Israel to world: Take action on Iran!

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:00:45

Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni
Israel yet again hammers the stance on Iran, suggesting that Tehran will have a legion of supporters should the world fail to take action.

Iran is a threat to moderate Arab nations which are likely to interpret the hesitation of the international community as a form of weakness, said Israel's foreign minister in a meeting with her German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Tzipi Livni then suggested that this weakness would cause dramatic changes in the region, encouraging Arab states to form closer ties with Tehran.

The Zionist regime considers Iran a threat to its existence and has long accused the Islamic Republic of running a clandestine nuclear program. Tehran, however, refuses such claims and asserts that its nuclear activities are peaceful.

This is while it is widely believed that Israel itself has an arsenal of over 200 nuclear warheads but has not allowed the UN nuclear watchdog to inspect its facilities.

All you need is hate

By Mickey Z.
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Mar 28, 2008, 00:15

I did something unexpected the other day: I watched a little of The O’Reilly Factor. The host made two proclamations that might’ve made me chuckle if they weren’t so frighteningly emblematic of America’s intellectual vacancy. According to Bill O’Reilly, Arianna Huffington is a member of the “far left” and her website, Huffington Post, is home to “hate speech.”

Of course, the myth of a monolithic Left -- one that includes everyone from Dan Rather to Derrick Jensen, from Barack Obama to Ward Churchill -- is extremely useful to anyone seeking to stifle public debate. However, it only requires an iota of objectivity to recognize that Arianna Huffington dwells in the realm of what might generously be characterized as the “liberal Left” (or, more accurately, the “soft Left”). Along with Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Al Franken, and others of her persuasion. Arianna Huffington may not actually be a radical, but will gladly play one on TV.

But let’s move now to the far more noteworthy O’Reilly claim: the Huffington Post is a hate site. In a recent article, the popular Fox TV host focused on Huffington Post visitor comments like this one about an ailing Nancy Reagan: "I feel no pity for the bitch who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband's political beliefs."

Of course, one could justifiably take issue with the harsh tone, the use of the word “bitch,” and the assumption that Just-Say-No Nancy consciously “took delight” in others’ misery. I’m certainly not endorsing the cowardly commentary of Internet trolls, e.g., childish name-calling or the spineless reliance on sexism, racism, etc. . . . but the primary point of the above comment seems germane to me. Our society and our planet are in critical condition (or worse) thanks to willful decisions made by human beings occupying positions of power. So, why are we being so damn polite when talking about these elites? Why do we show any mercy when discussing the villains who knowingly pollute, exploit, wage war, steal, and treat all living things as if they were expendable? Why are we so afraid to hate those most responsible for our current global nightmare?

Well-paid entertainers like O’Reilly cow us into fearing the label of “hater” when, in reality, elected [sic] officials and the corporations that own them display sheer, unrestrained hatred in every move they make. They hate freedom, they hate justice, and they hate solidarity. They hate the environment, plants, animals, and even humans. They hate everything . . . except fame, power, and profits. Why the hell do we give any of them one shred of respect? They haven’t earned our deference; they haven’t earned our patience; they haven’t earned the benefit of anyone’s doubt. They have earned nothing except our utter contempt and loathing.

Pacifist types might cringe at my words and urge us all to eschew hatred. Moderates will talk of the need to find common ground. The candlelight vigil crowd tells us that we must love our enemies. Personally, I’d rather heed the words of Malcolm X: “We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.”

I feel no solidarity with the professional liars who make up the corporate media. I feel no compassion for the career criminals that stock the corporate ranks. I hold no love for the pinstriped mountebanks we call “politicians.” If that sounds like “hate speech” to you, well . . . that’s because it is.

Special Reports, A third American War Crime in the making

By Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Mar 31, 2008, 00:20

The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran.

If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression -- a third war crime under the Nuremberg standard -- by the Bush Regime could be prevented.

On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited “a high-ranking security source: 'The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran.'”

According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said “that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure in the near future.”

The chief of Russia’s general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said last November that Russia was beefing up its military in response to US aggression, but that the Russian military is not “obliged to defend the world from the evil Americans.”

On March 29, Chris Floyd cited a report by the Saudi Arabian newspaper Okaz, which was picked up by the German news service, DPA. The Saudi newspaper reported on March 22, the day following Cheney’s visit with the kingdom’s rulers, that the Saudi Shura Council is preparing “national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts’ warnings of possible attacks on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactors.”

And Admiral William “there will be no attack on Iran on my watch” Fallon has been removed as US chief of Central Command, thus clearing the way for Cheney’s planned attack on Iran.

The Iranians don’t seem to believe it, despite the dispatch of US nuclear submarines and another aircraft carrier attack group to the Persian Gulf. To counter any Iranian missiles launched in response to an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile defenses to protect US bases and Saudi oil fields.

Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party, and the American people have paved the way for Cheney’s long planned attack on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism about the US government’s explanation of 9/11. The other failure is the Democrats’ refusal to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush for lying to the Congress, the American people, and the world and launching an invasion of Iraq based on deception and fabricated evidence.

If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler did with pure lies and not be held accountable, he can get away with anything. And Bush and his evil regime have.

Hitler launched World War II with his invasion of Poland after staging a “Polish attack” on a German radio station. On the night of August 31, 1939, a group of Nazis disguised in Polish uniforms seized a radio station in Germany. Hitler announced that “last night Polish troops crossed the frontier and attacked Germany,” a claim no more true than the Bush Regime’s claim that “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.” Hitler’s lie failed, because his invasion of Poland, which began the next day allegedly in reprisal for the Polish attack, had obviously been planned for many months.

Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It is an ancient civilization. It has attacked no one. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran is permitted by the treaty to have a nuclear energy program. The Bush Regime’s case against Iran is based on the Bush Regime’s desire to deny Iran its rights under the treaty.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have repeatedly reported that they have found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite all the disinformation from US Gen. Petraeus and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is not arming the Iraqis who are resisting the American occupation.

If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents would have two weapons that would neutralize the US advantage in the Iraqi conflict: missiles to knock down US helicopter gunships and rocket-propelled grenades that knock out American tanks. The insurgents do not have these weapons and must construct clumsy anti-tank weapons out of artillery shells. The insurgents are helpless against US air power and cannot mass forces to take on the American troops.

Indiscriminate American violence has reduced Iraq to rubble. The civilian infrastructure is essentially destroyed -- electricity, water and sewer systems, medical care and schools. Depleted uranium is everywhere poisoning everyone, including US troops. There is no economy, and half or more of Iraqis are unemployed. Literally no Iraqi family has escaped an injury or a death as a consequence of the US invasion. Millions of Iraqis have become displaced persons. A developed country with a professional middle class has been destroyed because of lies told by the president and vice president of the US. The Bush Regime’s lies are echoed by a neoconservative media, and have gone unchallenged by the opposition party and an indifferent American public.

In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on even the smallest village from the air. America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars against the civilian populations.

Just as the world could not believe Hitler’s next horror and thus was always unprepared, the Iranians despite all the evidence cannot believe that even the Great Satan would gratuitously attack Iran based on nothing but lies about nonexistent nuclear weapons.

Iran’s only chance would be to strike before the US delivers the first blow. Instead of using its missiles to take out the Saudi oil fields and to sink the US aircraft carriers, instead of closing the Strait of Hormuz, instead of arming the Iraqi Shi’ites and moving them to insurgency, Iran is perched like a sitting duck in denial even as the US and its Iraqi puppet, Maliki, move to eliminate Al Sadr’s Iraqi Shi’ite militia in order to avoid supply disruptions and a Shi’ite rebellion in Iraq when the US attack on Iran comes.

It is important to emphasize that Iran is making no moves toward war. Having tamed, blackmailed, and purchased Congress, the US media, and US allies and puppets, Cheney might delight in the arrogance with which he can now attack Iran free of any restraint or fabricated provocation. On the other hand, he might cover himself by orchestrating an “Iranian provocation” to justify his attack as a response. But like Hitler’s planned attack against Poland, Cheney’s attack on Iran has long been in the works.

On March 29 the Associated Press reported that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi “poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders” at the Arab summit that day. Gadhafi told the Arab “leaders,” many of whom are on the American payroll, that their American masters would turn on them all, just as America turned on Saddam Hussein after using him to fight a proxy war against Iran.

Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, Gadhafi reminded the Arabs, “but they sold him out.” Gadhafi told the American puppets, “Your turn is next.”

Gadhafi asked, “Where is the Arabs’ dignity, their future, their very existence?” If Arabs remain disunited, he predicted, “they will turn themselves into protectorates. They will be marginalized and turn into garbage dumps.”

Indeed, it is this disunity that permits the US to bomb and murder at will in the Middle East.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in the Reagan administration. He has held numerous academic professorships and appointments in the US Congressional Staff. He was an associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
Email Online Journal Editor

April Fools: The Fox To Guard The Banking Henhouse

By Dr. Ellen Brown

Global Research, March 31, 2008

The Federal Reserve, which has been credited with creating the current housing bubble and bust just as it created the credit bubble of the Roaring Twenties and the bust of 1929, is now to be given vast new powers to oversee regulation of the banking industry and promote "financial market stability." At least, that is the gist of a Treasury Department proposal to be presented to Congress on Monday, March 31, 2008. Adrian Douglas wrote on LeMetropoleCafe.com, "I would like to think that this is some sort of sick April Fools joke, but, alas, they are serious! What happened to free markets?"1

