"Crisis" In Israel/Palestine/Lebanon/Syria

[vinny]

Here in the UK, the TV news coverage is just as skewed, whilst simultaneously maintaining an impression of cool-headed impartiality, which I'm sure will fool many many people. it is only to be expected, but sickening, all the same.

This morning the BBC reported on the start of the 'largest evacuation of British citizens since Dunkirk' from Lebanon onto the two nearby warships. So tell me, good folks at the BBC, if it is Israel that is under attack, why oh why is it only Lebanon that desperately needs to be evacuated?

 

[Lucy]

Here in the UK, the TV news coverage is just as skewed, whilst simultaneously maintaining an impression of cool-headed impartiality, which I'm sure will fool many many people. it is only to be expected, but sickening, all the same.

This morning the BBC reported on the start of the 'largest evacuation of British citizens since Dunkirk' from Lebanon onto the two nearby warships. So tell me, good folks at the BBC, if it is Israel that is under attack, why oh why is it only Lebanon that desperately needs to be evacuated?

I'm seeing such WWII buzzwords as "Dunkirk" popping up all over the place. Evidently the intent is truly to make this WWIII. As the editorial below says, "We need to see the big picture." I agree. Question is, 'which' big picture? Sometimes the obvious propoganda, in all its arrogance and stupidity, is so sickeningly twisted and over the top that I find myself hyperventilating. Below is one example of this, where some appropriate analogies have been drawn, but assigned to the wrong parties. About halfway through this editorial (where I've bolded it) is where I started to feel a little crazy and had to work to get my breathing back under control. Only a true psychopath could have written this crap:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20060717/bs_ibd_ibd/2006717issues01

Opinion & Editorials
The Puppet Masters: Syria And Iran
Investor's Business Daily
via Yahoo! News, Jul 18
Ibd
Mon Jul 17, 7:00 PM ET

Mideast: Hezbollah and Hamas are doing the fighting, but Damascus and Tehran are pulling the strings. And all are willing to fight the West to the last Lebanese.

If there was any doubt about Iran's direct involvement in the attacks on Israel, it was removed when an Iranian-made radar guided C-802 missile, not an unmanned drone as widely reported, struck and severely damaged an Israeli warship on patrol off the coast of Lebanon.

The C-802 is a sophisticated weapon requiring special training. It is quite different from the short-range and inaccurate Katyushas first used in World War II by the Soviets.

C-802s require not only special training but also special approval to launch. That order comes from Tehran.

An Israeli intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that an estimated 100 Iranian Revolutionary Guards were in southern Lebanon to help fire this missile.

This was confirmed by Israeli Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushstan, who said: "We can confirm that it (the warship) was hit by an Iranian-made missile launched by Hezbollah. We see this as very profound fingerprint of Iranian involvement in Hezbollah."

On Sunday, another Hezbollah rocket barrage hit the northern Israeli port of Haifa. It included four Iranian-made Fajr missiles with a range of 28 miles, said Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, head of Israel's northern command.

The "Fajr" (Dawn) series of mobile-launched, unguided, solid-fuel artillery rockets was developed by Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war with the likely help of Russia and China. It is believed that Iran first supplied Fajr-5 rockets to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2001.

These weapons -- as well as Iranian money, to the tune of at least $100 million annually -- have flowed through Damascus, a key point in Hezbollah's supply chain.

Jihadists have also used Syria to travel in the other direction to foment violence in Iraq.

This latest conflict is believed to have started when exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, residing in Damascus, ordered Hamas terrorists to tunnel into Israeli territory and kill two Israeli soldiers manning a border post and kidnap a third, 19-year-old Gilad Shalit.

Meshaal may have authorized the Hezbollah raid as well. Just after the Hamas attack, one of his aides told a reporter: "I believe the resistance (to Israel) should not be content with taking one Israeli soldier as prisoner. They should develop this kind of operation and seek to capture more soldiers, and perhaps officers, so that the occupation realizes that our prisoners will not die and rot in jail."

Neither Hezbollah nor Hamas acknowledges Israel's right to exist. But it can also be said that neither Syria nor Iran has acknowledged Lebanon's right to exist.

Hezbollah's yellow-and-green flag touts an Islamic Republic in Lebanon. Damascus views Lebanon the way Saddam's Iraq viewed Kuwait: as a lost province, part of a long-sought Greater Syria.

