ARE WE BEING SUCKED INTO ANOTHER WAR PERHAPS WWIII

 

 

At the ready: Four battleships have been moved to within striking range of Syria as President Obama weighs his options following a reported use of chemical weapons against citizens Wednesday

In this undated file photo a Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile system is on display in an undisclosed location in Russia. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on May 28, 2013, that Moscow has a contract for the delivery of the S-300s to Syria and sees the deal as a key deterrent against foreign invasion in that country. The Deputy Foreign Minister wouldn't say whether Russia has shipped any of the long-range S-300 air defense missile systems, but added that Moscow is not going to abandon the deal despite strong Western and Israeli criticism.

The World is at dangerous crossroads: Beware Another False Flag, Take note if one of our ship is Sunk

Four battleships move within striking range of Syria as President Obama weighs military options after a reported 1,300 are killed in nerve gas attack on Damascus Activists report that a nerve gas attack near Damascus Wednesday killed as many as 1,300 President Obama is said to be weighing his military options after he warned President Bashar Assad that chemical weapons use would be crossing a 'red line' Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the nerve gas attack needs to be verified but that it 'appears to be what happened' UN representative Angela Kane arrived in Syria today to ask President Assad to let investigators into the country to look into the claim Military officials told the Associated Press that  four battleships have been moved within the striking zone of Syria and could be used for a Tomahawk missile attack In light of new reports that the Syrian government used nerve gas against it's own citizens, killing at least 213 and as many as 1,300, President Obama is  considering military options to respond to an action he previously warned the Assad government was crossing a 'red line'. U.S. naval forces are moving closer as the president emphasized that a quick intervention in the Syrian civil war was problematic, given the international considerations that should precede a military strike. The White House said the president would meet Saturday with his national security team to consider possible next steps by the United States.   Escalation: Angela Kane, the UN's high representative for disarmament, arrives in Damascus, Syria today to press President Bashar Assad to let UN investigators look into a reported chemical attack in a suburb that reportedly killed as many as 1,300 At the ready: Four battleships have been moved to within striking range of Syria as President Obama weighs his options following a reported use of chemical weapons against citizens Wednesday Officials say once the facts are clear, Obama will make a decision about how to proceed. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declined to discuss any specific force movements while saying that Obama had asked the Pentagon to prepare military options for Syria. U.S. defense officials told The Associated Press that the Navy had sent a fourth warship armed with ballistic missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea but without immediate orders for any missile launch into Syria. U.S. Navy ships are capable of a variety of military actions, including launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, as they did against Libya in 2011 as part of an international action that led to the overthrow of the Libyan government. 'The Defense Department has a responsibility to provide the president with options for contingencies, and that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to carry out different options - whatever options the president might choose,' Hagel told reporters traveling with him to Asia. Hagel said the U.S. is coordinating with the international community to determine 'what exactly did happen' near Damascus earlier this week. Deadly attack: Activists say that somewhere between 200 and 1,300 were killed in a chemical weapons attack Wednesday near Damascus. Syria has one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons of any country A new low: If the reports are true, the chemical attack Wednesday will have been the largest chemical attack on citizens since Saddam Hussein's gassing on ethnic Kurds in 1988 According to reports, a chemical attack in a suburb of the capital killed at least 100 people. It would be the most heinous use of chemical weapons since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988. Hagel left little doubt that he thinks the attack in Syria involved chemical weapons, although he stressed there is not yet a final answer. In discussing the matter, he said, 'it appears to be what happened - use of chemical weapons.' The United Nations disarmament chief, Angela Kane, arrived in Damascus on Saturday to press the Syrian government to allow U.N. experts to investigate the alleged chemical attacks. Obama remained cautious about getting involved in a war that has killed more than 100,000 people and now includes Hezbollah and al-Qaida. He made no mention of the 'red line' of chemical weapons use that he marked out for Syrian President Bashar Assad a year ago and that U.S. intelligence says has been breached at least on a small scale several times since. 'If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it - do we have the coalition to make it work?' Obama said Friday. 'Those are considerations that we have to take into account.' Obama conceded in an interview on CNN's 'New Day' program that the episode is a 'big event of grave concern' that requires American attention. American attention: President Obama appeared on CNN's 'New Day' Friday to discuss the alleged attack, saying it was a 'big event of grave concern' that requires American attention He said any large-scale chemical weapons usage would affect 'core national interests' of the United States and its allies. But nothing he said signaled a shift toward U.S. action. U.S. defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss ship movements publicly. But if the U.S. wants to send a message to Assad, the most likely military action would be a Tomahawk missile strike, launched from a ship in the Mediterranean. For a year now, Obama has threatened to punish Assad's regime if it resorted to its chemical weapons arsenal, among the world's vastest, saying use or even deployment of such weapons of mass destruction constituted a 'red line' for him. A U.S. intelligence assessment concluded in June chemical weapons have been used in Syria's civil war, but Washington has taken no military action against Assad's forces. U.S. officials have instead focused on trying to organize a peace conference between the government and opposition. Obama has authorized weapons deliveries to rebel groups, but none are believed to have been sent so far. In his first comments on Syria since the alleged chemical attack, Obama said the U.S. is still trying to find out what happened. Hagel said Friday that a determination on the chemical attack should be made swiftly because 'there may be another attack coming,' although he added that 'we don't know' whether that will happen. After rebels similarly reported chemical attacks in February, U.S. confirmation took more than four months. In this instance, a U.N. chemical weapons team is already on the ground in Syria. Assad's government, then as now, has rejected the claims as baseless. Obama also cited the need for the U.S. to be part of a coalition in dealing with Syria. America's ability by itself to solve the Arab country's sectarian fighting is 'overstated,' he said. Possible targets include command bunkers and missile sites that could be used to launch chemical-tipped missiles. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey is expect to present the plan for a missile strike to Obama at a national security meeting on Saturday. CBS News points out that the missile strikes would likely be more tactical than strategic. They are unlikely to topple, or even significantly destabilize Assad's regime. Serious decisions: President Barack Obama said that he will be taking action over the attack on Wednesday where chemical weapons were used Defiant: President Bashar al-Assad has denied that his government used chemical weapons and blamed the attack on rebel forces Instead, U.S. generals are hoping that such an attack could send a message to Assad - and also thwart future chemical weapons attacks. Still, the president played down the likelihood of a unilateral attack on Syrian government forces and seemed reticent to use military force. 'If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it - "do we have the coalition to make it work?"' he told CNN in an interview broadcast Friday. United Nations Security Council backing for a strike on Assad seems unlikely. Russia, which has veto power, is a staunch supporter of the Syrian government and has blocked any decisive action against Assad thus far. CBS News also reported U.S. intelligence assets detected activity at known Syrian chemical weapons facilities before the attack Wednesday. On Friday National Security Adviser Susan Rice tweeted that the mass casualties in Damascus were an 'apparent chemical weapons attack.' 'What is Bashar al Assad hiding? The world is demanding an independent investigation of Wednesday’s apparent CW attack. Immediately,' she wrote. The Syrian regime has strongly denied that it has used chemical weapons, however the regime refuses to allow United Nations inspectors into the country to examine to site and confirm whether chemical weapons were used.     ‘From the prime minister’s point of view, the time for action is getting ever closer,’ Ben-David said. Behind the scenes, a shadow intelligence war appears to be escalating. Key Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated or disappeared and Iran’s computer networks have been infiltrated by a series of sophisticated viruses apparently designed to sabotage control systems at its nuclear research facilities. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the World simultaneously. Militarization at the global level is instrumented through the US military’s Unified Command structure: the entire planet is divided up into geographic Combatant Commands under the control of the Pentagon. According to (former) NATO Commander General Wesley Clark, the Pentagon’s military road-map consists of a sequence of war theaters: “The five-year campaign plan includes… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.”    Planned war on Iran and the General who said No! …by  Press TV and Gordon Duff   “The culprits, “militants,” managed to escape undetected from the most sophisticatedly defended real estate on earth, the perimeter of Bagram Air Force Base.Lucky for them they attacked at night, a time when America’s 5th generation night vision, ground radar and other detection systems were mysteriously disabled.” Today, General Dempsey, Chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the man who flew to Tel Aviv and informed Netanyahu that America wanted no part of his scheming against Iran was the subject of an assassination attempt in Afghanistan. This wasn’t an act of terrorism or Taliban militants.  It was a “mob hit” against someone who failed to kiss the feet of Netanyahu.  His response was to unleash killers, not a fact for the public but a fact just the same, one the American military knows very well.  Netanyahu has a problem with “hubris.” Bibi doing the ‘scare em’ thing The culprits, “militants,”managed to escape undetected from the most sophisticatedly defended real estate on earth, the perimeter of Bagam Air Force Base. Lucky for them they attacked at night, a time when America’s 5th generation night vision, ground radar and other detection systems were mysteriously disabled. The rocket detection systems, early warning blimps with ground penetrating synthetic aperture radar and the continual coverage by UAV drones using infrared detection, $2 billion in technology on this one perimeter alone, cost the plane of America’s top military commander and wounds were sustained by two crew members. Dempsey had just left Tel Aviv where he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the following: “I may not know about all of [Israel's] capabilities, but I think that it’s a fair characterization to say that they could delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.” Dempsey then told waiting reporters: “We compare intelligence, we discuss regional implications, and we’ve admitted to each other that our clocks are turning at different rates, we have to understand the Israelis; they live with a constant suspicion with which we do not have to deal.” There are those close to President Obama who don’t accept the attack on Dempsey at face value, with a public admission by the Taliban of complicity.  Such statements, which would certainly cost dearly in reprisals by the US, are most often found on Internet sites lacking a credible connection to any Islamic source. To some Americans, the attack appears to be a reprisal against Dempsey who, out of coincidence, cited the motive in his own appraisal of Israel’s judgment. News agencies buried the failed attack, knowing Dempsey is hated by Netanyahu and respected by the Taliban as both “truthful and fair.”

The start America’s “shock and awe” blows up key government buildings all over Iran. Were America to attack real nuclear research facilities, Iraq, Afghanistan, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia would require evacuation. How would the US do that? Nobody has ever really bombed a nuclear reactor before. Chernobyl or Fukushima, disasters far beyond anything admitted to the public, would be duplicated or even superseded and the facilities, as we remind you, are, according to the CIA, peaceful and not weapons related. Quite possibly, half of Europeans would be sterile in five years. America’s “war plans” involve turning the entire Middle East and much of Central Asia into a nuclear wasteland. I wonder who thought that one up. No more oil Without getting into the illegality of such an attack, even if demanded by Netanyahu and the AIPAC lobby or the powerful Koch Brothers, who control hundreds of key politicians in America through “donations” that, were America to have just laws, would be considered bribes, America still has no financial ability to fight. Sixty nine percent of Americans consider Afghanistan an unjust war according to recent polls. Why have there been no polls on a war with Iran? America believes it can secure its naval forces by moving them closer to Antarctica “just in case.” What America has forgotten is that Israel has taken a key military position in both Georgia and Azerbaijan, just to the north of Iran. This is one of the worst kept secrets in the world. Israel has combat aircraft lined up in Azerbaijan and has sold billions in weapons to that nation. Kurdistan is filled with drones and Israel is planning to take over a major fighter base there though they have failed to consult the national government in Baghdad. Azerbaijan tales Azerbaijan is a huge producer of oil and fuels, both crude and refined. Its capitol is Baku. What is important about this is that key oil pipelines, oil and gas, that supply much of the world begin there. In actuality, much of the gas and oil of the world, other than that carried from the Persian Gulf, which Iran can block at will, actually travels through Iran itself or within 30 miles of its northern border through Azerbaijan, a nation whose demonstrable actions in coalition with Israel would make it a legitimate foe for Iran. Estimates by top American military operational specialists say Iran could control Azerbaijan in less than 48 hours without air superiority and that cutting the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which Israel is a partner in, would crash the world economy in 48 hours. Iran could cut the pipeline within one hour of hostilities. When one looks at the world’s oil and gas supplies, sees the importance of their free operation and still plans an attack on a nation that has made no threats of any kind but is strategically placed to interrupt world energy markets, the idea that this most obvious impending disaster may well be intended to serve financial concerns that operate within the futures markets, comes to mind. Those markets are controlled by the Koch brothers, whose lobbying efforts are aimed toward starting a war with Iran and “buying” political office for anyone who will do their bidding, no matter how much the United States suffers. The Koch Brothers are the largest supporters of Mitt Romney for President. It gets better Turkey With Syria at the edge of collapse with Turkey, an unwanted intruder, unwelcomed because of centuries of hated Ottoman rule, a general destabilization of the region, both Middle East and Central Asia concurrent to a financial crash that will hit everywhere, North America, Europe, Russia and China as well, is inexorable. Aftermath I am certain that regional specialist, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Director of the Council on Foreign Relations has foreseen all of this. Even lifelong scoundrel, Henry Kissinger, has come to similar conclusions. The problem, however, is that, with a world economy geared toward endless war, terrorism, real or imagined, only one path is left, following the trail to Africa, the oil, diamonds, rare earths, uranium, the teeming millions, the endless rivalries, a continent where business, that being “the business of war,” can thrive for decades unfettered. Forewarned, every mistake, every disaster scheduled, orchestrated, planned down to the last funeral, why do we allow this to go on?   US NAVY’S NEWEST ELECTRONIC COMMAND SHIP AFTER ISRAEL ATTACK KILLING AND WOUNDING 196   It was 1967 when Israeli planes bombed and strafed the USS Liberty for hours, machine-gunning life rafts, peppering the 20 foot “stars and stripes” with machine gun holes, napalming, torpedoes, one of most dastardly sneak attacks on a virtually unarmed ship since Pearl Harbor in 1941. In the last few hours we have learned that the US had made massive reductions to joint military exercise with Israel.  Originally slated to include 5,000 US troops, Washington will now only send 1,500 to participate in Austere Challenge 12 with Israel.  Apparently, the American administration is concerned with a possible Israeli strike on Iran. Some Israelis seem unhappy with the American decision. The Times quoted a senior Israeli military official as speculating, “Basically what the Americans are saying is, ‘We don’t trust you.’” Well, America has good reason not to trust Israel. The only question here is why did it take America so long to move in the right direction? Although Washington will still send the Patriot missile defense systems as planned, the crews that man them will not arrive. And whereas two Aegis ballistic missile defense ships were slated to arrive for the joint drill, now only one is expected. The message to Israel is clear – if you want to launch a world war without US approval, you’d better find how to defend your people on your own. Not specifically referring to the exercise, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey said on Thursday that he did not want to be “complicit” if Israel chose to strike Iran’s nuclear program. Dempsey also added that an attack would “clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran’s nuclear program.” It should also be mentioned that Dempsey’s views are overwhelmingly supported by most Israeli military experts who also contend that Israel lacks the military capacity to strike Iran, let alone dismantle the Iranian nuclear program. Now we are told only one ship will be used and very few troops.  This news came in before the President ordered language removed from the Democratic Party platform supporting Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as a capitol of a Jewish only state. The fight over this issue has raged on the floor of the Democratic Convention held, this year, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Now, Veterans Today has learned that naval personnel in the upcoming exercise have “shoot to kill” orders if approached by unknown aircraft, even if clearly marked as “Israeli.” Sources near the president are quoted: “Netanyahu’s gang bought Romney with 30 pieces of silver, getting him to agree to invade Iran if elected.  This, in light of the Israeli court finding of “not guilty” for the murderers of Rachel Corrie, the young American woman mutilated by an IDF driven Caterpillar bulldozer sent us a message.  We heard it loud and clear, as loud as the screaming insults Netanyahu tried to leash upon General Martin Dempsey last week until the general made a few issues clear.  Whatever America’s loyalty to Israel may be or may have been, abuse of the highest military officer of the world’s greatest military power by an angry little “pissant potentate” from a “seaside sand heap” nation, the difference between “tail” and “dog,” one forgotten by President Bush is not going to be forgotten by this president.” Naval sources said they were surprised at the order: “We knew the region was ‘hot’ after two Turkish jets were downed by Syria but a warning about an Israeli attack during a joint exercise is almost bizarre if not unreal.  There are few if almost none in service who still feel there is a grudge to settle over the USS Liberty incident.  The ”Liberty,” of course, was unarmed.  An AEGIS could down the entire Israeli air force and would have even less trouble with their missiles or torpedo boats.  Few in the military know the history or have much understanding of the current dispute with Israel but anything entering attack range get’s ’splashed.’” There appears to be little risk as American and Israel commanders have a long history of cooperation and many warm personal relations.  The issue, however, is that current Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, leader of the militant Likudist group advocating war on Iran and a possible attack on American forces in the region, is no longer communicating with his commanders. Are there rogue units, as some fear, willing to fly against a Class A American warship, Israeli planes with Syria or Iranian markings, perhaps even Egyptian? The experience of 1967, one kept alive, not just by Naval historians but a crew properly briefed for a dangerous assignment, may well prevent an impending disaster, a “stew long boiling over” in Netanyahu’s cook pot.   Military reality Iran is vulnerable to air attack. Their air defense systems, vital for the protection of their imaginary nuclear program, the one the CIA has certified was disassembled in 2003, is likely not up to America’s vast air armada in the region. One could ask the moral question; Why is Iran subject to bombardment from the world’s only superpower? One could also ask: Why do we no longer ask moral questions? Killing and dying Were America to attack, only a few planes, perhaps six or as many as a few dozen might be shot down. That’s ok, we can always land our troops from Kuwait, all 1800 of them to take on their 13 million man force, some of which is, even by American standards, “good” or even “better.” To America, losses, even in wars where America is clearly the evil aggressor, are “spun” by the controlled press into a rationale for even more death. Think “Afghanistan.” Then, of course, we are ignoring a few facts, more than a few. We have no authorization, proof exists that Iran has no nuclear program, meaning the only proof that exists is that the US and even Russia are lying about Iran, proof certified and published by the Central Intelligence Agency in their National Intelligence Estimate, something every member of the mainstream press is aware of too. When liars do so to promulgate wars of aggression, arrest, trial and imprisonment or execution at the hands of existing international authorities should be the result. In truth, all international authorities are puppets and, were they to do their jobs would have to arrest themselves first. The other game The US military is clever. I am sure they have plans to get all ships hundreds of miles out to sea, out of range of the thousands of mobile Silkworm missile launchers that control the entire Persian Gulf, Straits of Hormuz and Northern Indian Ocean. Relabeling a “rout” or “retreat” a “strategic relocation of key assets” is military-babble for “running home to mama.” In doing so, of course, the Persian Gulf States fall under immediate range of Iranian missiles and the billions spent on air defense systems for the region are inadequate to protect vital facilities which include several key American bases. America has failed to include in its assessments, those given by the DOD and CIA to congress or, more importantly, Wikipedia, certain facts about the guidance systems Iran uses. A Silkworm or advanced Shahab III missile can hit a target at 3 times the maximum range we list with 3 times the accuracy. Everything currently in print is decades old, purposefully false meant only to make sure the American people are misinformed. You see, America has a campaign of disinformation about Iran’s military capabilities. Their missiles have a range of up to 2000 miles though most potential targets like Israel’s highly illegal nuke factory in Dimona is only a few hundred miles away. Conventional warhead capabilities are well beyond those listed. Dimona is incapable of being effectively defended though surrounded by Patriot III batteries. No threat has been made against it but it would be destroyed and Israel would have to be evacuated. Some of my good friends are OK with this, they say, as long as the orthodox and all the new Russian settlers on the West Bank remain. This is Israeli humor, not mine. Back in 2003, Israel claimed to have destroyed a similar nuclear facility in Syria. Half of Syria, Northern Lebanon and much of Israel would have had to have been evacuated if this had actually happened. In truth, no such attack occurred, no planes entered Syria, no bombs were dropped and radiation levels one mile from “the site” maintained background level. What are we saying here? I think we are showing that inconsistencies and outright fabrication, disinformation or lying if you prefer is going on at an unprecedented level and has been for years.   Iran’s nukes have been the reinvention of the bogeyman Obama has no rational claim to ignorance.  His behavior is like that of the playground, all the other children are eating dirt, he feels he has to do the same. In this case, however, when known falsehoods likely to end in a destructive war are agreed to out of fear of retaliation by a former furniture salesman (Netanyahu) or gambling boss, the real importance of the presidency comes into doubt. A problem no one will mention is the behavior of Putin in Tel Aviv, backing Netanyahu’s claims of Iran’s violation of voluntary agreements based on no facts other than the statements of one of the world best known pathological liars. What does the failed furniture salesman from Philadelphia have on Uncle Vladimir? Neither leader has dealt with the simple fact, Iran has the right to build anything it wants for any reason it wishes. Similarly, the United States, under Bush, both withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 and withdrew from participation in the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The latter, the withdrawal from the court, is a veritable admission of complicity in war crimes with key U.S.  officials facing indictment and arrest across the globe. Were one to be honest, the entire Bush administration is under a privileged form of “house arrest” as is Britain’s Tony Blair.  All face criminal proceedings and continually make plans to travel but end up cancelling, sometimes out of public outcry for justice or to actually avoid arrest. Despite his pronouncements, even with an election upcoming and the need to parrot childish threats in order to please the Israeli press a prerequisite, Obama has made it clear he will not attack Iran. It is time the public realizes that by opposing war and running against Romney, an agent of a hostile foreign power and longtime organized crime affiliate, the president and those around him are at great risk. Who really was drawing a bead on Dempsey? The carefully choreographed and very public attempt on the life of General Dempsey is a greeting card from the Adelson/Romney/Netanyahu camp. Several appropriate responses, RSVPs as it were, come to mind, some partially fatal.  Is an American president really the leader of the free world, as we so often say, if any “two bit thug” can dictate policy? Despite that position, Obama controls well over 80% of the Jewish vote in the United States where, as pointed out in an earlier article, studies have shown only 4% of Jewish voters in America feel Iran is any threat to Israel. A critical part of understanding organized crime requires the study of its origins, particularly in America, during the 19th century. While London, from the earliest days of what America had believed to be freedom from British rule, in actuality ran America’s economy, and was, itself, subjected to rule by continental bankers. Britain, the colonizer of the world was, itself, no more than a client of the Bauer/Rothschild group who underwrote the British pound. The real criminal groups running American politics developed from among the immigrant gangs that settled America’s cities.  There were German, Irish, Italian and Jewish gangs.  All that survive now are the remnants of the Mafia, the Jewish gangs who now run Washington and Wall Street and the new threats from Kosovo and Albania, the latest round of criminal immigration into America. Even kids knew to be careful around Edgar! The adults learned he chased bank robbers and Commies, but let the big crooks alone, to proper. With the full cooperation of FBI Director Hoover, tasked with protecting America from criminal organizations, the government stood aside while every aspect of American life, every necessity from water to electricity to medicine, leaving nothing out, came under assault by criminal groups grown fat on profiteering from war, narcotics and, during the Prohibition years, the sale of illegal alcohol. For decades, America’s media has been tasked with blaming all ills on Italian Americans and corrupt trade unions while America has been little but a colony of key European banking families who created wars, suppressed technologies, manipulated currencies, raised and crushed stock markets and national economies. In the end it became as a hydra, the multi-headed beast of Greek mythology, ruling all. What drew Adelson, Romney and even Putin to Israel at this critical time as the world sits on the brink of nuclear war over Syria is simple.  We are again reminded of Putin’s visit to Israel. No Israeli citizen was spoken to, no public concerns were addressed. No. A visit to Israel is a visit to the “safe haven” for worldwide organized crime that controls and manages the vast and endless wealth of the Russian continent as easily as it runs Britain or dances its Washingtonian puppets into discarding laws and traditions and becoming a surrogate bully, not for a nation but for an international criminal conspiracy. The language of politics must be replaced with the language of crime as the solutions to what are misconstrued as political problems are and have long been responses to the depredations of criminal organizations. It isn’t as though Iran were the only target, simply the public target where control of the United Nations Security Council can be exercised, a demonstration of the raw power of evil. The mistake made by so many is to use principles of geopolitics to describe the world condition, the continual entropy, the centralization of wealth and the rapid deterioration of human rights as wars rage without end. Have the computer hustlers already robbed us blind and left us only confetti to play with? Even the educated classes, searching for patterns and rationales to explain how 2000 trillion dollars represented by “derivative debt” could encumber all the world’s currencies, a staggering amount created by an unseen hand through a process none have yet been able to describe. Debt, or as it is known in criminal circles as “loan sharking,” is the business of the world. Controlling currencies was not enough, thus controlled governments, bribed, threatened, blackmailed and bought…looked away while the wealth and hope of a hundred generations was stolen overnight. With a few lines of text, a few entries on computers, generations of our progeny are changed, in that moment, from citizens of the world to “useless eaters,” as Henry Kissinger would describe them. Armies may march, air forces may bomb, drones may attack but none of this is war or politics, nor has it been for centuries.  This is where we went awry. We chose to play chess while our opponents simply put a pistol on the table and emptied our pockets. America is living this today, as it looks on an upcoming election.  The very few can escape the packaged news, scripted in Hollywood or Washington or Tel Aviv, our political life is a theatrical production, a comic tragedy without the Shakespearean irony. This is a government that Sheldon Adelson, the man who believes he will be America’s real next president, believes he can take to war, a systematic conquest of the Middle East and Central Asia, done for the criminal elements some call Israel, done, quite simply, to prove the power of evil over good.

It's 10 Minutes to Midnight:  The Iran War Clock

 