In fact, what happened to regulating the banks? The Treasury's plan is not for the private Federal Reserve to increase regulation of the banking system it heads. Au contraire, regulation will actually be decreased. According to The Wall Street Journal:

"Many of the [Treasury's] proposals, like those that would consolidate regulatory agencies, have nothing to do with the turmoil in financial markets. And some of the proposals could actually reduce regulation. According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would consolidate an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into a powerful trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms. . . . Parts of the plan could reduce the power of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with maintaining orderly stock and bond markets and protecting investors. . . . The blueprint also suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take a lighter approach to its oversight. Among them are allowing stock exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of securities products that are being traded in foreign markets."2

"securities products" include the mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and other forms of the great Ponzi scheme known as "derivatives" that have been largely responsible for bringing the banking system to the brink of collapse. But these suspect products are not to be more heavily scrutinized; rather, their approval will actually be "streamlined" and may be automatic if they are being traded in "foreign markets." The Journal observes that the Treasury's proposal was initiated last year by Secretary Henry Paulson not to "regulate" the banks but "to make American financial markets more competitive against overseas markets by modernizing a creaky regulatory system. His goal was to streamline the different and sometimes clashing rules for commercial banks, savings and loans and nonbank mortgage lenders." "streamlining" the rules evidently meant eliminating any that "clashed" with the Fed's goal of allowing U.S. banks to be more "competitive" abroad. The Journal continues:

"While the plan could expose Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds to greater scrutiny, it carefully avoids a call for tighter regulation. The plan would not rein in practices that have been linked to the housing and mortgage crisis, like packaging risky subprime mortgages into securities carrying the highest ratings. . . . And the plan does not recommend tighter rules over the vast and largely unregulated markets for risk sharing and hedging, like credit default swaps, which are supposed to insure lenders against loss but became a speculative instrument themselves and gave many institutions a false sense of security."

Regulating fraudulent, predatory and overly-speculative banking practices has been left to the States, not necessarily by law but by default. According to then-Governor Eliot Spitzer, writing in January of 2008, state regulators tried to regulate these shady practices but were hamstrung by federal authorities. In a February 14 Washington Post article titled "Predatory Lenders; Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States from Stepping in to Help Consumers," Spitzer complained:

"several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive 'teaser; rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

"Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers. . . . [A]s New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices . . . .

"Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye. . . . The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). . . . In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules. But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation."

Less than a month after publishing this editorial, Spitzer was out of office, following a surprise exposé of his personal indiscretions by the Justice Department. Greg Palast observed that Spitzer was the single politician standing between a $200 billion windfall from the Federal Reserve guaranteeing the mortgage-backed junk bonds of the same banking predators that were responsible for the subprime debacle. While the Federal Reserve was trying to bail them out, Spitzer had been trying to regulate them, bringing suit on behalf of consumers.3 But Spitzer has now been silenced, and any other state attorneys general who might get similar ideas will be deterred by the federal oversight under which banking regulators are to be "consolidated."

The Federal Reserve under Alan Greenspan deliberately enabled and permitted the derivatives debacle to take down the dollar and America's credibility. Greenspan is now lauded, feted and awarded at the White House and on network television, and takes a victory lap tour promoting and signing his book and celebrating his multimillion dollar book deal, enjoying his knighthood status in England and hero status on Wall Street. And as the falling debris of the American economy still piles up around us, the very agency that enabled disaster is now seeking to consolidate ultimate authority and accountability to itself, and through centralization and arrogation of power, eliminate all those pesky little Constitutional and State regulations and agencies, recalcitrant governors and the last few whistle blowers, so that the further abuse of power can be streamlined through one agency only. That agency is to consist of an alliance of the banking powers and the executive branch, a perfect formula for the institutionalization of continual abuse.

Perhaps Spitzer was lucky that he was the target only of a character assassination. When Louisiana Senator Huey Long challenged the Federal Reserve and fought for the State's right to oversee its own financial affairs in the 1930s, he was assassinated with bullets. Long's local assertion of decentralized State powers, as provided for in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, enabled the State of Louisiana to loosen the grip of the corporations on the State's wealth and allowed the setting up of schools and public institutions that elevated the people of the State and placed its "common wealth" back into the hands of its citizens, while providing employment and education. The Constitution reserves to the States and the people all those powers not specifically delegated to the federal government, arguably including the creation of money itself, which is nowhere specifically mentioned in the Constitution beyond creating coins. (See E. Brown, "Another Way Around the Credit Crisis: Minnesota Bill Would Authorize State Banks to Monetize; Productivity," www.webofdebt.com/articles, March 23, 2008.) But in this latest attempt at expanding the Federal Reserve's already over-expansive powers, we see clear evidence that the Wall Street and global banking powers have no intention of allowing their plans to be reined in by the Constitutional powers of the States and the people. Instead, they intend to fill up the moat and pull up the draw bridge on their feudal powers, and let the serfs shiver outside the gates for as long as they will put up with it.