On May 12, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1680 calling on Syria to recognize defined Lebanese borders, exchange ambassadors as a way of recognizing Lebanon's full sovereignty and stop the flow of weapons through Syria into Lebanon. Damascus has refused all three.

Syria and its operatives were heavily involved in the assassinations of two Lebanese leaders who took a strong stand on behalf of Lebanese sovereignty -- President Bashir Gemeyal in 1982 and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

Hezbollah and Hamas like to masquerade as "political parties," legitimate parts of their respective governments. But so were the Nazis in 1930s Germany, and the West was forced to go to war to destroy both, when they could have been stopped earlier at a much lesser cost.

The world has a history of appeasing tyrants on the march and ignoring the big picture.

In 1936, the West refused to respond when Hitler ordered his horse-drawn infantry into the Rhineland.

Today we dawdle at the U.N. while Iran races to complete its Manhattan Project and wages a proxy war against Israel in Lebanon. Imagine Hamas or Hezbollah with an Iranian nuke.

As Iranian rockets rain down on its cities, Tel Aviv may decide not to wait for that frightening possibility and decide that there's been enough talk at the world body that is a fitting successor to the impotent League of Nations.

Israel may strike at Iran's nuclear facilities as it did with justification at Iraq's French-built Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.

We need to see the big picture.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaking in Bellevue, Wash., on Saturday, said the American people and government need to connect the dots and realize "this is World War III."

I agree that, "The world has a history of appeasing tyrants on the march and ignoring the big picture." Except in this case the tyrant is Israel, and the "big picture" being promoted by the psychopathic media is a lie.

 

[Laura]

The world has a history of appeasing tyrants on the march and ignoring the big picture.

In 1936, the West refused to respond when Hitler ordered his horse-drawn infantry into the Rhineland.

How they can say that and NOT get the connection between Bush and the Zionists invading Iraq and destabilizing the whole planet is beyond me... To just twist it to apply to Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah requires significant mental backflips.

But then, isn't that the evidence of Ponerization?

One phenomenon all ponerogenic groups and associations have in common is the fact that their members lose (or have already lost) the capacity to perceive pathological individuals as such, interpreting their behavior in a fascinated, heroic, or melodramatic ways. The opinions, ideas, and judgments of people carrying various psychological deficits are endowed with an importance at least equal to that of outstanding individuals among normal people.

The atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to pathological individuals becomes an opening to their activities, and, at the same time, a criterion for recognizing the association in concern as ponerogenic. Let us call this the first criterion of ponerogenesis.

Another phenomenon all ponerogenic associations have in common is their statistically high concentration of individuals with various psychological anomalies. Their qualitative composition is crucially important in the formation of the entire union's character, activities, development, or extinction. [...]

Observation of the ponerization processes of various human unions throughout history easily leads to the conclusion that the initial step is a moral warping of the group's ideational contents. In analyzing the contamination of a group's ideology, we note first of all an infiltration of foreign, simplistic, and doctrinaire contents, thereby depriving it of any healthy support for, and trust in, the necessity of understanding of human nature. This opens the way for invasion by pathological factors and the ponerogenic role of their carriers. [...]

For centuries, individuals exhibiting various psychological anomalies have had the tendency to participate in the activities of human unions. This is made possible on the one hand by such group's weaknesses, i.e. failure in adequate psychological knowledge; on the other hand, it deepens the moral failings and stifles the possibilities of utilizing healthy common sense and understanding matters objectively. ... by detecting and describing these aspects of the ponerization process of human groups, which could not be understood until recently, we shall be able to counteract such processes earlier and more effectively. Again, depth and breadth of knowledge of human psychological variations is crucial.

Any human group affected by the process described herein is characterized by its increasing regression from natural common sense and the ability to perceive psychological reality. Someone considering this in terms of traditional categories might consider it an instance of "turning into half-wits" or the development of intellectual deficiencies and moral failings.

A ponerological analysis of this process, however, indicates that pressure is being applied to the more normal part of the association by pathological factors present in certain individuals who have been allowed to participate in the group because the lack of good psychological knowledge has not madated their exclusion.

