Views to News

India is Doing Right by Building Dams on Pakistani Rivers

Is India Doing Right by Building Dams on Pakistani Rivers is often questioned by people. Counter argument given by Indian high officials in meetings of Indus Basin Treaty conference is that , We dont want to give you water to waste it by throwing it into sea. They are right to say such things as Pakistan dont any major dam on rivers other then Indus and water is being wasted into see. As of  now India can play with Pakistan by releasing excessive water into rivers and causing floods or by stoping  the water and causing drought.

Even after recent floods in Pakistan politicians in Pakistan are still busy in polishing their politics. Lives of over 1700 people could not make them realize importance of dams. According to a survey total rainfall this year is less then capacity of KalaBagh and Basha Dam. These dams could have definitely avoided such large disaster.

America’s War on Pakistan US Warns Pakistan of “Severe Consequences

The Obama administration has seized on the failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square on May 1 to insist that the Pakistani military step up its war on Islamic militants and extend its operations into North Waziristan. The US demand is being backed by thinly disguised warnings of economic reprisals and military intervention.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an explicit public threat during a CBS interview last Sunday. After accusing some Pakistani officials of knowing the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, she insisted on more Pakistani cooperation and warned: “We’ve made it very clear that if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences.”

Speaking to ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Attorney General Eric Holder accused the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban, of being behind the Times Square incident. He claimed that the Taliban directed the suspected bomber, Faisal Shahzad, a naturalised American citizen of Pakistani descent. Under interrogation, Shahzad has allegedly admitted training in Taliban camps in North Waziristan, although the amateurish character of the bombing attempt indicates otherwise. A Tehrik-e-Taliban spokesman has denied any involvement.

Publicly, the Obama administration has been cautious, not wanting to further destabilise the already fragile Pakistani government. Under US pressure, the Pakistani military has already launched major offensives over the past year into the Swat Valley, Bajaur and South Waziristan, in which thousands of civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the border with Afghanistan, US drone attacks have killed hundreds of civilians and reinforced anger toward what many Pakistanis regard as a US puppet government in Islamabad.

Behind closed doors, however, the “very severe consequences” have been spelled out in no uncertain terms. An article in the New York Times last Friday described “the new pressure from Washington” over the Times Square incident as “a sharp turnabout from the [previous] relatively polite encouragement”. “And it comes amid increasing debate within the administration about how to expand American military influence—and even a boots-on-the-ground presence—on Pakistani soil,” the article added.

The Times reported that the US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, met with Pakistan’s military chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, on Friday to urge Pakistan to begin a military offensive into North Waziristan, which is part of the FATA territory. The Pakistani military has previously resisted such pressure, saying its forces were already overstretched. While McChrystal denied pressing Kayani, an American official explained to theTimes that the Pakistani general was told: “We are saying you have got to go into North Waziristan.”

In an article on Sunday, the Washington Post described the debate in the Obama administration in similar terms, stating that some officials “see the Times Square incident as weighing in favor of a far more muscular and unilateral US policy. It would include a geographically expanded use of drone missile attacks in Pakistan and pressure for a stronger US military presence there.”

Such measures would be highly provocative and deeply destabilising. At least 36 US drone attacks have taken place inside Pakistan so far this year, including two in the past week inside North Waziristan. The figure compares to 53 for all of last year and 30 during the final year of the Bush administration. In the latest strike yesterday, 12 missiles were fired at an alleged training camp, killing at least 14 people. More than 900 people, mostly civilians, have died in US drone strikes.

What the Washington Post article suggests is that US drone attacks would take place deeper inside Pakistan and beyond the FATA border areas. American military officials have previously described areas of Baluchistan, including the city of Quetta, as hotbeds of “terrorist” activity. As for “a stronger US military presence,” the Pakistani military has previously opposed any increase in US “trainers” and “advisers,” as well as the direct intrusion of US troops from Afghanistan in “hot pursuit” of Islamist fighters. An attack by US special forces on a village in South Waziristan and the death of civilians in September 2008 provoked widespread opposition in Pakistan.

According to the Washington Post, those Obama officials that oppose a more aggressive military policy insist that the Pakistan government has no option but to do Washington’s bidding. “Pakistan’s economy is on the verge of collapse, with gross domestic product falling from more than 8 percent growth in 2005 to under 3 percent last year. More than $3.5 billion in US economic and military assistance is in the pipeline, and a nearly $8 billion International Monetary Fund agreement and a $3.5 billion World Bank financing package are pending.”

Whether directly through an increased US military presence or indirectly by compelling the Pakistani military to go on the offensive in North Waziristan and other areas, the Obama administration is drawing Pakistan into the broader American quagmire in the region. It is no accident that increased pressure on Islamabad comes as the US military is preparing to launch a major offensive to stamp its control over the southeastern Afghan city of Kandahar. The Times Square incident is simply a convenient pretext to demand parallel action on the Pakistani side of the border.

Under the banner of the “war on terrorism,” President Obama has escalated his so-called AfPak war, which, along with the occupation of Iraq, is aimed at securing American economic and strategic dominance in the key energy-rich regions of Central Asia and the Middle East. In pursuing these reckless and predatory wars over the past eight years, the US has steadily undermined the economic and political stability of Pakistan and encroached on its national sovereignty, and exacerbated wider regional tensions, particularly with India.

The disaster unfolding in Pakistan, along with Afghanistan and Iraq, must be opposed through the demand for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US and foreign troops from all three countries.

Reason of Floods in Pakistan

Here is the video which will exactly tells the Reason of Floods in Pakistan. lets see it and find out where the fault lies.