War or peace in the Middle East amounts to a coin toss. The probability that the United States or Israel will strike Iran in the next year is 48 percent according to a new project that predicts the chances of conflict--the Iran War Clock. And as a result, the clock is set to 10 minutes to midnight. How does the Iran War Clock work? We've assembled a high-profile panel of experts from the policy world, academia, and journalism to periodically predict the odds of conflict. They include: Daniel Byman, Shahram Chubin, Golnaz Esfandiari, Azar Gat, Jeffrey Goldberg, Amos Harel, Ephraim Kam, Dalia Dassa Kaye, Matthew Kroenig, John Limbert, Valerie Lincy, James Lindsay, Marc Lynch, Gary Milhollin, Trita Parsi, Paul Pillar, Barry Rubin, Karim Sadjadpour, Kenneth Timmerman, Shibley Telhami, Stephen Walt, and Robin Wright. It's a diverse group ranging from a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran, to a Senior Vice President at the Council on Foreign Relations; from a Deputy Head of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, to a military correspondent at Haaretz. Each panelist makes an individual estimate about the percentage chance of war and we report the average score. Based on this number, we adjust the Iran War Clock so that the hand moves closer to, or further away from, midnight. If there is a zero percent chance of war, the clock hand is at 20 minutes to midnight. Each extra 5 percent chance of war moves the hand one minute closer to midnight. So, for instance, a 10 percent chance of war would set the clock at 18 minutes to midnight, and a 75 percent chance of war would set the clock at 5 minutes to midnight. We round up and down, so 48 percent is rounded up to 10 minutes to midnight. The Iran War Clock is not designed to be pro-war or anti-war. Instead, the purpose is to estimate the chances of conflict in the hope of producing a more informed debate. If people hold a very inaccurate view of the odds of war it could be dangerous. We're humble about the accuracy of this prediction, which is really a collective "gut-check" feeling. But it may be closer to the truth than the alternative forecasts available. For more details on the Iran War Clock and the panel read these FAQs. An Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program could trigger a bloody month-long war on multiple fronts, killing hundreds of Israelis or more, the Israeli Cabinet's civil defence chief warned today. It was the most explicit assessment yet of how the government sees events unfolding in the aftermath of an Israeli attack. Matan Vilnai, who is stepping down as the 'home front' Cabinet minister to become Israel's ambassador to China, described the scenarios to Israel's Maariv daily at a time of heightened debate about the Iranian nuclear threat. A threat: Footage from the Iranian state TV channel IRIB, purporting to show a successful test-fire launch of a short range missile. Israel is rumoured to be planning a unilateral attack in response Vilnai, a retired general who was deputy military chief of staff, has spent the past five years overseeing upgrades of Israel's civil defence systems, including air-raid sirens, bomb shelters and a public alert system. In the Maariv interview, Vilnai said 'the home front is ready as never before'. Nonetheless, he said the country must be braced for heavy casualties in the case of conflict with Iran. Vilnai said the government has prepared for the possibility of hundreds of rockets and missiles falling on Israeli population centers each day, with the expectation of 500 deaths. 'It could be that there will be fewer fatalities, but it could be there will be more. That is the scenario that we are preparing for according to the best experts,' he said. 'The assessments are for a war that will last 30 days on a number of fronts.' Israel is convinced that archenemy Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, dismissing Tehran's claims that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes. Israel considers nuclear-armed Iran to be a mortal danger. Iran backs anti-Israel militants with funds and weapons, and its leaders often call for Israel's destruction. In his latest pronouncement, Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei said Israel will disappear from 'the scene of geography.' Addressing war veterans in Tehran on Wednesday, he said Iran considers it its 'religious duty to save this Islamic country (Palestine) from the clutches of the Zionist occupiers.' The once-secret Natanz nuclear complex in Natanz, Iran, about 150 miles south of Tehran Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel will disappear from 'the scene of geography' Israel's government has prepared for the possibility of hundreds of rockets and missiles from sites like this in Iran falling on Israeli population centers each day, with the expectation of 500 deaths Israel's leaders have indicated an attack is a possibility if they conclude the international community has failed to halt the Iranian nuclear program. Mr Vilnai did not elaborate on how he reached his assessments, but his office relies on intelligence and other assessments about Iranian weapons capabilities and Israeli susceptibility. Defence Minister Ehud Barak has also said the Israeli death toll could be in the range of 500 in such a conflict. 'Just as the citizens of Japan have to realise that they can have earthquakes, so the citizens of Israel have to realize that if they live here, they have to be prepared to expect missiles on the home front,' Vilnai said. 'It's not pleasant for the home front, but decisions have to be made, and we have to be ready.' At a news briefing in Washington on Tuesday, Leon Panetta, the U.S. defence secretary, reaffirmed the U.S. assessment that Israel has not yet decided whether to strike, while the U.S. military chief, Gen Martin Dempsey, echoed a widely held assessment that an Israeli operation would only set back, not destroy, Iran's nuclear project. Before turning to the panel's estimate, what is the latest on the Iranian crisis? In February 2012, the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced that its mission in Iran had failed. Tehran was unwilling to offer full access to its nuclear sites and allay concerns over "possible military dimensions" to its nuclear program. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that IAEA fears were "baseless," and Tehran offered to resume negotiations. Israel has recently stepped up its rhetoric, describing an Iranian bomb as an existential threat and suggesting that there is a limited window of opportunity to significantly damage the Iranian nuclear program. "Whoever says 'later'," remarked Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "may find that later is too late." Israel also signaled that it would not warn Washington before launching a unilateral strike on Iran. According to Israeli President Shimon Peres, Israel is not rushing into war, but "if another war is forced upon us, we will fight it and we will win it." U.S. defense analysts have raised doubts, however, about Israel's capacity to wage a sustained bombing campaign over the "days and weeks" necessary to destroy key Iranian sites. In the last week, President Barack Obama delivered a carefully calibrated message on Iran. He told the Atlantic that, "as president of the United States, I don't bluff," adding that, "when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say." In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Sunday, the president affirmed that the United States had "Israel's back," and rejected a policy of containing a nuclear Iran. At the same time, Obama announced his "deeply held preference" for peace over war, and urged Israel to allow time for economic sanctions against Iran to bite. Prominent Republicans have adopted a more hawkish stance on Iran, criticizing the president for a weak policy, and pushing Obama to draw clear "red lines" that, if crossed, would provoke a U.S. strike. Given this context, the panel estimated that the odds of war in the next twelve months were 48 percent. Out of interest, the median estimate was also 48 percent. This prediction is consistent with the betting market Intrade.com, which estimates a 40 percent chance of a U.S./Israeli strike by December 2012. When two different methods of prediction produce a similar result, it increases our confidence that the estimate is fairly accurate. Peace is still more likely than war, but only just. And when we next update the Iran War Clock, the odds will favor the hawks if the clock ticks even one minute closer to midnight. While the possibility of a war with Iran is acknowledged in US news reports, its regional and global implications are barely analyzed. Very few people in America are aware or informed regarding the devastation and massive loss of life which would occur in the case of a US-Israeli sponsored attack on Iran. The media is involved in a deliberate process of camouflage and distortion. War preparations under a "Global Strike" Concept, centralized and coordinated by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) are not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.  The "Globalization of War" involving the hegemonic deployment of a formidable US-NATO military force in all major regions of the World is inconsequential in the eyes of the Western media.   The broader implications of this war are either trivialized or not mentioned. People are led to believe that war is part of a "humanitarian mandate" and that both Iran as well as Iran's allies, namely China and Russia, constitute an unrelenting  threat to global security and "Western democracy".  While the most advanced weapons system are used, America's wars are never presented as "killing operations" resulting in extensive civilian casualties.  While the incidence of "collateral damage" is acknowledged, US-led wars are heralded as an unquestionable instrument of "peace-making" and "democratization". This twisted notion that waging war is "a worthy cause", becomes entrenched in the inner consciousness of millions of people. A  framework of "good versus evil" overshadows an understanding of the causes and devastating consequences of  war. Within this mindset, realities as well as concepts are turned upside down. War becomes peace. The lie becomes the truth. The humanitarian mandate of the Pentagon and NATO cannot be challenged. When "going after the bad guys", in the words of president Obama, "no options can be taken off the table".  An inquisitorial doctrine similar to that of the Spanish Inquisition, prevails. People are no longer allowed to think.  Iran is a country of close to 80 million people. It constitutes a major and significant regional military and economic power. It has ten percent of global oil and gas reserves, more than five times those of the United States of America. The conquest of Iran's oil riches is the driving force behind America's military agenda. Iran's oil and gas industry is the unspoken trophy of  the US led war, which  has been on the active drawing board of the Pentagon for the last nine years. While the US is on a war footing, Iran has  --for more than ten years-- been actively developing its military capabilities in the eventuality of a US sponsored attack. If hostilities were to break out between Iran and the Western military alliance, this could trigger a regional war extending from the Mediterranean to the Chinese border, potentially leading humanity into the realm of a World War III scenario. The Russian government, in a recent statement, has warned the US and NATO  that "should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security.” What this signifies is that Russia is Iran's military ally and that Russia will act militarily if Iran is attacked.  Military Deployment Iran is the target of US-Israel-NATO war plans. Advanced weapons systems have been deployed. US and allied Special Forces as well as intelligence operatives are already on the ground inside Iran. US military drones are involved in spying and reconnaissance activities.  Bunker buster B61 tactical nuclear weapons are slated to be used against Iran in retaliation for its alleged nuclear weapons program. Ironically, in the words of US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Iran does not possess a nuclear weapons program. “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.” The risk of armed hostilities between the US-Israel led coalition and Iran is, according to Israeli military analysts "dangerously close". There has been a massive deployment of troops which have been dispatched to the Middle East, not to mention the redeployment of US and allied troops previously stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nine thousand US troops have been dispatched to Israel to participate in what is described by the Israeli press as the largest joint air defense war exercise in Israeli history, The drill, called “Austere Challenge 12,” is scheduled to take place within the next few weeks Its stated purpose "is to test multiple Israeli and US air defense systems, especially the “Arrow” system, which the country specifically developed with help from the US to intercept Iranian missiles." Reports also suggest a substantial increase in the number of reservists who are being deployed to the Middle East. Reports confirm that reservist US Air Force personnel have been dispatched to military bases in South West Asia (Persian Gulf). From Minnesota more than 120 Airmen including pilots, navigators, mechanics, etc. departed for the Middle East on January 8.  Reservist US air force personnel from bases in North Carolina and Georgia "expect to deploy with their units in coming months". (See fayobserver.com December 18, 2011) Reserve units from the US Coastguard have also been dispatched to the Middle East.(Coast Guard Reservists Head to Middle East military.com, January 5, 2012) From these local reports, however, it is impossible to establish the overall (net) increase of US reservists from different divisions of the US military, who have been assigned to "operation Iran war".  Army reservists from the UK are also been sent to the Middle East. US Troops to Israel and the Persian Gulf Israel has become a de facto US military outpost. US and Israeli command structures are being integrated, with close consultations between the Pentagon and Israel's Ministry of Defense. A large number of US troops will be stationed in Israel once the war games are completed.  The assumption of this military deployment is the staging of a joint US-Israeli air attack on Iran. Military escalation towards a regional war is part of the military scenario:    Thousands of US troops began descending on Israel this week. ... many would be staying up to the end of the year as part of the US-IDF deployment in readiness for a military engagement with Iran and its possible escalation into a regional conflict. They will be joined by a US aircraft carrier. The warplanes on its decks will fly missions with Israeli Air Force jets. The 9,000 US servicemen gathering in Israel in the coming weeks are mostly airmen, missile interceptor teams, marines, seamen, technicians and intelligence officers. ... Tehran too is walking a taut tightrope. It is staging military's maneuvers every few days to assuring the Iranian people that its leaders are fully prepared to defend the country against an American or Israeli strike on its national nuclear program. By this stratagem, Iran's ground, sea and air forces are maintained constantly at top war readiness to thwart any surprise attack. The joint US-Israeli drill will test multiple Israeli and US air defense systems against incoming missiles and rockets, according to the official communiqué. (DEBKAfile, January 6, 2012) Meanwhile, the Pentagon has dispatched some 15,000 US troops in Kuwait. These consist of two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit. Moreover, the US Navy is retaining two aircraft carriers with their respective strike groups on standby in the Arabian sea, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS John Stennis. (Debka, January 13, 2012). An impressive deployment of troops and advanced military hardware is unfolding.   In recent developments, a third aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is heading towards the Arabian Sea. Britain's Royal Navy has dispatched her newest and most advanced warship, Type 45 destroyer HMS Daring, "which has a “stealth” design to help avoid detection by radar". France has sent its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier. The Western media has barely mentioned these deployments of troops and military hardware: "The latest deployment [of US troops to Kuwait], which was ushered in without much presentation to the public, adds a huge number of troops aligned with America’s arsenal that are now surrounding Iran on literally every front" (Russia Today, US Stations 15,000 troops to Kuwait, January 13, 2012, emphasis added). Is this massive deployment of US troops to Israel and the Gulf States related to the withdrawal and redeployment of US troops previously stationed in Iraq? The troops stationed in Kuwait will operate under the auspices of US Central Command Britain's HMS Daring Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier War Games US-Israel Missile defense and naval war games are being conducted simultaneously. Meanwhile, Iran has announced that it will be conducting its own war games in the Persian Gulf in February. Meanwhile, The Islamic Republic of Iran is also on a war footing. Iran's Armed Forces is in an advanced stage of preparedness to defend the country's borders as well as retaliate against a US-Israel led attack. Iran has completed a 10-day naval exercise near the Strait of Hormuz in December. It has now announced  that it is planning new naval drills codenamed "The Great Prophet", which are slated to take place in February.  Iran's December war games involved the test firing of two long range missiles systems, including the Qadar (a powerful sea-to-shore missile) and the Nour surface-to-surface missile. "According to Iranian state news, the Nour is an ‘advanced radar-evading, target-seeking, guided and controlled missile’." (See The Pentagon to Send US Troops to Israel. Iran is the Unspoken Target, Global Research, January 4, 20122 "Additionally, the Iranian military reportedly test-fired numerous other short, medium and long-range missiles.... Iranian authorities reported that they test-fired the medium-range, surface-to-air, radar-evading Mehrab missile." (Ibid) Iranian Missile Tests The crucial question: Is the Pentagon seeking to deliberately trigger a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf with a view to providing a pretext and a justification to waging an all out war on the Islamic Republic of Iran? US military strategists admit that the US Navy would be at disadvantage in relation to Iranian forces in the narrow corridor of the Strait of Hormuz:  "Despite its might and shear strength, geography literally works against U.S. naval power in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. The relative narrowness of the Persian Gulf makes it like a channel, at least in a strategic and military context. Figuratively speaking, the aircraft carriers and warships of the U.S. are confined to narrow waters or are closed in within the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf. ... Even the Pentagon’s own war simulations have shown that a war in the Persian Gulf with Iran would spell disaster for the United States and its military. (Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, The Geo-Politics of the Strait of Hormuz: Could the U.S. Navy be defeated by Iran in the Persian Gulf?, Global Research,  January 8, 2012)   Triggering a War Pretext Incident: Provoking Iran to "Throw the First Punch" Is the Obama administration prepared to sacrifice one or more vessels of the Fifth Fleet, resulting in extensive casualties among soldiers and sailors, with a view to mustering public support for a war on Iran on the grounds of self-defense? As documented by Richard Sanders, the strategy of triggering a war pretext incident has been used throughout American military history. "Throughout history, war planners have used various forms of deception to trick their enemies. Because public support is so crucial to the process of initiating and waging war, the home population is also subject to deceitful stratagems. The creation of false excuses to justify going to war is a major first step in constructing public support for such deadly ventures. Perhaps the most common pretext for war is an apparently unprovoked enemy attack. Such attacks, however, are often fabricated, incited or deliberately allowed to occur. They are then exploited to arouse widespread public sympathy for the victims, demonize the attackers and build mass support for military “retaliation.” Like schoolyard bullies who shout ‘He hit me first!’, war planners know that it is irrelevant whether the opponent really did ‘throw the first punch.’ As long as it can be made to appear that the attack was unprovoked, the bully receives license to ‘respond’ with force. Bullies and war planners are experts at taunting, teasing and threatening their opponents. If the enemy cannot be goaded into ‘firing the first shot,’ it is easy enough to lie about what happened. Sometimes, that is sufficient to rationalize a schoolyard beating or a genocidal war. Such trickery has probably been employed by every military power throughout history. During the Roman empire, "the cause for war" -- casus belli -- was often invented to conceal the real reasons for war. Over the millennia, although weapons and battle strategies have changed greatly, the deceitful strategem of using pretext incidents to ignite war has remained remarkably consistent. (See How to Start a War: The American Use of War Pretext Incidents. Global research, January 9, 2012) Pearl Harbor stands out as the casus belli, the pretext and justification for America's entry into World War II. President Roosevelt knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked by Japan and did nothing to prevent it. At a November 25 1941 meeting of FDR’s war council, "Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s notes speak of the prevailing consensus:  'The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into … firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.'” (See Patrick Buchanan, Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor? Global Research, December 7, 2011). In the wake of the attack, America was beating the drums of war, while also concealing the fact that "the FDR administration knew, but failed to act". "A massive cover-up followed Pearl Harbor a few days later, ... when the Chief of Staff ordered a lid put on the affair. ‘Gentlemen,' he told half a dozen officers, ‘this goes to the grave with us.'" (John Toland, Infamy: Pearl Harbor and its Aftermath, Doubleday, 1982, p. 321). According to Professor Francis Boyle with reference to the ongoing showdown between the US Navy and Iran in the Persian Gulf: "Once again, it looks to me like what FDR did in 1941 when he sacrificed the Pacific Fleet and its men at Pearl Harbor—except for the carriers—in order to get the USA into World War II despite the fervent desire of the American People and Congress to stay out. Déjà vu all over again. Back to the Future " (Francis Boyle, January 13, 2011, email communication to author) In contrast to the events of November 1941, the US Congress in 2012 is broadly supportive of waging a war on Iran and the American people are, as a result of media disinformation, largely unaware of the devastating implications of a US-Israeli attack.  . Thematic Justifications: Demonizing the Enemy Apart from the "incident" whereby the enemy is incited to "throw the first punch", "thematic justifications" are used to demonize the enemy and justify a casus belli. WMD and regime change in the case of Iraq (2003), support to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks in the case of Afghanistan (2001), "regime change" and "democratization" as in the cases of Yugoslavia (1999) and Libya (2011). The thematic justifications to wage war on Iran include the following:   1. Iran is accused of developing a nuclear weapons program,  2. Iran is a "Rogue State" which defies the "international community" and constitutes a threat to the Western World, 3. Iran wants "to wipe Israel off the map", 4. Iran is responsible for supporting and abetting the 9/11 terrorist attacks,  5. Iran is an authoritarian and undemocratic country thereby justifying a "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) intervention with a view to instating democracy. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States In case of a war with Iran, NATO member states as well as NATO partners of the "Mediterranean Dialogue" including the Five GCC Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan would be involved. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have a formidable weapons arsenal  of F-15 combat planes, patriot missiles, Apache helicopters and warships (Made in America), which would be used against Iran on behalf of the US led coalition. (see The Gulf  Military Balance in 2010: An Overview | Center for Strategic and International Studies) The US has more than 30 military bases and facilities including its naval base in Bahrain, US Central command (CENTCOM) headquarters in Qatar, not to mention its military installations in Pakistan, Turkey and Afghanistan (see maps) Click to enlarge * US military base or facility surrounding Iran From Washington's standpoint, Saudi Arabia's Royal Air Force is meant to act as a proxy for the USAF, operating on the principle of "interoperability". Saudi Arabia's Air Force is equipped with the most advanced combat planes including (among others) the Eurofighter Typhoons, Tornado IDS, F-15 and F-15E Eagle fighters. In October 2010, Washington announced its largest arms sale in US history, a $60.5 billion purchase by Saudi Arabia. These weapons although acquired by Saudi Arabia are de facto part of a US sponsored weapons arsenal, which is to be used in close coordination and consultation with the Pentagon. Large arms sales were also negotiated in 2010 with the Gulf States. It should, nonetheless, be emphasised that there is reluctance within the ruling Saudi and Gulf States elites, to actively participating in a regional war, which would inevitably lead to Iranian retaliatory aerial attacks. Escalation: Towards a Broader Regional War If aerial attacks were to be launched, Iran would retaliate with missile attacks directed against Israel as well as against US military facilities in the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran has an advanced Russian S 300 air defense system. It is equipped with medium and long range missile capabilities: The Shahab 3 and Sejjil missiles have a range of  approximately 2,000 km, enabling them to strike targets in Israel. The Ghadr 1 has a range of 1,800 km. (See Haaretz, September 28, 2009) The war with Iran would not be limited to aerial bombardments. A land war could follow with Turkey playing a strategic military role on behalf of the US-Israel led coalition. Turkey's ground forces are of the order of 500,000. Iran's are of a similar order of magnitude: 465,000 regular forces. Turkish forces would be deployed in border areas with Iran as well as in Northern Syria.   Iran's Air Force and Navy personnel are respectively of the order of 52,000 and 28,000. (see Table below) The Revolutionary Guards, which constitute Iran's elite forces, are of the order of 120,000. Moreover, Iran has a significant paramilitary force of several million men and women called the Basij. The war would also overflow into Syria (which is an ally of Iran), Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan involving the participation of  Syrian ground forces as well as Hezbollah, which effectively repealed Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon. In recent developments, Iran has increased its military aid to Syria and Lebanon. In turn, Russia has a naval base in Southern Syria and military cooperation agreements with both Syria and Iran, involving the presence of Russian military advisers. Russia is deploying warships out of its naval base in Tartus including aircraft carrying missile cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov. "The deployment ... follows the US move to station the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group" off the Syrian coastline. (See M. K. Badrakumar, Russia deploying warships in Syria - Indian Punchline, November 21, 2011) Russia's Naval base in Tartus, Syria Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier Su 33 take-off from aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in the Eastern Mediterranean UN Security Council Resolution 1929 (June 2010) had imposed a sanctions regime on Iran which was conducive to a temporary freeze in military cooperation between Iran and Russia, as well as with China. In recent developments, it would appear that military cooperation has de facto resumed following the rebuff by both China and Russia of the December 31, 2011 economic sanctions regime imposed by Washington.  In a scenario of military escalation, Iranian troops and/or Special Forces would cross the border into Afghanistan and Iraq. From the three existing war theaters: Afghanistan -Pakistan (Af-Pak), Iraq, Palestine, the onslaught of a war on Iran would lead to an integrated regional war. The entire Middle East-Central Asian region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to China's Western frontier with Afghanistan and Pakistan would flare up, from the tip of the Arabian Peninsula to the Caspian Sea basin. The Caucasus and Central Asia: Competing Military Alliances What would be the involvement of America's "partners" in the Caucasus, namely Georgia and Azerbaijan? (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Iran War Theater's "Northern Front": Azerbaijan and the US Sponsored War on Iran, Global Research, April 9, 2007). In Azerbaijan, the government has recently distanced itself from Washington, and has turned down its participation in joint military exercises with the US. The bilateral US-Azerbaijan strategic agreement is said to be stagnating:  "Baku’s desire to not to anger Moscow would seem to preclude any possibility of Azerbaijan hosting a US military facility...." (Azerbaijan: US Military Ties with Baku Are Stagnating - Experts | EurasiaNet.org, April 25, 2011). In contrast, the Georgian government is directly supporting America's war effort against Iran. In recent developments, the Pentagon is sponsoring the construction of makeshift US military hospitals in Georgia to be used in the eventuality of a war with Iran. ( Readies for War On Iran: US Builds Military Hospitals in Georgia, Global Research, January 10, 2012) “These are 20-bed hospitals...It’s an American project. A big war between the US and Iran is beginning in the Persian Gulf. $5 billion was allocated for the construction of these 20-bed military hospitals,” Javelidze said in an interview with Georgian paper Kviris Kronika (News of the Week) ... The construction is mainly paid from the American pocket. In addition, airports are being briskly built in Georgia... (Ibid) What the military hospitals project conveys is that the Pentagon has already established detailed logistics pertaining to the transfer of wounded US servicemen from the Iran battlefield to nearby military hospitals in Georgia. These advanced preparations suggest that war plans are at a very advanced stage and that scenarios pertaining to military casualties have been established. Military Alliances: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the CSTO The countervailing military alliance to the US-NATO-Israel axis  is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as the overlapping Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The SCO includes Kazakhstan, the People’s Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan. The SCO includes seven former Soviet republics including Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.  Iran has observer status in the SCO.  Uzbekistan withdrew from the NATO sponsored GUUAM military cooperation agreement. In 2005, it formally evicted the US from the Karshi-Khanabad air base, known as K2 (U.S. Evicted From Air Base In Uzbekistan, Washington Post, July 30, 2005).  Of significance, in the Kyrgyz Republic, the new elected President Almazbek Atambayev (November 2011) stated that he intends to close down the US military base at Manas when the lease expires. (Kyrgyzstan Says United States’ Manas Air Base Will Close - NYTimes.com, November, 1, 2011) What these developments suggest is that the former Soviet republics of Central Asia have reaffirmed their relationship to Moscow, which in turn has led the consolidation of the SCO-CSTO military bloc. Global US Military Hegemony. Russia and China The participation of Russia and China on the side of Iran is already de facto in view of prevailing military cooperation agreements. the transfer of weapons systems and technology to Iran, as well as the presence of Russian military advisers, training personnel, in both Iran and Syria. Moreover, Iran has Observer status in the SCO Russia and China are fully aware that a war on Iran is a stepping stone towards a broader war. Both countries are targeted by the US and NATO. Russia is threatened on its border with the European Union, with US-NATO AMD targetted at major Russian cities. With the exception of its Northern frontier, China is surrounded by US military bases, from the Korean peninsula to the South China Sea. Both China and Russia are perceived by Washington as a "Global Threat". China has been the target of veiled threats by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The recent National Defense Review announced by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, envisages an expanded defense budget, with a view to containing Russia and China. In recent development, Russia newly appointed Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin has warned Washington and Brussels that "Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security,” Spiralling US Defense Spending: The  Pentagon's "Big Dog" Ideology Washington's objective  is to establish global military dominance. While the "war on terrorism" and the containment of "rogue states" still constitute the official justification and driving force, China and Russia have been tagged in US military and National Security documents as potential enemies:  "... the U.S. military ... is seeking to dissuade rising powers, such as China, from challenging U.S. military dominance." (See Greg Jaffe, Rumsfeld details big military shift in new document, The Wall Street Journal, 11 March 2005) How does Washington intend to reach its goal of global military hegemony? Through spiralling defense spending and the continued growth of the US weapons industry, requiring a massive compression of all categories of government expenditure. Implemented at   the crossroads of the most serious economic crisis in American history, the ongoing increase in defense spending feeds this new undeclared arms race with China and Russia, with vast amounts of tax dollars channelled to America's defense contractors. "The stated objective is to make the process of developing advanced weapons systems "so expensive", that no other power on earth including China and Russia will able to compete or challenge "the Big Dog", without jeopardizing its civilian economy" Michel Chossudovsky, New Undeclared Arms Race:, Global Research, March 17, 2005) This "Big Dog" ideology, a term coined by the Pentagon, is a precondition for the "Globalization of War". It is a diabolical agenda of enhancing America's killing machine by dismantling social programs and impoverishing people across the US. Gas prices have now reached an average of $4.50 a gallon nationally and several analysts predict the price will rise to $5.00-$6.00 dollars per gallon at the pump by Labor Day. One thing the Pentagon routinely does (and does very well) is conduct war games. Top brass there are constantly developing strategies for conducting any number of theoretical missions based on real or perceived threats to our national security or vital interests. This was also done prior to the invasion of Iraq, but the Bush administration chose not to listen to the dire warnings about that mission given to him by Pentagon leaders, or for that matter, by his own senior intelligence officials. Nevertheless, war gaming is in full swing again right now with the bullseye just to the right of our current mess – Iran. It’s no secret that the U.S. is currently putting the finishing touches on several contingency plans for attacking Iranian nuclear and military facilities. With our ground forces stretched to the breaking point in Iraq and Afghanistan, none of the most likely scenarios involve a ground invasion. Not that this administration wouldn’t prefer to march into the seat of Shiite Islam behind a solid, moving line of M1 Abrams tanks and proclaim the country for democracy. The fact is that even the President knows we can’t pull that off any more so he and the neo-cons will have to settle for Shock and Awe Lite. If we invade Iran this year it will be done using hundreds of sorties by carrier based aircraft already stationed in the Persian Gulf and from land based aircraft located in Iraq and Qatar. They will strike the known nuclear facilities located in and around Tehran and the rest of the country as well as bases containing major units of the Iranian military, anti-aircraft installations and units of the Revolutionary Guard (a separate and potent Iranian para-military organization). Will this military action stop Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons? Probably not. It will probably not even destroy all of their nuclear research facilities, the most sensitive of which are known to be underground, protected by tons of earth and reinforced concrete and steel designed to survive almost all attacks using conventional munitions. The Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard will most likely survive as well, although they will suffer significant casualties and major bases and command centers will undoubtedly be destroyed. However, since Iran has both a functioning Air Force, Navy (including submarines) and modern anti-aircraft capabilities, U.S. fighter-bombers will suffer casualties as well. This will not be a "Cake Walk" as with the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when the Iraqi Army simply melted away and the Iraqi Air Force never even launched a single aircraft. Not even close. If the United States attacks Iran either this summer or this fall, the American people had better be prepared for a shock that may perhaps be even greater to the national psyche (and economy) than 9/11. First of all, there will be significant U.S. casualties in the initial invasion. American jets will be shot down and the American pilots who are not killed will be taken prisoner - including female pilots. Iranian Yakhonts 26, Sunburn 22 and Exocet missiles will seek out and strike U.S. naval battle groups bottled up in the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf with very deadly results. American sailors will be killed and U.S. ships will be badly damaged and perhaps sunk. We may even witness the first attack on an American Aircraft carrier since World War II. That’s just the opening act. Israel is attacked by Hezbollah in a coordinated and large scale effort. Widespread and grisly casualties effectively paralyze the nation, a notion once thought impossible. Iran’s newest ally in the region, Syria, then unleashes a barrage of over 200 Scud B, C and D missiles at Israel, each armed with VX gas. Since all of Israel is within range of these Russian built weapons, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and virtually all major civilian centers and several military bases are struck, often with a result of massive casualties.   The Israeli Air Force orders all three squadrons of their F-16I Sufa fighter/bombers into the air with orders to bomb Tehran and as many military and nuclear bases as they can before they are either shot down or run out of fuel. It is a one way trip for some of these pilots. Their ancient homeland lies in ruins. Many have family that is already dead or dying. They do not wait for permission from Washington, DC or U.S. regional military commanders. The Israeli aircraft are carrying the majority of their country’s nuclear arsenal under their wings. Just after the first waves of U.S. bombers cross into Iranian airspace, the Iranian Navy, using shore based missiles and small, fast attack craft sinks several oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, sealing off the Persian Gulf and all its oil from the rest of the world. They then mine the area, making it difficult and even deadly for American minesweepers to clear the straits. Whatever is left of the Iranian Navy and Air Force harasses our Navy as it attempts minesweeping operations. More U.S casualties. The day after the invasion Wall Street (and to a lesser extent, Tokyo, London and Frankfurt) acts as it always does in an international crisis – irrational speculative and spot buying reaches fever pitch and sends the cost of oil skyrocketing. In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iran, the price of oil goes to $200.00 - $300.00 dollars a barrel on the open market. If the war is not resolved in a few weeks, that price could rise even higher.  This will send the price of gasoline at the pump in this country to $8.00-$10.00 per gallon immediately and subsequently to even higher unthinkable levels. If that happens, this country shuts down. Most Americans are not be able to afford gas to go to work. Truckers pull their big rigs to the side of the road and simply walk away. Food, medicine and other critical products are not be brought to stores. Gas and electricity (what is left of the short supply) are too expensive for most people to afford. Children, the sick and elderly die from lack of air-conditioned homes and hospitals in the summer. Children, the sick and elderly die in the winter for lack of heat. There are food riots across the country. A barter system takes the place of currency and credit as the economy dissolves and banks close or limit withdrawals. Civil unrest builds. The police are unable to contain the violence and are themselves victims of the same crisis as the rest of the population. Civilian rule dissolves and Martial Law is declared under provisions approved under the Patriot Act. Regular U.S. Army and Marine troops patrol the streets. The federal government apparatus is moved to an unknown but secure location. The United States descends into chaos and becomes a third world country. Its time as the lone superpower is over. It doesn’t get any worse than this. Then the first Israeli bomber drops its nuclear payload on Tehran. The US and its allies started the psychological preparation of  world public opinion for the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons to resolve 'the Iranian problem'. The US propaganda machine is working hard to create the impression that a 'surgically precise' use of the nuclear weapon with only limited consequences is possible. However, this has been known to be untrue since the 1945 US nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the very first nuclear strike, it will become totally impossible to prevent the use of all of the available means of mass destruction. In the situation of a mass extermination of their nations, the conflicting sides will resort to whatever means they have without limitations. Therefore, not only the nuclear arsenals of various countries, including those whose nuclear status is not recognized officially, will come into play. No doubt, chemical and biological warfare (and, generally, any poisonous substances), which can be produced on the basis of minimal industrial and economic resources, will be used. Currently, one can assert that peace and mankind are in great danger. Consider the military-technical aspect of the situation. Practically, the operation's objective declared by the US - destroying some 1,500 targets on the territory of Iran - cannot be accomplished by the forces already amassed for the mission. This objective can only be met if tactical nuclear munitions are used. An examination of the military-political aspect of the matter reveals even more significant facts. The attack on Iran is not planned to include a ground offensive. Strikes on selected military and industrial installations can cause a severe damage to the Iranian defense potential and economy. Casualties are likely to be substantial, but not catastrophic from the military point of view. At the same time, it is impossible to gain control of the territory of a country as large as Iran without a ground operation. The planned offensive will entail a consolidation of forces not only in Iran, but also in other Muslim countries and among the public throughout the world. The support for the country suffering from the US-Israeli aggression will soar. Certainly, Washington is aware that the result will be not the strengthening but the loss of  US positions in the world. Consequently, the goal of the US attack against Iran has to be seen in a different light. The nuclear offensive must boost the use of nuclear blackmail in global politics by the US and fundamentally transform the world order.Further evidence of the radicalization of the goals of the US and its allies is available. The early 2007 leaks, which exposed Israel's plans to use three nukes against Iran, were quite dangerous for a country in a hostile environment, but certainly they were deliberate. They meant that the decision on the character of Israel's activity had already been made, and all that remained to be done was to influence public opinion accordingly. The pretext for the operation against Iran does not appear serious. Judging from both the technical and the political points of view, there is no possibility of it developing nuclear weapons in the near future. One must remember that allegations of Iraq's possessing weapons of mass destruction were used by the US as a pretext for the war against the country. As a result, Iraq was devastated, and the civilian death toll rose to hundreds of thousands, but no evidence for the claims had ever been discovered. The really important question is not whether Iran is capable of making nuclear weapons. The only function of small stockpiles of nuclear weapons not backed by various forms of support is that of containment. The threat of a retaliation strike can stop any aggressor. As for attacking other countries and winning a nuclear war in the situation of a conflict with a coalition of major powers, this would require a potential that Iran neither has nor is going to have in the foreseeable future. The allegations that Iran can become a nuclear aggressor are absurd. Anyone having at least some theoretical knowledge of military affairs must understand this. What is the real reason why the US is unleashing this military conflict?The activities having consequences of global proportions can only be intended to deal with a global problem. This problem itself is by no means something secret - it is the possibility of a crash of the global financial system based on the US dollar. Currently the mass of  US currency exceeds the total worth of  US assets by more than a factor of ten. Everything in the US - industry, buildings, high-tech, and so on - has been mortgaged more than ten times all over the world. A debt of such proportions will never be repaid - it can only be relieved.The dollar amounts on the accounts of individuals, organizations, and state treasuries are a virtual reality. These records are not secured by products, valuables or anything that exists in reality. Writing-off this US indebtedness to the rest of the world would turn the majority of its population into deceived depositors. It would be the end of the well-established rule of the golden calf. The significance of the coming events is truly epic. This is why the aggressor ignores the global catastrophic consequences of its offensive. The bankrupt 'global bankers' need a force major event of global proportions to get out of the situation. The solution is already in the plans. The US has nothing to offer the rest of the world to save the declining dollar except for military operations like the ones in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But even these local conflicts only yield short-term effects. Something a lot greater is needed, and the need is urgent. The moment is drawing closer when the financial crisis will make the world realize that all of the US assets, all of its industrial, technological, and other potentials do not rightfully belong to the country. Then, it must be confiscated to compensate the victims, and the rights of ownership of everything bought for dollars all over the world - everything drawn from the wealth of various nations - are to be revised. What might cause the force major event of the required scale? Everything seems to indicate that Israel will be sacrificed. Its involvement in a war with Iran - especially in a nuclear war - is bound to trigger a global catastrophe. The statehoods of Israel and Iran are based on the countries' official religions. A military conflict between Israel and Iran will immediately evolve into a religious one, a conflict between Judaism and Islam. Due to the presence of numerous Jewish and Muslim populations in the developed countries, this would make a global bloodbath inevitable. All of the active forces of most of the countries of the world would end up fighting, with almost no room for neutrality left. Judging by the increasingly massive acquisitions of the residential housing for the Israeli citizens, especially in Russia and Ukraine, a lot of people already have an idea of what the future holds. However, it is hard to imagine a quiet heaven where one might hide from the coming doom. Forecasts of the territorial distribution of the fighting, the quantities and the efficiency of the armaments involved, the profound character of the underlying roots of the conflict and the severity of the religious strife all leave no doubt that this clash will be in all respects much more nightmarish than WWII. So far, the response of the world's major political players to the developments gives no cause for optimism. The inconsequent UN resolutions concerning Iran, the attempts to appease the aggressor who no longer disguises his intentions are reminiscent of the Munich Pact on the eve of WWII. The intense shuttle diplomacy focusing on all sorts of international problems except for the main one discussed above is also indicative of the problem. This is a usual practice on the eve of a war, aiming to provide for alliances with third-party countries or to ensure their neutrality. Such politics seeks to avert or soften the first strikes, which would be the most sudden and devastating ones. Is it possible to prevent the bloodshed? The only efficient argument that might stop the aggressors is the threat of their total global isolation for instigating a nuclear war. The implementation of the scenario described above can be made impossible by a complete absence of allies for the US-Israeli tandem, combined with loud public protests in the countries. Therefore, these days a definite and uncompromising stance of country leaders, governments, politicians, public figures, religious leaders, scientists, and artists with respect to the prepared nuclear aggression would be an invaluable service to mankind. Iran has appeared in numerous headlines around the world in recent months, usually attached to stories about military exercises and other saber-rattlings, economic sanctions, a suspected nuclear program, and varied political struggles. Iran is a country of more than 75 million people with a diverse history stretching back many thousands of years. While over 90 percent of Iranians belong to the Shia branch of Islam -- the official state religion -- Iran is also home to nearly 300,000 Christians, and the largest community of Jews in the Middle East outside Israel. At a time when military and political images seem to dominate the news about Iran, I thought it would be interesting to take a recent look inside the country, to see its people through the lenses of agency photographers. Keep in mind that foreign media are still subject to Iranian restrictions on reporting. US deploys F-22 fighter jets to UAE in apparent message to Iran The ‘most sophisticated fighter in the world’ now stationed 200 miles from Iranian border The F-22 Raptor The US has quietly begun to deploy its premier F-22 stealth fighter planes to an allied base in the United Arab Emirates, according to a report in Aviation Weekly, which described the move as a message to Iran. “The United States Air Force has deployed F-22s to Southwest Asia,” service spokesman Capt. Phil Ventura said in a statement. “Such deployments strengthen military-to-military relationships, promote sovereign and regional security, improve combined tactical air operations and enhance interoperability of forces, equipment and procedures.” According to the report, the F-22 Raptor, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, is considered “the most sophisticated fighter in the world,” and the timing of the deployment could serve as a signal to Iran regarding the Islamic republic’s controversial nuclear program. Air Force spokesperson Lt. Col. John Dorrian would not specify what the mission of the F-22 would be, nor did he say how many planes were deployed, according to ABC News. Dorrian claimed, however, that the fighter jets posed “no threat to Iran.” The F-22 Raptors are now stationed at the Al Dafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, approximately 200 miles from Iran and 800 miles from Tehran.   Bunker Buster Bomb Threats Signal Unforeseen World Conflict Moves this week by the United States to position specialized massive “penetrator” bombs for an attack on Iran clearly demonstrate a total lack of grasp by key players of the risks involved and the chain of events that will inexorably follow. This week, a threat against Iran by the United States was published by the UK Telegraph.  Peter Foster, of their Washington Bureau met with Mike Donnelly, US Air Force Secretary  to question him about deployment of experimental “bunker buster” bombs. Donnelly is a Washington Insider, a computer programmer and administrative planner but did three years in the army, having served that short period after the end of the Vietnam War. He has no combat experience and cannot fly an airplane. He is a perfect choice to run an Air force. This is what Donnelly said: “If it needs to go today”, would be available. We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing,” he said “We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.  We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing.  We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.” Michael Donley – Air Force Secretary This weapon, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator or MOP weighs 14 tons and cost nearly $100 million to design. It has never been successfully tested.  Essentially, it is an 8” cannon barrel filled with high explosives hoped to be dropped from the B2 Stealth Bomber.  Each B2 costs $2.1 billion dollars not to mention the $300 billion in design costs. Some members of congress have serious doubts it is capable of penetrating the “underground weapons labs in Iran” that the CIA had briefed the same members on. That briefing told congress that no such labs existed. This February, James Reisen and Mark Mazzeti of the New York Times reported the current level of American intelligence regarding Iran and nuclear weapons: “Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier, according to current and former American officials. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.” The attack on Iran will mean war in the Gulf – Which can spread quickly Thus, the same members of congress concerned over the performance of the weapon have been officially briefed that there is no potential use for the weapon although they have clearly indicated that they intend to use the weapon despite the fact their own best information indicates their “opinions” are not rooted in reality. There are further concerns, other than dropping a defective bomb on non-existent targets without rationale or legal authority. It is also hoped that Iran has not modified its air defense radars as Serbia had, allowing them to shoot down America’s stealth planes.  Serbia downed several back in the 1990s. Was using F-117′s in the Serbian conflict worth losing the technology? This weapon, the “MOB,” was developed to replace a Bush (41) era “nuclear bunker buster” that proved ineffective.  The $100 million dollar project is almost identical to the “Tall boy,”  a World War II era weapon used against German submarine pens. The UK Telegraph’s article credits Israeli influence with congress’ flawed judgment, identifying a decision making process that is more “conspiracy to commit war crimes” than “national defense.” “(The “MOB”) is the critical piece of military hardware that underwrites American assurances to Israel that it will neutralise Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy and sanctions fail.” Additionally, the Obama administration has offered these weapons to Israel, the UAE and South Korea and other nations. None have aircraft capable of delivering such a weapon.  The likelihood of the MOB being sold on the world’s weapon “black market” is very high. Israel’s unsubstantiated claims, not for the first time, have a powerful effect on American decision making.  All members of congress involved in this project have accepted large campaign contributions from Israeli sources in the past few months and are expecting more. Israel’s other issue is that they have expressed the concern that their current inventory of GBU 28 bombs, a smaller 5000 pound version might not be able to destroy Iran’s real or imagined nuclear facilities. These GBU 28 bombs were a gift from the US.  Israel sold much of their current inventory to North Korea and will require replacements. Both Germany and China have acted as intermediaries in these sales which have included even the most advanced Patriot III missile systems. More covert preparations for an attack on Iran have been uncovered. We learned through top secret sources, that an American ship, flagged as a naval vessel but leased to Germany and crewed by Israelis, the USS Grapple, delivered a number of GBU 28 bombs to the Black Sea port of Poti between June 10 and 12, 2010. USS Grapple – ARS-53 Accompanying the USS Grapple were 12 Israeli torpedo boats that made runs at Russian craft in the region that were observing this operation as the Grapple moved through international waters. It is believed these weapons were transferred to Azerbaijan where Israeli combat aircraft stand by, having been transferred to this forward position during joint bombing exercises with the Turkish Air Force in 2010. Some Israeli forces have entered Kurdistan, taking control of a former US airbase.  This has been done in defiance of the Iraqi government in Baghdad.  Israeli drones are currently being operated from this facility.  We have “on site” confirmations. With public statements from both President Obama and Prime Minister Putin that discussions with Iran should continue over the Iranian weapons systems that both leaders have been informed by their own security services do not exist, an aspect of unreality seems to prevail. In a January 2009 article in Asia Times, Sam Gardinier points out a number of inconsistencies that may well indicate that policies have not changed but rather rhetoric, with the availability of accurate information waning based, more on media control and “money in politics,” than changing geopolitics.  From Asia Times: “The United States falls into a trap in assuming that Russia doesn’t want a nuclear-armed Iran. Russian officials repeat over and over that they have no evidence that Iran has a weapons program. US officials discount that statement but shouldn’t. The United States needs to remember that Russia has nuclear engineers inside Iran working with the Iranians. Strategic partnership There are three examples in the past few months that suggest a strategic partnership: the nuclear power plant at Bushehr, the S-300 missile, and a refinery in Armenia. (Note:  The S-300 missile sale is currently “off the table.”) The work on the Bushehr (Iranian) nuclear reactor has been punctuated by continuous delay. One almost got the impression that Russia was dragging its feet on purpose. However, Russia appears to have a renewed commitment to the work. Russia recently announced that it was planning to dispatch up to 3,000 technicians there. It’s hard to argue that Russia has any interest in punishing Iran for enriching in light of this project. The refinery in Armenia is not as blatant, but equally meaningful. The discussions between GAZPROM, Russia’s gas export monopoly, and Armenia are for a refinery that would serve both Armenia’s needs as well as export to Iran. On the top of almost everyone’s list for the next level of sanctions against Iran is refined petroleum products; Israel wants it and even Obama suggested it when he gave a speech to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee convention last summer. Russia is diminishing the sanctions on refined petroleum in advance of a formal proposal by the United States. On Friday January 23, Russia and Iran signed an agriculture agreement in Moscow. The Russian Minister of Agriculture called Iran a “strategic partner.” Although the agreement is a small step, this is the first time I recall a Russian using that phrase. Over the weekend, I talked to a member of the defense sub-committee of the House Appropriations Committee. He told me he has had recent conversations with some Iranian officials. They told him the United States has forced Iran in the direction of the Russians. That’s certainly consistent with recent developments. I also exchanged e-mails on this subject with a former European ambassador to Tehran. His made a very interesting point. Iran is the only potential competitor for natural gas to Europe. He said Moscow doesn’t want Tehran to get too close to Europe to the point it could jeopardize Europe’s dependence on GAZPROM. We’ve seen the evidence of Russia and GAZPROM leverage over Europe recently.” The evidence is increasingly clear.  With Putin in Tel Aviv recently voicing concerns about Iranian nuclear weapons, playing to an Israeli audience while directly contradicting established Russian policy, it becomes clear why such contradictions are accepted by the press without question. Bibi and Putin – Happy Over What? What is made clear is that there is, in fact, no independent mainstream press. Though withholding air defense systems and now overtly supporting sanctions, Russia had already, not only arranged for Iran to have adequate supplies of refined petroleum but has thousands of technicians in Iran working on many of the same nuclear projects Israel says it plans to target. The result leaves Russia with “double flexibility,” both influence in Israel to offset increasing US intransigence and hostility to Israel’s interference in American domestic politics and Russia, should Syria collapse, can again become more active advocates for Iran, another “flip-flop” the world press has chosen to ignore. In deals signed over the past weeks, Saudi Arabia has begun a massive nuclear weapons program. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal stands ready for transfer to Saudi Arabia on a moment’s notice, according to a DEBKA report, a publication often cited for wild fantasy and conspiracy theory, that and the voice of the Mossad. The other unseen player is Pakistan.  According to the Stockholm Institute as reported in the UK Telegraph, Pakistan has a clear advantage in nuclear capability over India and that “nuclear gap” is growing exponentially. The global reality is that, though India likes to compare military capabilities with Pakistan though the likelihood of China weighing in is more than remote. Israel is said to depend on her close alliance with India to offset “the Muslim bomb,” as they refer to Pakistan’s nuclear capability. Another extreme misconception is that Pakistan, were Israel to attack Iran with nuclear weapons, would stand aside because of differences in Islamic sects. This purposeful misconstuance has a deadly reason behind it. Dimona would be too big a target to ignore Were an nuclear attack on Iranian population centers to be instigated, a likely response were Iran to retaliate against an Israeli attack by decimating Israelis Dimona nuclear weapons plant, a “fat” target for Iran, cascading events would ensue. Pakistan, with a significant nuclear arsenal with includes large numbers of tactical nukes not publicly “counted,” would likely either supply nuclear weapons to Iran, said by Wikileaks to have financed Pakistan’s nuclear program, or to destroy Israel’s major population centers itself. India, the ally Israel has “banked” on to offset this possibility, now stands between two budding nuclear superpowers, Pakistan and China, and would be forced to stand down. This would force nuclear intervention by the US which would immediately bring about a massive nuclear response by China and trigger a strike on the US by Russia if a secret protocol exists and such an endeavor would serve Russia’s interests. Reports indicate that protocol does exist and such an endeavor, whatever Russia’s relations with Israel may have been, would serve Russia’s interests, in fact, her survival. Israel would no longer be a factor as she would no longer exist and her population which includes a rapidly diminishing number of Palestinian “hostages” would no longer be the factor it had once been. The entire situation, as described, is orchestrated by two groups, ultra-nationalists inside Israel and the assumption that America will retaliate if Israel is destroyed. The solution, the sane one, involves removal of all nuclear weapons from the Middle East, systematic regional security conferences stressing economic growth and interdependence which include Israel and Iran and defusing the arms race in South Asia. All require vision, courage and leadership.  As things currently stand, we are less than a year from a world war.  Consider this “August 1913.” Editing: Jim W. Dean August 1913 – The Miscalculations of some – Are always paid for by others The retaliation and repercussions of such an attack could be appalling, whatever President Obama might say, if the shooting begins. There is no chance of a neat, brief surgical strike, as some think, leaving Iran’s forces disabled and the country too weakened by decades of sanctions to be a top power in the Gulf. Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, cheerfully argues that Iranian retaliation would produce minimum casualties in Israel. In reality, Iran would retaliate against Israel on all fronts, including through Hezbollah in the Lebanon, once more plunging that country into conflict. If Washington actually gave Israel any support for having attacked Iran, then America and its allies would be dragged into an ever-widening conflict, certainly including the U.S. forces in Afghanistan and those who remain in Iraq. The danger this poses for oil supplies and prices is all too plain, especially for a Western world faced with a severe recession. At one level, Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz, through which 40 per cent of the world’s oil tankers pass. Or, as a senior Iranian general put it, it would allow through only tankers of nations that shared Iran’s interests. That would rule out much of the Western world, regularly tightening the sanctions programme against Iran that has already lasted decades. The Americans may have its Fifth and Sixth Fleets patrolling the Gulf, which may suggest immense and even glamorous power, but in reality they are as useless as a series of Potemkin villages. The military initiative would pass to Iran, which needs only its small craft to close the straits. US President Barack Obama (R) meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) to discuss approaches to a nuclear-armed Iran Netanyahu and his friends, still arguing with the doubters, may like to think that Israel would be seen as at last dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But the U.S. military says such an action could only delay — not prevent — Iran shouldering its way into the world nuclear club. Iran is deeply split today with a majority of voters wanting to  end clerical rule. But nothing would unite them more than an external attack. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may even see an attack as  usefully prolonging his own  position — just as Netanyahu does in Israel. Historians will note the dangerous symmetry of the two leaders’ positions. Hope of avoiding a cataclysm turns on Netanyahu being dissuaded from his plan by the hostility in the Israeli press and by nagging doubts among colleagues. William Hague must make clear that Britain would not second American backing for an Israeli attack In Washington itself, the advice to Obama from the State Department and the military is plain: that Netanyahu’s plans should have no U.S. support. And, as already noted, a clear majority of American voters have no appetite for new military adventures in the Middle East. Obama must do more than wait and see. He should make a public declaration against military action by Israel before this possible event, not afterwards. We need a pre-emptive declaration before any pre-emptive war. Britain, for its part, at all costs must avoid waiting to see what lead it gets from the U.S. Our role as the Americans’ lickspittle involved us in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both have had the effect of convincing many Muslims that we are part of a Western war against Islam and thus a logical target for terrorism. Foreign Secretary William Hague backed both disasters. Now he should make it abundantly clear we will in no way, shape or form, support American backing for an Israeli attack. In all this, we assume that Iran must be prevented from becoming a nuclear power. But this is arguable. If Israel ceased to be the region’s only nuclear power, as it has been for 40 years, the way may be opened to greater, not less, stability. India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, may hate each other, but no one seriously fears that either side will use the bomb. The rules of nuclear balance still work. Israel’s attacks on Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 were against the possible development of nuclear power. Neither contributed in any way to stability in the Middle East, any more than the current  sanctions do. A nuclear Iran, however limited its arsenal, might well feel that its new status would make it a proper diplomatic power, not an outcast. We should not ignore this possibility. Tensions grew yesterday when Iranian leaders displayed a new arsenal of Fateh-110 short-range missiles designed to destroy targets within 180 miles, including US warships in the Persian Gulf. Western intelligence agencies are watching the regime in Tehran closely after senior figures described Israel as ‘a cancer’ that should be ‘wiped off the map’ at the weekend. The hardware was presented at a ceremony attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Yesterday Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: ‘I have no doubt that our defensive capabilities can stand up to bullying and put a halt to their plans.’ Mr Netanyahu has described the Islamist country’s nuclear ambitions as ‘an existential threat’ that could be used to destroy the Jewish state. But British and American security chiefs believe military action would spark a lethal Middle East conflict. Last week, US defence secretary Leon Panetta and the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff,  Martin Dempsey, held an unprecedented briefing at the Pentagon to warn against an Israeli strike. ‘They could delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities,’ General Dempsey said. This week he added that the US and Israel had reached ‘different conclusions’ about the imminent threat from Iran. British diplomats and intelligence chiefs believe Mr Netanyahu is preparing the ground for possible military action but stress they have no foreknowledge of any attack. ‘We would not expect to know anything about it in advance,’ one official said. ‘It is not even clear whether they would tell the Americans until very close to the act itself, or possibly slightly after it.’ Western intelligence agencies doubt whether an Israeli strike alone would be enough to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme, but they acknowledge that Israel believes even delaying it might be a price worth paying. ‘It looks like Netanyahu is having a very vocal conversation about this to build the case for action or to test the ground with his own electorate, or possibly both,’ the official said. Iran has also threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, the neck of the Gulf through which 40 per cent of the world's sea-borne oil exports pass President Obama has sent a series of senior officials to Israel in recent months, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to try to persuade Mr Netanyahu that the crippling sanctions regime now in place will force Iran to abandon its nuclear programme. The UK has also sent the message that an escalating roster of economic sanctions against Iran should be used to encourage them to back down. Even senior Israeli defence and intelligence figures, including the recently-retired head of the Mossad spy agency, have opposed an Israeli attack. Military analysts have warned that, without US bunker-busting bombs and other vital armaments, Israel cannot destroy Iran’s well-defended nuclear installations. But Mr Netanyahu appears determined to strike. ‘From the prime minister’s point of view, the time for action is getting ever closer,’ Ben-David said. Behind the scenes, a shadow intelligence war appears to be escalating. Key Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated or disappeared and Iran’s computer networks have been infiltrated by a series of sophisticated viruses apparently designed to sabotage control systems at its nuclear research facilities. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the World simultaneously. Militarization at the global level is instrumented through the US military’s Unified Command structure: the entire planet is divided up into geographic Combatant Commands under the control of the Pentagon. According to (former) NATO Commander General Wesley Clark, the Pentagon’s military road-map consists of a sequence of war theaters: “The five-year campaign plan includes… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.” Planned war on Iran and the General who said No! …by  Press TV and Gordon Duff “The culprits, “militants,” managed to escape undetected from the most sophisticatedly defended real estate on earth, the perimeter of Bagram Air Force Base.Lucky for them they attacked at night, a time when America’s 5th generation night vision, ground radar and other detection systems were mysteriously disabled.” Today, General Dempsey, Chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the man who flew to Tel Aviv and informed Netanyahu that America wanted no part of his scheming against Iran was the subject of an assassination attempt in Afghanistan. This wasn’t an act of terrorism or Taliban militants.  It was a “mob hit” against someone who failed to kiss the feet of Netanyahu.  His response was to unleash killers, not a fact for the public but a fact just the same, one the American military knows very well.  Netanyahu has a problem with “hubris.” Bibi doing the ‘scare em’ thing The culprits, “militants,”managed to escape undetected from the most sophisticatedly defended real estate on earth, the perimeter of Bagam Air Force Base. Lucky for them they attacked at night, a time when America’s 5thgeneration night vision, ground radar and other detection systems were mysteriously disabled. The rocket detection systems, early warning blimps with ground penetrating synthetic aperture radar and the continual coverage by UAV drones using infrared detection, $2 billion in technology on this one perimeter alone, cost the plane of America’s top military commander and wounds were sustained by two crew members. Dempsey had just left Tel Aviv where he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the following: “I may not know about all of [Israel's] capabilities, but I think that it’s a fair characterization to say that they could delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.” Dempsey then told waiting reporters: “We compare intelligence, we discuss regional implications, and we’ve admitted to each other that our clocks are turning at different rates, we have to understand the Israelis; they live with a constant suspicion with which we do not have to deal.” There are those close to President Obama who don’t accept the attack on Dempsey at face value, with a public admission by the Taliban of complicity.  Such statements, which would certainly cost dearly in reprisals by the US, are most often found on Internet sites lacking a credible connection to any Islamic source. To some Americans, the attack appears to be a reprisal against Dempsey who, out of coincidence, cited the motive in his own appraisal of Israel’s judgment. News agencies buried the failed attack, knowing Dempsey is hated by Netanyahu and respected by the Taliban as both “truthful and fair.” Netanyahu longs for the days when General Myers held Dempsey’s job, under Bush (43), both flawed and narcissistic, predictable puppets, the perfect fodder for Netanyahu’s machinations. Sheldon Adelson Only two weeks ago, Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, returned from a trip overseas, coming back to America with $60 million dollars collected in Israel and Britain while accompanied by Casino boss Sheldon Adelson who’s Las Vegas and China organizations have long been reputed to be the center of worldwide organized crime. The business, gambling, drugs, prostitution, money laundering and now war, is seeking its own president and war on Iran is the only issue driving the American campaign. Romney, as a state governor, was, if anything, to the “left” of President Obama.  Romney’s support of government health care and widespread gun controls run totally opposite to the core constituency of the Republican Party, the weapons lobby and the medical racketeers. Romney has found, however, that, though it is illegal for any American candidate to accept money overseas, while overseas, from overseas, at home from those who are citizens of other countries, he feels himself above the law, in the sweet and motherly arms of the Israeli controlled American media. Now drowning in illegal cash, much from London bankers, his most interesting catch was the private dinner he shared with the Tel Aviv “blood diamond” smugglers who donated up to $25 million dollars in one night. Blood diamonds – An Israeli staple Key to his financial successes is his lifelong history of working closely with organized crime. His investment company, Bain, was funded initially by cash infusion from El Salvador death squads many years ago. These investors are still at his side despite charges of mass murder and corruption. Bain Capital is Romney’s money laundering and tax avoidance company with thousands of secret bank accounts in “safe havens” around the world, invisible billions, hidden transactions, unseen profits and unseen “clients.” Now Romney has found the “mother of all causes,” selling the promise of an American war, fought by Americans, financed by Americans, American dead, American blood, and American collapse. It is a war demanded by, not Jews of the world, but by organized crime groups operating through Israel’s Likudist party, dominated by the Koch Brothers, American gasoline speculators, Sheldon Adelson, whose reputation would fill volumes. You can add in Rupert Murdoch whose spy organization is now proven to have blackmailed three consecutive British government, well proven, and likely to have been even more successful in the United States, Germany, Canada, Australia and a dozen other nations. Most embarrassing to both Russia and the United States has been the ability of criminal organizations to secure sanctions against Iran when both nations are burdened by official reports stating with comprehensive clarity that Iran has no nuclear program. Even more embarrassing for Russia, who refused to veto sanctions as they did with Iran’s ally Syria, is the fact that Iran’s peaceful nuclear program is built, in near entirety on Russian technology, a Russian nuclear reactor and 3000 Russian technicians. Statements by Obama directly contradict America’s National Intelligence Estimate.  The estimate stated that Iran has no nuclear program.  Russia’s Putin has similarly ignored, not just his own intelligence agencies but the fact that Russia is actually building Iran’s reactor and has 3000 technicians in Iran, all of whom probably are not entirely deaf and blind.

