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THE NUCLEAR RIDDLE
THE "WMD" LIE MACHINE PUSHING US TO ANOTHER WAR
By Jeff Gates STAFF WRITER
As with Iraq, the threat of weapons of mass destruction is again marketed as a causa belli. As with Iraq, the claim is disputed by weapons inspectors and intelligence analysts. The Iraqi programme had been shut down a dozen years before the invasion. In Iran, there is no evidence that uranium is being enriched beyond the low levels required for energy and medical purposes. Reports of a “secret” processing plant failed to note that Iran suspended uranium enrichment from 2003 until 2005. Seeing no change in the political climate except more sanctions and more Israeli threats to bomb its nuclear sites, Iran began building and equipping a new facility.
As with Iraq, there is no direct threat to the US As with Iraq, mainstream US. media focused not on Israel – the only nation in the region known to have nuclear weapons – but on Iran. Enrichment is relatively easy compared to the steps required to design, build and reliably deliver a nuclear warhead. Activity around each of those steps can be readily detected.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that even if Iran were attacked, that does nothing to alter Iran’s nuclear prospects – except provoke them to develop the very weapons that the evidence suggests are not now being produced. Is this a calculated move to exert pressure on Tehran? Or to provoke them? Or is this a move by Washington to buy time from an "ally" that threatens an attack – with disastrous effects on US interests and those of its genuine allies?
To catalyse a climate of insecurity among Jews, pro-Israelis periodically claim that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposes to "wipe Israel off the map." A correct translation confirms that what he urged is that "this occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time." Akin to the widely sought demise of the oppressive Soviet regime, that proposal enjoys the support of many moderate, secular and non-Zionist Jews who have long recognised the threat that Jewish extremists pose to the broader Jewish community.
No one can explain why Iran, even if nuclear armed, would attack Israel with its vast nuclear arsenal estimated at 200-400 warheads, including several nuclear-armed submarines. In mid-July, Israeli warships deployed to the Red Sea to rehearse attacks on Iran. As in the lead-up to war with Iraq, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is again beating the war drums. This is the same adviser who, four days after 9-11, advised G.W. Bush to invade Iraq.
Citing Iran’s "covert" facility, Wolfowitz claims it is "clear that Iran’s rulers are pursuing nuclear weapons…Time is running out." Without a hint of irony, he argues that Iran (not Israel) "is a crucial test of whether the path to a nuclear-free world is a realistic one or simply a dangerous pipe dream." In calling for "crippling sanctions," Howard Berman, Jewish chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed similar concerns as did Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, senior Republican on the Committee and also Jewish.
If pro-Israelis cannot induce a war with Iran, the ensuing stability will enable people to identify who fixed the intelligence that deceived the US to invade Iraq. Only one nation possesses the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence to mount a covert operation over the lengthy period required to pre-stage, staff, orchestrate and successfully cover-up such an act.
The evidence points to the same network of government insiders and media proponents now hyping Iran. Who benefitted from war with Iraq? Who benefits from war with Iran? Not the US or its allies unless, despite the evidence, Israel is viewed as an ally-rather than an enemy within.
Like Afghanistan, Iran does not have a military solution. Nor does Iraq. Geopolitically, the greatest casualty of war in the region was the United States – its credibility tattered, its military overextended and its finances devastated by a debt-financed war that Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz projects could reach $3,000 billion. Compare that with the speedy exit and a $50 billion outlay that Wolfowitz assured policy-makers could be recovered from sales of Iraqi oil.
Those who induced that invasion persuaded Americans to commit economic and geopolitical hari-kari. No external force could have defeated the sole remaining super power. Instead the US was deceived – by a purported ally – to defeat itself by an ill-advised reaction to the provocation of a mass murder on US soil.The only sensible and sustainable solution is one that serves unmet needs in the region while also restoring the credibility of the US as a proponent of informed choice and free enterprise. While making transparent the common source of the deceit that induced the US to war, policy-makers can also lay the foundation to preclude such duplicity in the future. That requires consultation among the US, its true allies and those nations in the region most affected by this treachery.
Only a design solution can counter today’s systemic sources of conflict, including the extremism fueled by extremes in education, opportunity, wealth and income. As with the fixed intelligence that induced the US to war in Iraq, those sources of conflict are obscured by a compliant and complicit media with an undisclosed pro-Israeli bias.
A transnational network of think tanks could expose in real time how facts are displaced by what "the mark" can be deceived to believe. With the media dominance of pro-Israelis in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and other Western allies, that task must include the capacity to show how this deceit operates in plain sight yet, to date, with impunity. Absent such transparency, systems of governance reliant on informed consent will continue to be manipulated to their detriment by those who hide behind the very freedoms that such systems are meant to protect.
Running parallel with that transparency initiative must be an education programme that deploys the best available technology to close the gaps in learning that sustain extremes in opportunity. Only a truly international effort can succeed in that essential task. Only trans-cultural education can preempt the mental manipulation that induced war in Iraq and now pursues war with Iran as proponents of The Clash of Civilisations gradually transform that concept into a reality.