My Vision for a Prosperous Pakistan by Pervaiz Musharaf

My Vision for a Prosperous Pakistan. It is an undeniable and well-established fact the decade of the 1990s was disastrous for Pakistan. While many developing nations made substantial progress, Pakistan lurched from one economic crisis to another, mainly of its own making. Weak macroeconomic management, lack of commitment and courage to undertake difficult structural reforms, a personalized and politicized state of decision-making and alarming levels of corruption were typical of the quality of governance. Appalling economic decisions hyped on populist slogans were symbolic of the freewheeling decision-making that led to the incurring of huge debt through corruption-ridden unproductive public expenditure. Commercial banks and other financial institutions became instruments of political patronage and profit for favored cronies. The gross mismanagement of public sector enterprises like the Water & Power Development Authority, the Karachi. Electric Supply Corporation, the railways, Pakistan Steel Mills, Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and Pakistan International Airlines added further to the problems. The freezing of foreign currency accounts shattered the confidence of investors and expatriate Pakistanis in the financial management of the country. The persistence of large fiscal and current account deficits and the associated build-up of public and external debt emerged as the major source of macroeconomic imbalances in the 1990s. Failures in enhancing revenues consistent with growing expenditure requirements, stagnation in exports and the decline in other foreign exchange inflows exacerbated these imbalances and vitiated a stable macroeconomic environment. On the political side, successive governments during this decade pursued twin agendas of blatant self-aggrandizement and ruthless revenge. In the process, they undermined certain basic imperatives of the federal polity, deeply politicized the civil services and dragged the hierarchy of the armed forces into playing the role of referee in the struggle for political power. In the comity of nations, Pakistan faced isolation and remained on the defensive on a number of issues, which were vital to its international standing. Such a state of affairs had a far-reaching impact on the country’s economic well-being. There was despondency among all, as many began to talk of Pakistan as a failed state. Indeed, Pakistan witnessed economic growth slowing, investment rates decelerating and the debt burden reaching alarming proportions. The massive cost of debt servicing rendered fiscal policy instruments ineffective and the country’s physical and human infrastructure showed signs of buckling under the combination of fiscal crunch, rising poverty and poor governance. A weak and fragile economy became the cause as well as the effect of the poor law and order situation in the country. It was in the backdrop of this state of affairs that my government took charge of the affairs of state on October 12, 1999.It was established that a mere return to civilian government through quickly held elections would not address the malaise that had been virtually institutionalized by the mutually inimical and antagonistic political practices that were rampant throughout the country. Many international forums and governments saw it as yet another takeover by an intrusive military and called for a return to democracy at the very earliest. However, national responsibility demanded that a comprehensive and sincere effort be launched to rectify this state of affairs and propagate sustainable democracy for the good of the people and the state of Pakistan. This was indeed a Herculean task but greater was our resolve to accomplish it. On the economic front it was realized that if left uncorrected, the worsening macroeconomic imbalances would lead to a higher accumulation of debt, a further loss of sovereignty and an uncertain environment for investment, thus jeopardizing the prospects of sustainable higher economic growth and an improvement in the lives of the masses. Economic Policy Objectives. While accepting this challenge, my government set forward four major policy objectives on the economic front. First, to stabilize the country’s debt situation with a view to restoring macroeconomic stability. Second, to revive economic growth and restore investor confidence. Third, to arrest the rising trends in poverty and, fourth, to improve governance. These four policy objectives were all interconnected. For example, a rising debt burden, which consumed almost two-thirds of government revenues on account of debt-servicing forced public sector development programmes to decline over the years. Being complementary in nature, private sector investment also declined. This decline in overall investment caused economic growth to decelerate with a corresponding rise in unemployment and poverty. Poor governance also contributed to the slowing of Pakistan’s economic growth and the rising levels of unemployment and poverty. Options Available. Given the nature of the challenges, we had two options. The first was to implement the four objectives simultaneously, that is, stabilize the debt situation, promote investment and growth, reduce poverty and improve governance. The second option was to prioritize these objectives and address the core issues first. After extensive deliberations, my economic team opted for the second option for the following reasons: first, Pakistan did not have the capacity to address all these issues simultaneously. Second, to address all the issues simultaneously we had to use instruments whose outcomes were conflicting in nature. For example, the root cause of the rising debt burden had been the persistence of large fiscal and current account deficits causing rapid accumulation of debt and consequent deterioration of the macroeconomic environment. In such an unstable environment one could not expect the private sector to come forward and increase investment. A stable macroeconomic environment was an absolute pre-requisite for promoting private sector investment and spurring economic growth. Stabilizing the country’s debt situation was, therefore, considered to be the core issue and was addressed first with a lot of vigor and ingenuity. Policies Pursued My Government launched a comprehensive reform programme in early 2000 to restore macroeconomic balance and to improve the overall economic environment through prudent fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies, financial discipline and consistent and transparent economic policies. A wide range of reforms was introduced in the areas of taxation, trade and tariffs, banking and finance, industry and agriculture, deregulation and privatization, fiscal transparency and governance. Space and time do not permit me to delve into the details of these reforms; they are well documented in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). My government was of the view that Pakistan’s economic problems were structural in nature and the objectives of sustaining high economic growth, low inflation and external payment viability could not be achieved without removing these structural bottlenecks Where Are We Now? The fruits of the policies and reform programmes that were introduced by my government in early 2000 and continued by the democratically elected government have started yielding dividends. Despite a series of domestic and external shocks of an unprecedented nature, Pakistan’s economy has made commendable progress over the last four-and-a-half years. A broad-based economic recovery has already gathered momentum, macroeconomic stability has achieved and the external balance of payments is much stronger today than ever before. Pakistan’s economy is now healthier and poised for a strong growth of over 6% this year; economic policies are consistent and transparent; the confidence of the private sector is restored, which is reflected in the sharp pick-up in bank credit to the private sector and a high double-digit growth in industrial production; the stock market is buoyant and expatriate Pakistanis are bringing their capital back; the current account balance has been in surplus for three years in a row; foreign exchange reserves are over $12.5 billion; the rupee is stable; the interest rate environment has never been so investment friendly; the budget deficit has been lowered and the country’s debt burden has declined sharply; exports, imports and tax collection are growing at double-digit levels; and Pakistan has paid $1.17 billion high cost external debt to the Asian Development Bank ahead of time and intends to pre-pay another $1.0 billion before end-December 2004. Pakistan has been upgraded from ‘Selective Default’ to ‘B’ by the international rating agencies.Transferring Macroeconomic Gains to the People No efforts to revive the economy will be complete unless the macroeconomic gains are transferred to the masses in terms of improved standards of living. The best way to improve the living conditions of the people is to enhance their earning, provide them with gainful employment, scaling up investment in human capital and maximizing the impact of existing public spending on education and health. Central to achieving this objective is the promotion of stronger economic growth. It is a well-established fact that poverty in developing countries is largely a rural phenomenon and Pakistan is no exception. More than two-thirds of the country’s population lives in rural areas and the overwhelming majority of them are dependent, directly or indirectly, on agriculture for their livelihood. Almost 44% of the country’s workforce is employed in agriculture. The major constraint in Pakistan’s agriculture has been the availability of irrigation water. The best way to help improve the living conditions of the people in rural areas is to increase their earnings from their land by improving agriculture through increasing the availability of irrigation water. It is in this connection that my government launched over Rs. 300 billion worth of water-related projects, most of which re likely to be completed during the next two-to-three years. The water-related projects include construction of various canals and dams, brick lining of watercourses and revamping of irrigation and drainage systems. After he completion of these projects, 2.88 million acres of land will become available for cultivation there by giving a quantum jump to agricultural growth, increasing the incomes of farmers, providing more jobs to the rural workforce and reducing poverty in rural are as. Addressing the issue of educated unemployed youth in the country in general and the urban areas in particular has always remained central to my thought. Accordingly, Information Technology & Telecommunication was identified as one of the major drivers of growth by my government because of its enormous potential to create jobs for the urban segment of society. This sector has witnessed unprecedented growth during the last four-and-a-half years and has emerged as a major source of foreign investment — thanks to major reforms introduced in this sector. IT & Telecommunication is not only bridging the digital divide across the nations but within the country as well. It is playing an important role in the country’s socio-economic development and improving the productivity of our economy. The extraordinary growth in the IT and Telecom sector has created enormous employment opportunities, directly and indirectly, for educated unemployed youth in a wide range of areas like call centers, telecom engineering, telecom salespersons, customer services, finance and accounting etc. This is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy and the pace is likely to accelerate even further in years to come, hence more job creation will be taking place. While working towards improving the country’s macro indicators and initiating wide-ranging structural reforms, my government was never oblivious to the plight of the deserving segments of society. We continued to pursue targeted intervention to address the problems of poverty, income and employment generation through our public works programme (Khushal Pakistan Programme), food support programme, micro credit, zakat distribution and others. Strong macroeconomic gains allowed us to raise development spending from less than Rs. 100 billion to Rs. 160 billion in just 5 years. This is likely to be increased to over Rs. 200 billion for 2004-05. These resources are utilized to create jobs, improve education and health services and strengthen the country’s physical infrastructure. The twenty-first century is an era of geo-economics. By virtue of its pivotal geographical location, Pakistan can act as a bridge of economic progress and the sharing of the vast energy potential between Central and South Asia. Landlocked Central Asia has the shortest access to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan. The under construction Gwadar Port, with road and rail infrastructure extending to Afghanistan, provides connectivity between Central Asia and Pakistan through Afghanistan for mutual gains. The sustainability of economic growth is linked to the situation on our borders. This entails resolution of all issues with India including the core dispute of Kashmir. In addition, a stable Afghanistan is essential for the economic prosperity of the region. The 12th SAARC Summit held in Islamabad in January this year has provided a fresh impetus to the progress and prosperity of the peoples of South Asia. The joint statement issued on the sidelines of the SAARC Summit is a significant move forward in our endeavors for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute and other issues bedeviling relations between Pakistan and India. Promotion of peace and economic ties in South Asia will pave the way for both intra- and inter-regional cooperation between Central Asia and the SAARC countries. .My Vision Pakistan has lived through a difficult and testing period. Wide-ranging structural reforms, prudent macroeconomic policies, financial discipline, and consistency and continuity in policies, not seen before, have transformed Pakistan — an economic ‘laggard’ in the 1990s — into a stable and resurgent economy in 2004. This relatively stronger economy has generated sufficient resources enabling the government to undertake balanced development programmes in all the provinces of Pakistan, thus cementing provincial harmony. It has also enabled us to regain our lost status in the comity of nations. Notwithstanding the monumental turnaround in the fortunes of our nation, I believe that the true potential of Pakistan and its people is still far from realization. Though we have traveled through difficult terrains and have experienced many a trial and travail, our journey is far from over. We are witnessing cataclysmic changes in world affairs and these have provided us with a unique opportunity to think and act differently because the set of assumptions that guided the world economy until just a few years ago has been rendered obsolete by events. The challenges before us demand creative new approaches through a revolutionary thought process. It is against this backdrop that I visualize Pakistan as a strong, high-performing economy, growing at an average rate of 7 to 8 percent over the next decade. I would like to see the continuation of the present stable macroeconomic environment and an educated and healthier Pakistani contributing effectively to achieving higher economic growth. I would like to see the benefits of macroeconomic gains passed on to the common man. Lastly, I would like to see Pakistan living with honour, dignity and respect amongst the nations of the world. How can my vision be realized? The stage is now set for growth to accelerate from over 6% this year to 8% in the next three-to-four years. The sectors which will play a major part in this vision of growth are agriculture, small and medium enterprises, housing and construction, oil and gas, information technology and telecommunication. Among these, at least three are expected to generate pro-poor growth. This does not mean that we will ignore other sectors of the economy. In fact, a more diversified economy with a vibrant manufacturing and service sector will offer the best chance of achieving higher economic growth on a sustained basis. With the country’s population growing at less than 2% per annum over the next decade, real per capita income will be growing at an average rate of 5.5% to 6% per annum. This is the growth in per capita income which will be required to substantially reduce poverty and unemployment in the country, thereby improving the lives of the masses. Pakistan can sustain this growth momentum provided consistency, continuity and transparency in economic policy making is maintained. Financial discipline will be vital in maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment essential for higher economic growth. The respective roles of the government and the private sector must be clearly delineated. I believe that the private sector is not only the main engine of growth but it is the main source of employment generation as well. I also believe that the private sector can produce, distribute and trade goods and services more efficiently and at lower cost than the government. The government, therefore, should not be in the business of doing business. Its role should be in facilitating and creating an environment conducive for the private sector can play its essential role. Our policy of privatization must continue to be pursued with vigor. Agriculture and the energy sectors will remain the catalysts of our poverty alleviation and economic growth. Agriculture has to be boosted, cheap electric generation capacity has to be enhanced and energy cost has to be reduced. All this is dependant on the construction of a large dam which will give us the additional water for the new canals we are making, and will also generate a substantial quantity of the cheapest electricity — hydro electricity. It is imperative that we gradually change our electric generation profile from expensive oil dependence to water, coal and gas generation. Such a change in electricity generation ratios will allow us the essential reduction in electricity prices thus contributing to poverty alleviation as well as reduction in industrial production costs. The decision on priorities of construction of large dams has to be taken immediately and construction of at least one dam completed within the coming ten years. Few policies have promoted socio-economic development as powerfully as effective investment in human resources. No nation can effectively progress without a strong human capital base. Investment in this area will be as essential as sound macroeconomic policies in achieving the desired economic boom. Education is central to overall human resource development. While basic innumeracy, higher education, especially at the tertiary level, involves specialization in fields of study and occupation relevant to developing technological capability. Past neglect of human resource development has created a large social gap in Pakistan; we have, therefore, a lot of catching up to do. The education strategy evolved caters for enhancing our literacy levels, improving the quality of our primary and secondary education and also giving a major boost to the quality of our higher education. This holistic approach needs to be pursued vigorously through enhanced funding for concrete results. We have to achieve our targeted improvement of a 60% literacy level by 2005 and over 90% by 2015, besides producing 1,500 Ph. Ds per year mainly in science subjects by 2009 (up from the present state of a couple of hundred Ph. Ds only in science and technology). The present percentage of students entering higher education has also to be enhanced from 2.6% to 5% by 2009. We have also launched a scheme of creating linkages between our industry and higher education. This involves opening of technology parks on campuses to encourage interaction between academia and industry for compatibility. There are other areas of our dynamic reforms which need to be further enhanced. A digital library has been launched giving internet access to any student to the latest journals without cost. Fifty- two universities of Pakistan today stand connected with fiber optics to share lectures/faculty through video conferencing. This will be to the advantage of weaker universities which will get access to quality education. Two exclusive education channels have been launched through our PAKSAT 1. These need to be increased to 4 channels. The prospects of achieving higher economic growth, indispensable for reducing poverty, will depend on the ability of the country to unlock the creative energies of the people. Besides education we also need to invest in health and population planning. We Can Do It. Pakistan has lived through a difficult and testing period in the not-too-distant past. Its economy was fragile, the balance of payments was highly vulnerable to external shocks, the country’s debt burden had reached alarming proportions, financial indiscipline was the order of the day and the country’s foreign exchange reserves were at dangerously low levels. After four-and-a-half years of hard work, Pakistan’s economy is now resurgent and the balance of payments has never been as comfortable. Notwithstanding the impressive progress made so far, the government must not be complacent, as the country has not yet realized its true potential. The 150 million people of Pakistan have enormous potential to excel in many areas. Their intelligence, their dynamism and their ability to learn are second to none. What is required is the unlocking of the creative energies of the people. My vision of a strong, vibrant, stable and moderate Pakistan playing an effective role in the world is based on my faith in the people of Pakistan. If we stay the course, I am confident that the desired results can and will be achieved. Let us together make Pakistan a better place to live in and bequeath a stronger country to our current and future generation is an undeniable and well-established fact that the decade of the 1990s was disastrous for Pakistan. While many developing nations made substantial progress, Pakistan lurched from one economic crisis to another, mainly of its own making. Weak macroeconomic management, lack of commitment and courage to undertake difficult structural reforms, a personalized and politicized state of decision-making and alarming levels of corruption were typical of the quality of governance. Appalling economic decisions hyped on populist slogans were symbolic of the freewheeling decision-making that led to the incurring of huge debt