Thus, whenever we observe some group member being treated with no critical distance, although he betrays one of the psychological anomalies familiar to us, and his opinions being treated as at least equal to those of normal people, although they are based on a characteristically different view of human matters, we must derive the conclusion that this human group is affected by a ponerogenic process and if measures are not taken the process shall continue to its logical conclusion.

We shall treat this in accordance with the above described first criterion of ponerology, which retains its validity regardless of the qualitative and quantitative features of such a union: the atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to pathological individuals becomes an opening to their activities, and, at the same time, a criterion for recognizing the association in concern as ponerogenic.

 

[Laura]

Israeli F-16 aircraft reportedly shot down

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-07/17/content_4845670.htm

BEIRUT, July 17 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli military aircraft was shot down near Beirut on Monday, a local television reported.

The channel showed footage of a burning object crashing into the ground near the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut.

The report said that the aircraft was an F-16 fighter jet.

The Hezbollah stronghold has been under Israeli air raids over the past few days.

But Israel said that there was no such news about the downing of any Israeli aircraft.

Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which triggered the current Israeli-Lebanese conflicts by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers last Wednesday, intensified its rocket attack on Israeli cities amid Israeli air and sea assault on Lebanon.

 

[Laura]

Prophetic words from 3 years ago...

Neo-Jacobins Push For World War IV

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts8.html

by Paul Craig Roberts

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." If neoconservatives have their way, Americans will soon be repeating this refrain.

The identical lies used to deceive Americans about Iraq are now being recycled to justify invading Syria and Iran.

Before exploring this fact, first understand that there is nothing conservative about neoconservatives. Neocons hide behind "conservative" but they are in fact Jacobins.

Jacobins were the 18th century French revolutionaries whose intention to remake Europe in revolutionary France's image launched the Napoleonic Wars.

In an outstanding article, "The Ideology of American Empire," in the current issue of Orbis, Professor Claes Ryn conclusively shows that neocons are, in truth, neo-Jacobins. More dangerous an enemy of the US and its traditional values than Muslims, neo-Jacobins have seized control of the Bush presidency and US foreign policy. They will stop at nothing to achieve their goal of World War IV in the Middle East.

It is now absolutely certain that the American public and President Bush were bamboozled into invading Iraq by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, an unsavory assortment of lesser neo-Jacobin notables who inhabit the higher reaches of the Bush administration, and their neo-Jacobin allies in the Likud Party controlled media in New York City and Washington DC.

On September 17 President Bush confessed his folly: "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in September 11." Yet according to polls, a majority of Americans still believe that Iraq was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center. Whose propaganda led Americans to this utterly mistaken belief?

An extensive search in Iraq has failed to turn up any evidence of any weapons of mass destruction, much less nuclear weapons. The image of "mushroom clouds going up over American cities," which was used to panic Congress into accepting an invasion of Iraq, has turned out to be - as every expert knew at the time - nothing but propaganda worthy of Heinrich Himmler and Paul Joseph Goebbles. The fabrications about Iraq's intentions toward the US rival Hitler's declaration that Poland had attacked Germany.

Consider the implications if Saddam Hussein really had possessed WMD - especially ones that could be deployed in 45 minutes as asserted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair: the entire US-British invasion force, concentrated in a tiny area of Kuwait, could have been destroyed by one or two weapons. If Bush really believed Iraq had WMD, he was criminally negligent for making sitting ducks out of our troops.

Senator Ted Kennedy is correct when he said on September 18 that the case against Iraq was "a fraud" made up to give Republicans a political boost. As much as I hate to admit it, the evidence is on Senator Kennedy's side.

However, being caught red-handed in fraud does not deter neo-Jacobins with an agenda. Clutching firmly to their propaganda that Iraqis are desperate to shower US troops with flowers and kisses but are prevented by dead-enders among the Saddam Hussein remnants, neo-Jacobins now agitate for invading Syria and Iran.

On September 16, Undersecretary of State John Bolton in testimony before Congress declared Syria to be a "rogue state" armed with weapons of mass destruction and called for "regime change."

On September 17, Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter testified to Congress that Iran has the ability to launch missiles with biological warheads and that Iran's nuclear program is a genuine threat both to the Middle East and the US.