Nouri al-Maliki humiliated as gamble to crush Shia militias fail

The US backed is Iraqi government is starting to walking in the same foolish traps as the US has done in Iraq.


James Hider in Sadr City

The soldiers guarding the entrance to Sadr City were jumpy, despite a ceasefire announced by al-Mahdi Army Shia militia. And with good reason: a huge boom rolled across the militia stronghold as a roadside bomb struck a passing vehicle. American armoured vehicles sped off to the aid of stricken comrades.

Overnight al-Mahdi Army has melted back into the population in Baghdad and Basra after its leader, the antiAmerican cleric Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, ordered it to stop fighting government forces. In Sadr City and other militia strongholds they do not need to be seen. Their presence is felt everywhere.

Walking across the lines separating the US and government forces from the barbed wire sealing off Sadr City, an Iraqi army major muttered: “You’re going in without guards? You’ll be kidnapped for sure.” The Sadr Office had, however, arranged an escort for visiting journalists: a police car with three officers. “Don’t worry,” the driver reassured his passengers. “We know where all the IEDs are.”

The police in areas controlled by al-Mahdi Army work closely with the militia and would never dream of interfering in its fights with the Government that pays their salaries.

At the Sadr Office in the centre of the massive slum in northeast Baghdad, home to 2.5 million impoverished Shias, the receptionists greeted visitors with sweets to mark their victory over Nouri al-Maliki, the increasingly isolated Iraqi

Prime Minister, who directed the assault on Shia rogue militias in Basra, the lawless southern oil city. “This is for victory over Maliki,” one said with a grin. “The fighting ended on our terms.”

Certainly Mr al-Maliki’s huge gamble appeared to have failed yesterday. Having vowed to crush Shia militias with a 30,000-strong force in Basra, he ended up suing for peace with the people he had described as “worse than al-Qaeda”. Al-Mahdi Army kept its weapons and turf.

Sheikh Salman al-Freiji, the head of the Sadr Office, said that Mr al-Maliki was a tool in the hands of the Americans. “The American project has been to split the Iraqi sects and community from Day_1,” he said. “They tried to split Sunnis from Shia. Now that has failed, they are trying to split the Shia.” He said that an al-Mahdi Army freeze on operations, introduced in August, was still in place but reserved the right to attack the “illegitimate American occupation”.

Hundreds of people died in Mr al-Maliki’s blitz to end the reign of militias in the south but after a week his army has failed to defeat them and his political capital has crashed through the floor. Having vowed to fight the militias to the end, he had to suffer the humiliation of talking peace with Hojatoleslam al-Sadr at his home in the Iranian city of Qom before the militia chief showed his true power and ended the war within hours.

Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker, said that the latest spasm of violence merely showed Iran’s huge influence in Iraq, holding enormous sway over al-Mahdi Army and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the main Shia party in the Government, as well as its own militia, the Badr Brigades. “It’s a big victory for Iran over America and for Moqtada over Maliki,” he said. “Iran has the upper hand in Iraq. They are choosing the time to start trouble and they are choosing the time to end it.”

Mr Othman said that the meeting with the Iraqi delegation – two members of the Sadrist bloc, a member of Mr al-Ma-liki’s Dawa party and Hadi al-Ameri, the head of the Badr Brigades – had been coordinated by Brigadier-General Qassim Suleimani, the head of the Quds Brigades, the foreign operations branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. “Iran is just trying to make Maliki weak so he will accept their conditions,” Mr Othman said. “And he did accept. The United States has made a mess for the last five years, it’s very clear.”

John McCain, the US Republican Presidential candidate, yesterday expressed surprise that Mr al-Maliki should have instigated a battle in Basra without notifying the US. “Maliki decided to take on this operation without consulting the Americans,” he said. “I am surprised that he would take it on himself, to go down and take charge of a military offensive.”

As a crippling, five-day curfew was lifted, thousands of people streamed into and out of Sadr City past American tanks and Iraqi armoured vehicles. Someone had spray-painted Rafah on a concrete barrier, a reference to the Gaza crossing point that bottles up Palestinians. People barely flinched as fresh shooting erupted in a distant gunfight, in which US forces killed 25 of an estimated 100 militiamen who tried to ambush them. In Baghdad few people put their faith in ceasefires.

Moqtada al-Sadr

— Youngest son of murdered cleric Muhammad Sadiq Sadr.

— Formed al-Mahdi Army in June 2003, declaring that his purpose was to protect Shia religious institutions in the city of Najaf. He also founded a newspaper that was banned

— In 2004 he led a bloody uprising in Najaf only fully quelled by the intervention of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Iranian cleric

— Though supporters stood as part of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance Shia bloc in the 2005 elections, al-Sadr led a boycott of the Government and pulled out his six ministers