Ex Prime Minister Tony Blair Alleged Potential war Criminal

Let me ask you one question, is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness? Do you think that it could?” (Bob Dylan, Masters of War.)

Sometimes a topic simply will not go away. These weeks, Anthony Charles  Lynton Blair, Q.C., former British Prime Minister, alleged potential war criminal, surreal Middle East Peace Envoy – who led an administration which shared responsibility for, if not quite rivers of blood, bloodied market places, mosques, squares, homes, humans, hospitals, beyond counting – just keeps coming back and back.

Fresh from the Balkans, after accepting a solid gold “Freedom Medal”, Kosovo’s highest Award – from a nation less than a shining example of the rule of law, where streets and the capitol’s main square are named after him,he immediately re-invented himself as best selling author. His book signing is a “must attend” event, at literary emporium Hatchard’s showcase store, in London’s Piccadilly, on 8th September – if you are prepared to relinquish your handbag, laptop, keys, cash, backpack, and other belongings, to a stranger, at the door. 

Symbolic, really. Iraq and Afghanistan were stripped of their assets at missile and gun-point. Blair, seemingly, will have armed body guards. 

A certain furore has greeted the book signing, for which he reportedly received a £4.6 million advance, on top of the now estimated up to £46 million, since he left office, including from interests in oil exploration in Iraq, over which he is reported to have fought a two year battle with the (UK) parliamentary independent scrutiny committee, to be anything but scrutinised. Details he said, were “commercially sensitive.” You bet. His networks of companies through which his money gushes are, says Mike Warburton, senior partner at tax accountants Grant Thornton : “… opaque. We do not know where the money comes from or where it goes to, but at the end of the chain, you have a company that does not file accounts, so one can only presume it is to keep secret.” 

Financial diversities too numerous to mention include : “… taking £90,000 to appear at the opening of a methanol power plant in Azerbaijan last year.” 

Three years on from his relatively modest Prime Ministerial salary of under £200,000 a year, his family property portfolio : ” … now contains seven homes worth £14 million, including four in central London. Latest addition is a four-storey, Grade II-listed town house, a snip at just under £1.3million, a few streets away from (their) £3.7million Connaught Square home.” 

“His elite security team costs the taxpayer £6 million annually, because he is also accompanied by up to five personal bodyguards while travelling the world.” 

However, with Teflon Tony’s latest re-invention of himself as author, has has also re-invented himself as bountiful benefactor. 

In recognition of: ” ..  the courage and sacrifice the (UK) armed forces demonstrate day in, day out …”, he is, seemingly, to donate the full £4.6 million advance for the book to the armed Services charity,The Royal British Legion, after: ” … having witnessed (Services actions) in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone and Kosovo”, stated a Blair minion, omitting that anything he had witnessed was a carefully orchestrated, literally “blow-in” photo-op, by helicopter, to a mega-fortified base, flanxed by a sizeable personal army and a larger surrounding one. Hardly sleeve-rolling-up, coal face mastery or solidarity. Also unsaid is that arguably, in four out of the five stated places, British troops had no business being, with the Iraq invasion openly declared illegal, even by no less than the former UN Secretary General. 

“This is his way of honouring their courage and sacrifice”, added the hireling. “The proceeds will go to the Royal British Legion’s “Battle Back” challenge centre, a project that will provide state-of-the-art rehabilitation services for seriously injured troops returning from the front line”, he clarified. 