On September 19, Paul Bremer, head of the US occupation government in Iraq, suggested in an interview with The Telegraph (UK) that Iran was involved in the bombings and killings of occupational forces in Iraq, echoing neo-Jacobin Michael Ladeen's assertion that the US cannot win in Iraq unless it overthrows Iran.

Here we go again. The same propaganda. Only the targets are new.

Where will the troops come from to invade Iran and Syria?

It is now widely known that we have insufficient forces to pacify Iraq. The US government has been forced to dishonor its contract with the reserves and National Guard by forcing these weekend soldiers to stand in for regular army troops.

Not even billions of dollars have sufficed to bribe other governments to send their soldiers to Iraq. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander of our occupation army in Iraq, said on September 18 that in order to protect his troops, he would consider pulling his forces out of major Iraqi cities the moment Iraqi security forces were prepared to take control.

Yet, President Bush's anti-Arab policymakers want to greatly multiply the attacks on our troops by inserting them into Syria and Iran!

Are the neo-Jacobins in charge of the US government totally delusional? Are they totally disconnected from reality? Or is this more fraud to start two more wars before the American public wakes up to the neo-Jacobin agenda?

The neo-Jacobins are rushing to get America involved in a general Middle Eastern war before Americans have time to think. The terrorist scare which worked the first time is being employed again. Once we have attacked other sovereign Islamic countries, we will have to bring back the draft in order to raise the necessary armies or resort to nuclear weapons.

If the American public falls for the second round of neo-Jacobin propaganda, neither do they deserve, nor will they have, liberty and democracy.

The only weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East are Israel's 200 nuclear warheads. Israel has the real thing, not a mere desire for a program that might produce a weapon in the future.

It is Israel - not Iran - who has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It is Israel that occupies by force of arms parts of Syria and Palestine. Arabs do not occupy Israeli territory.

It is Israel that treats Palestinians the way National Socialists treated Jews by bottling them up in ghettos and assassinating them at will.

On September 18 President Bush declared: "Arafat has failed as a leader." What Bush means is that Arafat, unlike Bush, has failed to carry out Israel's orders. Arafat's support in Palestine far exceeds Bush's support in the US or Sharon's support in Israel.

Every day the Israelis bite off another piece of Palestine. Arafat is a "failed leader" because he has not led Palestinians off into the wilderness for 40 years, the better to deliver Palestine up to Israel.

The root of the Middle Eastern problem is Israel's uncanny ability to manipulate American public opinion and US foreign policy. This unique power means Israel doesn't have to compromise. Instead, the Israelis escalate and involve us ever more deeply and one-sidedly in their disputes with Arabs.

The inability of the US to impose an evenhanded settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the breeding ground of terrorists.

The US invasion of Iraq has bred more terrorists.

Bush's neo-Jacobins will not be content until they have 600 million enraged Muslims at our throats.

How did maniacs dead set on World War IV get in control of the US government?

September 20, 2003

 

[Laura]

Bill Kristol is a Maniac

Cenk Uygur
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/bill-kristol-is-a-maniac_b_25149.html

Bill Kristol has never seen a war he didn't like. No, that's too soft. A war he didn't love and lust after. Here's a wolf in sheep's clothing pretending to be serious, sober minded analyst on television when in reality he is trying to get us sucked into horrific wars that other people will die fighting.
Will he ever put on a uniform and fight any of the wars he so desperately wants to start? Hell no. Will anyone in his family or friends? Hell no.

They love to start wars, not fight them. That's for the poor schmucks who don't know any better and sign up to run the fool's errands Kristol wants to send them on. On Thursday, we had Ben Barnes, the former Lt. Governor of Texas on our show talking about how he got all the rich kids of Texas out of the Vietnam War, including George W. Bush. There was something about hearing him say it that struck me. It isn't just theoretical; they really do get their kids out of war while they send poor kids to get ground up by the war machine. There is something infinitely sick about that.

And here's Kristol now on Fox News channel today talking about how we need more war, a wider war, a bigger war. He says it's "a great opportunity." You could almost see him drooling. Watch this clip:

Bill Kristol on Fox News Channel

First of all, I'd like to congratulate Juan Williams for finally calling him out on this nonsense. Second, I loved Kristol's reaction to Williams. Shrug it off -- yes, of course, I want more war. No skin off his ass.