The technologies that is available to America like EMP (electromagnetic pulse) that can be exploded from 50,000 feet or The Bomb that will push the civilization back to stoneage. above can virtually knock out every computer or computer assisted system thus rendering Iran very vulnerable and helpless before America. This is a wrong attitude and a wrong approach; it’s based on arrogance and ego. In such a scenario, free flight weapons would remain quite effective. However as time moves on, war clouds are looming large over Iran; the main threats are coming from Washington but equally strong if not more are from Tel Aviv. America is already engaged in a dozen wars in the Muslim World, Iran front would be would be a nightmare for the US. Its not just Iran but Syria is also being engaged simultaneously. Obama said “They understand that the world community means business. To resolve the issue Iran will have to come to the table” and prove that “the intentions of their nuclear program is peaceful.” Such threats do not solve rather complicate the situation. America is not understanding Iran, Iran has a history of thousands of years where as America has history of over 200 years. Compared to thousands of years, a couple of centuries are like droplets in the ocean. History determines the temperament of the nations, Iran has stood to its past and it would do so in future also. Like in Afghanistan, where the empires have fallen, Iran too would be no different. In Afghanistan, the British were humiliated twice, the big bear, Soviet Union evaporated into thin air now America is licking dust before it falls down. With this background, America would be well advised not to attack Iran just to appease Zionist State of Israel. The US must know that for now her feet are burning in Afghanistan where the burning of Quran (Koran) by the US troops has enraged the entire Afghan population no matter what side of the fence they are, are bitterly attacking American troops and facilities. The worst thing that has happened to the US is that their own trained soldiers from within picked up the weapons to shoot them down. Here again the American people in particular and the world in general must know that America is burning in every fire of the war in the Muslim world is primarily for the Zionist State of Israel. Under such conditions when their NATO Allies are trying to quit Afghanistan at the earliest opportunity, America resources would be stretched very thin on ground; opening more avoidable fronts would further suck America into a whirlpool from where it may never come out; Soviet Union is a fresh example before us. Now to save the world from a major catastrophe, the responsibility lies on the American public. The need to react has never been so grave as it is today; some insane minds are bent upon destroying the world for their vested interests. Remember death is never a matter to rejoice, it brings chaos and destruction. It would take one push on the button to destroy what mankind has taken ages since times immemorial to build. It’s our world or its no body’s world; that’s what the situation is like. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin prior to his departure for China, cautioned his generals to prepare for Armageddon. A similar message was also delivered to the Chinese leadership that has the Chinese Forces also on high alert. Apparently in the same context, Putin has resolved all differences with China to forge a clear unity for times ahead. Sino-Russian alliance is very timely, seeing the hard threatening statements of Hillary Clinton that she fired at Pakistan from Kabul before flying to Islamabad is very alarming. Pakistan has some hard decisions to make. Commander William Guy Carr, in his book ‘Pawns In The Game’ probably written in 1948 stated that third revolution and third world war are in the offing for which the grouping is taking place. He also stated categorically that the third world war would be against Islam. Plans for this “Total Global War” or the war against Islam the Americans are preparing to launch were first revealed to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) by a former Blackwater agent Bryan Underwood who has been apprehended by the US authorities for spying. If one observes the way the US and NATO are waging their wars in Muslim countries proves William Carr to be correct. Blackwater, the global contractor for CIA is operating in almost all the target countries, arrest of Raymond Davis in Pakistan did expose the US designs; had he been retained and grilled for some indefinite time, much more would have been revealed. Pakistan is infested with Blackwater, they have made inroads in ethnic political parties more so in Karachi, the port city of Pakistan. Balochistan has also become a hotbed where secessionists forces are being patronized by CIA, MI6, Mossad and RAW. As believed now, the US has also launched biological warfare in Pakistan where dengue is killing people on daily basis. On reading the situation of the coming US plans for Total Global War, Putin spelt out an alliance to integrate the former Soviet Republics into closer cooperation. He scheduled an emergency trip to China to meet with Hu, and ordered the FSB (Russian Agency) to notify China’s MSS of the arrest and detention of their spy Tun Sheniyun who was captured last year for attempting to steal sensitive information on Russia’s most powerful anti-aircraft system. Today Libya has fallen, how the Libyans would benefit from it only time would tell but one thing is sure that US and her allies have formed a bridgehead in Africa. Further deployment of the US troops in Africa are taking place, its China encirclement there where China has friends in the Muslim countries. Sudan has been split, and Obama plans to occupy some other countries like Uganda, Somalia, Morocco etc. In Africa, says Obama, the “humanitarian mission” is to assist the government of Uganda defeat the Lord’s resistance Army (LRA), which “has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa”. Incidentally, Africa also happens to be the Chinese success story therefore by taking over Africa, China would also be chocked. Libya was one of the major oil suppliers to China now that hangs in air. Gaddafi was trying to dump dollar for gold that instigated the US to attack her through a cleverly manipulated and orchestrated moves. After having been deceived in Libya where the US assured both Russia and China that it will not attack but did quite contrary to what was promised. Sensing that US plans to attack Syria, Russia and China were quick to veto the American resolution in the security council that infuriated the US Ambassador Susan Rice who left the session in rage. Dick Cheney pointed out in his 1990s “defence strategy” plan, America simply wishes to rule the world so that’s forging ahead following the Nixonian doctrine, ‘seize the moment.’ Reported by the EU Times, the “New Great Game” moves being planned by the Americans is to strike fear into both Russia and China that includes: 1.) The deliberate implosion of both the US and EU economies in order to destroy the Global Financial System that has been in place since the ending of World War II 2.) The launching of a massive conventional war by the US and EU on the North American, African and Asian Continents to include the Middle East 3.) During this all-out war the deliberate releasing of bio-warfare agents meant to kill off millions, if not billions, of innocent civilians 4.) At the height of this war the US and its allies will sue for peace and call for a new global order to be established in order to prevent the total destruction of our planet. Confirming the fears, an unidentified source within the US Department of Defense (DOD) warned that the Obama regime was preparing for a massive “tank-on-tank” war and that US military forces are “expecting something conventional, and big, coming down the pipe relatively soon.” To how close this war may be the FSB in their report states that it will be “much sooner than later” as the Americans have pre-positioned in Iraq nearly 2,000 of their M1 Abrams main battle tanks, have pre-positioned another 2,000 of them in Afghanistan, and between the Middle East and Asia have, likewise, put into these war theaters tens-of-thousands of other typed armored vehicles. This should be a grave cause of concern for Pakistan. Being at war, the US can also effect “Full Mobilization” of over 1.5 million American reserve forces which can occur at “at a moment’s notice” for which US needs no Congressional approval to expand their areas of operation is also being examined when America is fully poised to advance in Asia and Middle East. Now that Hillary Clinton is on her Pakistan visit accompanied by the new CIA Chief, David Petraeus, Chairman US Joint Staff, General Martin Dempsey and Marc Grossman. Keeping the armoured buildup in the region and having an Armour Officer as the new Chairman of Joint Staff, could one say it a coincidence or a planned strategy? Hillary, as expected that I mentioned in my CNBC News analysis on 19th October, has arrived with a tough warning for Pakistan, saying, “We will do it with or without you.” This has certainly placed Pakistan in a very trying situation. Pakistan has other options to join the third force that is in formation led by Russia and China to counter the US moves in the region. If Pakistan, Iran, Syria and other Muslim states including Saudi Arabia join this alliance, that would certainly deter the US and her allies, if not then every Muslim country would fall one after the other without exception and their assets would be frozen. Important to note about the American plan for global domination through massive warfare is that it is not really a secret, and as (curiously) revealed on the tenth anniversary of the 11 September attacks upon the United States when the US National Security Archive released a memo written by former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in September 2001 wherein he warned “If the war does not significantly change the world’s political map, the US will not achieve its aim.” To what the “aim” of the United States is as their war against the world has now entered its 10th year, the FSB says, is to prevent “at all costs” the implosion of the US Dollar as the main reserve currency of the present global economic system before the West’s envisioned “New World Order” can be established. The first threat to the Americans “master plan” for global hegemony came in November 2000 when the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein quit accepting US Dollars for oil and, instead, stated his country would only accept Euros. In less than 10 months an attack on the US was engineered and used that as an excuse to topple Hussein and reestablish the US Dollar as the world’s main reserve currency. Interesting to note is the failure of Libya’s former leader Gaddafi’s plan to introduce the gold dinar, a single African currency that would serve as an alternative to the US Dollar and allow African nations to share the wealth, but which like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein “plan” brought a swift and brutal invasion by the Americans and their Western allies to keep it from happening. The only nation that has successfully abandoned the US Dollar is Iran, who since February 2009 abandoned all American currency opting instead to value their oil and gas in Euros. Iran, however, and unlike oil rich Iraq and Libya, has not been attacked due to the Iranians having acquired from Ukraine between 6-10 nuclear armed X-55 missiles (range of 3,000km [2,000 miles]) in 2005. Although the former Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko denies that the missiles contain their nuclear tips, a statement disputed by the FSB who states they were armed and “ready to fire.” As a preemption, to counter the planned American blitzkrieg into Central Asia and Pakistan from Afghanistan, Indian Army Chief General VK Singh warned yesterday that thousands of Chinese military forces have now moved into Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir joining an estimated 11,000 more of them believed to have entered that region in the past year. Before the US ventures into other Muslim lands, the US would want a submissive or a broken and denuclearized Pakistan. In both the scenarios it would mean Pakistan’s death. In such a scenario, Pakistan maybe compelled to go for non conventional weapons; if such a development takes place, India, Israel and the US installations in the region would not be safe. Can the US risk such a situation would only depend on the arrogance and sanity level of the US leadership. Source: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/10/21/prepare-for-armageddon The year 2012 may become known as a watershed for humanity – the year when mankind was precipitated into a global conflagration involving nuclear weapons. The signs are indeed grimly ominous as formidable military forces converge on the Persian Gulf in the long-running stand-off between the United States and Iran. On side with the US are its European allies in NATO, primarily Britain, Washington’s Middle East client states: Israel and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf – all bristling with weapons of mass destruction. Recent naval exercises by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz have also displayed a fierce arsenal of missiles and military capability, and Iran has strategic alliances with Russia and China, both of whom will not stand idly by if their Persian partner is attacked. As we have consistently analysed on Global Research, the conflict between the US-led powers and Iran has wider ramifications. It is part and parcel of Washington’s bid to engineer the social and political upheavals across the Arab World in order to redraw the region in its strategic interests. It is no coincidence that fresh from NATO’s conquest of and regime change in Libya, the focus has quickly shifted to Syria – a key regional ally of Iran. As Michel Chossudovsky has pointed out “the road to Tehran goes through to Damascus”. Regime change in Syria would serve to isolate Iran. Subjugating Iran and returning it to Western tutelage is the prize that Washington and its allies have been seeking for the past 33 years ever since their client the Shah, Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi, was deposed by the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Iran is an energy-rich colossus, with oil and, more importantly, natural gas reserves that put it, with approximately 10% of global reserves, in the world’s top three oil economies alongside Washington’s client states of Saudi Arabia and Iraq.  In sharp contrast, the US has less than  2% of global oil reserves.  The conquest of Iran's oil riches is the driving force behind America's military agenda. The US-led conquest of Iraq – costing over a million lives in a nine-year occupation – is part of Washington’s long-held plans to dominate the globe’s vast energy resources that reside in the Persian Gulf and Central Asian regions. The decade-long war in Afghanistan is another flank in this US bid for hegemony over the fuel for the capitalist world economy. For nearly three decades, the US-led Western capitalist world has been deprived of exploiting Iranian energy wealth. The Islamic Republic has remained defiantly independent of Washington’s control, not just in terms of its vast hydrocarbon riches, but also politically. Iran is no puppet of the West as it was formerly under the despotic Shah Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi. Tehran has shown itself to be a trenchant critic of Western imperialist meddling in the region and fawning over the criminal Israeli persecution of Palestinians. Another important source of Western animus towards Iran and the deeply held desire for regime change is the loss that the Iranian revolution implies for the lucrative American, British and French weapons industry.  When Shah Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi was kicked out in February 1979, so too was a massive market for Western arms dealers.  The recent $50 billion arms sales to Saudi Arabia – the “biggest-ever in history” – that had the Pentagon salivating, would be easily replicated in Iran, if a similar client regime could be installed there. From the Western powers’ point of view, Iran is both an elusive prize and a frustrating obstacle. Bringing Iran back into the orbit of Western capitalist control has the added significance of depriving energy and other geopolitical advantages to rival powers, in particular Russia and China. In a strategic review earlier this month, Washington highlighted China as its pre-eminent global competitor in the coming decades. The militarized agenda towards China was also heralded by US President Barack Obama during his Asia-Pacific tour at the end of 2011. China is heavily dependent on Iranian oil. Some 20 per cent of all Iranian crude oil exports are traded with China. The latter has billions of dollars worth of energy investments in Iran, in particular the natural gas sector, which energy analysts view as the primary fuel in forthcoming decades. Washington’s policy of hostility and regime change towards Iran and furthering its hegemony over this vital region is as much about wresting control from its perceived competitors, Russia and China.  That factor takes on added importance as America’s economic power wanes. These issues form the bigger picture that explains the drive for war in the Persian Gulf, which the mainstream media has chosen to carefully ignore. The broader implications of this war are either trivialized or not mentioned. People are led to believe that war is part of a "humanitarian mandate" and that both Iran as well as Iran's allies, namely China and Russia, constitute an unrelenting threat to global security and "Western democracy" While the most advanced weapons system are used, America's wars are never presented as "killing operations" resulting in extensive civilian casualties.  While the incidence of "collateral damage" is acknowledged, US-led wars are heralded as an unquestionable instrument of "peace-making" and "democratization". The selection of articles below is intended to give readers a condensed overview of the events and issues at stake in the so-called stand-off between the US, its allies, and Iran. We have selected articles with a news emphasis while also providing a historical background. In Part I, Playing with Fire: Covert Acts of Aggression, Provocation and War, our reports and analyses show how the military build-up in the Persian Gulf has an alarming deliberation and potential for an all-out regional conflict. We also expose Washington’s criminal covert war against Iran, including the assassination of Iranian scientists and the incursion of the country’s territory with spy drones. However, we don’t merely report the occurrence of these events, our writers show how this mainly US-led militarization is part of the wider strategy for American global dominance.   We also demonstrate in Part II, War-Making is a Crime: The Latest Episode in America’s Long Record, that the belligerent policy of Washington and its allies is criminal. Before even firing a shot, the Western powers are violating international laws and protocols of diplomacy. Equipped with this legal insight and knowledge is essential for citizens to mount an effective anti-war movement. In this section, we also provide a historical background showing that Washington’s hostility towards Iran is but the latest episode in a long history of criminal war-making by the US. Central to the Western powers' avowed rationale in the Persian Gulf is their presentation of Iran as a threat to world peace, in particular from its alleged development of nuclear weapons.  In Part III, Media Manipulation: Lies, Distortions and Selling Yet Another War to the Public, we dispel the myths, fog and fabrications behind these allegations to show that Iran does not have, nor is intending to build, nuclear weapons. Its “nuclear ambitions” (a phrase so often said with sinister connotations) are to develop civilian energy and medical capabilities – well within the provisions and entitlements of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Countless inspections over several years by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have not found any evidence to support Western claims. Yet these well-worn and hollow claims continue to be recycled in the mainstream media. The IAEA has also shown itself to have become a willing political tool for Western governments and intelligence agencies by casting sinister doubt on the Iranian nuclear programme even though the IAEA has not found any proof to justify such doubts. We show that the supposed nuclear threat feared by the Western powers is a specious pretext for their otherwise criminal aggression towards Iran and its 80 million people. Finally, in Part IV Towards a Global Conflagration, we point to the very real danger of a horrendous cataclysm – if Western governments persist in their criminal drumbeat for war in the Persian Gulf. Russia and China are fully aware that a war on Iran is a stepping stone towards a broader war. The Russian government, in a recent statement, has warned the US and NATO that  "should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security.”  The region is on a hair-trigger for a conflagration that would involve nuclear weapons and the collision of global powers in what would constitute World War III. The consequences are barely imaginable for the loss of life in such a scenario and for the very future of the planet. Yet all the while, the mainstream media has served to justify this march to war or to downplay its horrific possibilities. The complacency of Western public opinion --including segments of the US anti-war movement-- is disturbing. No concern has been expressed at the political level as to the likely consequences of  a US-NATO-Israel attack on Iran, using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. Such an action would result in "the unthinkable": a nuclear holocaust over a large part of the Middle East. It should be noted that a nuclear nightmare would occur even if nuclear weapons were not used. The bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities using conventional weapons would contribute to unleashing a Chernobyl-Fukushima type disaster with extensive radioactive fallout. The "Globalization of War" involving the hegemonic deployment of a formidable US-NATO military force in all major regions of the World is inconsequential in the eyes of the Western media. War is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities. The broader implications of this war on Iran are either trivialized or not mentioned. People are led to believe that war is part of a "humanitarian mandate" and that both Iran as well as Iran's allies, namely China and Russia, constitute an unrelenting threat to global security and "Western democracy". As Iran makes noise about possibly closing the Hormuz strait, Israel is planning its own missile defense drill with American help, and while the U.S. ally says the drill has nothing to do with Iran's recent muscle-flexing, Iranian press outlet described it as Israel trying to start a war. That's exactly what the west thinks Iran's doing with its Hormuz strait exercises, and why Europe is trying to embargo Iran's oil. The story from Iran's state-run broadcaster PressTV, which Business Insider pointed to Thursday morning, refers to a U.S. military agreement with Israel from Dec. 20. Oddly, the PressTV report headlined "US deploys troops in Israel for Iran war," doesn't actually cite a source for that assertion or even quote anyone saying the U.S. or Israel are readying for a war. Just before noon on Thursday, the AP reported that the joint Israeli-U.S. operation was an official thing, and would go ahead under the code name Austere Challenge 12. Did Obama Agree to Give Netanyahu Arms for Use Against Iran in 2013? One Israeli newspaper thinks it knows what was discussed between Obama and Netanyahu behind closed doors Monday: bunker-busters and planes. According to Reuters and Fox News, a front-page article in the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv is floating these latest rumor of a proposed deal of the United States further arming Israel, but only on the promise that it not use them until 2013, after Obama is safely reelected. It seems like an unlikely deal for the U.S. to float, considering that Israel has already made another promise that it wouldn't give the U.S. a heads-up if it decided to declare war. Reuters was suspicious too, getting an anonymous Israeli official to counter that it was Israel that asked the U.S. for the weapons, and that such a condition of waiting to use them was "unrealistic." Our takeway: just like in the U.S., average Israelis are itching to know what was said at that seemingly tense meeting between Obama and Netanyahu and at least one newspaper there is going into rumor mode. Barak serves as the senior Israeli representative in the complex dialogue with the United States on this topic. He disagrees with the parallels that some Israeli politicians, mainly his boss, Netanyahu, draw between Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler, and espouses far more moderate views. “I accept that Iran has other reasons for developing nuclear bombs, apart from its desire to destroy Israel, but we cannot ignore the risk,” he told me earlier this month. “An Iranian bomb would ensure the survival of the current regime, which otherwise would not make it to its 40th anniversary in light of the admiration that the young generation in Iran has displayed for the West. With a bomb, it would be very hard to budge the administration.” Barak went on: “The moment Iran goes nuclear, other countries in the region will feel compelled to do the same. The Saudi Arabians have told the Americans as much, and one can think of both Turkey and Egypt in this context, not to mention the danger that weapons-grade materials will leak out to terror groups. “From our point of view,” Barak said, “a nuclear state offers an entirely different kind of protection to its proxies. Imagine if we enter another military confrontation with Hezbollah, which has over 50,000 rockets that threaten the whole area of Israel, including several thousand that can reach Tel Aviv. A nuclear Iran announces that an attack on Hezbollah is tantamount to an attack on Iran. We would not necessarily give up on it, but it would definitely restrict our range of operations.” At that point Barak leaned forward and said with the utmost solemnity: “And if a nuclear Iran covets and occupies some gulf state, who will liberate it? The bottom line is that we must deal with the problem now.” He warned that no more than one year remains to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weaponry. This is because it is close to entering its “immunity zone” — a term coined by Barak that refers to the point when Iran’s accumulated know-how, raw materials, experience and equipment (as well as the distribution of materials among its underground facilities) — will be such that an attack could not derail the nuclear project. Israel estimates that Iran’s nuclear program is about nine months away from being able to withstand an Israeli attack; America, with its superior firepower, has a time frame of 15 months. In either case, they are presented with a very narrow window of opportunity. One very senior Israeli security source told me: “The Americans tell us there is time, and we tell them that they only have about six to nine months more than we do and that therefore the sanctions have to be brought to a culmination now, in order to exhaust that track.” Many European analysts and some intelligence agencies have in the past responded to Israel’s warnings with skepticism, if not outright suspicion. Some have argued that Israel has intentionally exaggerated its assessments to create an atmosphere of fear that would drag Europe into its extensive economic campaign against Iran, a skepticism bolstered by the C.I.A.’s incorrect assessment about Iraqi W.M.D. before to the Iraq war. Israel’s discourse with the United States on the subject of Iran’s nuclear project is more significant, and more fraught, than it is with Europe. The U.S. has made efforts to stiffen sanctions against Iran and to mobilize countries like Russia and China to apply sanctions in exchange for substantial American concessions. But beneath the surface of this cooperation, there are signs of mutual suspicion. As one senior American official wrote to the State Department and the Pentagon in November 2009, after an Israeli intelligence projection that Iran would have a complete nuclear arsenal by 2012: “It is unclear if the Israelis firmly believe this or are using worst-case estimates to raise greater urgency from the United States.” For their part, the Israelis suspect that the Obama administration has abandoned any aggressive strategy that would ensure the prevention of a nuclear Iran and is merely playing a game of words to appease them. The Israelis find evidence of this in the shift in language used by the administration, from “threshold prevention” — meaning American resolve to stop Iran from having a nuclear-energy program that could allow for the ability to create weapons — to “weapons prevention,” which means the conditions can exist, but there is an American commitment to stop Iran from assembling an actual bomb.   Israel's Channel 10  suggests, in no uncertain terms, that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "determined to attack Iran before the US elections" and that the "time for action is getting closer." "Israel is now closer than ever to a strike designed to thwart Iran’s nuclear drive". This timely report suggests that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak firmly believe that President Obama "would have no choice but to give backing for an Israeli attack" were it to be waged before the November presidential elections: The TV station’s military reporter Alon Ben-David, who earlier this year was given extensive access to the Israel Air Force as it trained for a possible attack, reported that, since upgraded sanctions against Iran have failed to force a suspension of the Iranian nuclear program in the past two months, “from the prime minister’s point of view, the time for action is getting ever closer.” Asked by the news anchor in the Hebrew-language TV report how close Israel now was to “a decision and perhaps an attack,” Ben-David said: “It appears that we are closer than ever.” He said it seemed that Netanyahu was not waiting for a much-discussed possible meeting with US President Barack Obama, after the UN General Assembly gathering in New York late next month — indeed, “it’s not clear that there’ll be a meeting.” In any case, said Ben-David, “I doubt Obama could say anything that would convince Netanyahu to delay a possible attack.” There is considerable opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the report noted — with President Shimon Peres, the army’s chief of the General Staff and top generals, the intelligence community, opposition leader Shaul Mofaz, “and of course the Americans” all lined up against Israeli action at this stage. But, noted Ben-David, it is the Israeli government that would have to take the decision, and there Netanyahu is “almost guaranteed” a majority. Other Hebrew media reports on Tuesday also said Netanyahu had dispatched a senior official, National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, to update the elderly spiritual leader of the Shas ultra-Orthodox coalition party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, on the status of the Iranian nuclear program, in order to try to win over Shas government ministers’ support for an attack. (Times of Israel, emphasis added) In an earlier report, Richard Silverstein provides details of a leaked military document (translated from the Hebrew) which outlines the nature of Netanyahu's proposed "shock and awe attack" on Iran:     The Israeli attack will open with a coordinated strike, including an unprecedented cyber-attack which will totally paralyze the Iranian regime and its ability to know what is happening within its borders.  The internet, telephones, radio and television, communications satellites, and fiber optic cables leading to and from critical installations—including underground missile bases at Khorramabad and Isfahan—will be taken out of action.  The electrical grid throughout Iran will be paralyzed and transformer stations will absorb severe damage from carbon fiber munitions which are finer than a human hair, causing electrical short circuits whose repair requires their complete removal.  This would be a Sisyphean task in light of cluster munitions which would be dropped, some time-delayed and some remote-activated through the use of a satellite signal. A barrage of tens of ballistic missiles would be launched from Israel toward Iran.  300km ballistic missiles would be launched from Israeli submarines in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf.  The missiles would not be armed with unconventional warheads [WMD], but rather with high-explosive ordnance equipped with reinforced tips designed specially to penetrate hardened targets. The missiles will strike their targets—some exploding above ground like those striking the nuclear reactor at Arak–which is intended to produce plutonium and tritium—and the nearby heavy water production facility; the nuclear fuel production facilities at Isfahan and facilities for enriching uranium-hexaflouride.  Others would explode under-ground, as at the Fordo facility. A barrage of hundreds of cruise missiles will pound command and control systems, research and development facilities, and the residences of senior personnel in the nuclear and missile development apparatus.  Intelligence gathered over years will be utilized to completely decapitate Iran’s professional and command ranks in these fields. After the first wave of attacks, which will be timed to the second, the “Blue and White” radar satellite, whose systems enable us to perform an evaluation of the level of damage done to the various targets, will pass over Iran.  Only after rapidly decrypting the satellite’s data, will the information be transferred directly to war planes making their way covertly toward Iran.  These IAF planes will be armed with electronic warfare gear previously unknown to the wider public, not even revealed to our U.S. ally.  This equipment will render Israeli aircraft invisible.  Those Israeli war planes which participate in the attack will damage a short-list of targets which require further assault. Among the targets approved for attack—Shihab 3 and Sejil ballistic missile silos, storage tanks for chemical components of rocket fuel, industrial facilities for producing missile control systems, centrifuge production plants and more. Richard Silverstein underscores the fact that there is considerable opposition eithin Israel to the Netanyahu-Barak plan to bomb Iran, which is being waged with a view to allegedly ensuring the "safety of Israel" against Iran.  Will this Israeli opposition prevail were a decision to be taken by Netanyahu and his Defense Minister to carry out an attack plan? Is Netanyahu a US Political Proxy?  Who is backing Netanyahu? There are powerful economic interests in the US who are in favor of an attack on Iran. Is this an Israeli war project or is Israel's prime minister a US political proxy, acting on behalf of  the Pentagon?  What happens if Netanyahu gives the order to attack? Will this order be carried out by Israel's high command despite extensive opposition from within Israel's Armed Forces? The issue is not whether Washington will grant a green light to Israel before the US elections as conveyed by the the Israeli media. The fundamental question is twofold. 1. Who at the political level decides on launching this war? Washington or Tel Aviv? Who are the economic powers elites which overshadow the political process in both the US and Israel? 2. Who ultimately decides-- in terms of military command and control-- in carrying out a large scale theater war in the Middle East: Washington or Tel Aviv?   Israel is a de facto US military outpost in the Middle East. US and Israeli command structures are integrated, with close consultations between the Pentagon and Israel's Ministry of Defense. Reported last January, a large number of US troops are to be stationed in Israel. Joint war games between the US and Israel are also envisaged. US-Israel-NATO war plans directed against Iran have been ongoing since 2003 including the deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems.  The Israeli media reports are misleading. Israel cannot under any circumstances wage a war on Iran without the military backing of the US and NATO. Advanced weapons systems have been deployed. US and allied Special Forces as well as intelligence operatives are already on the ground inside Iran. US military drones are involved in spying and reconnaissance activities.  Bunker buster B61 tactical nuclear weapons are slated to be used against Iran in retaliation for its alleged nuclear weapons program. Military actions against Iran are coordinated with those pertaining to Syria. What we are dealing with is a global military agenda, centralized and coordinated by US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) involving complex logistics, liaison with various military and intelligence entities. In 2005, USSTRATCOM was identified as "the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction." This Combatant Command integration also included coordination with America's allies including NATO, Israel and a number of frontline Arab states, which are members of NATO's Mediterranean dialogue. In this broader context of imperial warfare coordinated out of USSTRATCOM in liaison with US Central Command (USCENTCOM), Netanyahu's attack plan against Iran, conveys the illusion that Tel Aviv rather than Washington calls the shots on waging a war on Iran. The Israeli media reports mentioned above convey the impression that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are in a position to act independently of Washington as well as force Obama into supporting Israel's attack on Iran. The notion that Israel could act alone and against the interests of the US is part of a subtle disinformation campaign. There is a longstanding foreign policy practice for Washington to encourage its close allies to take the first step in the unleashing a war, with the Pentagon pulling the military strings in the background. Let us be under no illusion, the war plans directed against Iran, which have been on the Pentagon's drawing board since 2003, are established at the highest levels in Washington in consultation and coordination with Tel Aviv and NATO headquarters in Brussels. While Israel participates in the conduct of war, it does not play an overriding central role in setting the military agenda.   The encirclement of Syria and Lebanon has long been in the works. Since 2001, Washington and NATO have started the process of cordoning off Lebanon and Syria. The permanent NATO presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Syrian Accountability Act are part of this initiative. It appears that this roadmap is based on a 1996 Israeli document aimed at controlling Syria. The document’s name is A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. The 1996 Israeli document, which included prominent U.S. policy figures as authors, calls for “rolling back Syria” in 2000 or afterward. The roadmap outlines pushing the Syrians out of Lebanon, diverting the attention of Damascus by using an anti-Syrian opposition in Lebanon, and then destabilizing Syria with the help of both Jordan and Turkey. This has all respectively occurred from 2005 to 2011. This is also why the anti-Syrian March 14 Alliance and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) were created in Lebanon. As a first step towards all this the 1996 document even calls for the removal of President Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad and even alludes to the balkanization of Iraq and forging a strategic regional alliance against Damascus that includes a Sunni Muslim Arab “Central Iraq.” The sectarian nature of this project is very obvious as are its ties to opposing a so-called “Shiite Crescent.” The roadmap seeks to foment sectarian divisions as a means of conquering Syria and creating a Shiite-Sunni rift that will oppose Iran and keep the Arab monarchs in power. The U.S. has now initiated a naval build-up off the Syrian and Lebanese coasts. This is part of Washington’s standard scare tactics that it has used as a form of intimidation and psychological warfare against Iran, Syria, and the Resistance Bloc. While Washington is engaged in its naval build-up, the mainstream media networks controlled by the Saudis and Arab clients of the U.S. are focusing on the deployment of Russian naval vessels to Syria, which can be seen as a counter-move to NATO. Al-Ramtha in Jordan is being used to launch attacks into Daraa and Syrian territory. The Jordanian Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications, Rakan Al-Majali, has even publicly admitted this and dismissed it as weapons smuggling. For years, Jordanian forces have successfully prevented weapons from reaching the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from Jordanian territory. In reality, Amman is sending weapons into Syria and working to destabilize Syria. Jordanian forces work as a frontline to protect Israel and the Jordanian intelligence services are an extension of the C.I.A. and Mossad. According to the Turkish media, France has sent its military trainers into Turkey and Lebanon to prepare conscripts against Syria. The Lebanese media also suggests the same. The so-called Free Syrian Army and other NATO-GCC front organizations are also using Turkish and Jordanian territory to stage raids into Syria. Lebanon is also being used to smuggle weapon shipments into Syria. Many of these weapons were actually arms that the Pentagon had secretly re-directed into Lebanon from Anglo-American occupied Iraq during the George W. Bush Jr. presidency. The French Foreign Minister, Alain Juppé, has promised the Syrian National Council, that a so-called “humanitarian corridor” will be imposed on Syria. Once again, the Syrian National Council is not an independent entity and therefore Juppé did not really make a promise; he really made a declaration. While foreign companies like Suncor Energy were forced to leave Libya, they have not left Syria. The reason that these companies have stayed has been presented as being humanitarian, because they provide domestic local services in Syria. For example, Suncor Energy helped produce oil for export from Libya, but in Syria produces energy for local consumption. In reality, hostile governments are letting these companies stay, because they siphon money out of Syria. They want to prevent any money from going in, while they want to also drain the local economy as a catalyst to internal implosion in Syria. Along with the U.S. and its NATO allies, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is imposing sanctions that include an end to all flights to Syria. The GCC states and Turkey have joined the foreign ministries of NATO states in asking their citizens to leave Syria. Since the U.N. Security Council is no longer a viable route against Syria, the GCC may also try to impose a no-fly zone over Syria through the Arab League. Turkey: NATO’s Trojan Horse and Gateway into the Middle East Turkey was present at the Arab League meeting in Morocco, which demanded regime change in Damascus. Ankara has been playing a dirty game. Initially, during the start of NATO’s war against Libya, Ankara pretended to be neutral while it was helping the Transitional Council in Benghazi. The Turkish government does not care about the Syrian population. On the contrary, the demands that Turkish officials have made to the Syrians spell out that realpolitik is at play. In tune with the GCC, Turkey has demanded that Damascus re-orient its foreign policy and submit to Washington’s demands as a new satellite. Through a NATO initiative, the Turks have also been responsible for recruiting fighters against the Libyan and Syrian governments. For several years Ankara has been silently trying to de-link Syria from Iran and to displace Iranian influence in the Middle East. Turkey has been working to promote itself and its image amongst the Arabs, but all along it has been a key component of the plans of Washington and NATO. At the same time, it has been upgrading its military capabilities in the Black Sea and on its borders with Iran and Syria. Its military research and development body, TUBITAK-SAGE, has also announced that Ankara will also start mass-production of cruise-missiles in 2012 that will be fitted for its navy and forthcoming deliveries of U.S. military jets that could be used in future regional wars. Turkey and NATO have also agreed to upgrade Turkish bases for NATO troops. In September 2011, Ankara joined Washington’s missile shield project, which upset both Moscow and Tehran. The Kremlin has reserved the right to attack NATO’s missile shield facilities in Eastern Europe, while Tehran has reserved the right to attack NATO’s missile shield facilities in Turkey or in the case of a regional war. There have also been discussions about the Kremlin deploying Iskander missiles to Syria. Since June 2011, Ankara has been talking about invading Syria. It has presented the invasion plans as a humanitarian mission to establish a “buffer zone” and “humanitarian corridor” under R2P, while it has also claimed that the protests in Syria are a regional issue and not a domestic issue. In July 2011, despite the close Irano-Turkish economic ties, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard made it clear that Tehran would support the Syrians and choose Damascus over Ankara. In August 2011, Ankara started deploying retired soldiers and its military reserve units to the Turkish-Syrian border. It is in this context, that the Russian military presence has also been beefing up in the port of Tartus. From Damascus to Tehran It is also no mere coincidence that Senator Joseph Lieberman started demanding at the start of 2011 that the Pentagon and NATO attack Syria and Iran. Nor is it a coincidence that Tehran has been included in the recent Obama Administration sanctions imposed against Damascus. Damascus is being targeted as a means of targeting Iran and, in broader terms, weakening Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing in the struggle for control over the Eurasian landmass. The U.S. and its remaining allies are about to reduce their forces in Iraq, but they do not want to leave the region or allow Iran to create a bridge between itself and the Eastern Mediterranean using Iraq. Once the U.S. leaves Iraq, there will be a direct corridor between Lebanon and Syria with Iran. This will be a nightmare for Washington and Tel Aviv. It will entrench Iranian regional dominance and cement the Resistance Bloc, which will pin Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinians together. Israel and the U.S. will both be struck with major strategic blows. The pressure on Syria is directly tied to this American withdrawal from Iraq and Washington’s efforts to block Tehran from making any further geo-political gains. By removing Damascus from the equation, Washington and its allies are hoping to create a geo-strategic setback for Iran. Everything that Washington is doing is in preparation for the new geo-political reality and an attempt to preserve its regional standing. U.S. military forces from Iraq will actually be redeployed to the GCC countries in the Persian Gulf. Kuwait will host new combat units that have been designated to re-enter Iraq should security collapse, such as in the case of a regional war, or to confront Iran and its allies in a future conflict. The U.S. is now activating the so-called “Coalition of the Moderate” that it created under George W. Bush Jr. and directing it against Iran, Syria, and their regional allies. On November 23, 2011 the Turks signed a military agreement with Britain to establish a strategic partnership and closer Anglo-Turkish military ties. During an important state visit by Abdullah Gül to London, the agreement was signed by Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond and the Deputy Chief of the Turkish General Staff, Hulusi Akar. The Anglo-Turkish agreement comes into play within the framework of the meetings that the British Chief of Defence Staff, General David Richards, and Liam Fox, the former scandal-ridden British defence minister, had with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. After the visit of General Richards to Israel, Ehud Barak would visit Britain and later Canada for talks concerning Syria and its strategic ally Iran. Within this timeframe the British and Canadian governments would declare that they were prepared for war with both Syria and Iran. London has announced that military plans were also drawn for war with Syria and Iran. On the other side of the Atlantic, Canada’s Defence Minister, Peter MacKay, created shockwaves in Canada when he made belligerent announcements about war with Syria and Iran. He also announced that Canada was buying a new series of military jets through a major arms purchase. Days later, both Canada and Britain would also cut their banking and financial ties with Iran. In reality, these steps have largely been symbolic, because Tehran was deliberately curbing it ties with Britain and Canada. For months the Iranians have also openly been evaluating cutting their ties with Britain and several other E.U. members. The events surrounding Syria have much more to do with the geo-politics of the Middle East than just Syria alone. In the Israeli Knesset, the events in Syria were naturally tied to reducing Iranian power in the Middle East. Tel Aviv has been preparing itself for a major conflict for several years. This includes its long distance military flights to Greece that simulated an attack on Iran and its deployment of nuclear-armed submarines to the Persian Gulf. It has also conducted the “Turning Point” exercises, which seek to insure the continuation of the Israeli government through the evacuation and relocation of the Israeli cabinet and officials, including the Israeli finance ministry, to secret bunkers in the case of a war. For half a decade Washington has been directing a military arms build-up in the Middle East aimed at Iran and the Resistance Bloc. It has sent massive arms shipments to Saudi Arabia. It has sent deliveries of bunker busters to the U.A.E. and Israel, amongst others, while it has upgraded its own deadly arsenal. U.S. officials have also started to openly discuss murdering Iranian leaders and military officials through covert operations. What the world is facing is a pathway towards possible military escalation that could go far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East and suck in Russia, China, and their allies. The Revolutionary Guard have also made it clear that if conflict is ignited with Iran that Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinians would all be drawn in as Iranian allies.   OCTOBER SURPRISE A pressing foreign policy question of the U.S. presidential race is whether Israel might exploit this politically delicate time to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites and force President Obama to join the attack or face defeat at the polls, a predicament with similarities to one President Carter faced in 1980. There is doubt in some quarters that Israel’s Likud government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would time an attack on Iran in the weeks before a U.S. election with the goal of dooming the incumbent Democratic president, Barack Obama, or forcing his hand to commit American military might in support of Israel. But there was a precedent 32 years ago when another Likud government had grown alienated from the Democratic president and found itself in a position where it could help drive him from office by covertly assisting his Republican rivals in another crisis involving Iran. President Jimmy Carter with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin celebrating the Camp David peace accords. However, privately, Carter and Begin grew deeply distrustful of one another. (Photo credit: the Carter Center) In that case – known as the “October Surprise” mystery – President Jimmy Carter was trying to gain the release of 52 Americans then held hostage in Iran. Carter also was pushing the Likud government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians that would allow them to establish their own state on the West Bank. Begin, however, was determined to implement a Likud strategy “to change the facts on the ground” by moving Jewish settlers into the Occupied Territories, what Likud called Judea and Samaria, part of historical Israel given to the Jewish people by God. That set up a clash with Carter who was determined to achieve a comprehensive Middle East peace that would establish a Palestinian state on the West Bank. As Begin maneuvered to block such an arrangement, Carter grew frustrated and then infuriated. In his White House Diary, Carter described how heated the confrontation became after Begin insisted on deferring any agreement pending a Knesset debate. “I couldn’t believe it,” Carter wrote. “We spent about forty-five minutes on our feet in his study. I asked him if he actually wanted a peace treaty, because my impression was that he did with apparent relish everything he could do to obstruct it. He came right up and looked in my eyes about a foot away and said that he wanted peace as much as anything else in the world. It was almost midnight when I left. We had an extremely unsatisfactory meeting … “I have rarely been so disgusted in all my life. I was convinced he would do everything possible to stop a treaty, rather than face the full autonomy he had promised in the West Bank.” The disdain was mutual. Begin was furious over what he regarded as Carter’s high-handed actions at Camp David in 1978, forcing Israel to trade the occupied Sinai to Egypt for a peace deal. Begin feared that Carter would use his second term to bully Israel into accepting a Palestinian state on West Bank lands. Former Mossad and Foreign Ministry official David Kimche described Begin’s attitude in his 1991 book, The Last Option, saying that Israeli officials had gotten wind of “collusion” between Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat “to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.” Kimche continued, “This plan – prepared behind Israel’s back and without her knowledge – must rank as a unique attempt in United States’s diplomatic history of short-changing a friend and ally by deceit and manipulation.” However, Begin recognized that the scheme required Carter winning a second term in 1980 when, Kimche wrote, “he would be free to compel Israel to accept a settlement of the Palestinian problem on his and Egyptian terms, without having to fear the backlash of the American Jewish lobby.” In a 1992 memoir, Profits of War, Ari Ben-Menashe, an Israeli military intelligence officer who worked with Likud, agreed that Begin and other Likud leaders held Carter in contempt. “Begin loathed Carter for the peace agreement forced upon him at Camp David,” Ben-Menashe wrote. “As Begin saw it, the agreement took away Sinai from Israel, did not create a comprehensive peace, and left the Palestinian issue hanging on Israel’s back.” Buying Time So, to buy time for Israel to build up its West Bank settlements and thus make a Palestinian state impossible, Begin felt Carter’s reelection had to be prevented. The most inviting way was to cooperate with Republicans both in undermining Carter at home and possibly using Israel’s continuing clandestine influence inside Iran to obstruct Carter’s desperate efforts to win freedom for 52 U.S. hostages held by Islamist radicals there. Questioned by congressional investigators about this history in 1992, Carter said he realized by April 1980 that “Israel cast their lot with [Ronald] Reagan,” according to notes I found among the unpublished documents in the files of a House task force that had looked into the October Surprise case. Carter traced the Israeli opposition to his reelection to a “lingering concern [among] Jewish leaders that I was too friendly with Arabs.” In 1993, a special House task force released a report claiming to have found “no credible evidence” to support various allegations by Iranians, Israelis, Europeans, Arabs and Americans that the Reagan campaign went behind Carter’s back to make contacts with Iran that stopped Carter from gaining the hostages’ release until after Reagan was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 1981. The task force stuck to that conclusion despite discovering that the Israelis began shipping U.S. military equipment to Iran in 1981 with what they claimed was approval from the Reagan administration. Those shipments were exposed when one of the Israeli-chartered planes crashed inside the Soviet Union in July 1981. However, over the past couple of years, the House task force’s conclusions crumbled amid discoveries that important evidence was hidden from investigators, that internal doubts on the task force were suppressed, and that George H.W. Bush’s administration withheld information in 1991 that would have corroborated a key allegation. The collapse of those 1993 findings by the House task force left behind a troubling impression — that Israel’s Likud hardliners may have teamed up with ambitious Republicans and some disgruntled elements of the CIA to help remove a U.S. president from office. And since the earlier Likud government had gotten away with it, that might encourage the current one to try something similar. As for the historical mystery, it is far more reassuring to think that no such thing could occur, that Israel’s Likud – whatever its differences with Washington over Middle East peace policies – would never seek to subvert a U.S. president, and that Republicans and CIA dissidents – no matter how frustrated by the political direction of an administration – would never sabotage their own government. But the evidence from 1980 points in that disturbing direction, and there are some points that are not in dispute. For instance, there is no doubt that CIA Old Boys and Likudniks had strong motives for seeking President Carter’s defeat in 1980. Inside the CIA, Carter and his CIA Director Stansfield Turner were blamed for firing many of the free-wheeling covert operatives from the Vietnam era, for ousting legendary spymaster Ted Shackley, and for failing to protect longtime U.S. allies (and friends of the CIA), such as Iran’s Shah and Nicaragua’s dictator Anastasio Somoza. Legendary CIA officer Miles Copeland told me in 1990 that “the CIA within the CIA” – the inner-most circle of powerful intelligence figures who felt they understood best the strategic needs of the United States – believed Carter and his naïve faith in American democratic ideals represented a grave threat to the nation. “Carter really believed in all the principles that we talk about in the West,” Copeland said, shaking his mane of white hair. “As smart as Carter is, he did believe in Mom, apple pie and the corner drug store. And those things that are good in America are good everywhere else. … “Carter, I say, was not a stupid man,” Copeland said, adding that Carter had an even worse flaw: “He was a principled man.” Reagan’s Landslide Carter’s inability to resolve the hostage crisis set the stage for Reagan’s landslide victory in November 1980 as American voters reacted to the long-running hostage humiliation by turning to a candidate they believed would be a tougher player on the international stage. Reagan’s macho image was reinforced when the Iranians released the hostages immediately after he was inaugurated, ending the 444-day standoff. The coincidence of timing, which Reagan’s supporters cited as proof that foreign enemies feared the new president, gave momentum to Reagan’s larger agenda, including sweeping tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy, reduced government regulation of corporations, and renewed reliance on fossil fuels. (Carter’s solar panels were later dismantled from the White House roof.) Reagan’s victory also was great news for CIA hard-liners who were rewarded with World War II spymaster (and dedicated cold-warrior) William Casey as CIA director. Casey then purged CIA analysts who were detecting a declining Soviet Union that desired détente and replaced them with people like the young and ambitious Robert Gates, who agreed that the Soviets were on the march and that the United States needed a massive military expansion to counter them. Casey embraced old-time CIA swashbuckling in Third World countries and took pleasure in misleading or bullying members of Congress when they insisted on the CIA oversight that had been forced on President Gerald Ford and had been accepted by President Carter. To Casey, CIA oversight became a game of hide-and-seek. As for Israel, Begin was pleased to find the Reagan administration far less demanding about peace deals with the Arabs, giving Israel time to expand its West Bank settlements. Reagan and his team also acquiesced to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, a drive north that expelled the Palestine Liberation Organization but also led to the slaughters at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. And, behind the scenes, Reagan’s administration gave a green light to Israeli weapons shipments to Iran (which was fighting a war with Israel’s greater enemy, Iraq). The weapons sales helped Israel rebuild its contacts inside Iran and to turn large profits, some of which were plowed into financing West Bank settlements. In another important move, Reagan credentialed a new generation of pro-Israeli American ideologues known as the neoconservatives, a move that would pay big dividends for Israel in the future as these bright and articulate operatives fought for Israeli interests both inside the U.S. government and through their opinion-leading roles in the major American news media. In other words, if the disgruntled CIA Old Boys and the determined Likudniks did participate in an October Surprise scheme to unseat Jimmy Carter, they got much of what they were after. Yet, while motive is an important element in solving a mystery, it does not constitute proof by itself. What must be examined is whether there is evidence that the motive was acted upon, whether Menachem Begin’s government and disgruntled CIA officers covertly assisted the Reagan campaign in contacting Iranian officials to thwart Carter’s hostage negotiations. On that point the evidence is strong though perhaps not ironclad. Still, a well-supported narrative does exist describing how the October Surprise scheme may have gone down with the help of CIA personnel, Begin’s government, some right-wing intelligence figures in Europe, and a handful of power-brokers in the United States. Angry Old Boys Even before Iran took the American hostages on Nov. 4, 1979, disgruntled CIA veterans had been lining up behind the presidential candidacy of their former boss, George H.W. Bush. Casting off their traditional cloak of non-partisanship, they were volunteering as foot soldiers in Bush’s campaign. One joke about Bush’s announcement of his candidacy on May 1, 1979, was that “half the audience was wearing raincoats.” Bill Colby, Bush’s predecessor as CIA director, said Bush “had a flood of people from the CIA who joined his supporters. They were retirees devoted to him for what he had done” in defending the spy agency in 1976 when the CIA came under heavy criticism for spying on Americans, assassination plots and other abuses. Reagan’s foreign policy adviser Richard Allen described the group working on the Bush campaign as a “plane load of disgruntled former CIA” officers who were “playing cops and robbers.” All told, at least two dozen former CIA officials went to work for Bush. Among them was the CIA’s director of security, Robert Gambino, who joined the Bush campaign immediately after leaving the CIA where he oversaw security investigations of senior Carter officials and thus knew about potentially damaging personal information. Besides the ex-CIA personnel who joined the Bush campaign, other pro-Bush intelligence officers remained inside the CIA while making clear their political preference. “The seventh floor of Langley was plastered with ‘Bush for President’ signs,” said senior CIA analyst George Carver, referring to the floor that housed top CIA officials. Carter administration officials also grew concerned about the deep personal ties between the former CIA officers in Bush’s campaign and active-duty CIA personnel who continued to hold sensitive jobs under Carter. For instance, Gambino, the 25-year CIA veteran who oversaw personnel security checks, and CIA officer Donald Gregg, who served as a CIA representative on Carter’s National Security Council, “are good friends who knew each other from the CIA,” according to an unpublished part of a report by a House task force that investigated the October Surprise issue in 1992. [I found this deleted section – still marked “secret” – in unpublished task force files in 1994.] ‘Blond Ghost’ Perhaps most significantly, Bush quietly enlisted Theodore Shackley, the legendary CIA covert operations specialist known as the “blond ghost.” During the Cold War, Shackley had run many of the CIA’s most controversial paramilitary operations, from Vietnam and Laos to the JMWAVE operations against Fidel Castro’s Cuba. In those operations, Shackley had supervised the work of hundreds of CIA officers and developed powerful bonds of loyalty with many of his subordinates. For instance, Donald Gregg had served under Shackley’s command in Vietnam. When Bush was CIA director in 1976, he appointed Shackley to a top clandestine job, associate deputy director for operations, laying the foundation for Shackley’s possible rise to director and cementing Shackley’s loyalty to Bush. When Shackley had a falling out with Carter’s CIA Director Turner in 1979, Shackley quit the agency. Privately, Shackley believed that Turner had devastated the agency by pushing out hundreds of covert officers, many of them Shackley’s former subordinates. By early 1980, the Republicans were complaining that they were being kept in the dark about progress on the Iran hostage negotiations. George Cave, then a top CIA specialist on Iran, told me that the “Democrats never briefed the Republicans” on sensitive developments, creating suspicions among the Republicans that Carter might time a hostage release for maximum benefit in the election, a so-called “October Surprise.” So, the Republicans sought out their own sources of information regarding the hostage crisis. Bush’s ally Shackley began monitoring Carter’s progress on negotiations through his contacts with Iranians in Europe, Cave said. “Ted, I know, had a couple of contacts in Germany,” said Cave. “I know he talked to them. I don’t know how far it went. … Ted was very active on that thing in the winter/spring of 1980.” Author David Corn also got wind of the Shackley-Bush connection when he was researching his biography of Shackley, Blond Ghost. “Within the spook world the belief spread that Shackley was close to Bush,” Corn wrote. “Rafael Quintero [an anti-Castro Cuban with close ties to the CIA] was saying that Shackley met with Bush every week. He told one associate that should Reagan and Bush triumph, Shackley was considered a potential DCI,” the abbreviation for CIA director. Some of the legendary CIA officers from an even earlier generation, those who had helped overthrow Iran’s elected government in 1953 and put the Shah on the Peacock Throne, also injected themselves into the hostage crisis. Carter, a ‘Utopian’ Miles Copeland, one of the agency’s old Middle East hands, claimed in his memoir, The Game Player, that he and his CIA chums pondered their own hostage rescue plan while organizing an informal support group for the Bush campaign, called “Spooks for Bush.” In the 1990 interview, Copeland told me that “the way we saw Washington at that time was that the struggle was really not between the Left and the Right, the liberals and the conservatives, as between the Utopians and the realists, the pragmatists. Carter was a Utopian. He believed, honestly, that you must do the right thing and take your chance on the consequences. He told me that. He literally believed that.” Copeland’s deep Southern accent spit out the words with a mixture of amazement and disgust. Copeland’s contacts at the time included CIA veteran Archibald Roosevelt and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger – both of whom were close to David Rockefeller whose Chase Manhattan Bank handled billions of dollars in the Shah’s accounts, a fortune that the Iranian mullahs wanted to lay their hands on. “There were many of us – myself along with Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Archie Roosevelt in the CIA at the time – we believed very strongly that we were showing a kind of weakness, which people in Iran and elsewhere in the world hold in great contempt,” Copeland said. As Copeland and his friends contemplated what to do regarding the hostage crisis, he reached out to other of his old CIA buddies. According to The Game Player, Copeland turned to ex-CIA counter-intelligence chief James Angleton. The famed spy hunter “brought to lunch a Mossad chap who confided that his service had identified at least half of the [hostage-holding] ‘students,’ even to the extent of having their home addresses in Tehran,” Copeland wrote. “He gave me a rundown on what sort of kids they were. Most of them, he said, were just that, kids.” One of the young Israeli intelligence agents assigned to the task of figuring out who was who in the new Iranian power structure was Ari Ben-Menashe, who was born in Iran but emigrated to Israel as a teen-ager. Not only did he speak fluent Farsi, but he had school friends who were rising within the new revolutionary bureaucracy. In his memoir, Profits of War, Ben-Menashe offered his own depiction of Copeland’s initiative. Though Copeland was generally regarded as a CIA “Arabist” who had opposed Israeli interests in the past, he was admired for his analytical skills, Ben-Menashe wrote. “A meeting between Miles Copeland and Israeli intelligence officers was held at a Georgetown house in Washington, D.C.,” Ben-Menashe wrote. “The Israelis were happy to deal with any initiative but Carter’s. David Kimche, chief of Tevel, the foreign relations unit of Mossad, was the senior Israeli at the meeting. … The Israelis and the Copeland group came up with a two-pronged plan to use quiet diplomacy with the Iranians and to draw up a scheme for military action against Iran that would not jeopardize the lives of the hostages.” Arms Dealing In late February 1980, Seyeed Mehdi Kashani, an Iranian emissary, arrived in Israel to discuss Iran’s growing desperation for spare parts for its U.S.-supplied air force, Ben-Menashe wrote. Kashani, whom Ben-Menashe had known from their school days in Tehran, also revealed that the Copeland initiative was making inroads inside Iran and that approaches from some Republican emissaries had already been received, Ben-Menashe wrote. “Kashani said that the secret ex-CIA-Miles-Copeland group was aware that any deal cut with the Iranians would have to include the Israelis because they would have to be used as a third party to sell military equipment to Iran,” according to Ben-Menashe. In March 1980, the following month, the Israelis made their first direct military shipment to Iran, 300 tires for Iran’s F-4 fighter jets, Ben-Menashe wrote. Ben-Menashe’s account of these early Israeli arms shipments was corroborated by Carter’s press secretary Jody Powell and Israeli arms dealer William Northrop. In an interview for a 1991 PBS “Frontline” documentary, Jody Powell told me that “there had been a rather tense discussion between President Carter and Prime Minister Begin in the spring of 1980 in which the President made clear that the Israelis had to stop that [arms dealing], and that we knew that they were doing it, and that we would not allow it to continue, at least not allow it to continue privately and without the knowledge of the American people.” “And it stopped,” Powell said. At least, it stopped temporarily. Closer Enemies Carter also may have had political enemies who had penetrated his inner circle. Jamshid Hashemi, an Iranian businessman who was recruited by the CIA in January 1980 along with his brother Cyrus, said that in spring 1980, he encountered Donald Gregg, the CIA officer serving on Carter’s National Security Council staff, at Cyrus’s Manhattan office. Jamshid Hashemi said his brother Cyrus was playing a double game, officially helping the Carter administration on the hostage crisis but privately collaborating with the Republicans. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.] The alleged involvement of Gregg is another highly controversial part of the October Surprise mystery. A tall man with an easy-going manner, Gregg had known George H.W. Bush since 1967 when Bush was a first-term U.S. congressman. Gregg also briefed Bush when he was U.S. envoy to China. Gregg served, too, as the CIA’s liaison to the Pike Committee investigation of the CIA when Bush was CIA director in 1976. “Although Gregg was uniformly regarded as a competent professional, there was a dimension to his background that was entirely unknown to his colleagues at the White House, and that was his acquaintance with one of the Republican frontrunners, George Bush,” Sick, the former Carter aide on the National Security Council,  wrote in October Surprise. As the Iran crisis dragged on, Copeland and his group of CIA Old Boys forwarded their own plan for freeing the hostages. However, to Copeland’s chagrin, his plan fell on deaf ears inside the Carter administration, which was developing its own rescue operation. So, Copeland told me that he distributed his plan outside the administration, to leading Republicans, giving sharper focus to their contempt for Carter’s bungled Iranian strategy. “Officially, the plan went only to people in the government and was top secret and all that,” Copeland said. “But as so often happens in government, one wants support, and when it was not being handled by the Carter administration as though it was top secret, it was handled as though it was nothing. … Yes, I sent copies to everybody who I thought would be a good ally. … “Now I’m not at liberty to say what reaction, if any, ex-President [Richard] Nixon took, but he certainly had a copy of this. We sent one to Henry Kissinger. … So we had these informal relationships where the little closed circle of people who were, a, looking forward to a Republican President within a short while and, b, who were absolutely trustworthy and who understood all these inner workings of the international game board.” Desert One Encircled by a growing legion of enemies, the Carter administration put the finishing touches on its hostage-rescue operation in April. Code-named “Eagle Claw,” the assault involved a force of U.S. helicopters that would swoop down on Tehran, coordinate with some agents on the ground and extract the hostages. Carter ordered the operation to proceed on April 24, but mechanical problems and the mysterious decision by one of the pilots to turn back forced the operation to be terminated. At a staging area called Desert One, one of the helicopters collided with a refueling plane, causing an explosion that killed eight American crewmen. Their charred bodies were then displayed by the Iranian government, adding to the fury and humiliation of the United States. After the Desert One fiasco, the Iranians dispersed the hostages to a variety of locations, effectively shutting the door on another rescue attempt. By summer 1980, Copeland told me, the Republicans in his circle considered a second hostage-rescue attempt not only unfeasible, but unnecessary. They were talking confidently about the hostages being freed after a Republican victory in November, the old CIA man said. “Nixon, like everybody else, knew that all we had to do was wait until the election came, and they were going to get out,” Copeland said. “That was sort of an open secret among people in the intelligence community, that that would happen. … The intelligence community certainly had some understanding with somebody in Iran in authority, in a way that they would hardly confide in me.” Copeland said his CIA friends had been told by contacts in Iran that the mullahs would do nothing to help Carter or his reelection. “At that time, we had word back, because you always have informed relations with the devil,” Copeland said. “But we had word that, ‘Don’t worry.’ As long as Carter wouldn’t get credit for getting these people out, as soon as Reagan came in, the Iranians would be happy enough to wash their hands of this and move into a new era of Iranian-American relations, whatever that turned out to be.” In the interview, Copeland declined to give more details, beyond his assurance that “the CIA within the CIA,” his term for the true protectors of U.S. national security, had an understanding with the Iranians about the hostages. (Copeland died on Jan. 14, 1991.) A Unified Campaign In summer 1980, Ronald Reagan wrapped up the Republican nomination and offered the vice presidential slot to his former rival, George H.W. Bush. As Bush’s team merged with Reagan’s campaign, so too did Bush’s contingent of CIA veterans. Reagan’s campaign director William Casey – a spymaster for the World War II-era Office of Strategic Services – also blended in well with the ex-intelligence officers. Many of the October Surprise allegations have Casey and his longtime business associate John Shaheen, another OSS veteran, meeting with Iranians and other foreigners overseas. Casey also had secret meetings with Kissinger, according to Casey’s chauffeur, and with banker David Rockefeller and ex-CIA officer Archibald Roosevelt, who had gone to work for Rockefeller, according to the Sept. 11, 1980, visitor log at the Reagan-Bush headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. On Sept. 16, 1980, five days after the Rockefeller group’s visit to Casey’s office, Iran’s acting foreign minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh spoke publicly about Republican interference. “Reagan, supported by Kissinger and others, has no intention of resolving the problem” with the hostages, Ghotbzadeh said. “They will do everything in their power to block it.” Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr held a similar opinion from his position in Tehran. In a 1992 letter to the House task force on the October Surprise case, Bani-Sadr wrote that he learned of the Republican back-channel initiative in summer 1980 and received a message from an emissary of Ayatollah Khomeini: The Reagan campaign was in league with pro-Republican elements of the CIA in an effort to undermine Carter and wanted Iran’s help. Bani-Sadr said the emissary “told me that if I do not accept this proposal they [the Republicans] would make the same offer to my rivals.” The emissary added that the Republicans “have enormous influence in the CIA,” Bani-Sadr wrote. “Lastly, he told me my refusal of their offer would result in my elimination.” Bani-Sadr said he resisted the GOP scheme, but the plan ultimately was accepted by Ayatollah Khomeini, who appeared to have made up his mind around the time of Iraq’s invasion of Iran in mid-September 1980. However, still sensing a political danger if Carter got the Iranians to change their minds, the Republicans opened the final full month of the campaign by trying to make Carter’s hostage talks look like a cynical ploy to influence the election’s outcome. On Oct. 2, Republican vice-presidential candidate Bush brought up the issue with a group of reporters: “One thing that’s at the back of everybody’s mind is, ‘What can Carter do that is so sensational and so flamboyant, if you will, on his side to pull off an October Surprise?’ And everybody kind of speculates about it, but there’s not a darn thing we can do about it, nor is there any strategy we can do except possibly have it discounted.” Multiple Channels One congressional investigator who was involved in the Iran-Contra and the October Surprise inquiries told me years later that his conclusion was that the Republicans were pursuing every avenue possible to reach the Iranian leadership to make sure Carter’s hostage negotiations failed. Former Israeli intelligence officer Ben-Menashe, in his book and in sworn testimony, said the ultimately successful channel was one involving both former and current CIA officers, working with French intelligence for the security of a final meeting in Paris — and with Israelis who were given the task of delivering the payoff in weapons shipments and money to Iran. The key meeting allegedly occurred on the weekend of Oct. 18-19, 1980, between high-level representatives of the Republican team and the Iranians. Ben-Menashe said he was part of a six-member Israeli support delegation for the meeting at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. In his memoir, Ben-Menashe said he recognized several Americans, including Republican congressional aide Robert McFarlane and CIA officers Robert Gates (who had served on Carter’s NSC staff and was then CIA Director Turner’s executive assistant), Donald Gregg (another CIA designee to Carter’s NSC) and George Cave (the agency’s Iran expert). Ben-Menashe said Iranian cleric Mehdi Karrubi, then a top foreign policy aide to Ayatollah Khomeini, arrived and walked into a conference room. “A few minutes later George Bush, with the wispy-haired William Casey in front of him, stepped out of the elevator. He smiled, said hello to everyone, and, like Karrubi, hurried into the conference room,” Ben-Menashe wrote. Ben-Menashe said the Paris meetings served to finalize a previously outlined agreement calling for release of the 52 hostages in exchange for $52 million, guarantees of arms sales for Iran, and unfreezing of Iranian monies in U.S. banks. The timing, however, was changed, he said, to coincide with Reagan’s expected Inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981. Though the alleged participants have denied taking part in such a meeting, the alibis cited by the Americans have proved porous. For instance, Gregg produced a photograph of himself in a bathing suit on a beach with the processing date stamped on the back, “October 1980.” There have been others reasons to doubt their innocence. An FBI polygrapher working for Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh’s investigation asked Gregg in 1990, “were you ever involved in a plan to delay the release of the hostages in Iran until after the 1980 Presidential election?” Gregg’s negative answer was deemed deceptive. [See the Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Vol. I, 501] Corroboration Meanwhile, other evidence has surfaced supporting Ben-Menashe’s testimony. For instance, Chicago Tribune reporter John Maclean, son of author Norman Maclean who wrote A River Runs Through It, confirmed that he was told by a well-placed Republican source on that weekend in October 1980 that Bush was flying to Paris for a clandestine meeting with a delegation of Iranians about the American hostages. David Andelman, the biographer for Count Alexandre deMarenches, then head of France’s Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionage (SDECE), testified to the House task force that deMarenches told him that he had helped the Reagan-Bush campaign arrange meetings with Iranians on the hostage issue in summer and fall of 1980, with one meeting in Paris in October. Andelman said deMarenches insisted that the secret meetings be kept out of his memoir because the story could otherwise damage the reputations of his friends, William Casey and George H.W. Bush. The allegations of a Paris meeting also received support from several other sources, including pilot Heinrich Rupp, who said he flew Casey from Washington’s National Airport to Paris on a flight that left very late on a rainy night in mid-October 1980. Rupp said that after arriving at LeBourget airport outside Paris, he saw a man resembling Bush on the tarmac. The night of Oct. 18 indeed was rainy in the Washington area. Also, sign-in sheets at the Reagan-Bush headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, placed Casey within a five-minute drive of National Airport late that evening. A French arms dealer, Nicholas Ignatiew, told me in 1990 that he had checked with his government contacts and was told that Republicans did meet with Iranians in Paris in mid-October 1980. A well-connected French investigative reporter Claude Angeli said his sources inside the French secret service confirmed that the service provided “cover” for a meeting between Republicans and Iranians in France on the weekend of October 18-19. German journalist Martin Kilian had received a similar account from a top aide to intelligence chief deMarenches. As early as 1987, Iran’s ex-President Bani-Sadr had made similar claims about a Paris meeting. Finally, a classified report from the Russian government regarding what its intelligence files showed about the October Surprise issue stated matter-of-factly that Republicans held a series of meetings with Iranians in Europe, including one in Paris in October 1980. “William Casey, in 1980, met three times with representatives of the Iranian leadership,” the Russian report said. “The meetings took place in Madrid and Paris.” At the Paris meeting in October 1980, “R[obert] Gates, at that time a staffer of the National Security Council in the administration of Jimmy Carter, and former CIA Director George Bush also took part,” the Russian report said. “In Madrid and Paris, the representatives of Ronald Reagan and the Iranian leadership discussed the question of possibly delaying the release of 52 hostages from the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran.” (The Russian report had been requested by Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana, as part of the 1992 task force investigation of the October Surprise case. It arrived on Jan. 11, 1993, just two days before the task force was to release its own report rejecting the October Surprise suspicions. (According to Hamilton and task force chief counsel Lawrence Barcella, the startling Russian report may never have been shown to Hamilton, until I sent him a copy in spring 2010. In interviews, Hamilton told me, “I don’t recall seeing it,” and Barcella said in an e-mail that he didn’t “recall whether I showed [Hamilton] the Russian report or not.”[See Consortiumnews.com’s “Key October Surprise Evidence Hidden.”]) Whatever the reasons, Carter failed to get the hostages out. The coincidence that the anniversary of the hostage-taking fell on Election Day 1980 further damaged Carter’s hopes as Americans were forced to relive the humiliations of the previous year. Reagan romped to victory in a landslide, winning 44 states and bringing with him a Republican Senate. Among the Democrat casualties were key figures in efforts to rein in the powers of the imperial presidency – and of the CIA – including Frank Church of Idaho, Birch Bayh of Indiana and George McGovern of South Dakota. In retrospect, some of Carter’s negotiators felt they should have been much more attentive to the possibility of Republican sabotage. “Looking back, the Carter administration appears to have been far too trusting and particularly blind to the intrigue swirling around it,” said former NSC official Gary Sick. Tough Talk As the Inauguration neared, Republicans talked tough, making clear that Ronald Reagan wouldn’t stand for the humiliation that the nation endured under Jimmy Carter. The Reagan-Bush team intimated that Reagan would deal harshly with Iran if it didn’t surrender the hostages. A joke making the rounds of Washington went: “What’s three feet deep and glows in the dark? Tehran ten minutes after Ronald Reagan becomes President.” On Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 1981, just as Reagan was beginning his inaugural address, word came from Iran that the hostages were freed. The American people were overjoyed. Privately, some Reagan insiders laughed about their October Surprise success. For instance, Charles Cogan, a high-ranking CIA officer, told the House task force in 1992 that he attended a 1981 meeting at CIA headquarters between Casey and one of David Rockefeller’s top aides, Joseph V. Reed, who had just been appointed to be Ambassador to Morocco. Cogan testified that Reed joked about having blocked Carter’s hostage release. A task force investigator, who spoke with Cogan in a less formal setting, told me that Reed’s wording was, “We fucked Carter’s October Surprise.” In the months and the years that followed, many of the key figures in the October Surprise mystery saw their career paths veer steeply upward. Casey was appointed to head the CIA; Gregg became Vice President Bush’s national security adviser; Robert McFarlane later became Reagan’s NSC adviser; though relatively young, Robert Gates vaulted up the CIA’s career ladder, becoming head of the analytical division and then deputy director. (He later served as Secretary of Defense for George W. Bush and Barack Obama.) As for Israel and Iran, the arms network flowed with weapons to Iran and millions of dollars in profits back to Israel, with some of the money going to build new settlements in the West Bank. In summer 1981, this hidden Israeli-Iranian arms pipeline slipped briefly into public view. On July 18, 1981, an Israeli-chartered plane was shot down after straying over the Soviet Union. In a PBS interview nearly a decade later, Nicholas Veliotes, Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, said he looked into the incident by talking to top administration officials. “It was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment,” Veliotes said. In checking out the Israeli flight, Veliotes came to believe that the Reagan camp’s dealings with Iran dated back to before the 1980 election. “It seems to have started in earnest in the period probably prior to the election of 1980, as the Israelis had identified who would become the new players in the national security area in the Reagan administration,” Veliotes said. “And I understand some contacts were made at that time.” When I re-interviewed Veliotes on Aug. 8, 2012, he said he couldn’t recall who the “people on high” were who had described the informal clearance of the Israeli shipments but he indicated that “the new players” were the young neoconservatives who were working on the Reagan-Bush campaign, many of whom later joined the administration as senior political appointees. In the mid-1980s, many of the same October Surprise actors became figures in the Iran-Contra scandal of 1985-86, another secret arms-for-hostages scheme in which Israel served as the middleman in U.S. arms shipments to Iran. According to official Iran-Contra investigations, the plot to sell U.S. weapons to Iran in 1985-86 for its help in freeing American hostages then held in Lebanon involved Cyrus Hashemi, John Shaheen, Theodore Shackley, William Casey, Donald Gregg, Robert Gates, Robert McFarlane, George Cave, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush – not to mention various Israeli officials. In 1993, I took part in an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Tel Aviv during which he said he had read Gary Sick’s 1991 book, October Surprise, which made the case for believing that the Republicans had intervened in the 1980  hostage negotiations to disrupt Carter’s reelection. With the topic raised, one interviewer asked, “What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?” “Of course, it was,” Shamir responded without hesitation. “It was.” Later in the interview, Shamir, who succeeded Begin as prime minister in the 1980s, seemed to regret his frankness and tried to backpedal on his answer, but his confirmation remained a startling moment. Carter’s Uncertainty Three decades after leaving office, former President Carter told an interviewer that he still hadn’t made up his mind on whether Ronald Reagan’s campaign secretly sabotaged his negotiations with Iran to gain release of the American hostages. In an interview for a book, Conversations with Power by Brian Michael Till, Carter expressed uncertainty about the old political mystery, but he said he had discussed the matter with his ex-national security aide Gary Sick, who embraced the suspicions in a 1991 book, October Surprise. “I have never taken a position on that because I don’t know the facts,” Carter told Till. “I’ve seen explanations that were made by George H.W. Bush and the Reagan people, and I’ve read Gary Sick’s book and talked to him about it. I don’t really know.” Still, Carter said he remains curious as to why the Iranians waited until immediately after Reagan was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1981, to allow the hostages to fly out of Tehran: “The thing that I do know is that after they [the Iranians] decided to hold the hostages until after the election, I did everything I could to get them extracted, and the last three days I was president, I never went to bed at all. I stayed up the whole time in the Oval Office to negotiate this extremely complex arrangement to get the hostages removed and to deal with $12 billion in Iranian cash and gold. “And I completed everything by six o’clock on the morning that I was supposed to go out of office. All the hostages were transferred to airplanes and they were waiting in the airplanes. I knew this — so they were ready to take off — and I went to the reviewing stand when Reagan became president. “Five minutes after he was president, the planes took off. They could have left three or four hours earlier. But what, if any, influence was used on the Ayatollah [Ruhollah Khomeini] to wait until I was out of office. I don’t know.” Yet, for the past three decades, Carter has seemed more concerned about being accused of sour grapes than learning the truth about whether a Republican dirty trick helped sink his presidency. In 1996, while meeting with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat, Carter reportedly raised his hands into a physical stop position when Arafat tried to confess his role in the Republican maneuvering to block Carter’s Iran-hostage negotiations. “There is something I want to tell you,” Arafat said, addressing Carter at a meeting in Arafat’s bunker in Gaza City in the presence of historian Douglas Brinkley. “You should know that in 1980 the Republicans approached me with an arms deal [for the PLO] if I could arrange to keep the hostages in Iran until after the [U.S. presidential] election.” Arafat was apparently prepared to provide additional details and evidence, but Carter raised his hands, indicating that he didn’t want to hear anymore. In the interview with Till, Carter also expressed continued uncertainty as to why a crucial helicopter for the U.S. hostage-rescue operation in April 1980 turned back rather than fly on to Tehran, a decision that forced the surprise assault to be scrubbed, a huge embarrassment for the Carter administration. To carry out the mission, Carter had ordered eight helicopters to take part, including two as backups. As the mission proceeded, two helicopters developed mechanical troubles, cutting the number to the minimal of six. But one helicopter had turned back “with no reasonable explanation,” Carter said, forcing the rescue to be called off when the number of available helicopters dropped to five. The so-called “Desert One fiasco” raised questions about Carter’s competence and ever since then rumors have persisted regarding possible sabotage of the operation by military and intelligence personnel who were hostile to Carter’s presidency. While no hard evidence has ever emerged about the sabotage of Carter’s rescue operation, significant evidence does exist that operatives inside Reagan’s campaign – with the help of Israeli operatives – took steps to frustrate Carter’s attempt to negotiate release of the hostages before the November 1980 election. In the ensuing decades, the failure of the U.S. political/media structure to get to the bottom of the October Surprise and its sequel the Iran-Contra scandal also makes the prospect for a repeat in 2012 more likely. Since Israeli’s Likud has never been held accountable for its alleged interference in the U.S. political process in 1980, Menachem Begin’s ideological descendants might feel embolden to try it again.