Whilst the Charity’s Director General expressed his delight at “this very generous offer”, it is worth casting an eye on what Lord Blair of Kut al Amara – as dubbed by Robert Fisk, referring to one of the British army’s most humiliating defeats – has cost the country in the historic folly of just Iraq and Afghanistan. Under a Freedom of Information Act request (4) sums revealed include, for Iraq: 

* £2.3 million in compensation to troops suffering from trauma

* £6.1 million compensation for 179 killed and hundred injured

* £14 million in one off payments to families of those killed

* £9.4 million in other payments to dependents of the dead.

 A “flood” of claims is expected relating to the (as now) 325 service personnel killed in Afghanistan. To now, only £317,000 has been paid out.

 Meanwhile other charities, such as Combat Stress, are struggling with the psychological fallout from the invasions, dealing already with over 4,000 cases. They point out that the majority of serious problems, on average, take fourteen years to present, a ticking financial, Blair-generated time bomb, for maybe decades, to come. Their expenditure is around £20 million annually. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Famies Association expend well in excess of £40 million; Help for Heroes, who aim to rehabilitate the numerous who have lost limbs – some, all of them – sight, movement, is aiming for £20 million this year. The British Legion needs around £40 million annually.

 These figures, relating directly or indirectly to Blair’s feckless, forays, however pale against the cost, so far of the Afghan and Iraq oil, mineral and resources grabs to Britain, in “fighting”, and in which, strangely, “diplomacy” is factored : £20 billion, to the taxpayers of a small island off France.

 So has Mr Blair’s munificence contributing to delivering a mollified and grateful public? Not exactly.

 First to weigh in was Peter Brierley, whose young son Shaun died in Iraq, and who had refused to shake Blair’s hand at a commemoration service for the troops, at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral. They were, he said, covered in blood. “Blood money” he said of the donation to the Press Association, adding: “£4.6 million cannot wash Blair’s hands clean.”

 Political satirist and columnist Mark Steel was less than compromising: “Imagine if the British Legion announced: ‘You’ll never guess what. Today we got another donation of £4 million, from the latest DVD by Osma Bin Laden. It really has been our lucky week. ”

 Writer and activist, David Wilson, suggested other book signings he deemed apt for the relevant week, to the Guardian:

 “Waterstones are pleased to announce a programme of book signings for

 the week of 6 – 10 September 2010.

  6 September, Osama bin Laden: ‘Town Planning in Manhattan’

  7 September, Radovan Karadzic: ‘Hill Walks above Sarajevo’

 8 September, Tony Blair: ‘A Journey’

 9 September, General Than Shwe: ‘Gated Communities in Rangoon’

 10 September, President George W Bush: ‘Shock and Ore.’ ”

 Judas feeling guilty over his thirty pieces of silver crops up a bit. The Daily Finance unkindly point out that: “The donation will significantly cut his tax bill, by an estimated £2.3 million.”

 Seeming acres of ungenerous comments gather pace. However, here are some different financial costings:

 *£4.6 million, is exactly the estimated amount of Iraqis displaced by the invasion, internally and externally, who have lost everything. His donation would equal one pound each.

*For the five million orphans created since 2003, less than a pound each.

*For the million widows, a little over four pounds each.

*To the families of the upper estimate of one and a half million resultant dead, under four pounds each.

 The Book Signing Occasion, falls in the week that America commemorates 9/11.That day, arguably, the beginning of Blair’s “Journey” – into dodgy dossiers, destruction of two of nations, the spectre of the unexplained death of an eminent scientist, weapons inspector, Dr David Kelly, having said publicly he thought the wmd claims might have been “sexed up” – and his unshakeable, blind, messianic certainty of being “right.” 

 On the course of this journey, between Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly approaching two million dead, lie strewn along the way.

 A shame the signing could not be moved to Saturday,11th September. Were there an arrest, citizens’ or otherwise, no more fitting day for him to begin another journey – to the Hague.

 One can only wistfully wish, and fantasize.  

 On 28th July, former weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told the Chilcot Inquiry in to the invasion, of a conversation he had with Blair on 20th February, 2003, when the invasion was already, clearly, unstoppable: “Wouldn’t it be paradoxical if you invade Iraq with 250,000 men and find very little?”

 As this was being written, Britain commemorated the 70th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s speech of 20th August, 1940, which includes the lines: “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few.” Perhaps it should be re-fashioned for our times: “Never have so many died, for being ripped off by so few.”

The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran

The stockpiling and deployment of advanced weapons systems directed against Iran started in the immediate wake of the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq. From the outset, these war plans were led by the US, in liaison with NATO and Israel.

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”. US military sources intimated that an aerial attack on Iran could involve a large scale deployment comparable to the US “shock and awe” bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:

“American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq.

“Theater Iran Near Term”

Code named by US military planners as TIRANNT, “Theater Iran Near Term”, simulations of an attack on Iran were initiated in May 2003 “when modelers and intelligence specialists pulled together the data needed for theater-level (meaning large-scale) scenario analysis for Iran.” ( (William Arkin, Washington Post, 16 April 2006).

The scenarios identified several thousand targets inside Iran as part of a “Shock and Awe” Blitzkrieg:  

“The analysis, called TIRANNT, for “Theater Iran Near Term,” was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for “major combat operations” against Iran that military sources confirm now [April 2006] exists in draft form.

… Under TIRANNT, Army and U.S. Central Command planners have been examining both near-term and out-year scenarios for war with Iran, including all aspects of a major combat operation, from mobilization and deployment of forces through postwar stability operations after regime change.” (William Arkin, Washington Post, 16 April 2006)

Different “theater scenarios” for an all out attack on Iran had been contemplated:  “The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for “Operation Iranian Freedom”. Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command, has inherited computerized plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).” (New Statesman, February 19, 2007)

In 2004, drawing upon the initial war scenarios under TIRANNT,  Vice President Dick Cheney instructed USSTRATCOM to draw up a “contingency plan” of a large scale military operation directed against Iran “to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States” on the presumption that the government in Tehran would be behind the terrorist plot. The plan included the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state:

“The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.”

The Military Road Map: “First Iraq, then Iran”

The decision to target Iran under TIRANNT was part of the broader process of military planning and sequencing of military operations. Already under the Clinton administration, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) had formulated  “in war theater plans” to invade first Iraq and then Iran. Access to Middle East oil was the stated strategic objective:

“The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman’s National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command’s theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM’s theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States’ vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.”

The war on Iran was viewed as part of a succession of military operations.  According to (former) NATO Commander General Wesley Clark, the Pentagon’s military road-map consisted of a sequence of countries: “[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.”  In “Winning Modern Wars” (page 130) General Clark states the following:

“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.

The Role of Israel

There has been much debate regarding the role of Israel in initiating an attack against Iran.

Israel is part of a military alliance. Tel Aviv is not a prime mover. It does not have a separate and distinct military agenda.

Israel is integrated into the “war plan for major combat operations” against Iran formulated in 2006 by US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). In the context of large scale military operations, an uncoordinated unilateral military action by one coalition partner, namely Israel, is from a military and strategic point almost an impossibility. Israel is a de facto member of NATO. Any action by Israel would require a “green light” from Washington.

An attack by Israel could, however, be used as “the trigger mechanism” which would unleash an all out war against Iran, as well retaliation by Iran directed against Israel.

In this regard, there are indications that Washington might envisage the option of an initial (US backed) attack by Israel  rather than an outright US-led military operation directed against Iran. The Israeli attack –although led in close liaison with the Pentagon and NATO– would be presented to public opinion as a unilateral decision by Tel Aviv. It would then be used by Washington to justify, in the eyes of World opinion, a military intervention of the US and NATO with a view to “defending Israel”, rather than attacking Iran. Under existing military cooperation agreements, both the US and NATO would be “obligated” to “defend Israel” against Iran and Syria.

It is worth noting, in this regard, that at the outset of Bush’s second term, (former) Vice President Dick Cheney hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the “rogue enemies” of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, “be doing the bombing for us”, without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”

According to Cheney:

“One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked… Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,” (Dick Cheney, quoted from an MSNBC Interview, January 2005)

Commenting the Vice President’s assertion, former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in an interview on PBS, confirmed with some apprehension, yes: Cheney wants Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to act on America’s behalf and “do it” for us:

“Iran I think is more ambiguous. And there the issue is certainly not tyranny; it’s nuclear weapons. And the vice president today in a kind of a strange parallel statement to this declaration of freedom hinted that the Israelis may do it and in fact used language which sounds like a justification or even an encouragement for the Israelis to do it.”