For those of you lucky enough to not know Bill Kristol, he is the top neocon intellectual (how's that for a gigantic oxymoron) in the country. He is the editor of The Weekly Standard, the bible of neo-conservatism and warmongering. He is in effect their propaganda minister. And like all good propaganda ministers, he will never bring his pampered, powdered soft ass anywhere near a battle line. But he can't wait for your kid to die in the wars he starts.

He goads the country by calling it weak and does what all people trained in propaganda do - unless you attack the country I tell you to, I will call all of you weak and cowardly. The oldest trick in the book. Read it for yourself in his latest article here.

The chickenhawk is calling the rest of us chickens. How's that for rich irony?

In the video clip, Kristol mentions that Israel is now fighting four out of five of our enemies. He says that the only enemy of ours not in this current battle is Al-Qaeda. He neglects to mention that they are the only people who actually attacked us! The other four are only our enemies because the neocons have convinced this administration to threaten them. Those people never attacked us -- we threatened to attack them.

Frankly, I don't give a damn what Kristol's motivations are. I don't care if he has some other interests in mind or if he just loves blood. Maybe the sight of other people bleeding for his ideas turns him on. But anyway, you slice it, it's maniacal and unacceptable.

Right now, we should be spending all of our time and energy trying to figure out a way to avoid a broader Middle Eastern War, a war that could suck us into World War III. We have 130,000 troops waiting in Iraq like sitting ducks. What happens when Israel and Iran start exchanging bombs? It's obvious -- we get sucked into fighting Iran ... and the Iraqi Shiites, and the Iraqi Sunnis, and the Syrians, and the Lebanese and ...

That's a world of pain. If you thought the Iraq War has gone poorly, wait till you get a load of the broader Middle East War -- where everyone in the region is against us.

How haughty and arrogant could we be? What are we going to do, bomb, fight and occupy the whole Middle East? We couldn't even handle Iraq. How in the world are we going to handle Iran, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon at the same time? We are asking for a terrible war we can't possibly win.

We wouldn't even know what winning means. Since it's not our interests we're fighting for, when do we know we won? When we obliterate the whole Middle East? When they bow down to our military might? When they stop fighting us? There is no winning because there's nothing to win.

Yet, instead of calling for calm and a halt to the bombings our President encourages Israel to go further because of dangerous neocons like Kristol whispering in his ear (notice how Kristol gave Bush a little pat on the head on Fox by saying he likes the administration's reaction from the last couple of days - good boy, good boy). If we don't do something right now, we are going to be in the middle of an intractable, bloody war before we know what hit us.

Don't get me wrong, I think Hamas and Hezbollah started the hostilities in this case. They sent a terrible message to Israel by attacking from territories Israel withdrew from. That precedent can only do tremendous damage to their own people because it encourages occupation. Then Israel overreacted and has killed far more civilians than necessary in a foolhardy effort to send a message. What's the message? We'll kill your women and children if you keep it up?

But at this point, it's futile and unproductive to be worried about who started it. Instead, we need to focus all of our energies on how to stop it. Unfortunately, we have a couple of roadblocks here at home preventing us from trying to come up with a peaceful and productive solution. One of those roadblocks goes by the name of Bill Kristol.

 

[Laura]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071706J.shtml

Cheerleading the Apocalypse
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 17 July 2006

Who knows but the world may end tonight?

- Robert Browning

The fighting between Israel and Lebanon over the course of the last few days presents perhaps the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The leadership of Israel and Hezbollah spend the blood of innocents to prove how very tough they are, and the lords of unreason hold sway over all. Syria trembles on the edge of significant involvement, with Iran waiting in the wings.

Annia Ciezadlo, writing for The Nation, offered a poignant snapshot of the mood on the Lebanese street. "The day after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers," wrote Ciezadlo, "all of Beirut prepared for war in time-honored Lebanese fashion: shopping. We bought siege food, anything that doesn't need refrigeration - powdered milk, canned hummus, beans, cracked wheat."

"Less rationally, however," continued Ciezadlo, "we bought comfort food, compiling a collective shopping list of fear and craving: I bought a chocolate cake mix for no reason. Yogurt, which will spoil once the electricity dies, disappeared from the shelves. And everyone lined up to buy bread. It's going to mold in a day or two, but who doesn't feel better after smelling freshly-baked bread, and who knew when we'd smell that again?"