A Syrian boy holds an AK-47 assault rifle in the majority-Kurdish Sheikh Maqsud district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on April 14, 2013. In northern Syria, the Kurdish population has largely observed a careful compromise with regime and rebel forces, fighting alongside neither, in return for security and semi-autonomy over majority Kurdish areas, but there have been reports of Kurdish fighters joining the battle with Syrian rebels in certain areas, including in Sheikh Maqsud. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images) 2 In this image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke and fire rises after explosives were dropped by a Syrian government warplane in Yabroud near Damascus, Syria, on May 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP video) # 3 A Syrian man walks amid destruction in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on April 10, 2013. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images) # 4 A damaged statue of Bassel Al-Assad, brother of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, in Raqqa province, eastern Syria, on April 25, 2013. (Reuters/Hamid Khatib) # 5 Free Syrian Army fighters run up the stairs of a building in Aleppo's Salaheddine neighborhood, on April 28, 2013.(Reuters/Aref Hretani) # 6 Syrians walk behind destroyed buses to dodge sniper fire by government forces in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on April 12, 2013. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images) # 7 Rebel fighters from the Al-Ezz bin Abdul Salam Brigade attend a training session at an undisclosed location near the al-Turkman mountains, in Syria's northern Latakia province, on April 24, 2013. (Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images) # 8 An improvised mortar, with a projectile fashioned from a gas cylinder, placed by Free Syrian Army fighters in Binnish, in Idlib province, on April 17, 2013. (Reuters/Mohamed Kaddoor/Shaam News Network) # 9 A Free Syrian Army fighter in a tunnel in Deir al-Zor, on April 6, 2013. The 30-meter (98-feet) tunnel was dug under an area where Syrian Army forces have set up base in Deir Al-Zor, according to members of the Free Syrian Army. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) # 10 This March 1, 2013 citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian child, injured by heavy bombing from military warplanes, in the town of Hanano in Aleppo, Syria. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center) # 11 Syrian forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad run to take their position during clashes against Syrian rebels, in Aleppo, Syria, on May 26, 2013. (AP Photo/SANA) # 12 A Syrian soldier sits inside a tank as troops take control of the village of Western Dumayna, some seven kilometers north of the rebel-held city of Qusayr, on May 13, 2013. Syrian troops captured three villages in the strategic Qusayr area of Homs province, allowing them to cut supply lines to rebels inside Qusayr town, a military officer told AFP. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images) # 13 Syrian troops celebrate as they take control of the village of Haydariyah, some seven kilometers outside the rebel-held city of Qusayr, on May 13, 2013. Syrian troops captured three villages in the strategic Qusayr area of Homs province, allowing them to cut supply lines to rebels inside Qusayr town, a military officer told AFP. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images) # 14 A child walks past damaged buildings in Deir al-Zor, on April 4, 2013. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) # 15 Citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, show flames rising from a car which was attacked by Syrian government forces, in Bustan al-Qaser neighborhood, Aleppo, on May 20, 2013. Fierce street fighting in the Syrian town near the Lebanese border killed at least 28 elite members of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, activists said, as Syrian government forces pushed deeper into the strategic, opposition-held town. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center) # 16 A girl sits on a chair placed among rubble as she sells bread on a damaged street in Deir al-Zor, on May 9, 2013.(Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) # 17 A Free Syrian Army fighter sits on a sofa inside a house in Deir al-Zor, on May 13, 2013. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) # 18 Smoke rises after what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Raqqa province, eastern Syria, on May 3, 2013. (Reuters/Nour Fourat) # 19 A damaged area of the Aleppo Grand mosque after a battle between the rebels and Syrian government forces, in Aleppo, on April 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center) # 20 Sawoushka Ahmed, a Kurdish female fighter stands with a gun in the majority-Kurdish Sheikh Maqsud district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on April 14, 2013. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images) # 21 Smoke rises after shelling on al-Turkman mountains in the Latakia province, western Syria, on April 25, 2013.(Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images) # 22 In this citizen journalism image released on May 2, 2013 by a group that calls itself The Syrian Revolution Against Bashar Assad, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a Syrian man, center, identifies dead bodies, who were killed according to activists by Syrian forces loyal to Bashar Assad, in Bayda village, in the mountains outside the coastal city of Banias, Syria. (AP Photo/The Syrian Revolution Against Bashar Assad) # 23 An abandoned tank on a street near the minaret of the Omari mosque, which was damaged by what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad, in Deraa, on April 13, 2013. (Reuters/Mazen Abu Mahmoud/Shaam News Network) # 24 Girls play on a swing in a damaged street full of debris in Deir al-Zor, on May 21, 2013. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) # 25 A man works at a makeshift oil refinery site in al-Mansoura village in Raqqa's countryside, on May 5, 2013. Many civilians in the village who lost their jobs due to the Syrian conflict are making a living by refining crude oil to extract useful fuel such as gasoline and kerosene for sale. (Reuters/Hamid Khatib) # 26 A member of the Free Syrian Army takes a break, diving into the Euphrates river in Deir al-Zor, on May 21, 2013.(Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) # 27 Mohammad, 11, a Syrian refugee boy who was injured during the conflict in Syria, sits in his wheelchair at a post-traumatic care center directed by Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations (UOSSM) in Hatay province, Turkey, on May 3, 2013. Turkey is now sheltering more than 300,000 Syrians who have fled the fighting in their homeland, most of them in camps along the 900-km (560-mile) frontier. (Reuters/Osman Orsal) # 28 A deserted street with damaged buildings in the old city of Aleppo, on April 29, 2013. (Reuters/George Ourfalian) # 29 Free Syrian Army fighters prepare to launch a rocket in Deir al-Zor, on May 18, 2013. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) # 30 A boy rows a boat as he transports people into the city of Deir Al-Zor, on April 21, 2013. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi) # 31 In this undated file photo a Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile system is on display in an undisclosed location in Russia. Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on May 28, 2013, that Moscow has a contract for the delivery of the S-300s to Syria and sees the deal as a key deterrent against foreign invasion in that country. The Deputy Foreign Minister wouldn't say whether Russia has shipped any of the long-range S-300 air defense missile systems, but added that Moscow is not going to abandon the deal despite strong Western and Israeli criticism. (AP Photo) # 32 Damaged vehicles fill a street lined with damaged buildings in Aleppo's Salaheddine district, on April 8, 2013.(Reuters/Malek Alshemali) # 33 Syrian rebels take position in a house during clashes with regime forces in Aleppo, on May 22, 2013.(Ricardo Garcia Vilanova/AFP/Getty Images) # 34 In this Tuesday March 19, 2013 file photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, a Syrian victim who suffered an alleged chemical attack at Khan al-Assal village according to SANA, receives treatment by doctors, at a hospital in Aleppo. The purported instances in which chemical weapons have been used in Syria have been relatively small in scale: nothing along the lines of Saddam Hussein's 1988 attack in Kurdish Iraq. That raises the question of who would stand to gain as President Bashar Assad's regime and the opposition trade blame for the alleged attacks and definitive proof remains elusive. (AP Photo/SANA) # 35 People riding on motorcycles are seen through a hole of a damaged building in Deir al-Zor, on May 19, 2013.(Reuters/ Khalil Ashawi) # 36 Relatives visit a grave at the Shi'ite fighters cemetery in Sayeda Zainab area in Damascus, on May 27, 2013.(Reuters/ Alaa Al-Marjani)

