In An Impotent World Even The Bankrupt Can Prevail

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars
July 20, 2009

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Japan did not spend years preparing her public case and demonstrating her deployment of forces for the attack. Japan did not make a world issue out of her view that the US was denying Japan her role in the Pacific by hindering Japan’s access to raw materials and energy.

	Israel has made great public disclosure of its warships passing through the Suez Canal on their way to Iran.

Similarly, when Hitler attacked Russia, he did not preface his invasion with endless threats and a public case that blamed the war on England.

These events happened before the PSYOPS era. Today, America and Israel’s wars of aggression are preceded by years of propaganda and international meetings, so that by the time the attack comes it is an expected event, not a monstrous surprise attack with its connotation of naked aggression.

The US, which has been threatening Iran with attack for years, has passed the job to Israel. During the third week of July, the American vice president and secretary of state gave Israel the go-ahead. Israel has made great public disclosure of its warships passing through the Suez Canal on their way to Iran. “Muslim” Egypt is complicit, offering no objection to Israel’s naval forces on their way to a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the US imposed on the world.

By the time the attack occurs, it will be old hat, an expected event, and, moreover, an event justified by years of propaganda asserting Iran’s perfidy.

Israel intends to dominate the Middle East. Israel’s goal is to incorporate all of Palestine and southern Lebanon into “Greater Israel.” The US intends to dominate the entire world, deciding who rules which countries and controlling resource flows.

The US and Israel are likely to succeed, because they have effective PSYOPS. For the most part, the world media follows the US media, which follows the US and Israeli governments’ lines. Indeed, the American media is part of the PSYOPS of both countries.

According to Thierry Meyssan in the Swiss newspaper Zeit-Fragen, the CIA used SMS or text messaging and Twitter to spread disinformation about the Iranian election, including the false report that the Guardian Council had informed Mousavi that he had won the election. When the real results were announced, Ahmadinejad’s reelection appeared to be fraudulent.

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Iran’s fate awaits it. A reasonable hypothesis to be entertained and examined is whether Iran’s Rafsanjani and Mousavi are in league with Washington to gain power in Iran. Both have lost out in the competition for government power in Iran. Yet, both are egotistical and ambitious. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 probably means nothing to them except an opportunity for personal power. The way the West has always controlled the Middle East is by purchasing the politicians who are out of power and backing them in overthrowing the independent government. We see this today in Sudan as well.

In the case of Iran, there is an additional factor that might align Rafsanjani with Washington. President Ahmadinejad attacked former President Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s most wealthy persons, as corrupt. If Rafsanjani feels threatened by this attack, he has little choice but to try to overthrow the existing government. This makes him the perfect person for Washington.

Perhaps there is a better explanation why Rafsanjani and Mousavi, two highly placed members of the Iranian elite, chose to persist in allegations of election fraud that have played into Washington’s hands by calling into question the legitimacy of the Iranian government. It cannot be that the office of president is worth such costs as the Iranian presidency is not endowed with decisive powers.

Without Rafsanjani and Mousavi, the US media could not have orchestrated the Iranian elections as “stolen,” an orchestration that the US government used to further isolate and discredit the Iranian government, making it easier for Iran to be attacked. Normally, well placed members of an elite do not help foreign enemies set their country up for attack.

An Israeli attack on Iran is likely to produce retaliation, which Washington will use to enter the conflict. Have the personal ambitions of Rafsanjani and Mousavi, and the naive youthful upper class Iranian protesters, set Iran up for destruction?

Consult a map and you will see that Iran is surrounded by a dozen countries that host US military bases. Why does anyone in Iran doubt that Iran is on her way to becoming another Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, in the end to be ruled by oil companies and an American puppet?

The Russians and Chinese are off balance because of successful American interventions in their spheres of influence, uncertain of the threat and the response. Russia could have prevented the coming attack on Iran, but, pressured by Washington, Russia has not delivered the missile systems that Iran purchased. China suffers from her own hubris as a rising economic power, and is about to lose her energy investments in Iran to US/Israeli aggression. China is funding America’s wars of aggression with loans, and Russia is even helping the US to set up a puppet state in Afghanistan, thus opening up former Soviet central Asia to US hegemony.

The world is so impotent that even the bankrupt US can launch a new war of aggression and have it accepted as a glorious act of liberation in behalf of women’s rights, peace, and democracy.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/in-an-impotent-world-even-the-bankrupt-can-prevail/

Israeli warships rehearse for Iran attack in Red Sea

Telegraph
July 18, 2009

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Israeli and Egyptian officials said two ships had sailed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea.

Media reports in Israel said the two Saar-class missile ships had been sent as a “message” to the Tehran government, which has repeatedly issued threats against Israel and is developing nuclear technology believed by the West to be intended for atomic weapons programme.

While Iran denies this, saying its enrichment of uranium is for civlian purposes only, so that it can generate electricity.

Israel has also deployed a submarine using the Suez Canal, but it has since returned to the Mediterranean.