What we are dealing with is a joint US-NATO-Israel  military operation to bomb Iran, which has been in the active planning stage since 2004. Officials in the Defense Department, under Bush and Obama, have been working assiduously with their Israeli military and intelligence counterparts, carefully identifying targets inside Iran. In practical military terms, any action by Israel would have to be planned and coordinated at the highest levels of the US led coalition.

An attack by Israel would also require coordinated US-NATO logistical support, particularly with regard to Israel’s air defense system, which since January 2009 is fully integrated into that of the US and NATO.

Israel’s X band radar system established in early 2009 with US technical support has “integrate[d] Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile [Space-based] detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors.”

What this means is that Washington ultimately calls the shots. The US rather than Israel controls the air defense system: ”’This is and will remain a U.S. radar system,’ Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. ‘So this is not something we are giving or selling to the Israelis and it is something that will likely require U.S. personnel on-site to operate.’” (Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009).

The US military oversees Israel’s Air Defense system, which is integrated into the Pentagon’s global system. In other words, Israel cannot launch a war against Iran without Washington’s consent. Hence the importance of the so-called “Green Light” legislation in the US Congress sponsored by the Republican party under House Resolution 1553, which explicitly supports an Israeli attakc on Iran: 

“The measure, introduced by Texas Republican Louie Gohmert and 46 of his colleagues, endorses Israel’s use of “all means necessary” against Iran “including the use of military force.” … “We’ve got to get this done. We need to show our support for Israel. We need to quit playing games with this critical ally in such a difficult area.”’

In practice, the proposed legislation is a “Green Light” to the White House and the Pentagon rather than to Israel. It constitutes a rubber stamp to a US sponsored war on Iran which uses Israel as a convenient military launch pad. It also serves as a justification to wage war with a view to defending Israel. 

In this context, Israel could indeed provide the pretext to wage war, in response to alleged Hamas or Hezbollah attacks and/or the triggering of hostilities on the border of Israel with Lebanon. What is crucial to understand is that a minor “incident” could be used as a pretext to spark off a major military operation against Iran.

Known to US military planners, Israel (rather than the USA) would be the first target of military retaliation by Iran. Broadly speaking, Israelis would be the victims of the machinations of both Washington and their own government. It is, in this regard, absolutely crucial that Israelis forcefully oppose any action by the Netanyahu government to attack Iran.

Global Warfare: The Role of US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM)

Global military operations are coordinated out of US Strategic Command Headquarters (USSTRATCOM) at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, in liaison with the regional commands of the unified combatant commands (e.g.. US Central Command  in Florida, which is responsible for the Middle East-Central Asian region, See map below)  as well as coalition command units in Israel, Turkey, the Persian Gulf and the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean.  Military planning and decision making at a country level by individual allies of US-NATO as well as “partner nations” is integrated into a global military design including the weaponization of space.

Under its new mandate, USSTRATCOM has a responsibility for “overseeing a global strike plan” consisting of both conventional and nuclear weapons. In military jargon, it is slated to play the role of “a global integrator charged with the missions of Space Operations; Information Operations; Integrated Missile Defense; Global Command & Control; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Global Strike; and Strategic Deterrence…. ”

USSTRATCOM’s responsibilities include: “leading, planning, & executing strategic deterrence operations” at a global level, “synchronizing global missile defense plans and operations”, “synchronizing regional combat plans”, etc. USSTRATCOM is the lead agency in the coordination of modern warfare.  

In January 2005, at the outset of the military deployment and build-up directed against Iran, USSTRATCOM was identified as “the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction.” (Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Global Research, January 3, 2006).

What this means is that the coordination of a large scale attack on Iran, including the various scenarios of escalation in and beyond the broader Middle East Central Asian region would be coordinated by USSTRATCOM.

Map: US Central Command’s Area of Jurisdiction

Tactical Nuclear Weapons directed against Iran

Confirmed by military documents as well as official statements, both the US and Israel contemplate the use of nuclear weapons directed against Iran. In 2006, U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) announced it had achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons. This announcement was made after the conduct of military simulations pertaining to a US led nuclear attack against a fictional country.

Continuity in relation to the Bush-Cheney era:  President Obama has largely endorsed the doctrine of pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons formulated by the previous administration. Under the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the Obama administration confirmed  “that it is reserving the right to use nuclear weapons against Iran” for its non-compliance with US demands regarding its alleged (nonexistent) nuclear weapons program. (The Obama administration has also intimated that it would use nukes in the case of an Iranian response to an Israeli attack on Iran. (Ibid). Israel  has also drawn up its own “secret plans” to bomb Iran with tactical nuclear weapons:

“Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.”Obama’s statements on the use of nuclear weapons against Iran and North Korea are consistent with post 9/11 US nuclear weapons doctrine, which allows for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the conventional war theater. 

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of “authoritative” nuclear scientists, mini-nukes are upheld as an instrument of peace, namely a means to combating “Islamic terrorism” and instating Western style “democracy” in Iran. The low-yield nukes have been cleared for “battlefield use”. They are slated to be used against Iran and Syria in the next stage of America’s “war on Terrorism” alongside conventional weapons.

“Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states. [Iran, Syria, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent.” (Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004)

The preferred nuclear weapon to be used against Iran are tactical nuclear weapons (Made in America), namely bunker buster bombs with nuclear warheads (e.g. B61.11), with an explosive capacity between one third to six times a Hiroshima bomb. The B61-11 is the “nuclear version” of the “conventional”  BLU 113. or Guided Bomb Unit GBU-28. It can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb. . While the US does not contemplate the use of strategic thermonuclear weapons against Iran, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is largely composed of thermonuclear bombs which are deployed and could be used in a war with Iran. Under Israel’s Jericho‐III missile system with a range between 4,800 km to 6,500 km, all Iran would be within reach.    

Conventional bunker buster Guided Bomb Unit GBU-27

B61 bunker buster bombRadiactive FalloutThe issue of radioactive fallout and contamination, while casually dismissed  by US-NATO military analysts, would be devastating, potentially affecting a large area of  the broader Middle East (including Israel) and Central Asian region. 

In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing “collateral damage”.  Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons are a threat to global security, whereas those of the US  and Israel are instruments of peace” harmless to the surrounding civilian population“. �

“The Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) Slated to be Used against Iran

Of military significance within the US conventional weapons arsenal is the 21,500-pound “monster weapon” nicknamed the “mother of all bombs” The GBU-43/B or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) was categorized “as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed” with the the largest yield in the US conventional arsenal. The MOAB was tested in early March 2003 before being deployed to the Iraq war theater. According to US military sources, The Joint Chiefs of Staff  had advised the government of  Saddam Hussein prior to launching the 2003 that the “mother of all bombs” was to be used against Iraq. (There were unconfirmed reports that it had been used in Iraq).

The US Department of Defence has confirmed in October 2009 that it intends to use the “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) against Iran. The MOAB is said to be  “ideally suited to hit deeply buried nuclear facilities such as Natanz or Qom in Iran” (Jonathan Karl, Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran? ABC News, October 9, 2009). The truth of the matter is that the MOAB, given its explosive capacity, would result in extremely large civilian casualties. It is a conventional “killing machine” with a nuclear type mushroom cloud.  

The procurement of four MOABs was commissioned in October 2009 at the hefty cost of $58.4 million, ($14.6 million for each bomb). This amount  includes the costs of development and testing as well as integration of the MOAB bombs onto B-2 stealth bombers.(Ibid). This procurement is directly linked to war preparations in relation to Iran. The notification was contained in a 93-page “reprogramming memo” which included the following instructions:

“The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP [Mother of All Bombs] is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON [Urgent Operational Need].” It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).” (ABC News,  op cit, emphasis added).

The Pentagon is planning on a process of extensive destruction of Iran’s infrastructure and mass civilian casualties through the combined use of tactical nukes and monster conventional mushroom cloud bombs, including the MOAB and the larger GBU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which surpasses the MOAB in terms of explosive capacity.  

The MOP is described as “a powerful new bomb aimed squarely at the underground nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea. The gargantuan bomb—longer than 11 persons standing shoulder-to-shoulder [see image below] or more than 20 feet base to nose” 

These are WMDs in the true sense of the word. The not so hidden objective of the MOAB and MOP, including the American nickname used to casually describe the MOAB (“mother of all bombs’), is “mass destruction” and mass civilian casualties with a view to instilling fear and despair.    

“Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB)

GBU-57A/B Mass Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)

MOAB: screen shots of test: explosion and mushroom cloud

State of the Art Weaponry: “War Made Possible Through New Technologies”

The process of US military decision making in relation to Iran is supported by Star Wars, the militarization of outer space and the revolution in communications and information systems. Given the advances in military technology and the development of new weapons systems, an attack on Iran could be significantly different in terms of the mix of weapons systems, when compared to the March 2003 Blitzkrieg launched against Iraq. The Iran operation is slated to use the most advanced weapons systems in support of its aerial attacks. In all likelihood, new weapons systems will be tested.

The 2000 Project of the New American Century (PNAC) document entitled Rebuilding American Defenses, outlined the mandate of the US military in terms of large scale theater wars, to be waged simultaneously in different regions of the World:

“Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”. 

This formulation is tantamount to a global war of conquest by a single imperial superpower. The PNAC document also called for the transformation of  U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”, namely the implementation of  “war made possible through new technologies”. (See Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding Americas Defenses  Washington DC, September 2000, pdf).  The latter consists in developing and perfecting a state of the art global killing machine based on an arsenal of sophisticated new weaponry, which would eventually replace the existing paradigms.

“Thus, it can be foreseen that the process of transformation will in fact be a two-stage process: first of transition, then of more thoroughgoing transformation. The breakpoint will come when a preponderance of new weapons systems begins to enter service, perhaps when, for example, unmanned aerial vehicles begin to be as numerous as manned aircraft. In this regard, the Pentagon should be very wary of making large investments in new programs – tanks, planes, aircraft carriers, for example – that would commit U.S. forces to current paradigms of warfare for many decades to come. (Ibid, emphasis added)

The war on Iran could indeed mark this crucial breakpoint, with new space-based weapons systems being applied with a view to disabling an enemy which has significant conventional military capabilities including more than half a million ground forces.

Electromagnetic Weapons

Electromagnetic weapons could be used to destabilize Iran’s communications systems, disable electric power generation, undermine and destabilize command and control, government infrastructure, transportation, energy, etc.  Within the same family of weapons, environmental modifications techniques (ENMOD) (weather warfare) developed under the HAARP programme could also be applied. (See Michel Chossudovsky, “Owning the Weather” for Military Use, Global Research, September 27, 2004). These weapons systems are fully operational. In this context, te US Air Force document AF 2025 explicitly acknowledgedthe military applications of weather modification technologies:

“Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, improve communications through ionospheric modification (the use of ionospheric mirrors), and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in US, or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power.” Electromagnetic radiation enabling “remote health impairment” might also be envisaged in the war theater. (See Mojmir Babacek, Electromagnetic and Informational Weapons:, Global Research, August 6, 2004). In turn, new uses of biological weapons by the US military might also be envisaged as suggested by the PNAC: “[A]dvanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” (PNAC, op cit., p. 60).

Iran’s Military Capabilities: Medium and Long Range Missiles

Iran has advanced military capabilities, including medium and long range missiles capable of reaching targets in Israel and the Gulf States. Hence the emphasis by the US-NATO Israel alliance on the use of nuclear weapons, which are slated to be used either pr-emptively or in response to an Iranian retaliatory missile attack. 

Range of Iran’s Shahab Missiles. Copyright Washington Post

In November 2006, Iran tests of surface missiles 2 were marked by precise planning in a carefully staged operation. According to a senior American missile expert (quoted by Debka),  “the Iranians demonstrated up-to-date missile-launching technology which the West had not known them to possess.” (See Michel Chossudovsky, Iran’s “Power of Deterrence”  Global Research, November 5, 2006) Israel acknowledged that “the Shehab-3, whose 2,000-km range brings Israel, the Middle East and Europe within reach” (Debka, November 5, 2006)

According to Uzi Rubin, former head of Israel’s anti-ballistic missile program, “the intensity of the military exercise was unprecedented… It was meant to make an impression — and it made an impression.” The 2006 exercises, while  creating a political stir in the US and Israel, did not in any way modify US-NATO-Israeli resolve to wage on Iran.

Tehran has confirmed in several statements that it will respond if it is attacked. Israel would be the immediate object of Iranian missile attacks as confirmed by the Iranian government. The issue of Israel’s air defense system is therefore crucial. US and allied military facilities in the Gulf states, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq could also be targeted by Iran.

Iran’s Ground Forces

While Iran is encircled by US and allied military bases, the Islamic Republic has significant military capabilities. (See maps below) What is important to acknowledge is the sheer size of Iranian forces in terms of personnel (army, navy, air force) when compared to US and NATO forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Confronted with a well organized insurgency, coalition forces are already overstretched in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Would these forces be able to cope if Iranian ground forces were to enter the existing battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan? The potential of the Resistance movement to US and allied occupation would inevitably be affected.

Iranian ground forces are of the order of 700,000 of which 130,000 are professional soldiers, 220,000 are conscripts and 350,000 are reservists. (There are 18,000 personnel in Iran’s Navy and 52,000 in the air force. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “the Revolutionary Guards has an estimated 125,000 personnel in five branches: Its own Navy, Air Force, and Ground Forces; and the Quds Force (Special Forces).” According to the CISS, Iran’s Basij paramilitary volunteer force controlled by the Revolutionary Guards “has an estimated 90,000 active-duty full-time uniformed members, 300,000 reservists, and a total of 11 million men that can be mobilized if need be” In other words, Iran can mobilize up to half a million regular troops and several million militia. Its Quds special forces are already operating inside Iraq.

US Military and Allied Facilties Surrounding Iran

For several years now Iran has been conducting its own war drills and exercises. While its Air force has weaknesses, its intermediate and long-range missiles are fully operational. Iran’s military is in a state of readiness. Iranian troop concentrations are currently within a few kilometers of the Iraqi and Afghan borders, and within proximity of Kuwait. The Iranian Navy is deployed in the Persian Gulf within proximity of US and allied military facilities in the United Arab Emirates.

It is worth noting that in response to Iran’s military build-up, the US has been transferring large amounts of weapons to its non-NATO allies in the Persian Gulf including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

While Iran’s advanced weapons do not measure up to those of the US and NATO, Iranian forces would be in a position to inflict substantial losses to coalition forces in  a conventional war theater, on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. Iranian ground troops and tanks in December 2009 crossed the border into Iraq without being confronted or challenged by allied forces and occupied a disputed territory in the East Maysan oil field.

Even in the event of an effective Blitzkrieg, which targets Iran’s military facilities, its communications systems, etc. through massive aerial bombing, using cruise missiles, conventional bunker buster bombs and tactical nuclear weapons, a war with Iran, once initiated, could eventually lead into a ground war. This is something which US military planners have no doubt contemplated in their simulated war scenarios.

An operation of this nature would result in significant military and civilian casualties, particularly if nuclear weapons are used.  

The expanded budget for the war in Afghanistan currently debated in the US Congress is also intended to be used in the eventuality of an attack on Iran.

Within a scenario of escalation, Iranian troops could cross the border into Iraq and Afghanistan.

In turn, military escalation using nuclear weapons could lead us into a World War III scenario, extending beyond the Middle East Central Asian region. 

In a very real sense, this military project, which has been on the Pentagon’s drawing board for more than five years, threatens the future of humanity.

Our focus in this essay has been on war preparations. The fact that war preparations are in an advanced state of readiness does not imply that these war plans will be carried out.

The US-NATO-Israel alliance realizes that the enemy has significant capabilities to respond and retaliate. This factor in itself has been crucial over the last five years in the decision by the US and its allies to postpone an attack on Iran.

Another crucial factor is the structure of military alliances. Whereas NATO has become a formidable force, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which constitutes an alliance between Russia and China and a number of former Soviet republics has been significantly weakened.

The ongoing US military threats directed  against China and Russia are intended to weaken the SCO and discourage any form of military action on the part of Iran’s allies in the case of a US NATO Israeli attack.   

What are the countervailing forces which might prevent this war from occurring? There are numerous ongoing forces at work within the US State apparatus, the US Congress, the Pentagon and NATO.

The central force in preventing a war from occurring ultimately comes from the base of society, requiring forceful antiwar action by hundred of millions of people across the land, nationally and internationally.

People must mobilize not only against this diabolical military agenda, the authority of the State and its officials must be also be challenged.

This war can be prevented if people forcefully confront their governments, pressure their elected representatives, organize at the local level in towns, villages and municipalities, spread the word, inform their fellow citizens as to the implications of a nuclear war, initiate debate and discussion within the armed forces. 

The holding of mass demonstrations and antiwar protests is not enough. What is required is the development of a broad and well organized grassroots antiwar network which challenges the structures of power and authority. 