Several warnings of an imminent “false flag” attack by the Israeli-influenced United States on one of its own warships, which will be attributed to Iran, have been reported by several reliable sources. In recent years “false-flag” terrorism has been utilized multiple times by US and Israeli political actors to provide pretexts for otherwise unjustifiable, anti-Islamic military excursions. The plan is to justify an all-out assault on Iran based upon a new fabricated “Pearl Harbor”. Israel is the primary motivator behind the attempts to destabilize Iran. US traditional foreign policy was one of attempting to foster stability in the Middle East for oil markets. The Zionist impulse, conversely, is to destabilize all potential regional hegemons and carve the Middle East up into ethno-religious statelets. Thus, since the fraudulent events of 9/11, we’ve seen a policy of Middle East disintegration being pursued by Israeli-influenced American politicians. Indeed, recently released CIA memos reveal that Mossad agents have been posing as CIA agents and conscripting anti-Iranian terrorists. Former Israeli intelligence officer, Avi Perry, startlingly wrote in a January 9th Jerusalem Post article of a forthcoming “ ‘Pearl Harbor’ scenario, in which Iran [will] launch…a “surprise” attack on the US navy,” giving the US “the perfect rationalization to finish them [Iran] off.” Tellingly, Perry chose to put the word “surprise” in quotation marks. Is Perry telling us something? Perry asserts: “[an] Iranian attack on an American military vessel will serve as a justification and a pretext for a retaliatory move by the US military against the Iranian regime.” However, Perry identifies “a US aircraft carrier” as the likely target of this imagined Iranian attack. USS Vincennes returns to San Diego (October 1988) We beg to differ. There are major indications that the vessel of choice is to be the USS Vincennes. The fourth USS Vincennes (CG-49) is a US Navy Ticonderoga class Aegis guided missile cruiser. On July 3, 1988, the ship shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 civilian passengers on board, including 38 non-Iranians and 66 children. This would be an ideal vessel for the staged provocation as it could be easily sold to the world as having been Iranian retribution for the 1988 downing of Flight 655. That way the evident lack of motive for Iran to provoke the US and Israeli military titans will be replaced by a perceived “motive.” No one will stop to ask themselves why Iran would thereby invite its own national annihilation. If we were to believe the Wikipedia version of history, the Vincennes has already been scrapped. The Wikipedia article for the Vincennes states, “The Vincennes was completely scrapped by 23 November 2011.” If that were true it could not be used as the target of this “false-flag” attack. Yet we have photographic and testimonial evidence suggesting otherwise. The USS Vincennes afloat in Puget Sound. The ship has an orange hue. It cannot have been "completely scrapped" and still be afloat in Puget Sound. A reliable source interviewed by one of us has brought us up to speed on the latest developments: “We now know what that INACTIVE Ticonderoga class AEGIS missile cruiser got towed out of here under cover of darkness for. It’ll likely be the sacrificial lamb that starts the war with Iran…. “Why else would they move it when all the rest sit at a buoy here for months before they finally leave to be sunk? “I told this to a former 9/11 Truth person back when that ship got moved that it was likely to be used for a FALSE FLAG attack. Well, we’ll soon see if I was right about this one.” Since the ship left Puget Sound in the dead of night about two months ago, it’s most probable location today is at the 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain for safe keeping until the time comes for its deployment.  The ship would have been refurbished and repainted and provided with remote control capabilities. “That is the only location in the region outside of Haifa Harbor where she could probably be at least partially concealed by cocooning the superstructure to make it less obvious who she is. Meanwhile, the US Navy is compiling a list of casualties based upon deceased sailors, very much as was the case on 9/11,” we were advised. Former Israeli false-flag attacks, such as on the USS Liberty in 1967, and the Argentine attacks in 1992 and in 1994, demonstrate Israel’s willingness to attack US targets, on the one hand, and its own people, on the other. It’s highly probable that, having shipped the Vincennes into an acceptable location, that the Mossad, which has also been implicated in the events of 9/11, would do the rest of the dirty work. Or the United States, which has become Israel’s lackey, might blow up one of its own ships, which would be a literal and a figurative sign of how low the US has sunk. In light of recent “deep political events” in Iran, including the recent murder of Iranian nuclear physicist Professor Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, it would not be surprising if the US and Israel were to raise the ante by implementing a fraudulent trigger incident, which may very well ignite World War III. The included areas adjacent to Pakistan inhabited by ethnic Baluchs, the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and the ethnically Arab province of Khuzestan, which borders southeastern Iraq. These are the demographics or the people of Iran.