Noted Mideast expert Juan Cole put the ramifications from what is taking place on every American doorstep. "Americans have to understand that when Israel goes wild and bombs a civilian airport and civilian neighborhoods in Beirut," wrote Cole, "a lot of the world's Catholics (Lebanon is partially a Catholic country) and its 1.4 billion Muslims blame the United States for it. Israel is given billions every year by the United States, including sophisticated weaponry that is now being trained on the slums of south Beirut."

"It should also be remembered," continued Cole, "that Bin Laden said, at least, that he started thinking about hitting New York when he saw that 1982 Israeli destruction of the skyscrapers or "towers" of Lebanon. How many future Bin Ladens are watching with horror and rage and feelings of revenge as Israel drops bombs on civilian tenement buildings? When will this blow back on Americans?"

It is all quite terrifying, but most frightening of all are the voices being raised in support of widening this crisis into total war. William Kristol, editor of the far-right periodical The Weekly Standard, has openly stated that the crisis should be used as an opportunity to attack other Middle Eastern nations. "While Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel," wrote Kristol in an article titled "It's Our War," "they are also enemies of the United States. The right response is renewed strength - in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities."

It should be noted that Kristol was one of the most vociferous cheerleaders for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has been working out splendidly thus far. One hopes there are some wiser heads somewhere who will remember this, and take Mr. Kristol's advice with a large grain of salt.

Even so, it is disturbing to hear these kinds of things. The last several years have established, beyond doubt, that the Bush administration is at best inept, and at worst deliberately destructive. Watching Bush observe the carnage with a "What me worry?" look on his face has been disgusting, if not terribly surprising. The United States has abandoned its position of leadership on the world stage, and the mayhem erupting in the Middle East, combined with provocative actions from North Korea, is a direct result of that.

If further proof of this is required, look no further than the exchange between Mr. Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin on Saturday. Bush offered a critique of Russia's so-called democracy, and Putin shot back, "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly." Bush tried to laugh it off, but his face purpled with rage. And so the president of the United States is publicly slapped by the leader of Russia, and we are all lessened and shamed by it, because Putin was correct.

Much of what is happening has come about, simply, because the Bush administration is run by, and heeds the advice of, stone cold crazy people. Inside the administration lurks Dick Cheney, who with his proxy Don Rumsfeld engineered the Iraq fiasco. On the outside, and enjoying far more credibility than is deserved, are voices like William Kristol's.

And then, of course, there is the Republican base, the people who stand by Mr. Bush because they believe him to be the right arm of Jesus Christ. The fundamentalist far-right branch of Christianity that has established itself as the most powerful force in electoral politics is heeded by this administration because they owe their tenure to these people.

A lot of them are thrilled by what is happening in the Middle East. An internet forum called "Rapture Ready" offers some insight into that particular breed of right-wing Christian who cannot wait for the Apocalypse. "Gosh!!!" writes one poster, "Here we are making plans to move to the east coast and we might not even have to move after all. I say, come quickly Lord!!!"

"Israel is not a land of un-walled villages so this is probably a war that will result in that," writes another poster. "Then Gog and Magog will come. But I believe we could be raptured before. I believe before Damascus is destroyed God may rescue His children out of there." Yet another poster writes, "In another thread, someone brought up the fact that the kidnapping of the first Israeli soldier that started this whole thing was on June 25th, and if you count from that day to August 3rd ... it is EXACTLY 40 days!!!!! I find that to be a HUGE coincidence."

Etc.

Mr. Bush is accounted as the unofficial leader of these people, listens to them, and has surrounded himself with violent men who share violent dreams. An analysis of apocalyptic scripture could, perhaps, reveal the manner in which a combination of stupidity, extremism and a total lack of morality is the key which will unlock the end of days. In the meantime, I am reminded of those bumper stickers which can be seen on the roads from time to time. "In case of Rapture," they read, "this car will be empty." Once, I saw a witty rejoinder to this sentiment on another bumper: "In case of Rapture, can I have your car?"

If I were making bumper stickers, I might add a new wrinkle: "In case of Rapture, can I have my country back?"