What is required is a mass movement of people which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of war, a global people’s movement which criminalizes war. �

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.
Author’s note: Dear Global Research Readers, kindly forward this text far and wide to friends and family, on internet forums, within the workplace, in your neighborhood, nationally and internationally, with a view to reversing the tide of war.  Spread the Word!  

Bhutto’s Assassination: Who Gains? by F. William Engdahl

Assassination of prominent political leaders, presumably protected by the best security, is no easy thing. It requires agencies of professional intelligence training to insure that the job is done and that no person is caught alive who can lead to those behind. Typically, from the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo in July 1914 to JFK, the person pulling the trigger is just an instrument of a far deeper conspiracy. So too in the assassination on December 27th, of Pakistani former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. Cui bono?. What was behind the murder of Bhutto at the moment her PPP party appeared about to win a resounding election victory in the planned January 8 elections, thereby posing a mass-based challenge to the dictatorial rule of President Musharraf? Musharraf’s government was indecently quick to blame “Al-Qaeda,” the dubious entity allegedly the organization of Osama bin Laden, whom Washington accused for masterminding the September 11 2001 attacks. Musharraf just days after, declared he was “sure” Al Qaeda was the author, even though, on US pressure, he has asked Scotland Yard to come and investigate. “I want to say it with certainty, that these people (Al Qaeda) martyred … Benazir Bhutto,” Musharraf said in a Jan. 3 televised address. He named Baitullah Mehsud, a militant tribal chief fighting the Pakistani Army, who has alleged ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban. Mehsud denied the charge. Had he been behind such a dramatic event, the desired propaganda impact among militant islamists would require taking open responsibility instead. By linking the Bhutto killing to Al Qaeda, Musharraf conveniently gains several goals. First he reinforces the myth of Al Qaeda, something very useful to Washington at this time of growing global skepticism over the real intent of its War on Terrorism, making Musharraf more valuable to Washington. Second it gives Musharraf a plausible scapegoat to blame for the convenient elimination of a serious political rival to his consolidation of one-man rule. Notable also is the fact that the Musharraf regime has rejected making a routine autoposy on Bhutto’s body. Bhutto publicly charged that the Government had refused to make followup inquiry after the October bombing which nearly killed her and did 134 followers near her auto. Bhutto accused Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security, and hinted that they may have been complicit in the Karachi attack. She also made clear in a UK television interview shortly before her death that she would clean out the Pakistan military and security services of corrupt and islamist elements. In the same David Frost interview, Bhutto also dropped the explosive news that Osama bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh Mohammad, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, an ISI Pakistani intelligence operative, who ‘confessed’ to the killing of Daniel Pearl. He was arrested in February 2002. If Benazir’s claim is correct, Omar Sheikh must have killed Osama before he was arrested in February 2002, which makes at least all the Osama messages after that date periodically delivered to western media clear forgeries. Days after the Bhutto killing, Pakistani authorities published a photo alleged to be of the severed head of the suicide bomber who killed Bhutto. Severed heads, like a dead Lee Harvey Oswald don’t talk or say embarrassing things. Also curious is the fact that Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi, a garrison town, where every millimeter is controlled by the Army security complex. The murder weapon was a Steyr 9mm, issued only to Pakistani Army Special Forces. Hmmmm. It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration has been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. Who was Bhutto? The Bhutto family was itself hardly democratic, drawing its core from feudal landowning families, but opposed to the commanding role of the army and ISI intelligence. Succeeding her father as head of the PPP, Benazir declared herself “chairperson for life” — a position she held until her death. Bhutto’s husband, Ali Zardari, “Mr. 10%,” is known in Pakistan for his demanding a 10% cut from letting major government contracts when Benazir was PM. In 2003, Benazir and her husband were convicted in Switzerland of money laundering and taking bribes from Swiss companies as PM. The family is allegedly worth several billions as a result. As prime minister from 1993 to 1996, she advocated a conciliatory policy toward Islamists, especially the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Harvard educated Benazir had close ties to US and UK intelligence as well. She used the offices of neo-conservative US Congressman Tom Lantos when she was in Washington according to our informed reports, one reason Vice President Cheney backed her as a “safe” way to save his Pakistan strategic alliance in face of growing popular protest against Musharraf’s declaring martial law last year. The ploy was to have Bhutto make a face-saving deal with Musharraf to put a democratic face on the dictatorship, while Washington maintained its strategic control. According to the Washington Post of 28 Dec., “For Benazir Bhutto, the decision to return to Pakistan was sealed during a telephone call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just a week before Bhutto flew home in October. The call culminated more than a year of secret diplomacy — and came only when it became clear that the heir to Pakistan’s most powerful political dynasty was the only one who could bail out Washington’s key ally in the battle against terrorism. . . .As President Pervez Musharraf’s political future began to unravel this year, Bhutto became the only politician who might help keep him in power.” In November, John Negroponte, former Bush Administration Intelligence Czar and now Deputy Secretary of State was deployed to Islamabad to pressure Musharraf to ease the situation by holding elections and forming a power-sharing with Bhutto. But once in Pakistan, where her supporters were mobilized, Bhutto made clear she would seek an election coalition to openly oppose Musharraf and military rule in the planned elections. A cynical US-Musharraf deal? Informed intelligence sources say there was a cynical deal cut behind the scenes between Washington and Musharraf. Musharraf is known to be Cheney’s preferred partner and Cheney we are told is the sole person running US-Pakistan policy today. Were Musharraf to agree to stationing of US Special Forces inside Pakistan, “Plan B”, the democratic farce with Bhutto could be put aside, in favor of the continued Musharraf sole rule. Washington would “turn a blind eye.” On Dec. 28, one day after the Bhutto assassination, the Washington Post reported that in early 2008, “US Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units,” under the US Central Command and US Special Operations Command, a major shift in US Pakistani ties. Until now Musharraf and his military have refused such direct US control, aside from the agreement after September 11, extracted from Musharraf under extreme pressure of possible US bombing, to give the US military direct control of the Pakistan nuclear weapons. The elimination of Bhutto leaves an opposition vacuum. The country lacks a credible political leader who can command national support, which leaves the military enhanced as an institution, with its willingness to defend Musharraf on the streets. This gives the Pentagon and Washington a chance to consolidate a military opposition to future Chinese economic hegemony—the real geopolitical goal of Washington.

Video of US WW3 by attacking Iran:Chossudovsky

Here is of Video of US WW3 by attacking Iran by writer Chossudovsky which explains why USA wnts to attack Iran and why it is against Muslim countries.

World War III Iran Vs USA Colation

Part I

Humanity is at a dangerous crossroads. War preparations to attack Iran are in “an advanced state of readiness”. Hi tech weapons systems including nuclear warheads are fully deployed. World War III Iran Vs USA Colation.

This military adventure has been on the Pentagon’s drawing board since the mid-1990s. First Iraq, then Iran according to a declassified 1995 US Central Command document.

Escalation is part of the military agenda. While Iran, is the next target together with Syria and Lebanon, this strategic military deployment also threatens North Korea, China and Russia.

Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated.

This is a coordinated endeavor of the Pentagon, NATO, Israel’s Defense Force (IDF), with the active military involvement of several non-NATO partner countries including the frontline Arab states (members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative), Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, among others. (NATO consists of 28 NATO member states  Another 21 countries are members of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), The Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative include ten Arab countries plus Israel.)

The roles of Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (within the extended military alliance) is of particular relevance. Egypt controls the transit of war ships and oil tankers through the Suez Canal. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States occupy the South Western coastlines of the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. In early June, “Egypt reportedly allowed one Israeli and eleven U.S. ships to pass through the Suez Canal in ….an apparent signal to Iran. … On June 12, regional press outlets reported that the Saudis had granted Israel the right to fly over its airspace…” (Muriel Mirak Weissbach,  Israel’s Insane War on Iran Must Be Prevented., Global Research, July 31, 2010)

In post 9/11 military doctrine, this massive deployment of military hardware has been defined as part of the so-called  “Global War on Terrorism”, targeting “non-State” terrorist organizations including al Qaeda and so-called “State sponsors of terrorism”,. including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan.

The setting up of new US military bases, the stockpiling of advanced weapons systems including tactical nuclear weapons, etc. were implemented as part of the pre-emptive defensive military doctrine under the umbrella of the “Global War on Terrorism”.