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URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/israeli-warships-rehearse-for-iran-attack-in-red-sea/

Warships in Suez prepare for Iran attack

YNet News
July 16, 2009

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Israeli missile class warships sailed through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea ten days after a submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile strike, in what the British Times newspaper quoted an Israeli defense official as saying “should be taken seriously”. The move was apparently done in preparation for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and the official said, “Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran. These maneuvers are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats.”

The report came two days after two Saar class missile boats – the most advanced in the IDF’s possession – crossed the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. Arab sources said the movement was only a drill.

The defense official went on to say, “It is not by chance that Israel is drilling long-range maneuvers in a public way. This is not a secret operation. This is something that has been published and which will showcase Israel’s abilities.”

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URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/warships-in-suez-prepare-for-iran-attack/

Newt Gingrich: Sabotage Iran’s Oil Infrastructure

AlJazeera
July 10, 2009

The former speaker of the US House of Representatives has said that the US should “sabotage” Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure as part of its efforts to bring down the government.

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In an interview with Al Jazeera’s Avi Lewis for the Fault Lines programme, Republican Newt Gingrich said targeting Iran’s refinery would spark an economic crisis that would destabilise the government in Tehran.

He said the US should “use covert operations … to create a gasoline-led crisis to try and replace the regime”.

“I think we have a vested interest, the world has a vested interest, in a responsible Iranian government, just as we have a vested interest in a responsible North Korean government,” he said.

In depth

Newt Gingrich speaks to Al Jazeera on Iran

While Barack Obama, the US president, has attempted diplomatic engagement with Iran following years of icy relations, some of his administration’s critics have been calling for destabilisation instead.

But Gingrich qualified that such a tactic to destabilise would only be “one piece out of many”.

“I think that the Reagan strategy in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s is the right strategy: we use economic, diplomatic, psychological pressures to try to change the regime.”

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/newt-gingrich-sabotage-irans-oil-infrastructure/

Obama at G8: Iran Has Until September to Obey or Face Consequences

Matt Spetalnick
The Washington Post
July 10, 2009

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U.S. President Barack Obama warned Iran on Friday the world will not wait indefinitely for it to end its nuclear defiance, saying Tehran had until September to comply or else face consequences.

Obama, speaking at the end of a G8 summit in Italy, said leaders had sent a message condemning the “appalling” events surrounding Iran’s disputed presidential election and expressing solidarity against Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

He said he hoped Iran would enter negotiations on the issue and that leaders would review the situation again at a G20 meeting of developed and developing countries in Pittsburgh in September.

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URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/obama-at-g8-iran-has-until-september-to-obey-or-face-consequences/

Protesters, officers clash violently in Iran’s streets

Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi
Los Angeles Times
July 9, 2009

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Violent clashes erupted today in downtown Tehran between more than a thousand determined young men and women chanting, “Death to the dictator” and “God is great” and security forces wielding truncheons.

The screams of a woman being beaten could be heard from nearby buildings, a witness said. Business owners could be seen hustling protesters into their buildings to shield them from plainclothes officers and anti-riot police who fired tear gas canisters.

Passing drivers and motorcyclists honked their horns and flashed the “V” sign in support of the clumps of demonstrators. At least one trash bin was set afire, a witness said, sending a plume of black smoke rising as dusk approached.

Many of the demonstrators wore surgical masks to protect their identities from cameras stationed at adjacent buildings. They could be seen escaping into side streets and regrouping as shops quickly were shuttered.

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URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/protesters-officers-clash-violently-in-irans-streets/

Clinton calls for ‘even stricter’ Iran sanctions

AFP
July 8, 2009

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The United States will call for “even stricter sanctions on Iran to try to change the behavior of the regime,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a TV interview broadcast here.

Washington remained concerned about what she called Iran’s “pursuit of nuclear weapons,” which could “be very destabilizing in the Middle East and beyond,” Clinton told the private television network Globovision.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian energy purposes.

“We would ask the world to join us in imposing even stricter sanctions on Iran to try to change the behavior of the regime,” Clinton said in the interview, which was broadcast late Tuesday.

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URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/clinton-calls-for-even-stricter-iran-sanctions/

Biden, Israel and Iran

Gary Leupp
Counterpunch
July 7, 2009

Vice President Joe Biden, apparently speaking on behalf of the Obama administration, has just given Israel the green light to bomb Iran.

“Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else,” he told ABC’s “This Week” in an interview broadcast Sunday. “Whether we agree or not, they’re entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed. If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice,” he declared.

The statement is presented in logically abstract terms. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do what’s in its interest regardless of what “we” think, surely. How very reasonable—magnanimous, even, coming from the mouth of the vice-president of the superpower that’s in the last eight years brutally imposed its will on two sizable Southwest Asian countries.

But to test Biden’s universalist logic imagine yourself in 1939, substitute Germany for Israel and Poland for Iran and ask whether “any sovereign nation is” really “entitled to do that.”