Using Fake Intelligence to Wage War on Iran by Michel Chossudovsky In November 2005, the New York Times published a report by William J. Broad and David E. Sanger entitled "Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims". Washington's allegations, reported in the NYT  hinged upon documents "obtained from a stolen Iranian computer by an unknown source and given to US intelligence in 2004". (See Gareth Porter, Exclusive Report: Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program May Be Fraudulent, Global Research, November 18, 2010, emphasis added). These documents included "a series of drawings of a missile re-entry vehicle" which allegedly could accommodate an Iranian produced nuclear weapon. "In mid-July, senior American intelligence officials called the leaders of the international atomic inspection agency to the top of a skyscraper overlooking the Danube in Vienna and unveiled the contents of what they said was a stolen Iranian laptop computer. The Americans flashed on a screen and spread over a conference table selections from more than a thousand pages of Iranian computer simulations and accounts of experiments, saying they showed a long effort to design a nuclear warhead, according to a half-dozen European and American participants in the meeting. The documents, the Americans acknowledged from the start, do not prove that Iran has an atomic bomb. They presented them as the strongest evidence yet that, despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful, the country is trying to develop a compact warhead to fit atop its Shahab missile, which can reach Israel and other countries in the Middle East."(William J. Broad and David E. Sanger Relying on Computer, U.S. Seeks to Prove Iran's Nuclear Aims - New York Times, November 13, 2005) These "secret documents" were subsequently submitted by the US State Department to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, with a view to demonstrating that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program.  While their authenticity has been questioned on several occasions,  a recent article by investigative reporter Gareth Porter confirms unequivocally that the mysterious laptop documents are fake. The drawings contained in the documents do not pertain to the Shahab missile but to an obsolete North Korean missile system which was decommissioned by Iran in the mid-1990s. How stupid! The drawings presented by US State Department officials pertained to the "Wrong Missile Warhead": In July 2005, ... Robert Joseph, US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, made a formal presentation on the purported Iranian nuclear weapons program documents to the agency's leading officials in Vienna. Joseph flashed excerpts from the documents on the screen, giving special attention to the series of technical drawings or "schematics" showing 18 different ways of fitting an unidentified payload into the re-entry vehicle or "warhead" of Iran's medium-range ballistic missile, the Shahab-3. When IAEA analysts were allowed to study the documents, however, they discovered that those schematics were based on a re-entry vehicle that the analysts knew had already been abandoned by the Iranian military in favor of a new, improved design. The warhead shown in the schematics had the familiar "dunce cap" shape of the original North Korean No Dong missile, which Iran had acquired in the mid-1990s. ... The laptop documents had depicted the wrong re-entry vehicle being redesigned. ... (Gareth Porter, op cit ) Who was behind the production of fake intelligence? Gareth Porter's suggests that Israel's Mossad has been a source of  fake intelligence regarding Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program: The origin of the laptop documents may never be proven conclusively, but the accumulated evidence points to Israel as the source. As early as 1995, the head of the Israel Defense Forces' military intelligence research and assessment division, Yaakov Amidror, tried unsuccessfully to persuade his American counterparts that Iran was planning to "go nuclear." By 2003-2004, Mossad's reporting on the Iranian nuclear program was viewed by high-ranking CIA officials as an effort to pressure the Bush administration into considering military action against Iran's nuclear sites, according to Israeli sources cited by a pro-Israeli news service." (Ibid) Lies and Fabrications to Justify a Military Agenda The laptop documents were essential to sustaining America's position in the UN Security Council. We are dealing with a clear case of fake intelligence comparable to that presented by Colin Powell in February 2003 on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. The fake intelligence presented to the UN Security Council was used as a justification for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. "The evidence, or lack thereof, speaks for itself. In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration produced hundreds of pages of intelligence for members of Congress and for the United Nations that showed how Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein possessed tons of chemical and biological weapons and was actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The intelligence information, gathered by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, a Department of Defense agency that gathers foreign military intelligence for the Pentagon, was used by the Bush administration to convince the public that Iraq posed a threat to the world." (See Jason Leopold,Powell Denies Intelligence Failure In Buildup To War, But Evidence Doesn’t Hold Up, Global Research, 10 June 2003) Iran's Shahab Missile system

Gunfire from a pro-government militia killed one man and wounded several others Monday after hundreds of thousands of chanting opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marched in central Tehran to support their pro-reform leader in his first public appearance since disputed elections. The outpouring in Azadi, or Freedom, Square for reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi followed a decision by Iran’s most powerful figure for an investigation into the vote-rigging allegations. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an investigation into fraud allegations in Ahmadinejad’s re-election that have sparked the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. The move came after Khamenei had urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad a day after Friday’s election and called the result a “divine assessment.” As supreme leader, Khamenei has final say in all government matters in Iran — above the elected president and parliament — wielding power through his domination of unelected clerical bodies, as well as the judiciary and security forces, including the elite Revolutionary Guard. (AP) 1 An Iranian man paints over campaign slogans near the headquarters of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was set for a landslide victory in Iran's presidential race, crushing his moderate rival and Western hopes of change in the Islamic republic. But supporters of his main challenger, ex-premier Mousavi, cried foul and some were beaten by police as they gathered in Tehran to await the final results, an AFP correspondent said. Mousavi's name is written in green while Ahmadinejad's name is written on top of it (L) in black. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 2 A supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi shouts slogans during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner by a landslide in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, triggering riots by opposition supporters and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 3 An injured supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi covers his bloodied face during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner by a landslide in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, triggering riots by opposition supporters and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 4 Supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi stand near a burning bus during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner by a landslide in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, triggering riots by opposition supporters and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 5 A supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi flashes the victory sign as fellow demonstrators shout slogans during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner by a landslide in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, triggering riots by opposition supporters and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 6 Iranians run for cover during riots by supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Police fired tear gas at rioters in Tehran as supporters of Mousavi swept through the Iranian capital, some pelting stones at baton-wielding policemen in protest at the disputed election results. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 7 An injured Iranian riot policeman (L) is evacuated during riots by supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a crushing victory in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, according to official results that triggered mass opposition protests. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 8 Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tyres and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 9 Supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad celebrate during a rally at Valiasr square on June 14, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. Crowds of people gathered in central Tehran to celebrate the re-election of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won a second four-year term in a landslide election victory on June 12. (Photo by Majid/Getty Images) # 10 Thousands of supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hold portraits of the president whilst waving national flags during a rally in Valiasr square on June 14, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. Tens of thousands of people have joined a rally in central Tehran to celebrate the re-election of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president won a second four-year term in a landslide election victory on June 12, 2009. (Photo by Majid/Getty Images) # 11 Thousands of supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hold portraits of the president whilst waving national flags during a rally in Valiasr square on June 14, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. Tens of thousands of people have joined a rally in central Tehran to celebrate the re-election of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president won a second four-year term in a landslide election victory on June 12, 2009. (Photo by Majid/Getty Images) # 12 Iranian plain clothes policemen beat a demonstrator with batons during a protest against the election results in Tehran on June 14, 2009. Violence erupted for the second day in Tehran as supporters of the Islamic republic's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's closest challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi clashed with riot police after an election that has set off deep divisions in the oil-rich republic. (AFP/Getty Images) # 13 A supporter of Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (portrait-L) holds up a poster bearing a picture of Jerusalem's holy Dome of the Rock mosque with the slogan "Our war will culminate with the takeover of Palestine", during a massive rally to celebrate his victory in the presidential elections in Tehran's Valiasr square on June 14, 2009. Ahmadinejad defended his June 12 re-election but his defeated rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, demanded the result be scrapped, setting the stage for further tense confrontations after the authorities cracked down on opposition protests. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 14 Iranian students, supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, try to keep clear of tear gas at the main entrance of Tehran university during riots in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, June 14, 2009. Iranian youth opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the streets Sunday, setting trash dumpsters and tires on fire, in a second day of clashes triggered by voter fraud claims. (AP Photo) # 15 Iranian demonstrators run for cover as policemen use tear gas to disperse the crowd during a protest against the election results in Tehran on June 14, 2009. Violence erupted for the second day in Tehran as supporters of the Islamic republic's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's closest challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi clashed with riot police after an election that has set off deep divisions in the oil-rich republic. (AFP/Getty Images) # 16 Supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, react, as he speaks at a rally in Vali Asr square in Tehran, Iran Sunday, June 14, 2009. Protesters set fires and smashed store windows Sunday in a second day of violence as groups challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election tried to keep pressure on authorities but Ahmadinejad dismissed the unrest, the worst in a decade in Tehran, as "not important." (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 17 Supporters of Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wave national flags (R) during a massive rally to celebrate his victory in the presidential elections in Tehran's Valiasr square on June 14, 2009. Ahmadinejad defended his June 12 re-election but his defeated rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, demanded the result be scrapped, setting the stage for further tense confrontations after the authorities cracked down on opposition protests. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 18 Riot police look on as supporters of opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi march in Tehran, Iran, on Monday, June 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in silence through central Tehran on Monday to protest Iran?s disputed presidential election in an extraordinary show of defiance that appeared to be the largest antigovernment demonstration here since the 1979 revolution. (The New York Times) # 19 A suspected member of a pro-government militia, center, is taken away by unidentified people after he was beaten by demonstrators during a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Some hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's vote. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) # 20 A protester allegedly injured by gunfire from pro-government militia is helped by another protester near a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's vote. (AP photo/Vahid Salemi) # 21 A suspected member of a pro-government militia, center, beats people at a rally of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Some hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's presidential vote. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) # 22 Protesters attack a building belonging to a pro-government militia near the scene of a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's vote. (AP photo/Vahid Salemi) # 23 A member of a pro-government militia, left, stands guard on a rooftop of their base as demonstrators approach, near a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Shots were fired and at least man was killed. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's vote. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) # 24 Hundreds of thousands of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday's election, turn out to protest the result of the election at a mass rally in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 25 Smoke billows from a burning car as supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi attack a local base of the Islamic Basij militia after a protestor was shot dead outside the base in Tehran on June 15, 2009. One protestor was shot dead and several were wounded during a rally in Tehran staged by hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (AFP/Getty Images) # 26 A demonstrator spray-paints a slogan in Farsi on the Freedom Tower, as hundreds of thousands of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday's election, turn out to protest the result of the election at a mass rally in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Writing in Farsi reads "Salute to Mousavi, Down with the dictator". (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 27 Unidentified demonstrators show signs outside the Iranian embassy in Rome, Monday June, 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Tehran, Iran, Monday, in a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir. Hossein Mousavi. who claimed there was election fraud in Friday's vote. Sign at center says: "Election fraud is an immoral act." (AP Photo/Angelo Carconi) # 28 Hundreds of thousands of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday's election, turn out to protest the result of the election at a mass rally in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 29 Supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi stand at the gate of their university campus during a rally in Tehran on June 15, 2009. A protestor was reportedly shot dead by police in Tehran as massive crowds of people defied a ban to stage a rally against the disputed re-election of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 30 A man who sustained a gunshot wound to his right leg, in an area where pro-government militia were firing shots in the air, is carried to a nearby car to be taken away to hospital, near a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday's election. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 31 Students hold banners one of them reads ''Where is my vote'' at the gate of Tehran university in Tehran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Overnight, police and militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students angry over what they claim was election fraud. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) # 32 A poster of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, is seen on broken door in a room in Tehran University dormitory after it was attacked by militia forces during riots in Tehran, Iran in the early hours of Monday, June 15, 2009. Overnight, police and militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students angry over what they claim was election fraud. (AP photo) # 33 Two students hold a shirt covered by blood stains allegedly belonging to a student who was attacked by militia the previous night at a dormitory ,at the gate of Tehran university in Tehran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Overnight, police and militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students angry over what they claim was election fraud. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) # 34 Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi waves at his supporters during a rally in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Opposition supporters defied a ban to stage a mass rally in Tehran in protest at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide election win, as Iran faced a growing international backlash over the validity of the election and the subsequent crackdown on opposition protests. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 35 Iranian supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi march in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Opposition supporters defied a ban to stage a mass rally in Tehran in protest at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide election win, as Iran faced a growing international backlash over the validity of the election and the subsequent crackdown on opposition protests. In the background is a poster of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 36 Iranian supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi take march in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Opposition supporters defied a ban to stage a mass rally in Tehran in protest at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide election win, as Iran faced a growing international backlash over the validity of the election and the subsequent crackdown on opposition protests. In the background is a poster of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 37 Supporters of reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi show victory signs during a rally in Azadi Street in Tehran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Monday's outpouring for Mousavi swelling as more poured from buildings and side streets wearing the trademark green of his campaign followed a decision by Iran's most powerful figure for an investigation into the vote rigging allegations. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) # 38 Iranian riot policemen stand guard outside the British embassy in Tehran on June 15, 2009 during a protest by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against European interference in the Islamic Republic's latest election results. EU foreign ministers expressed "serious concern" at Tehran's crackdown on opposition protesters and called for a probe into the conduct of the June 12 presidential election. (ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images) # 39 Protestors set fires in a main street in Tehran, Iran in the early hours of Monday, June 15, 2009. Iran's supreme leader ordered Monday an investigation into allegations of election fraud, marking a stunning turnaround by the country's most powerful figure and offering hope to opposition forces who have waged street clashes to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The results touched off three days of clashes the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. Protesters set fires and battled anti-riot police, including a clash overnight at Tehran University after 3,000 students gathered to oppose the election results. (AP Photo) #

Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, subs in the Gulf: the Israeli military encirclement of Iran – prelude? Posted on March 30, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 30, 2012 – ISRAEL - Last week, it was announced by Info Live that the Israelis were using military bases in Kurdistan to launch surveillance flights into Iran. Now, the three-way tension between the United States, Israel, and Iran became tenser this week with a widely cited report that Israel is developing a “secret staging ground” in Iran’s neighbor to the north – Azerbaijan – for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Quoting unnamed senior US diplomats and military intelligence officials, a lengthy article in Foreign Policy magazine asserts that “Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran’s northern border. The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official is quoted as saying, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.” Why would US officials be talking about this? Likely to slow down any rush to war in an already volatile region, some speculate. “I think this leak today is part of the administration’s campaign against an Israeli attack,” former US diplomat John Bolton said Thursday on Fox News. “Clearly, this is an administration-orchestrated leak,” Mr. Bolton said, adding, “It’s just unprecedented to reveal this kind of information about one of your own allies.” The challenge for Israel in planning such a strike is the long distance to potential targets – some 2,000 miles round-trip – for its F-15 and F-16 fighters. Planning for such strikes always involves tradeoffs between fuel and bombs. Bases in nearby Azerbaijan (including abandoned former Soviet airfields) could be used for landing and refueling after any strike, allowing Israeli jets to carry more ordnance. Such airfields also could be a staging point for search-and-rescue helicopters that might be necessary to recover downed Israeli pilots. They also could be used to launch drone aircraft for bomb damage assessment once any strike is concluded. Israel and Azerbaijan have developed an economic military relationship over the years. Israel buys oil from Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan recently agreed to buy $1.6 billion in military hardware from Israel, including drones, antiaircraft, and missile-defense systems. This week’s report of a possible basing agreement with Israel does nothing to improve the relationship between neighbors Azerbaijan and Iran. -CSM Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Drumbeat of War, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War | 23 Comments ← Older posts Loading… ← Older posts World War III: The Launching of a Preemptive Nuclear War against Iran - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2011-12-04 World War III is not front-page news. The mainstream media has excluded in-depth analysis and debate on the implications of these war plans. Syria: The West's Strategic Gateway For Global Military Supremacy - by Rick Rozoff - 2011-11-15 U.S. Arms Persian Gulf Allies For Conflict With Iran - by Rick Rozoff - 2011-11-18 THE CLOCK IS TICKING: "Shadow War" Heating Up. War With Iran: A Provocation Away? - by Tom Burghardt - 2011-12-05 Amid conflicting reports that a huge explosion at Iran's uranium conversion facility in Isfahan occurred last week, speculation was rife that Israel and the US were stepping-up covert attacks against defense and nuclear installations Using Fake Intelligence to Justify War on Iran - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2011-11-09 Iran: "Regime Change" or All Out War? - by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - 2011-06- America's Next War Theater: Syria and Lebanon? - The robot that can jump two-story buildings and follow you anywhere, to be deployed in Afghanistan Posted on March 30, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 30, 2012 – TECH WORLD – Robot designs have been inspired by cheetahs (for speed), dogs (to carry things) and even humans. Boston Dynamics, which gave us all three, has now turned to the lowly flea for inspiration, making a robot that can jump 30 feet into the air and land safely. It’scalled the Sand Flea. Real fleas jump using the strength of their feet, and can go hundreds of times the distance of their own body length. The robotic version uses compressed gas and can’t go quite so high, but jumping to the roof of a two-story building is still pretty impressive. It has four large wheels so it can tackle rough terrain. Boston Dynamics says the robot uses a stabilization system to keep itself righted when it flies through the air. The Sand Flea carries a camera to give a controller up to 215 yards away a view of the surroundings. And it can even swim. The robot is small, about 11 pounds, and has enough compressed gas for up to 25 jumps. The Sand Flea — along with the throwable Scout XT robot — is headed to Afghanistan, where it will be tested in real-world conditions. Afghanistan is becoming a hotbed of robotic soldiering, as thousands have already been deployed there. The numbers are even higher when one considers the unmanned aerial vehicles used. Land-bound robots do things like bomb disposal and reconnaissance, reducing the risk to the troops in the field. –Discovery News Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Crowd Control technology, Dark Ages, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War, Prophecies referenced | 5 Comments Patent awarded for ‘behavioral recognition’ surveillance software system Posted on March 30, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 30, 2012 – TECH WORLD – The American surveillance state is becoming increasingly advanced, expansive and capable of processing huge amounts of data at blinding speeds. Now Behavioral Recognition Systems, Inc., also known as BRS Labs, has developed an artificial intelligence-based system which supposedly can automatically recognize human behavior. Technology which seems similar on the surface already exists and is being used on surveillance platforms like the “Intellistreets” street lights. These street lights, which are outfitted with a great deal of surveillance equipment, are reportedly capable of monitoring activity and telling the difference between certain behaviors while also being able to tell the difference between humans and animals. This technology could be used to enforce curfews, track the movement of individuals, and supposedly spot fights and other crimes. However, BRS Labs’ technology, which was awarded U.S. patent number 8,131,012 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to Government Security News, seems to blow that older system out of the water. This is because previous technologies relied on specific rules put in place by human operators, whereas the new system relies on “reason-based video surveillance behavior recognition software.” This patent is actually part of over 60 related U.S. patents which are currently either pending approval, in process or already granted, all of which are part of the “AISight 3.0” video surveillance software system. –Activist Post Yahoo News Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Crowd Control technology, Dark Ages, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War, Prophecies referenced | 5 Comments Eruptive activity reported at Indonesia’s Semeru volcano Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – JAVA, Indonesia – Our expedition leader Doni just returned from a visit to Semeru and reports that on 27 March, he and our group observed frequent explosions every few minutes, with many powerful enough to eject glowing bombs to produce small glowing avalanches down on the southern flank of the volcano. Semeru, the highest volcano on Java, and one of its most active, lies at the southern end of a volcanic massif extending north to the Tengger caldera. Semeru, a favourite mountain trekking destination, has been in almost continuous eruption since 1967. It is known for its regular ash explosions that typically occur at intervals of 10-30 minutes. –Volcano Discovery contribution Yamkin Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Earthquake Omens?, High-risk potential hazard zone, Magma Plume activity, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcanic Eruption, Volcano Watch | Leave a comment Montserrat’s Soufriere Hills volcano stirs with activity after two year slumber Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – MONTSERRAT - For the first time in two years, the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) monitoring the Soufriere Hills volcano noted unusual activity, with increased seismicity, accompanied by ash fall. Acting Director of MVO Roderick Stuart said the change, which was noted on Friday, is a break from a long state of pause, thus a reminder the volcano is still very active and residents there must always be cautious and aware. Stuart reported, “Last Friday we had the first sort of activity in the volcano in over two years. It generated some ash and because it was the first activity we had in two years, it was almost a precautionary measure that we closed daytime access to Zone C just in case this activity started something bigger,” Stuart told Observer Media. The authority also noted increased steam venting activity on the volcano and a new steam vent (fumarole) that appeared on the northwestern face of the lava dome behind Gages Mountain. Audible roaring associated with the venting were intermittently heard from the Observatory, 5.75 km northwest of the volcano. The seismic network recorded nine rock falls, 105 volcano-tectonic (VT) and four hybrid earthquakes. Additionally, two swarms of VT earthquakes occurred. Earthquakes in the second swarm were described as markedly larger than those in the first. Consequently Zone C on the volcanic risk map was closed until Tuesday when there was a decrease in volcanic tectonic earthquakes below the volcano. –Antiqua Observer Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, High-risk potential hazard zone, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcanic Eruption, Volcano Watch | Leave a comment New study shows parts of Washington D.C. could survive a nuclear blast Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – WASHINGTON – The explosion would destroy everything within one-half mile. An intense flash would blind drivers on the Beltway miles away. A radioactive cloud would drift toward Baltimore. But there’s a surprising conclusion: Just a bit farther from the intersection of 16th and K streets northwest, the blast’s chosen epicenter, the explosion would be survivable. A U.S. government study explores what would happen if terrorists got their hands on enough nuclear material to explode a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb, about 5,000 times more powerful than the truck bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The study didn’t say why it chose the intersection it did as the epicenter for its nuclear bomb. But it did say Washington, D.C., wouldn’t disappear. “It’s not the end of the world,” said Randy Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel and founding director of the Institute for Homeland Security. “It’s not a Cold War scenario.” The biggest difference between the disaster the government studied and the nightmares of incoming ballistic missiles from the former Soviet Union is the size of the explosion. Cold War-era fears imagined massive hydrogen bombs detonated in the sky, not a smaller device exploding on the street. –Detroit FP (c) CNN 2012 Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Dark Ages, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, Financial System Collapse, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War | 15 Comments Firefighters battle 15 forest fires in northern Spain Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – SPAIN - Over 500 firefighters backed by planes and helicopters battled 15 wildfires Wednesday in Spain’s northern Cantabria region amid hot dry conditions that fuelled them, the regional government said. Eight water-dropping aircraft were deployed to fight the largest blaze near the town of Corrales de Buelna, a statement said. The region has suffered over 150 wildfires since Friday which have burned over 650 hectares (1,600 acres). “Today was a day of high temperatures, of weak winds that changed direction frequently and low air humidity. No change in weather conditions is expected over the coming days,” the statement said. Spain is struggling through its driest winter since the 1940s, according to the national weather office. Crops have dried up and the familiar summer fires have come months early. –Terra Daily Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Drought, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Environmental Threat, Gale-force winds and gusts, Wildfires | 1 Comment Alert level raised for Aleutian Island, Cleveland volcano after new lava dome forms Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The alert level for a remote Alaska volcano has been raised again after scientists found another lava dome has formed in the crater in the last week. The Alaska Volcano Observatory on Wednesday increased the level for Cleveland Volcano, a 5,675-foot peak on uninhabited Chuginadak Island about 940 miles southwest of Anchorage. The status was raised earlier this year when the center detected two small, likely ash-poor eruptions through March 13, but lowered the alert level last week after 10 days of inactivity. Scientists can’t actively monitor the volcano because there is no real-time seismic monitoring network on the volcano in the Aleutian Islands. Authorities say sudden eruptions could occur at any time, and ash clouds 20,000 feet above sea level are possible. –San Diego 6 Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, High-risk potential hazard zone, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcano Watch | 6 Comments ← Older posts Loading… ← Older posts Moderate earthquake strikes near East Java Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – EAST JAVA - A moderate earthquake measuring 5.1 in the Richter scale hit Indonesia’s East Java province at 06:09 local time on Thursday (2309 GMT on Wednesday), the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said here. The tremor was centered at 129 kilometers southwest Jember city and at depth of 15 kilometers under seabed. The agency did not release a tsunami warning. –Philstar Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Earthquake Omens?, High-risk potential hazard zone, Magma Plume activity, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcanic Eruption, Volcano Watch | 2 Comments Iran could recover from a military strike in six months Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – IRAN - Iran’s “workshops” for making nuclear centrifuges and components for the devices are widely dispersed and hidden, adding to the difficulties of a potential military strike by Israel, according to a new report by U.S. congressional researchers. A senior official surmised that Iran could recover from a military strike on its centrifuge facilities within six months. Neither Israel nor the U.S. is certain of the locations of all such facilities, analysts for the Congressional Research Service wrote in the report obtained Wednesday. The analysts cited interviews with current and former U.S. government officials familiar with the issue who weren’t identified. Qatar says no U.S. strike on Iran from its soil Israel’s capability to halt or set back Iran’s nuclear program through a military strike has been central to the debate over whether Israel should undertake such a mission alone. While U.S. President Barack Obama has urged more time for economic sanctions to work, Israeli officials led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak say it may soon be too late to prevent Iran from developing the capability to develop a nuclear weapon. The likelihood of dispersed facilities complicates any assessment of a potential raid’s success, making it “unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be on the likelihood of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons,” the report found. A U.S. official said in April 2011 that there “could be lots of workshops’ in Iran,” the authors said. Last month, a former U.S. government official with “direct experience” in the issue told the researchers that “Iran’s centrifuge production is widely distributed and that the number of workshops has probably multiplied ‘many times’ since 2005 because of an increase in Iranian contractors and subcontractors working on the program.” –Jerusalem Post Posted in Drumbeat of War, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War | 9 Comments Lava dome grows inside Anak Krakatau volcano – rattled by 438 quakes Posted on March 28, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 28, 2012 – INDONESIA - An active lava dome is growing inside the summit crater of Krakatau volcano. Our tour expedition leader Andi just returned from a visit and reports that the dome is now about 100 m wide, and has 2 main active vents that eject jets of incandescent gas. At night, the glow from the dome is clearly visible from Rakata and Sertung islands, and a continuous intense solfatara plume is rising about 500 m above the summit. Andi and our group observed also that there are now more and larger fumarole fields on the southern part of the cone. According to our observations and the opinion of local scientists, this area is inflated due to the pushing of the lava dome. The seismic recordings from the observatory of Krakatau also show an increase in activity. On 26 March, there were 138 volcanic-tectonic (A-type) earthquakes and 300 long-period (B-type) quakes alone. The question is how long the lava dome remains quiet and purely effusive in style. Explosive, also larger vulcanian-type ones, activity could occur any time. –Volcano Discovery Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, High-risk potential hazard zone, Magma Plume activity, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcano Watch | 16 Comments Double emissions of gas and st Posted July, 2010 A week ago, Israel leaked to the press that they had permission from Saudi Arabia to use their air space to attack Iran. The Saudi’s quickly denied this. The effort on Israel’s part was a ruse to cover their real plans, to attack from the Republic of Georgia, close to Iran’s northern border. However, the breakdown in relations with Turkey after miscalculating the response to their Flotilla raid on a Turkish ship in international waters may have ended this operation. Israel, whose arms agreements with Turkey mounted to nearly $5 billion dollars over a period of years, had been training pilots in Turkey for bombing attacks on Iran. During these training missions, Israel was smuggling aircraft through Turkish airspace. Sources indicate that Georgia has become a major transhipment point for narcotics from Afghanistan and other countries in the region. Both a land route through Turkey and into Northern Cyprus and air and sea routes directly into Europe and North America have been cited. Turkey had allowed Israel to use their air space for training because their terrain closely resembled areas of Iran that Israel planned to attack. However, Turkey was unaware that planes involved in this effort were being relocated to forward staging areas in the Republic of Georgia, making Turkey, technically, fully complicit in this planned illegal attack. Helping coordinate the attack are intelligence units forward stationed in Azerbaijan, under the guise of technicians, trainers and advisors under the broad armaments agreements with that small nation. Supply operations, moving necessary ordnance, much of it supplied by the United States under ammunition storage agreements, is being moved through the Black Sea to the Georgian Port of Poti, a major site for exporting coal and manganese ore. Cover for the supply operations is being performed by the Georgian Coast Guard, set up by Israel and manned with Israeli observers. Their job is to keep Russian surveillance craft away from supply operations under the guise of a “Gaza type” naval blockade of Abkhazia, a separatist province supported by Russia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia have both separated from the Republic of Georgia and are seeking independence with Russian backing. Georgia attempted to “reattach” South Ossetia with Israeli help in 2008 until Russian forces moved in after the killing of peacekeeping troops by Israeli “commandos.” US Naval forces began operating in the Black Sea in late May, with the USS Graple (T-ars 53), a service and salvage ship, visiting the George port of Poti for joint military exercises which ended June 8th. Prior to that, the last US Navy ship in the region was the USS John L. Hall (FFG-32), a Perry class guided missile frigate. A Russian spokesman said, “The US is trying to turn the Black Sea into an American lake.” The US is also maintaining a training and observation command in Tiblisi, a unit from Ramstein AFB in Germany, that is coordinating air traffic and radar functions. With regular visits by the US Navy scheduled and ramping up at the same convenient time Israel is building up its arms cache in Georgia for the upcoming attack on Iran, the current debacle with Turkey may have set things back or ended this gambit completely. Turkish air controllers had to know something was afoot when the attack bombers failed to return to the agreed upon flight plans and return to Israel. A critical issue, of course, is the S300 air defense system that Russia has agreed to withhold from Iran as part of the program of sanctions. The current Tor 1 system, though robust, can be defeated by a well planned low level attack. As the use of Georgia may be seen as a provocation by Russia, even if the attacks never manifest as anything other than more “firing blanks” like Israel’s tussle with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Russia may reconsider the delivery of this vital defense technology. Without the ability to use forward bases in either Georgia, Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan, Israel would be unable to attack Iran at all except by flying a circuitous 4500 mile “each way” route or using the limited capabilities of its nuclear armed submarine off the coast of Iran. It is uncertain how Turkey will deal with the illegal use of their airspace by Israel as relations are already at a low ebb. With a number of former Soviet airfields spread across Georgia and 4 of 5 fields in Azerbaijan available for operations and support, the region makes a perfect area for broad operations, not only against Iran but for movement of contraband of every variety. Research Archive PRESENTATIONS »(1996) – DAVID ICKE – TURNING OF THE TIDE (2h 13min.) Exposing the real story behind global events, which shape the future of human existence and the world we leave our children. The veil lifts on an astonishing web of interconnected manipulation to reveal that the same few people, secret societies and organizations control the daily direction of our lives, & how the same people on apparently different sides of politics are actually connected to the same elite organizations. Labels: Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), David Icke, Federal Reserve, Freemasonry, Illuminati, Microchips in Humans, Mind Control, One World Government, Trilateral Commision Rating: ***** IAN R. CRANE (2005)- THE 9/11 – 7/7 CONNECTION On Friday 22nd July 2005, Ian Crane opened the Glastonbury Symposium with an analysis of the sinister geopolitical webs that have been spun, resulting in the tragic events of 9/11 and 7/7. Just two weeks after 7/7, Ian’s research already indicated that the official version of the supposed ‘terror’ attacks in London cannot stand up to the scrutiny of research. The subsequent failed attacks on 21/7, the assassination of Jean-Charles Menezes the folowing day and the bombing at Sharm-El-Sheik in Egypt on July 23rd raise even more painful and very disturbing questions. This compilation of two live recordings (Glastonbury – 22nd July & Totnes – 30th August 2005) raises some very important and disturbing questions and is a ‘must see’ for anyone who still holds the view that the events of 9/11 and 7/7 were perpetrated by ‘Muslim fanatics’. Labels: Council on Foreign Relations, Project for the New American Century, False Flags, War on Terror Rating: **** WE! – Featuring the words of Arundhati Roy (64 mins.) This presentation examines the widely unregarded worlds of Anthropology and Geopolitics in a very dynamic manner, and is probably stylistically quite unlike any documentary that you have previously seen. It covers the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception and exploitation. It is particularly hard hitting when it comes to the United States and western powers in general. Its unconventional style has proven to be very successful in engaging younger viewers – many of whom find more traditional content dealing with these subjects quite dry and uninteresting. It is almost in the style of a music video, featuring contemporary music (lush, curve, love & rockets, boards of canada, nine inch nails, dead can dance, amon tobin, massive attack, totoise, telepop, placebo and faith less) overlaid with the words of Arundhati Roy, and images of humanity and the world we live in today. Labels: War on Terror, Imperial Power, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israeli Apartheid, Zionism, Rating: ***** JOHN PILGER – FREEDOM NEXT TIME Australian journalist, author, film maker John Pilger speaks about global media consolidation, war by journalism, US military’s quest for domination/hegemony in the post 9/11 era, false history in the guise of ‘objective’ journalism. Filmed in Chicago at Socialism 2007: Socialism for the 21st Century by Paul Hubbard. June 16, 2007 Broadcast on Democracy Now – The War and Peace Report – August 7, 2007 Labels: Imperial Power, Iraq, Palestine, Media, Propaganda Rating: **** MS V – Bohemian Grove the EU and a Rose Labels: Bohemian Grove, European Union, Civil Liberties, Lisbon Treaty Rating: *** David Icke – Freedom or Fascism (2006) – 7h Labels: Illuminati, New World Order, Occult Symbolism, Freemasonry, Bush, Blair, Mind Control, 9/11, War on Terror, Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, World Government, European Union, AMERO, Iraq, Afghanistan, Microchips, ID Cards, Civil Liberties, Big Brother, Secret Societies Rating: ***** John Harris – ‘It’s an illusion’ talk at the Stoke ‘Lawful Rebellion’ Conference Ian R Crane – The Project for the New American Century (May 2008 – Liverpool) Ian R. Crane in Stockholm Sweden, Codex Alimentarius 2008… Michael Tsarion – 2012 – The Future of Mankind (Los Angeles – 2006) Jordan Maxwell -Basic Slideshow Presentation (Hidden Symbols) DAVID ICKE – Secrets Of The Matrix part 1/3 part 2/3 part 3/3 Michael Crichton: States of Fear – Science or Politics? Brian Gerrish – ‘State of the Nation 2′ at BCG Conference London 13th June 2009 Lord Christopher Monckton Speaking at Bethel University on Global Warming INTERVIEWS Ms V The UK Being Suppressed In The News The Fabian Socialists are having their way. Tony Blair is handing the Uk over to the EU. The people are being lied to and the news being spun by hidden manipulators. The unelected European Commission passes down its dictates to the rubber stamp European Parliament. Borders being taken down. Mass immigration. European Police European Army and rapid reaction force coming. The people were not asked. Labels: UK, Civil Liberties, European Union, Interview Rating: *** Is The European Union the New Soviet Union? (4mins.) by Vladimir Bukovsky writer and Lecturer David Icke interview at Jeff Rense – Jan. 2009 – (AUDIO) Tony Gosling (Bilderberg.org) at Now that’s Weird Why Princess Diana was assassinated, Bilderbergs, the New World Order, control of the news media in Britain, 7/7 and 9/11. These are just some of the topics covered in this episode of “Now That’s Wierd”. One watch of which of this 45 minute show reminds us just how many subjects are reported in a biased way or not reported at all within the NATO countries. Tony Gosling is an ex-BBC local radio reporter and researcher and now editor of his own Bilderberg.org website and a 9/11 discussion forum www.911forum.org.uk which takes a serious look at some of the holes in the official ‘terrorism’ stories on which the so-called War on Terror is based. Interview is by Ross Hemsworth. Labels: Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, New World Order, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 9/11, World Bank, IMF, 7/7 London Bombings Labels: **** WEBSTER TARPLEY – THE MEN BEHIND BARACK OBAMA Labels: Obama, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pakistan, Iraq, Russia, China, Afghanistan Rating: **** Ms V – The EU Crippling & Destroying a Nation – Update and Fate of UK (2007) Ms V reveals more about the news of the plight of her country in the continuing battle against the European Union and her own country’s internal traitors. They, ruling by Fear and stealth, who would sell out their own country to a foreign power. Spying on its own citizens, diminishing control over its own affairs, they are handing over the UK to the EU Superstate which is not a Democracy as we know it! You can help put a stop to this by informing yourself and others. Labels: Civil Liberties, European Union, UK Rating: **** »David Icke – Interview at Coast to Coast AM (Audio) 2006 »David Icke – Interview at Coast to Coast AM (Audio) 2008 »Gerald Celente – 23/12/2008 – Audio - Historic Interview with Aaron Russo, Fighting the New World Order… Hollywood director Russo goes in-depth for first time on the astounding admissions of Nick Rockefeller, including his prediction of 9/11 and the war on terror hoax, the Rockefeller’s creation of women’s lib, and the elite’s ultimate plan for world population reduction and a microchipped society Aaron Russo joins Alex Jones for a fascinating sit-down in depth video interview on a plethora of important subjects. »Noam Chomsky Interview on CBC Ms V Reveals The Hidden Agenda of the European Union An evening with Ms V as she details the takeover of The United Kingdom by the European Union. Some UK Newspapers are telling all and trying to get the word out to the people. They are up against the machinery of the EU and a Blair government who’s mission is to hand over the UK to the EU. Fabian Socialist sympathetic Blair is leaving, his successor Gordon Brown gave a speech to the Annual Fabian Society get together at Imperial College London. He is a cut of the same cloth. See and hear as Ms V details the depth of trouble her country is in and as illustrated in the news. How the country is being dumbed down and manipulated with political correctness, endess regulation, rfid, gps, road cameras, and surveillance society methods. 1984 is here. Next, watch as US cities employ traffic cameras and surveillance on every street corner in the city just as the UK does now. Labels: Civil Liberties, New World Order, Totalitarian Tiptoe, Big Brother, European Society, Fabian Society, Illuminati, Mind Control, One World Government, UK Rating: *** Professor Antony Sutton on the Skull and Bones Secret Society Danish Scientist on TV: Nano-thermite Behind Collapse of WTC Buildings on 9/11, Not Planes… Conversations with History: Amira Hass… Michael Tsarion on the Alex Jones Show (Audio) Part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 David Icke interviewed on Edge Media TV ‘Now That’s Weird’ 23rd of October 2008 Webster Tarpley Radio Interview Project Camelot interviews Jane Burgermeister Interview – Professor Antony Sutton: Wall Street & the rise of Hitler Prof. Antony Sutton Lecture (1976) Bilderberg Group 2009 Bilderberg Participant List (Athens – Greece) 2008 Bilderberg Participant List 2007 Bilderber Participant List 2005 Bilderberg Participant List 2004 Bilderberg Participant List 1999 Bilderberg Participant List (Portugal) 1997 Bilderber Participant List (Atlanta – USA) 1988 Bilderberg Participant List Skull and Bones The Skull and Bones secret society of Yale University Skull & Bones Membership List in Alphabetical Order The Order of the Skull & Bones; the Eugenic Societies; and Population Control organisations Tavistock Institute Tavistock The Best Kept Secret in America Global Mind Control Through Crisis Creation – TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations – John Coleman http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1082990/The-Tavistock-Institute-of-Human-Relations—Shaping-the-Moral-Spiritual-Cultural-Political-and-Economic-Decline-of-The-United-States-of-America Illuminati & New World Order Illuminati: The Hidden Agenda for World Government History of the New World Order New World Order I: World Communism, Club of Rome Tells G20 New World Order II. The Ruling Class and World Governance Are Our Nations´ Treason Against Us The 13 illuminati Bloodlines FREE BOOK ON LINE – The top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines by Fritz Springmeier (Pdf) Rockefeller, Trilateral-Bilderberger Boss Joe Nye Camaigning For Puppet Obama By Webster Tarpley Albert Pike and Three World Wars Freemasonry The Light Behind Masonry – Bill Schnoebelen (2h:25m – 2006) HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY by Juri Lina (2005) (53 mins.) Anything To Declare? – BBC Southern Eye Freemasonry & Vested Interests (30m. – 2000) Documentary – Shadows in motion – Exposing the New World Order (57 min.) Rites And Wrongs – ITV West Freemasonry documentary, West Eye View (30m.- 1999) Rites And Wrongs – ITV West Freemasonry documentary, West Eye View (30m.- 1999) Riddles In Stone – Secret Architecture of Washington, D.C. (2h:55m – 2008) Masonic Government – www.saintsalive.com/freemasonry Architects Of Deception Secret History Of Freemasonry by Juri Lina (PDF) Fabian Society The Crimes of The Fabian Socialist NWO The Fabian Society, the Freemasonry and the Beehive Trilateral Commission & Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Trilateral Commission membership list 2008 The Trilateral Commission – A Council on Foreign Relation front organization The Facts on the Trilateral Commission Show New World Order Plot The Council on Foreign Relations to Govern the World by Means of David Rockefeller´s Studies Program Council on Foreign Relations & The Federal Reserve Council on Foreign Relations, Abortion, & Population Control CFR Presidential Candidates CFR Members 1992, 1990, 1988, 1987, 1985, 1984 CFR/Trilateral Members MICROCHIPS IN HUMANS Some News: Barcelona clubbers get chipped Identity Chip Planted Under Skin Approved for Use in Health Care Tesco ‘spychips’ anger consumers One generation is all they need FULL BOOKS ON LINE »ILLUMINATI: Proofs of a Conspiracy Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe (FULL BOOK) >»Antony C. Sutton – Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution (pdf doc.) »Antony C. Sutton – Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler – 1975 (pdf.) »Antony C. Sutton – America´s Secret Establishment “An Introduction to Order of Skull and Bones (pdf) »Antony C. Sutton – Trilaterals Over America (pdf.) »George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography by Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin pdf. »John Pilger – Paying The Price – AN EXCERPT FROM HIS BOOK T H E N E W R U L E R S O F T H E W O R L D – pdf doc. - »Michel Chossudovsky – Desarming the NEW WORLD ORDER – pdf doc. »The Rise of the Fourth Reich by Jim Marrs (447 pags.) – FREE BOOK ON-LINE Depleted Uranium a tool to depopulate the world »Secret Societies Exposed by RIE + The Elite Serial Killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK & MLK »Council on Foreign Relations & The Federal Reserve »Masters of the Universe Go to Camp: Inside the Bohemian Grove (from spy magazine 1989) »CLUB OF ROME »Depleted Uranium »A History Of US Secret Human Experimentation… »The Fluoride Conspiracy… »THE U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK! »The Military records of George Walker Bush… »FULL DISCLOSURE – The truth about the AIDS epidemic by dr. Gary Glum (pdf.) »The Council on Foreign Relations and The New World Order Boheminan Grove membership list Satanic Occult Symbols in Washington D.C. American Aristocracy: The George Bush/John Kerry Family Tree THE EMPIRE OF “THE CITY” The Illuminati – vatican Connection Revealed (pdf.) How Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power The Bush Family Oligarchy Funding The Hitler Project Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 299 other followers Search NWO Observer MEDIA WATCH (Goldman Sachs taking over Europe) 292 views 19 Nov 11 01 Follow me on Vodpod Categories Civil Liberties Economy Food Control Global Warming? Human Rights II Cold War Illegal Occupation Imperial Power Israeli Apartheid New World Order Problem Reaction Solution Propaganda Totalitarian Tiptoe Uncategorized War Crimes War on Terror World Hegemony World War III Tags 9/11 Afghanistan Big Brother Bilderberg Group British Army Bush CIA Civilian Casualties Contractors Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Crimes Against Humanity Depleted Uranium Depopulation Agenda Documentaries European Union False Flags Federal Reserve Gaza Illuminati International Banksters Iran Iraq Israel Media Microchips in Humans Multinational Corporations NATO Nuclear Weapons Obama Obama's Wars Oil One World Government Opinion Pakistan Palestine Pentagon Rockefeller Rothschild Surveillance Society Swine Flu UK United Nations USA US Army You Tube Videos Recent Posts Money Power World Rule Who Really Controls the World? The Global Financial Dictatorship Vs. Iran Financial Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion Documentary – On Modern Servitude (2009) by Jean-François Brient 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History The Elite Plan for a New World Social Order “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” – A Summary New geopolitical orientation completed: What do the killings of Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi have in common? The Order of the Illuminati: Its Origins, Its Methods and Its Influence on the World Events Prepare For Armageddon Morbid Addiction: CIA & the Drug Trade The Coming Derivatives Crisis That Could Destroy The Entire Global Financial System Eurasian Project a Threat to New World Order Afghanistan: Ten Years of Illegal Occupation The Wonderful World of Tony Blair 9/11 – Occult Trauma-Based Mind Control The Curse of Cluster Bombs Blaming Wall Street Is Wrong America’s “worst enemy” NATO’s War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China’s National Energy Security Where Is Activist Post? 2011 Clinton Global Citizen Awards Resisting the Corporate Theft of Seeds Janus – Illuminati God Of Chaos and Deception What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war? Tony Blair glorifies his war crimes yet again under the 9/11 brand Deliberate Impoverishment of the Western World Unending “9/11s”: “A Sad Kind of Freedom.” 911 Experts Speak Out FedEx and Pepsi Are Top Defense Contractors? 5 Corporate Brands Making a Killing on America’s Wars AFTER 9/11: TEN YEARS OF WAR The post-9/11 decade of lies Libya and the world we live in The Legend of 9/11 — 10 Years On Globalists to Rebuild Libya Dick Cheney, the Ultimate American Terrorist The Toxic Legacy of Agent Orange Making wars is biggest industry in U.S. Libya: The criminal face of imperialism Recent Comments awapuhi on Documentary – On Modern Servitude (2009) by Jean-François Brient awapuhi on Documentary – On Modern Servitude (2009) by Jean-François Brient Bank Card USA on Global Mind Control Through Crisis Creation – TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE Bank Card USA on American Corporatocracy jm herbsman on Who Really Controls the World? Porter on 10 Reasons Obama is Just As Bad or Worse Than Bush Hilary Cunton on The Kill Team: making of a war crime Anonymous on 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History CCTV on Big Brother is DEFINITELY watching you: UK has one CCTV for every 32 people ashley on 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History T on 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History DARLENE C. MORGAN on The Truth Of Iraq’s City Of Deformed Babies DARLENE C. MORGAN on The Truth Of Iraq’s City Of Deformed Babies Fr. John+ on Documentary – In the Shadow of Hermes by Jüri Lina (2011) Emmitt Jeremiah on Oil, blood money, and Blair’s last scandal Twitter Updates 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History http://t.co/vi6sA37Y 4 months ago The Elite Plan for a New World Social Order http://t.co/7H2Wj0mJ 4 months ago “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” – A Summary Blueprint of the PNAC Plan for U.S. Global Hegemony http://t.co/rFGr9AZt 4 months ago New geopolitical orientation completed: What do the killings of Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi have in common? http://t.co/TAX18hiJ 4 months ago The Order of the Illuminati: Its Origins, Its Methods and Its Influence on the World Events http://t.co/glrSdhTm 4 months ago Prepare For Armageddon http://t.co/ykkR5ylp 5 months ago Morbid Addiction: CIA & the Drug Trade http://t.co/VkGsWz7t 5 months ago The Coming Derivatives Crisis That Could Destroy The Entire Global Financial System http://t.co/PxymTcNv 5 months ago Eurasian Project a Threat to New World Order http://t.co/4WbJ6wwM 5 months ago VIDEO - Afghanistan: Ten Years of Illegal Occupation http://t.co/XxPicOR9 5 months ago The Wonderful World of Tony Blair http://t.co/LfHpcIPd 5 months ago 9/11 – Occult Trauma-Based Mind Control http://t.co/D1nqkJRZ 5 months ago The Curse of Cluster Bombs http://t.co/cCwUP0Iy 5 months ago Blaming Wall Street Is Wrong http://t.co/81URfoKu 5 months ago America’s “worst enemy” http://t.co/Gs2dSrUW 5 months ago NATO’s War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China’s National Energy Security http://t.co/oKSeWM30 6 months ago Where Is Activist Post? http://t.co/2qZUIcci 6 months ago 2011 Clinton Global Citizen Awards http://t.co/rRQGReyd 6 months ago Resisting the Corporate Theft of Seeds http://t.co/gGSHSvn5 6 months ago Janus – Illuminati God Of Chaos and Deception http://t.co/iA1xYmKl 6 months ago Blogroll Activist Post Aftermath News Andrew Gavin Marshall Anthony Lawson Antiwar.com Axis of Logic Bilderberg.org (UK) BlackListedNews Boiling Frogs bushstole04.com Common Dreams Conspiracy Scope (USA) ContraComa CounterPunch Crossed Crocodiles David Icke Dean Henderson Euro-med.dk Food Freedom Foreign Policy Journal FourWinds10.com George Monbiot Global Research (Canada) Guardian Illusion of Power Information Clearing House Infowars International Mens Organisation IslandOnLineNews.com John Pilger Land Destroyer Report Legaysavoir (France) Lord Stirling Mogadishu Man MORPHcity Nasir Khan Blog Navdanya Neithercorp Press New Dawn Magazine Old-Thinker News Pak Alert Press Palestine Cry Peter Eyre's Space Politically Confused (UK) Pratinho de Couratos (Portugal) Pravda Pulse Media Puppetworld Post RAWA News RedSkyWarning (Greece) Rense.com Richard Cassaro RT Sovereign Independent Stop Nato Stop the War Coalition Strategic Culture Foundation The American Dream The Daily Bell The Economic Collapse The Electronic Intifada The Intel Hub The Peoples Voice Truthout Uruknet Veterans Today Vigilant Citizen War Is A Crime Web of Debt What Really Happened Wise Up Journal Z Communications Zen Gardner Archives December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009