 

[Windmill knight]

It is all quite terrifying, but most frightening of all are the voices being raised in support of widening this crisis into total war. William Kristol, editor of the far-right periodical The Weekly Standard, has openly stated that the crisis should be used as an opportunity to attack other Middle Eastern nations. "While Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel," wrote Kristol in an article titled "It's Our War," "they are also enemies of the United States. The right response is renewed strength - in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities."

Having myself studied a little of the mentality of the neocon and zionist ultra-pathocrats, I've come to wonder if these guys are lizard-walk-ins? I mean, cheerleading WWIII?!? I cannot think of anything more evil.

Thanks for the articles, Laura.

 

[Ryan]

There was a fairly decent interview with Robert Fisk on the Aussie ABC show "Lateline" last night. The interview is available in transcript, plus Real Media and Windows Media at the Lateline website.

Fisk seems to be convinced that Syria and Iran are behind Hezbollah, which plays into the hands of some of the right-wing war pimps quite nicely. I wonder if this is actually the case?

 

[PopHistorian]

<< What's the message? We'll kill your women and children if you keep it up? >>

CNN interviewed Israeli soldiers launching shells into Lebabon, trading fire with Hezbollah, which they'd been doing for days straight. Asked when they'll stop, the commander said, "We won't stop until those soldiers are returned home, the one in Gaza and two in Lebanon."

What the $#@? So, they'll continue to kill indefinitely, and have their civilians killed in retaliation, indefinitely, until three soldiers are released? They'll be the cause of any number of Lebanese and Israeli civilian deaths until these three guys are back home? What's the message there? That military life is more important than civilian life? That they're all literally i n s a n e ??

 

[salleles]

Here is some research done by Jason Staples:

Hezbollah website hosted by a US defense subcontractor? (Hejailan Projects / United Defense Industries, Inc. / BAE Systems Land and Armaments)

After many months of me complaining about how often the mainstream media was citing unspecified "internet postings" as sources for their stories, I was reading an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that finally sourced a claim. They credited an organization that tracks terrorist activities and internet postings. As suspected, it didn't take much digging to find propaganda.

The "SITE Instititute"

The Search for International Terrorist Entities Institute (The "SITE Instititute"), seems to be chronocling most of the terrorist activity you hear about in the news, and appears to be the source for much of the reporting on terrorist activities provided to the mainstream media.

One of the pages hosted on the SITE Institute website, provides a list of "Terrorist Websites".

One of six websites listed is for Hizballah (Party of God)

SITE lists their website as: http://www.nasrollah.org/

You can check it out if you like, (though i wouldn't recommend it), but it looks pretty legitimate...

...until I started digging around into who's hosting it.

According to the domain registration record, nasrollah.org is registered to a "Hussein Beydoun", who resides at a Beirut (Lebanon) address. Looks pretty legitimate, but things get fishy when you look at the IP address of their web server.

www.nasrollah.org resolves to 82.205.138.35

The RIPE registration record for that IP address says it belongs to a "Horizon Communication", out of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The registration record goes on to list "Karthikeyan K" at an address of "Hejailan Projects"

Thinking that was a rather strange address, I searched for information on who "Hejailan Projects" is... I found them listed on a directory of Defense / Aerospace contractors.

Al-Hejailan Projects Co., Ltd.
DESCRIPTION: Al-Hejailan Projects Engineering Co. is a Saudi engineering firm known to be involved in maintenance and upgrading of vehicles belonging to the Royal Saudi Land Forces Infantry Corps.

CHRONOLOGY
* 1993. FMC-Arabia Ltd. is established as a joint venture between United Defense Industries, Inc. (Arlington, VA) and the Al-Hejailan Group (Saudi Arabia). The company is 51% owned by United Defense.

* April 2003. Al-Hejailan Group acquires the 51% stake in United Defense Systems-Arabia owned by United Defense Industries, Inc. (NYSE: UDI) for approximately $0.4 million.

Wikipedia says, "United Defense Industries was a United States defense contractor which is now part of BAE Systems Land and Armaments. This company produces combat vehicles, artillery, naval guns, missile launchers and precision munitions. The company started as a division of the agricultural machine business, Food Machinery Corporation (FMC), when they won a US government contract to build LVTs and became a weapon manufacturer during World War II."