What we now see emerging is yet another example of how wars are induced in the Information Age. Why would anyone expect modern warfare to be waged in any other way? As the common source of this duplicity becomes transparent, the solution will become apparent.
Lasting peace requires a Marshall Plan able to accelerate the transition to the Knowledge Society. This systemic challenge cannot be addressed absent a systemic strategy. The restoration of friendly and cooperative relations must include the practical steps required to heal this widening divide with education at the core.
Jeff Gates is a Vietnam veteran, widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide; an adviser to policy-makers worldwide; former counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.
He is also the author of numerous articles and books including his latest book Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War.
His previous books include Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street and The Ownership Solution: Toward a Shared Capitalism for the 21st Century.
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Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=8919
Posted by Jeff Gates on Oct 13 2009, With 0 Reads, Filed under AfPak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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I remember reading this translation of Ahmadinejad’s remarks by Juan Cole some time back and thinking how easy it is to maintain a grand deception in international affairs when you control the translators and most of the media. I have heard no almost one cite this translation other than Dr. Cole and yourself.
I think that there have been domestic beneficiaries of our disastrous Iraq policy however among the "American" mega corporations in oil, finance, defense and other areas. Their profit have been enormous, their losses non existent.
The Israeli translation of bin Laden on 9/11:
"We will continue to attack America until the great Satan is totally destroyed"
normal translation from Arabic:
"We didn’t do it, Israeli did. We don’t kill women and children"
g
uh, just another example of not knowing “anything” about how to “avoid” those “lost messages” that happen with the f???ing code thing.
Defense Secretary Gates coined an apt term for describing the most problematic combatants when waging unconventional warfare. He called them “the people in between.” Between the populace and the facts required for informed choice is where you find those who excel in today’s Information Age warfare, thus the dominance of pro-Israelis in media.
Keep a close eye on Zionist media mogul Haim Saban. He took over Germany’s second largest media conglomerate in 2003, helping bring Angela Merkel to office who has proven to be an unquestioning supporter of Tel Aviv. Saban then bought a controlling interest in Univision, catering to the fastest-growing voting bloc in the U.S. He’s not got an eye on Aljazeera.
At least he’s honest about it (compared to many of the other Zionist-inclined media magnates). Saban concedes that he has only one issue and that’s Israel. Suggest you review:
“Anti-Zionists: The New Heretics”
http://intifada-palestine.com/2009/08/06/anti-zionists-the-new-heretics/
See also: “Jane Harman and Haim Saban: Their Treason May not Be What you Think”
http://criminalstate.com/blog/?p=60
Thanks for your comment
jeff gates, welcome home. you just may develope a “kin” here. your “position” in VN, please? barrie windell 2D 1/35 3rd bgd 4th ID 9-67 – 12-68 grunt look me up. you pukes wanting to know “pedigree” have no idea what you are asking for. many folks are trying to “be” VN “veterans”. i would like to not be one. jeff, i enjoy your writing “style”.
Army 1LT; ran convoys between Danang and Quang Tri on the DMZ (Northern I Corps). Stationed in Phu Bai (“Phu Bai is All Right”) and then Gia Le (spelling?) at Camp Eagle near Hue, 1969-70.
Mr. Gates, how do you expect Israel to trust a religion and culture that for the last 62 years have been bent on the destruction of Israel. When you fight a war in the 40′s, the 50′s, the 60′s, and the 70′s with a never ending conflict with your neighbors, you finally come to the realization that you are not liked and unwanted. “This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time”, a quote from Ahmadinejad. The occupation of Jerusalem is not an occupation but the spoils of war that the middle eastern countries started with the intent of the destruction of Israel.
Not sure whether this comment is simple ignorance or intentional disinformation. The Zionists had several other venues in mind before picking this neighborhood in which to settle, including Argentina and Uganda. Those with an expansionist agenda need never ending conflict in order to expand. That was the agenda from the outset as the Joint Chiefs warned Truman. He was seduced and influenced by numerous factors including a steady stream of misrepresentations form Zionist lobbyist Chaim Weizmann who in the Big Lie assured our Christian Zionist commander-in-chief that this enclave of Jewish extremists would not become a racist and theocratic state with an expansionist agenda that would jeopardize our interests in the Middle East. Right.
The 1967 land grab that continues to sustain the hostilities essential to Israel’s strategic goals has since been acknowledged by its military commanders as undertaken purposefully and not on the basis of a perceived threat. The best analogy: producing a movie. You need a cast, including the requisite Evil Doer, a (somewhat) plausible storyline (the “Promised Land”) and then deploy media, pop culture and politics to advance what psyops specialist rightly call “the narrative.”
In the interest of the broader Jewish community (and the national security of those nations duped into standing “shoulder to shoulder” with these religious extremists), maybe it’s time for the Zionist experiment to pick another neighborhood? Founded in deceit and sustained with duplicity, this entangled alliance was a mistake from the outset. After six decades, isn’t it about time we cut our losses? If we held a national referendum on what this “special relationship” has cost us in blood, treasure and hard-earned credibility, how many genuinely informed Americans would suggest that we continue it? Knowing what we now know about the systemic duplicity at the heart of this alliance, how many veterans would vote in favor?