborating about 'new missions' of the new command unit that has around 250 personnel.

Nuclear specialists and governmental sources pointed out that one of its main missions would be to implement the 2001 nuclear strategy that includes an option of preemptive nuclear attacks on 'rogue states' with WMDs. (Japanese Economic Newswire, 30 December 2005)

[halva]

CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022

JFCCSGS is in an advanced state of readiness to trigger nuclear attacks directed against Iran or North Korea.

The operational implementation of the Global Strike is called CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022. The latter is described as "an actual plan that the Navy and the Air Force translate into strike package for their submarines and bombers,' (Ibid).

CONPLAN 8022 is 'the overall umbrella plan for sort of the pre-planned strategic scenarios involving nuclear weapons.'

'It's specifically focused on these new types of threats -- Iran, North Korea -- proliferators and potentially terrorists too,' he said. 'There's nothing that says that they can't use CONPLAN 8022 in limited scenarios against Russian and Chinese targets.'(According to Hans Kristensen, of the Nuclear Information Project, quoted in Japanese economic News Wire, op cit)

The mission of JFCCSGS is to implement CONPLAN 8022, in other words to trigger a nuclear war with Iran.

The Commander in Chief, namely George W. Bush would instruct the Secretary of Defense, who would then instruct the Joint Chiefs of staff to activate CONPLAN 8022.

CONPLAN is distinct from other military operations. it does not contemplate the deployment of ground troops.

CONPLAN 8022 is different from other war plans in that it posits a small-scale operation and no "boots on the ground." The typical war plan encompasses an amalgam of forces -- air, ground, sea -- and takes into account the logistics and political dimensions needed to sustain those forces in protracted operations.... The global strike plan is offensive, triggered by the perception of an imminent threat and carried out by presidential order.) (William Arkin, Washington Post, May 2005)

The Role of Israel

Since late 2004, Israel has been stockpiling US made conventional and nuclear weapons systems in anticipation of an attack on Iran. This stockpiling which is financed by US military aid was largely completed in June 2005. Israel has taken delivery from the US of several thousand "smart air launched weapons" including some 500 'bunker-buster bombs, which can also be used to deliver tactical nuclear bombs.

The B61-11 is the "nuclear version" of the "conventional" BLU 113, can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO112C.html , see also http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf03norris ) .

Moreover, reported in late 2003, Israeli Dolphin-class submarines equipped with US Harpoon missiles armed with nuclear warheads are now aimed at Iran. (See Gordon Thomas, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/THO311A.html

Late April 2005. Sale of deadly military hardware to Israel. GBU-28 Buster Bunker Bombs:

Coinciding with Putin's visit to Israel, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (Department of Defense) announced the sale of an additional 100 bunker-buster bombs produced by Lockheed Martin to Israel. This decision was viewed by the US media as "a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions."

The sale pertains to the larger and more sophisticated "Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) BLU-113 Penetrator" (including the WGU-36A/B guidance control unit and support equipment). The GBU-28 is described as "a special weapon for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground. The fact of the matter is that the GBU-28 is among the World's most deadly "conventional" weapons used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, capable of causing thousands of civilian deaths through massive explosions.

The Israeli Air Force are slated to use the GBU-28s on their F-15 aircraft.

(See text of DSCA news release at http://www.dsca.osd.mil/PressReleases/36-b/2005/Israel_05-10_corrected.pdf

Extension of the War

Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel (CNN, 8 Feb 2005). These attacks, could also target US military facilities in Iraq and Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation and all out war.

At present there are three distinct war theaters: Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. The air strikes against Iran could contribute to unleashing a war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region.

Moreover, the planned attack on Iran should also be understood in relation to the timely withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which has opened up a new space, for the deployment of Israeli forces. The participation of Turkey in the US-Israeli military operation is also a factor, following last year's agreement reached between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

More recently, Tehran has beefed up its air defenses through the acquisition of Russian 29 Tor M-1 anti-missile systems. In October, with Moscow`s collaboration, "a Russian rocket lifted an Iranian spy satellite, the Sinah-1, into orbit." (see Chris Floyd)

The Sinah-1 is just the first of several Iranian satellites set for Russian launches in the coming months.

Thus the Iranians will soon have a satellite network in place to give them early warning of an Israeli attack, although it will still be a pale echo of the far more powerful Israeli and American space spies that can track the slightest movement of a Tehran mullah’s beard. What’s more, late last month Russia signed a $1 billion contract to sell Iran an advanced defense system that can destroy guided missiles and laser-guided bombs, the Sunday Times reports. This too will be ready in the next few months. (op.cit.)

Ground War

While a ground war is not envisaged under CONPLAN, the aerial bombings could lead through the process of escalation into a ground war.

Iranian troops could cross the Iran-Iraq border and confront coalition forces inside Iraq. Israeli troops and/or Special Forces could enter into Lebanon and Syria.

In recent developments, Israel plans to conduct military exercises as well as deploy Special Forces in the mountainous areas of Turkey bordering Iran and Syria with the collaboration of the Ankara government:

Ankara and Tel Aviv have come to an agreement on allowing the Israeli army to carry out military exercises in the mountainous areas [in Turkey] that border Iran.

[According to] ... a UAE newspaper ..., according to the agreement reached by the Joint Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, Dan Halutz, and Turkish officials, Israel is to carry out various military manoeuvres in the areas that border Iran and Syria. [Punctuation as published here and throughout.] [Dan Halutz] had gone to Turkey a few days earlier.

Citing certain sources without naming them, the UAE daily goes on to stress: The Israeli side made the request to carry out the manoeuvres because of the difficulty of passage in the mountain terrains close to Iran's borders in winter.

The two Hakari [phonetic; not traced] and Bulo [phonetic; not traced] units are to take part in the manoeuvres that have not been scheduled yet. The units are the most important of Israel's special military units and are charged with fighting terrorism and carrying out guerrilla warfare.

Earlier Turkey had agreed to Israeli pilots being trained in the area bordering Iran. The news [of the agreement] is released at a time when Turkish officials are trying to evade the accusation of cooperating with America in espionage operations against its neighbouring countries Syria and Iran. Since last week the Arab press has been publishing various reports about Ankara's readiness or, at least, agreement in principle to carry out negotiations about its soil and air space being used for action against Iran.

(E'temad website, Tehran, in Persian 28 Dec 05, BBC Monitoring Services Translation)

Concluding remarks

The implications are overwhelming.

The so-called international community has accepted the eventuality of a nuclear holocaust.

Those who decide have swallowed their own war propaganda.

A political consensus has developed in Western Europe and North America regarding the aerial attacks using tactical nuclear weapons, without considering their devastating implications.

This profit driven military adventure ultimately threatens the future of humanity.

What is needed in the months ahead is a major thrust, nationally and internationally which breaks the conspiracy of silence, which acknowledges the dangers, which brings this war project to the forefront of political debate and media attentiion, at all levels, which confronts and requires political and military leaders to take a firm stance against the US sponsored nuclear war.

Ultimately what is required are extensive international sanctions directed against the United States of America and Israel.



© Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, GlobalResearch.ca, 2006