.... Why is a US defense contractor hosting a known terrorist website?

Full article

Unfortunately Nasrollah.org is offline and the whois search doesn't seem to work, so I was not able to check it out myself.

Interesting sidenote on United Defense, and how the money goes around in very tight circles: "The US government accounts for almost 80% of sales. United Defense Industries has also acquired United States Marine Repair, a leading non-nuclear ship repair and overhaul company. The Carlyle Group owns 49.5% of United Defense."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=United_Defense_Industries

 

[Laura]

So it looks like Hezbollah is a "creature" of the U.S. and Israel and handily provided an excuse to start a war for them since they weren't getting anywhere with trying to agitate over Iran's nuclear activities. Is that it? And does that mean that Syria is backing Hezbollah in order to create a "corridor" to Iran? And does this mean they are just all in this together and it's the innocent citizens who are being slaughtered by their collusion on all sides?

That's how it is looking.

 

[ArdVan]

If you check this in the whois of the article:

Registrant Name:Mohamad Hejazi
Registrant Organization:Hadeel.net
Registrant Street1:Haret Herik
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Beirut

You see this organisation Hadeel.net. If you do the same whois on this you get an address in the USA too:

Unlisted-Whois.com Protection Service
P.O. Box 229
Margaretville, NY 12455
US

An US protection service for the Hezbollah???

 

[Laura]

Iran's Hizbollah says ready to attack US, Israel
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-07-18T180844Z_01_OLI848020_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-IRAN-HIZBOLLAH.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

EHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Hizbollah, which claims links to the Lebanese group of the same name, said on Tuesday it stood ready to attack Israeli and U.S. interests worldwide.

"We have 2,000 volunteers who have registered since last year," said Iranian Hizbollah's spokesman Mojtaba Bigdeli, speaking by telephone from the central seminary city of Qom.

"They have been trained and they can become fully armed. We are ready to dispatch them to every corner of the world to jeopardise Israel and America's interests. We are only waiting for the Supreme Leader's green light to take action. If America wants to ignite World War Three ... we welcome it," he said.

Iranian religious organisations have made great public show of recruiting volunteers for "martyrdom-seeking operations" in recent years, usually threatening U.S. interests in case of any attack against the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme.

But there is no record of an Iranian volunteer from these recruitment campaigns taking part in an attack.

Iran's Hizbollah (Party of God) says it is spiritually bound to Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas in Lebanon but its command structure and funding are unclear.

Despite Iranian Hizbollah's insistence that it takes orders from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, government ministries say Hizbollah does not implement official policy. Iran's government has said it hopes for a diplomatic solution to the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.

While Iran did fund and support Lebanese Hizbollah during the 1980s, Tehran says it has not contributed troops or weapons in the latest violence. Israel says Iranian armaments have been fired against it.

 

[Joe]

So it looks like Hezbollah is a "creature" of the U.S. and Israel and handily provided an excuse to start a war for them since they weren't getting anywhere with trying to agitate over Iran's nuclear activities. Is that it? And does that mean that Syria is backing Hezbollah in order to create a "corridor" to Iran? And does this mean they are just all in this together and it's the innocent citizens who are being slaughtered by their collusion on all sides?

That's how it is looking.

Standard counterinsurgency is to create fake "resistance" or take on the guise of the existing resistance and make it your own. It seems to me that resistance groups are far more valuable to the agressors than they are to the people that the resistance groups are meant to be defending/representing.

The agressor needs an enemy to carry out its agression, and it is very easy to carry out false attacks that make it look like the work of the resistance in order to justify the widening of a war.

It seems that in the lauching of pretty much every major war in recent history there was only one side. People just don't get the fact that war is GOOD for the psychopaths in power, they don't need a real enemy, just the appearance of one.

Say you are framed for an attack on another person that was carried out by the person themselves and who then attacks you "in response". Obviously you will defend yourself. As soon as you do, your guilt in the initial crime is almost impossible to refute because your defence is seen as "evidence" that you did indeed carry out the initial attack when you didn't actually do it. Unless of course you can prove that you were the victim of a frame up. But before you have a chance to do this, you find yourself in the middle of a war that you neither wanted nor started, with your only option being to surrender, lie down and die, or fight and die.

This is the way they work.

Joe