7

Iranian dog-lover Andia caresses a puppy as she brings food donations to the Vafa animal shelter in the town of Hashtgerd, some 70 km west of the capital Tehran, on June 30, 2011. The first animal shelter in Iran, the non-government charity relies on private donations and volunteers to provide shelter to injured and homeless dogs in Iran. Canine lovers in the Islamic Republic were faced with a motion put forth by lawmakers to ban the public appearance of dogs due to their "uncleanness" and to combat "a blind imitation of vulgar Western culture." If the motion becomes law, first-time offenders will be fined five million rials (472 USD or 337 euros) and will be given a 10-day period to get rid of the dog or face the canine's confiscation to an unknown fate. (Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images) #

8

Sevan Shahmirian, a member of the underground music band "Wednesday Call" prepares for a practice session at a home music studio in Tehran, on July 7, 2011. Many Iranian bands do not bother asking for the mandatory government permits to release their music and seek contracts with foreign companies or put their music on websites blocked by the state but still accessible to anyone with a modicum of technical skill. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

9

Iranians enjoy their holidays, at the seaside, as kites fly, in Babolsar at the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, 150 mi (250 km) northeast of the capital Tehran, on July 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

10

Wearing traditional dress, Salameh Bazmandegan, poses during a visit to "Darreyeh Setaregan" or Stars Valley, a tourist site on the Iranian island of Qeshm, which oversees the strategic waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, on December 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

11

Iranian villagers work in a rice field during the annual harvest season on the outskirts of the city of Amol, in Mazandran province, on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea, on July 30, 2011. Rice is the main staple in Iranian cuisine. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images) #

12

An Iranian man wears Santa Claus costume, as he stands in front of a shop with Christmas decorations, in central Tehran, on December 20, 2011. (AP Photo) #

13

A woman walks past corn as she arrives at a holy shrine to attend a mass prayer ceremony before breaking her fast during the month of Ramadan in northern Tehran, on August 4, 2011. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

14

The Chogha Zanbil Ziggurat near Susa, in Khuzestan province, southwestern Iran, photographed on September 29, 2011. The ziggurat was built around 1250 BC by the king Untash-Napirisha, and in 1979 it became the first Iranian site to be included on the UNESCO World Heritage List. (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi) #

15

An evening view shows Tehran on Monday, October 31, 2011. (AP Photo) #

16

Iranian female kart racer, Solmaz Hamzehzadeh, foreground, competes during an Iranian Karting championship race, at the Azadi sport complex, in Tehran, on June 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

17

Snowy, a Caspian miniature horse, in a garden near the city of Karaj, 45km (28 miles) northwest of Tehran, on June 17, 2011. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

18

Covering her face with a traditional veil, a vendor works at her produce shop on the island of Qeshm, Iran, on December 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

19

Iranian Shiite Muslims beat their shoulders with iron chains, during an Ashura holy day ritual, mourning the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of Prophet Muhammad, in downtown Tehran, on December 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

20

Tuche Ayar, a member of the Cerbrus Turkish robotic team, prepares her robot before a soccer match during the 6th RoboCup Iran Open 2011 Competitions soccer match in Tehran, on April 7, 2011. (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi) #

21

A view of Palangan village in Kurdistan province, about 660 km (412 miles) southwest of Tehran, on May 11, 2011. Iranian Shi'ite and Sunni Kurds live in harmony with each other in Palangan, although Sunni is the religion of the majority of the people. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

22

Iranian Jewish men pray during Hanukkah celebrations at the Yousefabad Synagogue, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, December 27, 2011. Iran's population of 75 million includes about 20,000 Jews, the largest community in the Middle East outside Israel, and they face no restriction on their religious practice, though they must follow Islamic dress codes such as head scarves for women. They have one Jewish representative in the parliament under the constitution. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

23

A weaver works on a carpet at a carpet workshop in Isfahan, Iran, on November 14, 2011. Persian carpets can be mostly divided into three size groups: large (3x4 meters), medium (2x3 meters) and small (1x1.5 meters), which is called Ghaliche. For a larger 24-square-meter silk carpet, every 70 cm (27.5 inches) section takes about a month to make. The price of each carpet is set by officials from Iran's national carpet company after examining each completed work. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

24

Supporters of Iranian soccer team Persepolis, prior to start of the match with Esteghlal in their 73rd derby, during Iran's Jam-e-Hazfi, or Elimination Cup, at the Azadi (Freedom) stadium in Tehran, on December 9, 2011. Iran's two giant soccer teams fought in a quarter final match of the cup and Esteghlal won 3-0. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

25

Iranian rollerbladers wait to hear whistle of referee, to start their competition, in a women's rollerblading championship league, at the Azadi (Freedom) sport complex, in Tehran, on June 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

26

Earthen prayer turbahs in a prayer hall during the 7th International Conference of Mahdism Doctrine in Tehran, on July 14, 2011. Turbahs are small pieces of soil or clay symbolizing earth, used by some Shia schools during their daily prayers. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

27

Satellite dishes which were smashed by Iran's police are left at a housing estate in Tehran, on June 4, 2011. Iran outlawed satellite dishes in the mid-1990s as part of efforts to curb what it considers Western cultural aggression, but the ban was largely ignored under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's predecessor Mohammad Khatami who tried to increase social freedoms after he was elected in 1997. However, hardliners have pressed for renewed restrictions after Ahmadinejad took office in 2005. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

28

Iranian youths shoot water at each other with water guns, during water fights at the Water and Fire Park in northern Tehran, on July 29, 2011. During the summer, Iran was trying to put down a new wave of civil disobedience - flash mobs of young people who broke into boisterous fights with water guns in public parks. Dozens of water fighters were arrested and a top judiciary official warned that "counter-revolutionaries" were behind them. (AP Photo/Milad Beheshti) #

29

A woman poses for a picture in front of the beached Greek ship Moula F, during sunset off Kish Island, 1,250 km (777 miles) south of Tehran, on April 27, 2011. The ship ran aground on the southwest side of the island en route to Greece and was abandoned after salvage efforts proved unfeasible. (Reuters/Caren Firouz) #

30

Iranian Ghashghai men play a traditional game called Dorna Bazi during a nomadic pastoralist festival in northern Tehran, on September 16, 2011. The Ghashghai are Iran's largest nomadic pastoralist group who live in Fars, Khuzestan and southern Isfahan province. Each year they travel with their flocks from Shiraz in the hot season to the winter pastures near the Persian Gulf. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

31

An Iranian family walks on the solidified salts of Oroumieh Lake, some 370 mi (600 km) northwest of Tehran, on April 29, 2011.

Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, subs in the Gulf: the Israeli military encirclement of Iran – prelude?

 

March 30, 2012 – ISRAEL - Last week, it was announced by Info Live that the Israelis were using military bases in Kurdistan to launch surveillance flights into Iran. Now, the three-way tension between the United States, Israel, and Iran became tenser this week with a widely cited report that Israel is developing a “secret staging ground” in Iran’s neighbor to the north – Azerbaijan – for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Quoting unnamed senior US diplomats and military intelligence officials, a lengthy article in Foreign Policy magazine asserts that “Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran’s northern border. The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official is quoted as saying, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.” Why would US officials be talking about this? Likely to slow down any rush to war in an already volatile region, some speculate. “I think this leak today is part of the administration’s campaign against an Israeli attack,” former US diplomat John Bolton said Thursday on Fox News. “Clearly, this is an administration-orchestrated leak,” Mr. Bolton said, adding, “It’s just unprecedented to reveal this kind of information about one of your own allies.” The challenge for Israel in planning such a strike is the long distance to potential targets – some 2,000 miles round-trip – for its F-15 and F-16 fighters. Planning for such strikes always involves tradeoffs between fuel and bombs. Bases in nearby Azerbaijan (including abandoned former Soviet airfields) could be used for landing and refueling after any strike, allowing Israeli jets to carry more ordnance. Such airfields also could be a staging point for search-and-rescue helicopters that might be necessary to recover downed Israeli pilots. They also could be used to launch drone aircraft for bomb damage assessment once any strike is concluded. Israel and Azerbaijan have developed an economic military relationship over the years. Israel buys oil from Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan recently agreed to buy $1.6 billion in military hardware from Israel, including drones, antiaircraft, and missile-defense systems. This week’s report of a possible basing agreement with Israel does nothing to improve the relationship between neighbors Azerbaijan and Iran. -CSM

32

An Iranian-Kurd woman talks on her mobile phone as she walks in a bazaar while shopping in Marivan in Kurdistan province, 512 km (318 miles) west of Tehran, on May 12, 2011. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

33

A trader stands in Tabriz historic market, 633 km (393 miles) northwest of Tehran, early in the morning of August 28, 2011. The Tabriz market was located along the Silk Road trade route and comprised of interlinked structures and spaces for various commercial, religious and educational uses. This market was registered as a UNESCO heritage site on July 31, according to UNESCO's website. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

34

Iranian Christians pray during New Year Mass at the Vank church in the central city of Isfahan, Iran, on Sunday, January 1, 2012. According to both Iranian and Western sources, approximately 300,000 Christians live in Iran, the majority of them belonging to the Armenian Apostolic Church of Iran. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

35

An Iranian Sunni Kurd shepherd carries a lamb as he walks on a road next to a grassland in Divandare in Kurdistan province, 540 km (338 miles) west of Tehran, on May 13, 2011. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

36

Iranian archer Shiva Mafakheri aims at a target during horseback archery competitions, in Tehran, on May 28, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) #

37

Shahram Khodaie, a disabled Iranian, tries to play the keyboard by using a tool with his mouth during a music therapy session at the Kahrizak nursing home, in southern Tehran, on June 25, 2011. Picture taken June 25, 2011. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

38

Noora (right) and Shahrzad Naraghi practice on a motocross track in the mountains overlooking Tehran, on July 3, 2011. Shahrzad Naraghi started riding motocross eight years ago to spend more time with her daughter Noora who became interested in the sport after watching her father compete in races, and began riding motorcycles at the age of four. The pair raced against each other at first and in women's only motocross races in Iran in 2009. In 2010, Noora travelled to the United States, completed training courses and raced in competitions sponsored by the American Motorcyclist Association. Women are banned from driving motorcycles on the streets of Iran. (Reuters/Caren Firouz) #

39

The stained hand of a worker at a carpet workshop in Qom, 120 km (75 mi) south of Tehran, on November 12, 2011. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #

40

Nature lovers prepare before a trash disposal campaign in the Miankaleh area, 250 km (155 mi) northeast of Tehran , onSeptember 22, 2011. The Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), an NGO organization, arranged a symbolic trash disposal campaign with 200 environmentally friendly people, along the Caspian Sea. They collected more than 3 tons of trash.

Iran could recover from a military strike in six months

Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol

March 29, 2012 – IRAN - Iran’s “workshops” for making nuclear centrifuges and components for the devices are widely dispersed and hidden, adding to the difficulties of a potential military strike by Israel, according to a new report by U.S. congressional researchers. A senior official surmised that Iran could recover from a military strike on its centrifuge facilities within six months. Neither Israel nor the U.S. is certain of the locations of all such facilities, analysts for the Congressional Research Service wrote in the report obtained Wednesday. The analysts cited interviews with current and former U.S. government officials familiar with the issue who weren’t identified. Qatar says no U.S. strike on Iran from its soil Israel’s capability to halt or set back Iran’s nuclear program through a military strike has been central to the debate over whether Israel should undertake such a mission alone. While U.S. President Barack Obama has urged more time for economic sanctions to work, Israeli officials led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak say it may soon be too late to prevent Iran from developing the capability to develop a nuclear weapon. The likelihood of dispersed facilities complicates any assessment of a potential raid’s success, making it “unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be on the likelihood of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons,” the report found. A U.S. official said in April 2011 that there “could be lots of workshops’ in Iran,” the authors said. Last month, a former U.S. government official with “direct experience” in the issue told the researchers that “Iran’s centrifuge production is widely distributed and that the number of workshops has probably multiplied ‘many times’ since 2005 because of an increase in Iranian contractors and subcontractors working on the program.” –Jerusalem Post

41

Customers use computers at an internet cafe in Tehran, on May 9, 2011. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and countless others were banned shortly after the re-election of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the huge street protests that followed. Seen by the government as part of a "soft war" waged by the enemies of the Islamic Republic, social networking and picture sharing sites were a vital communication tool for the anti-Ahmadinejad opposition. In Iran, trying to access Facebook on a normal Internet line will redirect the user to a filter page, which says blocked sites are those considered criminal, that offend "Islamic sanctities" or insult public and government officials. But, for many Iranians, bypassing the government filter is as easy as switching on the computer. (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi) #

AIPAC controls the US Congress through its network of Political Action Committees that follow AIPAC’s instructions on which candidates to politically and financially support, and which candidates to jettison. The incumbent Israeli Prime Minister travels to Washington to personally lobby members of Congress. He also hosts visiting congressional delegations on their regular trips to Israel.  An annual address to AIPAC is an essential part of that lobbying campaign. This year, Prime Minister Netanyahu had Iran at the top of his agenda.  He wants, and he fully expects, President Obama and the Congress to support Israel in its military assault against Iran’s nuclear installations. There is no guarantee that Iran is even close to developing a nuclear capability, but in Netanyahu’s mind, even the possibility that Iran might one day develop an operational nuclear arms capability is sufficient cause for Israel, backed by the  US, to destroy Iranian nuclear sites. In short, the prime minister is ready for war against Iran, and he expects the US to fall in line behind him. The irony of this arrogance is that Israel may well be at its lowest point of support from the world community.

Painter Iran Darroudi poses for a portrait in front of one of her paintings at her home in Tehran, on April 12, 2011. A new chapter has opened for Iranian artists enjoying a boom in sales and interest from major international auction houses such as Christie's despite a global economic malaise and sanctions hitting Iran. Works by Iranian painters have been selling for fairly high prices, not only outside Iran's borders but also inside the Islamic state where many Iranians are facing economic hardship. Darroudi, who champions the work of women artists and has had many exhibitions throughout the world is also happy with the buoyant market, but says Iranians buy art for enjoyment and education not investment.

Iranians Morteza Alavi and Mehdi Hagh Badri fly with a tandem paraglider over northwestern Tehran, on May 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) # A worker stands in front of an Iranian handmade carpet at a carpet workshop in Kashan, 240 km (149 miles) south of Tehran, on November 13, 2011. Persian carpet weaving is a historical part of Iranian culture, dating back to as far as approximately 2,000 years ago. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl) #   Amin Gholami, right, dances in Azeri-style as Aydin Kanani plays a Gaval, a large tambourine, in the Gharadagh mountainous area in northwestern, Iran, on October 26, 2011. In the 1980s, Iran's music almost vanished. Music schools went into full recession, police or militias stopped cars to check what passengers were listening to and broke tapes playing pre-revolutionary singers, and clerical institutions even banned music as un-Islamic. But Iran's social life has dramatically changed a decade later, with a landslide victory of former President Mohammad Khatami relaxing some of rigid restrictions on cultural and social activities, including bans on music bands, but Iran has recently tightened censorship of books, films, and music since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power. The eclipse of the moon is seen behind the Milad tower in Tehran, on June 16, 2011. (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi) # Iranian women pray at the historical Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan on August 31, 2011 on the first day of Eid al-Fitr in the predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. (Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images) #

Gunfire from a pro-government militia killed one man and wounded several others Monday after hundreds of thousands of chanting opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marched in central Tehran to support their pro-reform leader in his first public appearance since disputed elections. The outpouring in Azadi, or Freedom, Square for reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi followed a decision by Iran’s most powerful figure for an investigation into the vote-rigging allegations. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered an investigation into fraud allegations in Ahmadinejad’s re-election that have sparked the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. The move came after Khamenei had urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad a day after Friday’s election and called the result a “divine assessment.” As supreme leader, Khamenei has final say in all government matters in Iran — above the elected president and parliament — wielding power through his domination of unelected clerical bodies, as well as the judiciary and security forces, including the elite Revolutionary Guard. (AP) 1 An Iranian man paints over campaign slogans near the headquarters of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was set for a landslide victory in Iran's presidential race, crushing his moderate rival and Western hopes of change in the Islamic republic. But supporters of his main challenger, ex-premier Mousavi, cried foul and some were beaten by police as they gathered in Tehran to await the final results, an AFP correspondent said. Mousavi's name is written in green while Ahmadinejad's name is written on top of it (L) in black. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 2 A supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi shouts slogans during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner by a landslide in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, triggering riots by opposition supporters and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 3 An injured supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi covers his bloodied face during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner by a landslide in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, triggering riots by opposition supporters and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 4 Supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi stand near a burning bus during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner by a landslide in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, triggering riots by opposition supporters and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 5 A supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi flashes the victory sign as fellow demonstrators shout slogans during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner by a landslide in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, triggering riots by opposition supporters and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 6 Iranians run for cover during riots by supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Police fired tear gas at rioters in Tehran as supporters of Mousavi swept through the Iranian capital, some pelting stones at baton-wielding policemen in protest at the disputed election results. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 7 An injured Iranian riot policeman (L) is evacuated during riots by supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran on June 13, 2009. Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a crushing victory in Iran's hotly-disputed presidential vote, according to official results that triggered mass opposition protests. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 8 Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tyres and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 9 Supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad celebrate during a rally at Valiasr square on June 14, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. Crowds of people gathered in central Tehran to celebrate the re-election of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won a second four-year term in a landslide election victory on June 12. (Photo by Majid/Getty Images) # 10 Thousands of supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hold portraits of the president whilst waving national flags during a rally in Valiasr square on June 14, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. Tens of thousands of people have joined a rally in central Tehran to celebrate the re-election of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president won a second four-year term in a landslide election victory on June 12, 2009. (Photo by Majid/Getty Images) # 11 Thousands of supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hold portraits of the president whilst waving national flags during a rally in Valiasr square on June 14, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. Tens of thousands of people have joined a rally in central Tehran to celebrate the re-election of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president won a second four-year term in a landslide election victory on June 12, 2009. (Photo by Majid/Getty Images) # 12 Iranian plain clothes policemen beat a demonstrator with batons during a protest against the election results in Tehran on June 14, 2009. Violence erupted for the second day in Tehran as supporters of the Islamic republic's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's closest challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi clashed with riot police after an election that has set off deep divisions in the oil-rich republic. (AFP/Getty Images) # 13 A supporter of Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (portrait-L) holds up a poster bearing a picture of Jerusalem's holy Dome of the Rock mosque with the slogan "Our war will culminate with the takeover of Palestine", during a massive rally to celebrate his victory in the presidential elections in Tehran's Valiasr square on June 14, 2009. Ahmadinejad defended his June 12 re-election but his defeated rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, demanded the result be scrapped, setting the stage for further tense confrontations after the authorities cracked down on opposition protests. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 14 Iranian students, supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, try to keep clear of tear gas at the main entrance of Tehran university during riots in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, June 14, 2009. Iranian youth opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the streets Sunday, setting trash dumpsters and tires on fire, in a second day of clashes triggered by voter fraud claims. (AP Photo) # 15 Iranian demonstrators run for cover as policemen use tear gas to disperse the crowd during a protest against the election results in Tehran on June 14, 2009. Violence erupted for the second day in Tehran as supporters of the Islamic republic's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's closest challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi clashed with riot police after an election that has set off deep divisions in the oil-rich republic. (AFP/Getty Images) # 16 Supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, react, as he speaks at a rally in Vali Asr square in Tehran, Iran Sunday, June 14, 2009. Protesters set fires and smashed store windows Sunday in a second day of violence as groups challenging President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election tried to keep pressure on authorities but Ahmadinejad dismissed the unrest, the worst in a decade in Tehran, as "not important." (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 17 Supporters of Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wave national flags (R) during a massive rally to celebrate his victory in the presidential elections in Tehran's Valiasr square on June 14, 2009. Ahmadinejad defended his June 12 re-election but his defeated rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, demanded the result be scrapped, setting the stage for further tense confrontations after the authorities cracked down on opposition protests. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 18 Riot police look on as supporters of opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi march in Tehran, Iran, on Monday, June 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in silence through central Tehran on Monday to protest Iran?s disputed presidential election in an extraordinary show of defiance that appeared to be the largest antigovernment demonstration here since the 1979 revolution. (The New York Times) # 19 A suspected member of a pro-government militia, center, is taken away by unidentified people after he was beaten by demonstrators during a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Some hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's vote. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) # 20 A protester allegedly injured by gunfire from pro-government militia is helped by another protester near a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's vote. (AP photo/Vahid Salemi) # 21 A suspected member of a pro-government militia, center, beats people at a rally of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Some hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's presidential vote. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) # 22 Protesters attack a building belonging to a pro-government militia near the scene of a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's vote. (AP photo/Vahid Salemi) # 23 A member of a pro-government militia, left, stands guard on a rooftop of their base as demonstrators approach, near a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Shots were fired and at least man was killed. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mousavi, who claims there was election fraud in Friday's vote. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) # 24 Hundreds of thousands of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday's election, turn out to protest the result of the election at a mass rally in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 25 Smoke billows from a burning car as supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi attack a local base of the Islamic Basij militia after a protestor was shot dead outside the base in Tehran on June 15, 2009. One protestor was shot dead and several were wounded during a rally in Tehran staged by hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (AFP/Getty Images) # 26 A demonstrator spray-paints a slogan in Farsi on the Freedom Tower, as hundreds of thousands of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday's election, turn out to protest the result of the election at a mass rally in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Writing in Farsi reads "Salute to Mousavi, Down with the dictator". (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 27 Unidentified demonstrators show signs outside the Iranian embassy in Rome, Monday June, 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Tehran, Iran, Monday, in a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir. Hossein Mousavi. who claimed there was election fraud in Friday's vote. Sign at center says: "Election fraud is an immoral act." (AP Photo/Angelo Carconi) # 28 Hundreds of thousands of supporters of leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday's election, turn out to protest the result of the election at a mass rally in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 29 Supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi stand at the gate of their university campus during a rally in Tehran on June 15, 2009. A protestor was reportedly shot dead by police in Tehran as massive crowds of people defied a ban to stage a rally against the disputed re-election of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 30 A man who sustained a gunshot wound to his right leg, in an area where pro-government militia were firing shots in the air, is carried to a nearby car to be taken away to hospital, near a rally supporting leading opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Hundreds of thousands gathered in Azadi (Freedom) square in Tehran to support Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims there was voting fraud in Friday's election. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) # 31 Students hold banners one of them reads ''Where is my vote'' at the gate of Tehran university in Tehran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Overnight, police and militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students angry over what they claim was election fraud. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) # 32 A poster of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, is seen on broken door in a room in Tehran University dormitory after it was attacked by militia forces during riots in Tehran, Iran in the early hours of Monday, June 15, 2009. Overnight, police and militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students angry over what they claim was election fraud. (AP photo) # 33 Two students hold a shirt covered by blood stains allegedly belonging to a student who was attacked by militia the previous night at a dormitory ,at the gate of Tehran university in Tehran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Overnight, police and militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students angry over what they claim was election fraud. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) # 34 Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi waves at his supporters during a rally in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Opposition supporters defied a ban to stage a mass rally in Tehran in protest at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide election win, as Iran faced a growing international backlash over the validity of the election and the subsequent crackdown on opposition protests. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 35 Iranian supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi march in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Opposition supporters defied a ban to stage a mass rally in Tehran in protest at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide election win, as Iran faced a growing international backlash over the validity of the election and the subsequent crackdown on opposition protests. In the background is a poster of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 36 Iranian supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi take march in Tehran on June 15, 2009. Opposition supporters defied a ban to stage a mass rally in Tehran in protest at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide election win, as Iran faced a growing international backlash over the validity of the election and the subsequent crackdown on opposition protests. In the background is a poster of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. (OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images) # 37 Supporters of reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi show victory signs during a rally in Azadi Street in Tehran, Monday, June 15, 2009. Monday's outpouring for Mousavi swelling as more poured from buildings and side streets wearing the trademark green of his campaign followed a decision by Iran's most powerful figure for an investigation into the vote rigging allegations. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili) # 38 Iranian riot policemen stand guard outside the British embassy in Tehran on June 15, 2009 during a protest by supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against European interference in the Islamic Republic's latest election results. EU foreign ministers expressed "serious concern" at Tehran's crackdown on opposition protesters and called for a probe into the conduct of the June 12 presidential election. (ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images) # 39 Protestors set fires in a main street in Tehran, Iran in the early hours of Monday, June 15, 2009. Iran's supreme leader ordered Monday an investigation into allegations of election fraud, marking a stunning turnaround by the country's most powerful figure and offering hope to opposition forces who have waged street clashes to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The results touched off three days of clashes the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade. Protesters set fires and battled anti-riot police, including a clash overnight at Tehran University after 3,000 students gathered to oppose the election results. (AP Photo) #

Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, subs in the Gulf: the Israeli military encirclement of Iran – prelude? Posted on March 30, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 30, 2012 – ISRAEL - Last week, it was announced by Info Live that the Israelis were using military bases in Kurdistan to launch surveillance flights into Iran. Now, the three-way tension between the United States, Israel, and Iran became tenser this week with a widely cited report that Israel is developing a “secret staging ground” in Iran’s neighbor to the north – Azerbaijan – for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Quoting unnamed senior US diplomats and military intelligence officials, a lengthy article in Foreign Policy magazine asserts that “Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran’s northern border. The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official is quoted as saying, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.” Why would US officials be talking about this? Likely to slow down any rush to war in an already volatile region, some speculate. “I think this leak today is part of the administration’s campaign against an Israeli attack,” former US diplomat John Bolton said Thursday on Fox News. “Clearly, this is an administration-orchestrated leak,” Mr. Bolton said, adding, “It’s just unprecedented to reveal this kind of information about one of your own allies.” The challenge for Israel in planning such a strike is the long distance to potential targets – some 2,000 miles round-trip – for its F-15 and F-16 fighters. Planning for such strikes always involves tradeoffs between fuel and bombs. Bases in nearby Azerbaijan (including abandoned former Soviet airfields) could be used for landing and refueling after any strike, allowing Israeli jets to carry more ordnance. Such airfields also could be a staging point for search-and-rescue helicopters that might be necessary to recover downed Israeli pilots. They also could be used to launch drone aircraft for bomb damage assessment once any strike is concluded. Israel and Azerbaijan have developed an economic military relationship over the years. Israel buys oil from Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan recently agreed to buy $1.6 billion in military hardware from Israel, including drones, antiaircraft, and missile-defense systems. This week’s report of a possible basing agreement with Israel does nothing to improve the relationship between neighbors Azerbaijan and Iran. -CSM Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Drumbeat of War, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War | 23 Comments ← Older posts Loading… ← Older posts World War III: The Launching of a Preemptive Nuclear War against Iran - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2011-12-04 World War III is not front-page news. The mainstream media has excluded in-depth analysis and debate on the implications of these war plans. Syria: The West's Strategic Gateway For Global Military Supremacy - by Rick Rozoff - 2011-11-15 U.S. Arms Persian Gulf Allies For Conflict With Iran - by Rick Rozoff - 2011-11-18 THE CLOCK IS TICKING: "Shadow War" Heating Up. War With Iran: A Provocation Away? - by Tom Burghardt - 2011-12-05 Amid conflicting reports that a huge explosion at Iran's uranium conversion facility in Isfahan occurred last week, speculation was rife that Israel and the US were stepping-up covert attacks against defense and nuclear installations Using Fake Intelligence to Justify War on Iran - by Michel Chossudovsky - 2011-11-09 Iran: "Regime Change" or All Out War? - by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya - 2011-06- America's Next War Theater: Syria and Lebanon? - The robot that can jump two-story buildings and follow you anywhere, to be deployed in Afghanistan Posted on March 30, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 30, 2012 – TECH WORLD – Robot designs have been inspired by cheetahs (for speed), dogs (to carry things) and even humans. Boston Dynamics, which gave us all three, has now turned to the lowly flea for inspiration, making a robot that can jump 30 feet into the air and land safely. It’scalled the Sand Flea. Real fleas jump using the strength of their feet, and can go hundreds of times the distance of their own body length. The robotic version uses compressed gas and can’t go quite so high, but jumping to the roof of a two-story building is still pretty impressive. It has four large wheels so it can tackle rough terrain. Boston Dynamics says the robot uses a stabilization system to keep itself righted when it flies through the air. The Sand Flea carries a camera to give a controller up to 215 yards away a view of the surroundings. And it can even swim. The robot is small, about 11 pounds, and has enough compressed gas for up to 25 jumps. The Sand Flea — along with the throwable Scout XT robot — is headed to Afghanistan, where it will be tested in real-world conditions. Afghanistan is becoming a hotbed of robotic soldiering, as thousands have already been deployed there. The numbers are even higher when one considers the unmanned aerial vehicles used. Land-bound robots do things like bomb disposal and reconnaissance, reducing the risk to the troops in the field. –Discovery News Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Crowd Control technology, Dark Ages, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War, Prophecies referenced | 5 Comments Patent awarded for ‘behavioral recognition’ surveillance software system Posted on March 30, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 30, 2012 – TECH WORLD – The American surveillance state is becoming increasingly advanced, expansive and capable of processing huge amounts of data at blinding speeds. Now Behavioral Recognition Systems, Inc., also known as BRS Labs, has developed an artificial intelligence-based system which supposedly can automatically recognize human behavior. Technology which seems similar on the surface already exists and is being used on surveillance platforms like the “Intellistreets” street lights. These street lights, which are outfitted with a great deal of surveillance equipment, are reportedly capable of monitoring activity and telling the difference between certain behaviors while also being able to tell the difference between humans and animals. This technology could be used to enforce curfews, track the movement of individuals, and supposedly spot fights and other crimes. However, BRS Labs’ technology, which was awarded U.S. patent number 8,131,012 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, according to Government Security News, seems to blow that older system out of the water. This is because previous technologies relied on specific rules put in place by human operators, whereas the new system relies on “reason-based video surveillance behavior recognition software.” This patent is actually part of over 60 related U.S. patents which are currently either pending approval, in process or already granted, all of which are part of the “AISight 3.0” video surveillance software system. –Activist Post Yahoo News Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Crowd Control technology, Dark Ages, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War, Prophecies referenced | 5 Comments Eruptive activity reported at Indonesia’s Semeru volcano Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – JAVA, Indonesia – Our expedition leader Doni just returned from a visit to Semeru and reports that on 27 March, he and our group observed frequent explosions every few minutes, with many powerful enough to eject glowing bombs to produce small glowing avalanches down on the southern flank of the volcano. Semeru, the highest volcano on Java, and one of its most active, lies at the southern end of a volcanic massif extending north to the Tengger caldera. Semeru, a favourite mountain trekking destination, has been in almost continuous eruption since 1967. It is known for its regular ash explosions that typically occur at intervals of 10-30 minutes. –Volcano Discovery contribution Yamkin Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Earthquake Omens?, High-risk potential hazard zone, Magma Plume activity, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcanic Eruption, Volcano Watch | Leave a comment Montserrat’s Soufriere Hills volcano stirs with activity after two year slumber Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – MONTSERRAT - For the first time in two years, the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) monitoring the Soufriere Hills volcano noted unusual activity, with increased seismicity, accompanied by ash fall. Acting Director of MVO Roderick Stuart said the change, which was noted on Friday, is a break from a long state of pause, thus a reminder the volcano is still very active and residents there must always be cautious and aware. Stuart reported, “Last Friday we had the first sort of activity in the volcano in over two years. It generated some ash and because it was the first activity we had in two years, it was almost a precautionary measure that we closed daytime access to Zone C just in case this activity started something bigger,” Stuart told Observer Media. The authority also noted increased steam venting activity on the volcano and a new steam vent (fumarole) that appeared on the northwestern face of the lava dome behind Gages Mountain. Audible roaring associated with the venting were intermittently heard from the Observatory, 5.75 km northwest of the volcano. The seismic network recorded nine rock falls, 105 volcano-tectonic (VT) and four hybrid earthquakes. Additionally, two swarms of VT earthquakes occurred. Earthquakes in the second swarm were described as markedly larger than those in the first. Consequently Zone C on the volcanic risk map was closed until Tuesday when there was a decrease in volcanic tectonic earthquakes below the volcano. –Antiqua Observer Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, High-risk potential hazard zone, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcanic Eruption, Volcano Watch | Leave a comment New study shows parts of Washington D.C. could survive a nuclear blast Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – WASHINGTON – The explosion would destroy everything within one-half mile. An intense flash would blind drivers on the Beltway miles away. A radioactive cloud would drift toward Baltimore. But there’s a surprising conclusion: Just a bit farther from the intersection of 16th and K streets northwest, the blast’s chosen epicenter, the explosion would be survivable. A U.S. government study explores what would happen if terrorists got their hands on enough nuclear material to explode a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb, about 5,000 times more powerful than the truck bomb that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The study didn’t say why it chose the intersection it did as the epicenter for its nuclear bomb. But it did say Washington, D.C., wouldn’t disappear. “It’s not the end of the world,” said Randy Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel and founding director of the Institute for Homeland Security. “It’s not a Cold War scenario.” The biggest difference between the disaster the government studied and the nightmares of incoming ballistic missiles from the former Soviet Union is the size of the explosion. Cold War-era fears imagined massive hydrogen bombs detonated in the sky, not a smaller device exploding on the street. –Detroit FP (c) CNN 2012 Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Dark Ages, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, Financial System Collapse, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War | 15 Comments Firefighters battle 15 forest fires in northern Spain Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – SPAIN - Over 500 firefighters backed by planes and helicopters battled 15 wildfires Wednesday in Spain’s northern Cantabria region amid hot dry conditions that fuelled them, the regional government said. Eight water-dropping aircraft were deployed to fight the largest blaze near the town of Corrales de Buelna, a statement said. The region has suffered over 150 wildfires since Friday which have burned over 650 hectares (1,600 acres). “Today was a day of high temperatures, of weak winds that changed direction frequently and low air humidity. No change in weather conditions is expected over the coming days,” the statement said. Spain is struggling through its driest winter since the 1940s, according to the national weather office. Crops have dried up and the familiar summer fires have come months early. –Terra Daily Posted in Civilizations unraveling, Drought, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Environmental Threat, Gale-force winds and gusts, Wildfires | 1 Comment Alert level raised for Aleutian Island, Cleveland volcano after new lava dome forms Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The alert level for a remote Alaska volcano has been raised again after scientists found another lava dome has formed in the crater in the last week. The Alaska Volcano Observatory on Wednesday increased the level for Cleveland Volcano, a 5,675-foot peak on uninhabited Chuginadak Island about 940 miles southwest of Anchorage. The status was raised earlier this year when the center detected two small, likely ash-poor eruptions through March 13, but lowered the alert level last week after 10 days of inactivity. Scientists can’t actively monitor the volcano because there is no real-time seismic monitoring network on the volcano in the Aleutian Islands. Authorities say sudden eruptions could occur at any time, and ash clouds 20,000 feet above sea level are possible. –San Diego 6 Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, High-risk potential hazard zone, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcano Watch | 6 Comments ← Older posts Loading… ← Older posts Moderate earthquake strikes near East Java Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – EAST JAVA - A moderate earthquake measuring 5.1 in the Richter scale hit Indonesia’s East Java province at 06:09 local time on Thursday (2309 GMT on Wednesday), the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said here. The tremor was centered at 129 kilometers southwest Jember city and at depth of 15 kilometers under seabed. The agency did not release a tsunami warning. –Philstar Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Earthquake Omens?, High-risk potential hazard zone, Magma Plume activity, Potential Earthchange hotspot, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcanic Eruption, Volcano Watch | 2 Comments Iran could recover from a military strike in six months Posted on March 29, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 29, 2012 – IRAN - Iran’s “workshops” for making nuclear centrifuges and components for the devices are widely dispersed and hidden, adding to the difficulties of a potential military strike by Israel, according to a new report by U.S. congressional researchers. A senior official surmised that Iran could recover from a military strike on its centrifuge facilities within six months. Neither Israel nor the U.S. is certain of the locations of all such facilities, analysts for the Congressional Research Service wrote in the report obtained Wednesday. The analysts cited interviews with current and former U.S. government officials familiar with the issue who weren’t identified. Qatar says no U.S. strike on Iran from its soil Israel’s capability to halt or set back Iran’s nuclear program through a military strike has been central to the debate over whether Israel should undertake such a mission alone. While U.S. President Barack Obama has urged more time for economic sanctions to work, Israeli officials led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak say it may soon be too late to prevent Iran from developing the capability to develop a nuclear weapon. The likelihood of dispersed facilities complicates any assessment of a potential raid’s success, making it “unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be on the likelihood of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons,” the report found. A U.S. official said in April 2011 that there “could be lots of workshops’ in Iran,” the authors said. Last month, a former U.S. government official with “direct experience” in the issue told the researchers that “Iran’s centrifuge production is widely distributed and that the number of workshops has probably multiplied ‘many times’ since 2005 because of an increase in Iranian contractors and subcontractors working on the program.” –Jerusalem Post Posted in Drumbeat of War, Earth Changes, Earth Watch, Economic upheaval, social unrest, terrorism, New weapons of war, New World Order -Dystopia- War | 9 Comments Lava dome grows inside Anak Krakatau volcano – rattled by 438 quakes Posted on March 28, 2012 by The Extinction Protocol March 28, 2012 – INDONESIA - An active lava dome is growing inside the summit crater of Krakatau volcano. Our tour expedition leader Andi just returned from a visit and reports that the dome is now about 100 m wide, and has 2 main active vents that eject jets of incandescent gas. At night, the glow from the dome is clearly visible from Rakata and Sertung islands, and a continuous intense solfatara plume is rising about 500 m above the summit. Andi and our group observed also that there are now more and larger fumarole fields on the southern part of the cone. According to our observations and the opinion of local scientists, this area is inflated due to the pushing of the lava dome. The seismic recordings from the observatory of Krakatau also show an increase in activity. On 26 March, there were 138 volcanic-tectonic (A-type) earthquakes and 300 long-period (B-type) quakes alone. The question is how long the lava dome remains quiet and purely effusive in style. Explosive, also larger vulcanian-type ones, activity could occur any time. –Volcano Discovery Posted in Earth Changes, Earth Watch, High-risk potential hazard zone, Magma Plume activity, Seismic tremors, Signs of Magnetic Field weakening, Volcano Watch | 16 Comments Double emissions of gas and st Posted July, 2010 A week ago, Israel leaked to the press that they had permission from Saudi Arabia to use their air space to attack Iran. The Saudi’s quickly denied this. The effort on Israel’s part was a ruse to cover their real plans, to attack from the Republic of Georgia, close to Iran’s northern border. However, the breakdown in relations with Turkey after miscalculating the response to their Flotilla raid on a Turkish ship in international waters may have ended this operation. Israel, whose arms agreements with Turkey mounted to nearly $5 billion dollars over a period of years, had been training pilots in Turkey for bombing attacks on Iran. During these training missions, Israel was smuggling aircraft through Turkish airspace. Sources indicate that Georgia has become a major transhipment point for narcotics from Afghanistan and other countries in the region. Both a land route through Turkey and into Northern Cyprus and air and sea routes directly into Europe and North America have been cited. Turkey had allowed Israel to use their air space for training because their terrain closely resembled areas of Iran that Israel planned to attack. However, Turkey was unaware that planes involved in this effort were being relocated to forward staging areas in the Republic of Georgia, making Turkey, technically, fully complicit in this planned illegal attack. Helping coordinate the attack are intelligence units forward stationed in Azerbaijan, under the guise of technicians, trainers and advisors under the broad armaments agreements with that small nation. Supply operations, moving necessary ordnance, much of it supplied by the United States under ammunition storage agreements, is being moved through the Black Sea to the Georgian Port of Poti, a major site for exporting coal and manganese ore. Cover for the supply operations is being performed by the Georgian Coast Guard, set up by Israel and manned with Israeli observers. Their job is to keep Russian surveillance craft away from supply operations under the guise of a “Gaza type” naval blockade of Abkhazia, a separatist province supported by Russia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia have both separated from the Republic of Georgia and are seeking independence with Russian backing. Georgia attempted to “reattach” South Ossetia with Israeli help in 2008 until Russian forces moved in after the killing of peacekeeping troops by Israeli “commandos.” US Naval forces began operating in the Black Sea in late May, with the USS Graple (T-ars 53), a service and salvage ship, visiting the George port of Poti for joint military exercises which ended June 8th. Prior to that, the last US Navy ship in the region was the USS John L. Hall (FFG-32), a Perry class guided missile frigate. A Russian spokesman said, “The US is trying to turn the Black Sea into an American lake.” The US is also maintaining a training and observation command in Tiblisi, a unit from Ramstein AFB in Germany, that is coordinating air traffic and radar functions. With regular visits by the US Navy scheduled and ramping up at the same convenient time Israel is building up its arms cache in Georgia for the upcoming attack on Iran, the current debacle with Turkey may have set things back or ended this gambit completely. Turkish air controllers had to know something was afoot when the attack bombers failed to return to the agreed upon flight plans and return to Israel. A critical issue, of course, is the S300 air defense system that Russia has agreed to withhold from Iran as part of the program of sanctions. The current Tor 1 system, though robust, can be defeated by a well planned low level attack. As the use of Georgia may be seen as a provocation by Russia, even if the attacks never manifest as anything other than more “firing blanks” like Israel’s tussle with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Russia may reconsider the delivery of this vital defense technology. Without the ability to use forward bases in either Georgia, Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan, Israel would be unable to attack Iran at all except by flying a circuitous 4500 mile “each way” route or using the limited capabilities of its nuclear armed submarine off the coast of Iran. It is uncertain how Turkey will deal with the illegal use of their airspace by Israel as relations are already at a low ebb. With a number of former Soviet airfields spread across Georgia and 4 of 5 fields in Azerbaijan available for operations and support, the region makes a perfect area for broad operations, not only against Iran but for movement of contraband of every variety. Research Archive PRESENTATIONS »(1996) – DAVID ICKE – TURNING OF THE TIDE (2h 13min.) Exposing the real story behind global events, which shape the future of human existence and the world we leave our children. The veil lifts on an astonishing web of interconnected manipulation to reveal that the same few people, secret societies and organizations control the daily direction of our lives, & how the same people on apparently different sides of politics are actually connected to the same elite organizations. Labels: Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), David Icke, Federal Reserve, Freemasonry, Illuminati, Microchips in Humans, Mind Control, One World Government, Trilateral Commision Rating: ***** IAN R. CRANE (2005)- THE 9/11 – 7/7 CONNECTION On Friday 22nd July 2005, Ian Crane opened the Glastonbury Symposium with an analysis of the sinister geopolitical webs that have been spun, resulting in the tragic events of 9/11 and 7/7. Just two weeks after 7/7, Ian’s research already indicated that the official version of the supposed ‘terror’ attacks in London cannot stand up to the scrutiny of research. The subsequent failed attacks on 21/7, the assassination of Jean-Charles Menezes the folowing day and the bombing at Sharm-El-Sheik in Egypt on July 23rd raise even more painful and very disturbing questions. This compilation of two live recordings (Glastonbury – 22nd July & Totnes – 30th August 2005) raises some very important and disturbing questions and is a ‘must see’ for anyone who still holds the view that the events of 9/11 and 7/7 were perpetrated by ‘Muslim fanatics’. Labels: Council on Foreign Relations, Project for the New American Century, False Flags, War on Terror Rating: **** WE! – Featuring the words of Arundhati Roy (64 mins.) This presentation examines the widely unregarded worlds of Anthropology and Geopolitics in a very dynamic manner, and is probably stylistically quite unlike any documentary that you have previously seen. It covers the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception and exploitation. It is particularly hard hitting when it comes to the United States and western powers in general. Its unconventional style has proven to be very successful in engaging younger viewers – many of whom find more traditional content dealing with these subjects quite dry and uninteresting. It is almost in the style of a music video, featuring contemporary music (lush, curve, love & rockets, boards of canada, nine inch nails, dead can dance, amon tobin, massive attack, totoise, telepop, placebo and faith less) overlaid with the words of Arundhati Roy, and images of humanity and the world we live in today. Labels: War on Terror, Imperial Power, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israeli Apartheid, Zionism, Rating: ***** JOHN PILGER – FREEDOM NEXT TIME Australian journalist, author, film maker John Pilger speaks about global media consolidation, war by journalism, US military’s quest for domination/hegemony in the post 9/11 era, false history in the guise of ‘objective’ journalism. Filmed in Chicago at Socialism 2007: Socialism for the 21st Century by Paul Hubbard. June 16, 2007 Broadcast on Democracy Now – The War and Peace Report – August 7, 2007 Labels: Imperial Power, Iraq, Palestine, Media, Propaganda Rating: **** MS V – Bohemian Grove the EU and a Rose Labels: Bohemian Grove, European Union, Civil Liberties, Lisbon Treaty Rating: *** David Icke – Freedom or Fascism (2006) – 7h Labels: Illuminati, New World Order, Occult Symbolism, Freemasonry, Bush, Blair, Mind Control, 9/11, War on Terror, Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, World Government, European Union, AMERO, Iraq, Afghanistan, Microchips, ID Cards, Civil Liberties, Big Brother, Secret Societies Rating: ***** John Harris – ‘It’s an illusion’ talk at the Stoke ‘Lawful Rebellion’ Conference Ian R Crane – The Project for the New American Century (May 2008 – Liverpool) Ian R. Crane in Stockholm Sweden, Codex Alimentarius 2008… Michael Tsarion – 2012 – The Future of Mankind (Los Angeles – 2006) Jordan Maxwell -Basic Slideshow Presentation (Hidden Symbols) DAVID ICKE – Secrets Of The Matrix part 1/3 part 2/3 part 3/3 Michael Crichton: States of Fear – Science or Politics? Brian Gerrish – ‘State of the Nation 2′ at BCG Conference London 13th June 2009 Lord Christopher Monckton Speaking at Bethel University on Global Warming INTERVIEWS Ms V The UK Being Suppressed In The News The Fabian Socialists are having their way. Tony Blair is handing the Uk over to the EU. The people are being lied to and the news being spun by hidden manipulators. The unelected European Commission passes down its dictates to the rubber stamp European Parliament. Borders being taken down. Mass immigration. European Police European Army and rapid reaction force coming. The people were not asked. Labels: UK, Civil Liberties, European Union, Interview Rating: *** Is The European Union the New Soviet Union? (4mins.) by Vladimir Bukovsky writer and Lecturer David Icke interview at Jeff Rense – Jan. 2009 – (AUDIO) Tony Gosling (Bilderberg.org) at Now that’s Weird Why Princess Diana was assassinated, Bilderbergs, the New World Order, control of the news media in Britain, 7/7 and 9/11. These are just some of the topics covered in this episode of “Now That’s Wierd”. One watch of which of this 45 minute show reminds us just how many subjects are reported in a biased way or not reported at all within the NATO countries. Tony Gosling is an ex-BBC local radio reporter and researcher and now editor of his own Bilderberg.org website and a 9/11 discussion forum www.911forum.org.uk which takes a serious look at some of the holes in the official ‘terrorism’ stories on which the so-called War on Terror is based. Interview is by Ross Hemsworth. Labels: Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, New World Order, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 9/11, World Bank, IMF, 7/7 London Bombings Labels: **** WEBSTER TARPLEY – THE MEN BEHIND BARACK OBAMA Labels: Obama, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pakistan, Iraq, Russia, China, Afghanistan Rating: **** Ms V – The EU Crippling & Destroying a Nation – Update and Fate of UK (2007) Ms V reveals more about the news of the plight of her country in the continuing battle against the European Union and her own country’s internal traitors. They, ruling by Fear and stealth, who would sell out their own country to a foreign power. Spying on its own citizens, diminishing control over its own affairs, they are handing over the UK to the EU Superstate which is not a Democracy as we know it! You can help put a stop to this by informing yourself and others. Labels: Civil Liberties, European Union, UK Rating: **** »David Icke – Interview at Coast to Coast AM (Audio) 2006 »David Icke – Interview at Coast to Coast AM (Audio) 2008 »Gerald Celente – 23/12/2008 – Audio - Historic Interview with Aaron Russo, Fighting the New World Order… Hollywood director Russo goes in-depth for first time on the astounding admissions of Nick Rockefeller, including his prediction of 9/11 and the war on terror hoax, the Rockefeller’s creation of women’s lib, and the elite’s ultimate plan for world population reduction and a microchipped society Aaron Russo joins Alex Jones for a fascinating sit-down in depth video interview on a plethora of important subjects. »Noam Chomsky Interview on CBC Ms V Reveals The Hidden Agenda of the European Union An evening with Ms V as she details the takeover of The United Kingdom by the European Union. Some UK Newspapers are telling all and trying to get the word out to the people. They are up against the machinery of the EU and a Blair government who’s mission is to hand over the UK to the EU. Fabian Socialist sympathetic Blair is leaving, his successor Gordon Brown gave a speech to the Annual Fabian Society get together at Imperial College London. He is a cut of the same cloth. See and hear as Ms V details the depth of trouble her country is in and as illustrated in the news. How the country is being dumbed down and manipulated with political correctness, endess regulation, rfid, gps, road cameras, and surveillance society methods. 1984 is here. Next, watch as US cities employ traffic cameras and surveillance on every street corner in the city just as the UK does now. Labels: Civil Liberties, New World Order, Totalitarian Tiptoe, Big Brother, European Society, Fabian Society, Illuminati, Mind Control, One World Government, UK Rating: *** Professor Antony Sutton on the Skull and Bones Secret Society Danish Scientist on TV: Nano-thermite Behind Collapse of WTC Buildings on 9/11, Not Planes… Conversations with History: Amira Hass… Michael Tsarion on the Alex Jones Show (Audio) Part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 David Icke interviewed on Edge Media TV ‘Now That’s Weird’ 23rd of October 2008 Webster Tarpley Radio Interview Project Camelot interviews Jane Burgermeister Interview – Professor Antony Sutton: Wall Street & the rise of Hitler Prof. Antony Sutton Lecture (1976) Bilderberg Group 2009 Bilderberg Participant List (Athens – Greece) 2008 Bilderberg Participant List 2007 Bilderber Participant List 2005 Bilderberg Participant List 2004 Bilderberg Participant List 1999 Bilderberg Participant List (Portugal) 1997 Bilderber Participant List (Atlanta – USA) 1988 Bilderberg Participant List Skull and Bones The Skull and Bones secret society of Yale University Skull & Bones Membership List in Alphabetical Order The Order of the Skull & Bones; the Eugenic Societies; and Population Control organisations Tavistock Institute Tavistock The Best Kept Secret in America Global Mind Control Through Crisis Creation – TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations – John Coleman http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1082990/The-Tavistock-Institute-of-Human-Relations—Shaping-the-Moral-Spiritual-Cultural-Political-and-Economic-Decline-of-The-United-States-of-America Illuminati & New World Order Illuminati: The Hidden Agenda for World Government History of the New World Order New World Order I: World Communism, Club of Rome Tells G20 New World Order II. The Ruling Class and World Governance Are Our Nations´ Treason Against Us The 13 illuminati Bloodlines FREE BOOK ON LINE – The top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines by Fritz Springmeier (Pdf) Rockefeller, Trilateral-Bilderberger Boss Joe Nye Camaigning For Puppet Obama By Webster Tarpley Albert Pike and Three World Wars Freemasonry The Light Behind Masonry – Bill Schnoebelen (2h:25m – 2006) HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY by Juri Lina (2005) (53 mins.) Anything To Declare? – BBC Southern Eye Freemasonry & Vested Interests (30m. – 2000) Documentary – Shadows in motion – Exposing the New World Order (57 min.) Rites And Wrongs – ITV West Freemasonry documentary, West Eye View (30m.- 1999) Rites And Wrongs – ITV West Freemasonry documentary, West Eye View (30m.- 1999) Riddles In Stone – Secret Architecture of Washington, D.C. (2h:55m – 2008) Masonic Government – www.saintsalive.com/freemasonry Architects Of Deception Secret History Of Freemasonry by Juri Lina (PDF) Fabian Society The Crimes of The Fabian Socialist NWO The Fabian Society, the Freemasonry and the Beehive Trilateral Commission & Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Trilateral Commission membership list 2008 The Trilateral Commission – A Council on Foreign Relation front organization The Facts on the Trilateral Commission Show New World Order Plot The Council on Foreign Relations to Govern the World by Means of David Rockefeller´s Studies Program Council on Foreign Relations & The Federal Reserve Council on Foreign Relations, Abortion, & Population Control CFR Presidential Candidates CFR Members 1992, 1990, 1988, 1987, 1985, 1984 CFR/Trilateral Members MICROCHIPS IN HUMANS Some News: Barcelona clubbers get chipped Identity Chip Planted Under Skin Approved for Use in Health Care Tesco ‘spychips’ anger consumers One generation is all they need FULL BOOKS ON LINE »ILLUMINATI: Proofs of a Conspiracy Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe (FULL BOOK) >»Antony C. Sutton – Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution (pdf doc.) »Antony C. Sutton – Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler – 1975 (pdf.) »Antony C. Sutton – America´s Secret Establishment “An Introduction to Order of Skull and Bones (pdf) »Antony C. Sutton – Trilaterals Over America (pdf.) »George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography by Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin pdf. »John Pilger – Paying The Price – AN EXCERPT FROM HIS BOOK T H E N E W R U L E R S O F T H E W O R L D – pdf doc. - »Michel Chossudovsky – Desarming the NEW WORLD ORDER – pdf doc. »The Rise of the Fourth Reich by Jim Marrs (447 pags.) – FREE BOOK ON-LINE Depleted Uranium a tool to depopulate the world »Secret Societies Exposed by RIE + The Elite Serial Killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK & MLK »Council on Foreign Relations & The Federal Reserve »Masters of the Universe Go to Camp: Inside the Bohemian Grove (from spy magazine 1989) »CLUB OF ROME »Depleted Uranium »A History Of US Secret Human Experimentation… »The Fluoride Conspiracy… »THE U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK! »The Military records of George Walker Bush… »FULL DISCLOSURE – The truth about the AIDS epidemic by dr. Gary Glum (pdf.) »The Council on Foreign Relations and The New World Order Boheminan Grove membership list Satanic Occult Symbols in Washington D.C. American Aristocracy: The George Bush/John Kerry Family Tree THE EMPIRE OF “THE CITY” The Illuminati – vatican Connection Revealed (pdf.) How Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power The Bush Family Oligarchy Funding The Hitler Project Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 299 other followers Search NWO Observer MEDIA WATCH (Goldman Sachs taking over Europe) 292 views 19 Nov 11 01 Follow me on Vodpod Categories Civil Liberties Economy Food Control Global Warming? Human Rights II Cold War Illegal Occupation Imperial Power Israeli Apartheid New World Order Problem Reaction Solution Propaganda Totalitarian Tiptoe Uncategorized War Crimes War on Terror World Hegemony World War III Tags 9/11 Afghanistan Big Brother Bilderberg Group British Army Bush CIA Civilian Casualties Contractors Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Crimes Against Humanity Depleted Uranium Depopulation Agenda Documentaries European Union False Flags Federal Reserve Gaza Illuminati International Banksters Iran Iraq Israel Media Microchips in Humans Multinational Corporations NATO Nuclear Weapons Obama Obama's Wars Oil One World Government Opinion Pakistan Palestine Pentagon Rockefeller Rothschild Surveillance Society Swine Flu UK United Nations USA US Army You Tube Videos Recent Posts Money Power World Rule Who Really Controls the World? The Global Financial Dictatorship Vs. Iran Financial Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion Documentary – On Modern Servitude (2009) by Jean-François Brient 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History The Elite Plan for a New World Social Order “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” – A Summary New geopolitical orientation completed: What do the killings of Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi have in common? The Order of the Illuminati: Its Origins, Its Methods and Its Influence on the World Events Prepare For Armageddon Morbid Addiction: CIA & the Drug Trade The Coming Derivatives Crisis That Could Destroy The Entire Global Financial System Eurasian Project a Threat to New World Order Afghanistan: Ten Years of Illegal Occupation The Wonderful World of Tony Blair 9/11 – Occult Trauma-Based Mind Control The Curse of Cluster Bombs Blaming Wall Street Is Wrong America’s “worst enemy” NATO’s War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China’s National Energy Security Where Is Activist Post? 2011 Clinton Global Citizen Awards Resisting the Corporate Theft of Seeds Janus – Illuminati God Of Chaos and Deception What is the true cost of the Afghanistan war? Tony Blair glorifies his war crimes yet again under the 9/11 brand Deliberate Impoverishment of the Western World Unending “9/11s”: “A Sad Kind of Freedom.” 911 Experts Speak Out FedEx and Pepsi Are Top Defense Contractors? 5 Corporate Brands Making a Killing on America’s Wars AFTER 9/11: TEN YEARS OF WAR The post-9/11 decade of lies Libya and the world we live in The Legend of 9/11 — 10 Years On Globalists to Rebuild Libya Dick Cheney, the Ultimate American Terrorist The Toxic Legacy of Agent Orange Making wars is biggest industry in U.S. Libya: The criminal face of imperialism Recent Comments awapuhi on Documentary – On Modern Servitude (2009) by Jean-François Brient awapuhi on Documentary – On Modern Servitude (2009) by Jean-François Brient Bank Card USA on Global Mind Control Through Crisis Creation – TAVISTOCK INSTITUTE Bank Card USA on American Corporatocracy jm herbsman on Who Really Controls the World? Porter on 10 Reasons Obama is Just As Bad or Worse Than Bush Hilary Cunton on The Kill Team: making of a war crime Anonymous on 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History CCTV on Big Brother is DEFINITELY watching you: UK has one CCTV for every 32 people ashley on 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History T on 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History DARLENE C. MORGAN on The Truth Of Iraq’s City Of Deformed Babies DARLENE C. MORGAN on The Truth Of Iraq’s City Of Deformed Babies Fr. John+ on Documentary – In the Shadow of Hermes by Jüri Lina (2011) Emmitt Jeremiah on Oil, blood money, and Blair’s last scandal Twitter Updates 10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History http://t.co/vi6sA37Y 4 months ago The Elite Plan for a New World Social Order http://t.co/7H2Wj0mJ 4 months ago “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” – A Summary Blueprint of the PNAC Plan for U.S. Global Hegemony http://t.co/rFGr9AZt 4 months ago New geopolitical orientation completed: What do the killings of Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi have in common? http://t.co/TAX18hiJ 4 months ago The Order of the Illuminati: Its Origins, Its Methods and Its Influence on the World Events http://t.co/glrSdhTm 4 months ago Prepare For Armageddon http://t.co/ykkR5ylp 5 months ago Morbid Addiction: CIA & the Drug Trade http://t.co/VkGsWz7t 5 months ago The Coming Derivatives Crisis That Could Destroy The Entire Global Financial System http://t.co/PxymTcNv 5 months ago Eurasian Project a Threat to New World Order http://t.co/4WbJ6wwM 5 months ago VIDEO - Afghanistan: Ten Years of Illegal Occupation http://t.co/XxPicOR9 5 months ago The Wonderful World of Tony Blair http://t.co/LfHpcIPd 5 months ago 9/11 – Occult Trauma-Based Mind Control http://t.co/D1nqkJRZ 5 months ago The Curse of Cluster Bombs http://t.co/cCwUP0Iy 5 months ago Blaming Wall Street Is Wrong http://t.co/81URfoKu 5 months ago America’s “worst enemy” http://t.co/Gs2dSrUW 5 months ago NATO’s War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China’s National Energy Security http://t.co/oKSeWM30 6 months ago Where Is Activist Post? http://t.co/2qZUIcci 6 months ago 2011 Clinton Global Citizen Awards http://t.co/rRQGReyd 6 months ago Resisting the Corporate Theft of Seeds http://t.co/gGSHSvn5 6 months ago Janus – Illuminati God Of Chaos and Deception http://t.co/iA1xYmKl 6 months ago Blogroll Activist Post Aftermath News Andrew Gavin Marshall Anthony Lawson Antiwar.com Axis of Logic Bilderberg.org (UK) BlackListedNews Boiling Frogs bushstole04.com Common Dreams Conspiracy Scope (USA) ContraComa CounterPunch Crossed Crocodiles David Icke Dean Henderson Euro-med.dk Food Freedom Foreign Policy Journal FourWinds10.com George Monbiot Global Research (Canada) Guardian Illusion of Power Information Clearing House Infowars International Mens Organisation IslandOnLineNews.com John Pilger Land Destroyer Report Legaysavoir (France) Lord Stirling Mogadishu Man MORPHcity Nasir Khan Blog Navdanya Neithercorp Press New Dawn Magazine Old-Thinker News Pak Alert Press Palestine Cry Peter Eyre's Space Politically Confused (UK) Pratinho de Couratos (Portugal) Pravda Pulse Media Puppetworld Post RAWA News RedSkyWarning (Greece) Rense.com Richard Cassaro RT Sovereign Independent Stop Nato Stop the War Coalition Strategic Culture Foundation The American Dream The Daily Bell The Economic Collapse The Electronic Intifada The Intel Hub The Peoples Voice Truthout Uruknet Veterans Today Vigilant Citizen War Is A Crime Web of Debt What Really Happened Wise Up Journal Z Communications Zen Gardner Archives December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009

http://