Of course Israel doesn’t have any “sovereign right” to attack Iran! And Biden’s implied distaste for the attack (“That is not our choice”), which may presage a calculated distancing from an action in the future, doesn’t undo the fact that he explicitly validates such action here.

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They’re entitled to do it, says Joe. Just as presumably they’re entitled to remain outside the nuclear nonproliferation treaty regime, and produce and stockpile the only nuclear weapons in the Middle East, while claiming that the Iranian nuclear program (begun under U.S. encouragement under the Shah) can only have military intentions and can only be designed to produced a “nuclear Holocaust” to destroy the Jews.

Just as presumably they’re entitled to deploy vast resources  to pressure the U.S. government to bomb Iran for them. (But no worry about the impact on U.S. foreign policy. “There is no pressure,” says Joe, “from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.” What he really means is: There’s actually a whole shitload of pressure from Israel on us to bomb Iran. But we might not do that. Because Obama thinks that the Israeli-demanded attack on Iran, like the assault on Iraq, might be a “strategic blunder.”)

One could argue, of course, that in positing Netanyahu’s “sovereign right” to bomb Iran, a nation which has not attacked another in modern times, Biden is just shooting off his famous mouth again. But there are at least two reasons his comments should be taken very seriously.

First of all, there is obviously much conflict within the U.S. power structure over the wisdom of a U.S. attack on Iran. The Israel Lobby demanding one may have suffered a defeat at the hands of the Pentagon, which sees such an attack as complicating the imbroglios it faces in Iraq and Afghanistan (and down the road in Pakistan?), and the intelligence community which knows that Iran does not possess a nuclear weapons program threatening the world.

Secondly, the state of Israel continues to depict the Islamic Republic of Iran as an “existential” threat to itself, while threatening to attack it with missiles if the U.S. does not do so. The Bush administration always endorsed Israel’s vilification campaign and conceded the possibility that it might act “on its own” (as though it could really do so without a green light from Washington). Dick Cheney told Don Imus on MSNBC in January 2005 that “Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel [sic (disinformation)], the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.” He implied that if the U.S. didn’t take action, the Israelis would be justified in doing so.

This remains the U.S. position under the Obama administration. And having decided for geopolitical reasons to adopt a tougher line on Israel’s illegal settlements on the West Bank, Washington is perhaps particularly disinclined to deter Israel should it opt to create the mess of which Cheney spoke. “That was not our choice,” it will say.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/biden-israel-and-iran/

China joins Iran in Blocking Social Media During Protest Crackdowns

Digital East Asia
July 7, 2009

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More as we have it, but TechCrunch is reporting on an apparent Chinese crackdown on Twitter and Facebook access, plus search censorship, seemingly in response to the riots of ethnic Uighurs over the weekend.  That China has no qualms about attempting to limit access and censor the internet is well known; witness the recent uproar over the planned “Green Dam”, currently on hold.  Much of that seemed aimed at more generalized state control and was wrapped in the ‘porn prevention/social responsibility’ cloak that so many government censors use.  (And many  in the West see the targeting of Google and other Western companies in these crackdowns as an underhanded way to promote domestic Chinese companies.

This crackdown, however, seems to be attempting to limit the access of those involved in protests to the tools to spread and organize their message.

Techcrunch quotes Web2Asia:

Web2Asia’s George Godula writes:

“As of today 8pm Chinese time Facebook seems not to be accessible from most parts of China Mainland anymore. On the China Telecom connection of our Shanghai office the service vanished at around 7:45pm. Friends in Hong Kong are reporting that they can still access the website.”

China’s Uighur minority group has been rioting after a peaceful protest clashed with the police.  Many have referred to the latest protests as being driven by concerns about ethnic identity and fears that a separatist movements dream of an independent state are fading.  (Coverage of the riots.)

Xinjiang, where at least 140 people have died in China’s worst riots since the Tiananmen Square massacre, is a vast area of desert and mountains, as distinct from eastern China in history, atmosphere and geography as Turkey is from Britain.

With the death toll and number of injured mounting, China is trying to both stop the demonstrators and squash their message through control of social media.   More as we have it.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/china-joins-iran-in-blocking-social-media-during-protest-crackdowns/

Israel Air Force preparing for Iranian strike

Sri Lankan News
July 6, 2009

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The Israel Air Force is planning to participate in aerial exercises in the US and Europe in the coming months.

It is believed pilots will be trained for long-range flights as a precautionary measure against possible Iranian attacks and in test-runs for potential strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

IAF planes will take part in a joint aerial exercise with NATO forces in Europe and the US.

On Sunday, US Vice-President, Joe Biden, told ABC television the US would not stand in the way militarily if the Israelis decided they needed to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

He said: “The US cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do. Israel can determine for itself – it’s a sovereign nation – what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would prefer to see Iran’s nuclear program stopped through diplomacy, but has not ruled out a military strike.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/israel-air-force-preparing-for-iranian-strike/