War and the Economic Crisis

The broader implications of a US-NATO Israel attack on Iran are far-reaching. The war and the economic crisis are intimately related. The war economy is financed by Wall Street, which stands as the creditor of the US administration. The US weapons producers are the recipients of the US Department of Defense multibillion dollar procurement contracts for advanced weapons systems. In turn, “the battle for oil” in the Middle East and Central Asia directly serves the interests of the Anglo-American oil giants.

The US and its allies are “beating the drums of war” at the height of a Worldwide economic depression, not to mention the most serious environmental catastrophe in World history. In a bitter twist, one of the major players (BP) on the Middle East Central Asia geopolitical chessboard, formerly known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, is the instigator of the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Media Disinformation

Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc “punitive” operation directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than an all out war. War preparations include the deployment of  US and Israeli produced nuclear weapons. In this context, the devastating consequences of a nuclear war are either trivialised or simply not mentioned. 

The “real crisis” threatening humanity, according to the media and the governments, is not war but global warming. The media will fabricate a crisis where there is no crisis: “a global scare” — the H1N1 global pandemic– but nobody seems to fear a US sponsored nuclear war. 

The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others. It is not viewed as a threat to “Mother Earth” as in the case of global warming. It is not front-page news. The fact that an attack on Iran could lead to escalation and potentially unleash a “global war” is not a matter of concern. 

The Cult of Killing and Destruction

The global killing machine is also sustained by an imbedded cult of killing and destruction which pervades Hollywood movies, not to mention the prime time war and crime TV series on network television. This cult of killing is endorsed by the CIA and the Pentagon which also support (finance) Hollywood productions as an instrument of war propaganda:

“Ex-CIA agent Bob Baer told us, “There’s a symbiosis between the CIA and Hollywood” and revealed that former CIA director George Tenet is currently, “out in Hollywood, talking to studios.” (Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, Lights, Camera… Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood, Global Research, January 31, 2009).

The killing machine is deployed at a global level, within the framework of the unified combat command structure. It is routinely upheld by the institutions of government, the corporate media and the mandarins and intellectuals of the New World Order in Washington’s think tanks and strategic studies research institutes, as an unquestioned instrument of peace and global prosperity.

A culture of killing and violence has become imbedded in human consciousness.

War is broadly accepted as part of a societal process: The Homeland needs to be “defended” and protected.

“Legitimized violence” and extrajudicial killings directed against “terrorists” are upheld in western democracies, as necessary instruments of national security.

A “humanitarian war” is upheld by the so-called international community. It is not condemned as a criminal act. Its main architects are rewarded for their contributions to world peace.

With regard to Iran, what is unfolding is the outright legitimization of war in the name of an illusive notion of global security.

A “Pre-emptive” Aerial attack directed against Iran would lead to Escalation

At present there are three separate Middle East Central Asia war theaters: Iraq, Af-Pak, and Palestine.

Were Iran to be the object of a “pre-emptive” aerial attack by allied forces, the entire region, from the Eastern Mediterranean to China’s Western frontier with Afghanistan and Pakistan, would flare up, leading us potentially into a World War III scenario.

The war would also extend into Lebanon and Syria.

It is highly unlikely that the bombings, if they were to be implemented, would be circumscribed to Iran’s nuclear facilities as claimed by US-NATO official statements. What is more probable is an all out air attack on both military and civilian infrastructure, transport systems, factories, public buildings.

Iran, with an an estimated ten percent of global oil and gas reserves, ranks third after Saudi Arabia (25 %) and Iraq (11 %) in the size of its reserves. In comparison, the US possesses less than 2.8 % of global oil reserves. The oil reserves of the U.S. are estimated at less than 20 billion barrels. The broader region of the Middle East and Central Asia have oil reserves which are more than thirty times those of the U.S, representing more than 60% of the World’s total reserves. (See Eric Waddell, The Battle for Oil, Global Research, December 2004).

Of significance is the recent discovery in Iran of the second largest known reserves of natural gas at Soumar and Halgan estimated at 12.4 trillion cubic feet.

Targeting Iran consists not only in reclaiming Anglo-American control over Iran’s oil and gas economy, including pipeline routes, it also challenges the presence and influence of China and Russia in the region.

The planned attack on Iran is part of a coordinated global military road map. It is part of the Pentagon’s “long war”,  a profit driven war without borders, a project of World domination, a sequence of military operations.

US-NATO military planners have envisaged various scenarios of military escalation. They are also acutely aware of the geopolitical implications, namely that the war could extend beyond the Middle East Central Asia region. The economic impacts on the oil markets, etc. have also been analyzed. 

While Iran, Syria and Lebanon are the immediate targets, China, Russia, North Korea, not to mention Venezuela and Cuba are also the object of US threats.

At stake is the structure of military alliances. US-NATO-Israel military deployments including military exercises and drills conducted on Russia and China’s immediate borders bear a direct relationship to the proposed war on Iran. These veiled threats, including their timing, constitute an obvious hint to the former powers of the Cold War era not to intervene in any way which could encroach upon a US-led attack on Iran.

Global Warfare

The medium term strategic objective is to target Iran and neutralize Iran’s allies, through gunboat diplomacy. The longer term military objective is to directly target China and Russia.

While Iran is the immediate target, military deployment is by no means limited to the Middle East and Central Asia. A global military agenda has been formulated.

The deployment of coalition troops and advanced weapons systems by the US, NATO and its partners is occurring simultaneously in all major regions of the World. 

The recent actions of the US military off the coast of North Korea including the conduct of war games are part of a global design.

Directed primarily against Russia and China, US, NATO and allied military exercises, war drills, weapons deployments, etc. are being conducted simultaneously in major geopolitical hotspots.

-The Korean Peninsula, the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan Straits, the South China Sea threatening China.

-The deployment of Patriot missiles in Poland, the early warning center in the Czech republic threatening Russia.

-Naval deployments in Bulgaria, Romania on the Black Sea, threatening Russia.

- US and NATO troops deployments in Georgia.

- A formidable naval deployment in the Persian Gulf including Israeli submarines directed against Iran.

Concurrently the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caribbean, Central America and the Andean region of South America are areas of ongoing militarization. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the threats are directed against Venezuela and Cuba. 

US “Military Aid”

In turn, large scale weapons transfers have been undertaken under the banner of US “military aid” to selected countries, including a 5 billion dollar arms deal with India which is intended to build India’s capabilities directed against China. (Huge U.S.-India Arms Deal To Contain China, Global Times, July 13, 2010).

“[The] arms sales will improve ties between Washington and New Delhi, and, intentionally or not, will have the effect of containing China’s influence in the region.” quoted in Rick Rozoff, Confronting both China and Russia: U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010)

The US has military cooperation agreements with a number of South East Asian countries including Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia, involving “military aid” as well as the participation in U.S.-led war games in the Pacific Rim (July -August 2010). These agreements are supportive of weapons deployments directed against The People’s Republic of China. (See Rick Rozoff, Confronting both China and Russia: U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010).

Similarly and more directly related to the planned attack on Iran, the US is arming the Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) with land-based interceptor missiles, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) as well as sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors installed on Aegis class warships in the Persian Gulf. (See Rick Rozoff,  NATO’s Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran, Global Research, February 10, 2010).

The Timetable of Military Stockpiling and Deployment

What is crucial in regards to US weapons transfers to partner countries and allies is the actual timing of delivery and deployment. The launch of a US sponsored military operation would normally occur once these weapons systems are in place, effectively deployed with the implementation of personnel training. (e.g India).

What we are dealing with is a carefully coordinated global military design controlled by the Pentagon, involving the combined armed forces of more than forty countries. This global multinational military deployment is by far the largest display of advanced weapons systems in World history. 

In turn, the US and its allies have established new military bases in different parts of the world.  “The Surface of the Earth is Structured as a Wide Battlefield”. (See Jules Dufour, The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases , Global Research, July 1, 2007).

The Unified Command structure divided up into geographic Combatant Commands is predicated on a strategy of militarization at the global level. “The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries. In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.” (See Jules Dufour, The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases , Global Research, July 1, 2007

Source: DefenseLINK-Unified Command Plan

World War III Scenario

“The World Commanders’ Areas of Responsibility” (See Map above) defines the Pentagon’s global military design, which is one of World conquest.  This military deployment is occurring in several regions simultaneously under the coordination of the regional US Commands, involving the stockpiling of US made weapons systems by US forces and partner countries, some of which are former enemies, including Vietnam and Japan.

The present context is characterised by a global military build-up controlled by one World superpower, which is using its numerous allies to trigger regional wars.

In contrast, the Second World War was a conjunction of separate regional war theaters. Given the communications technologies and weapons systems of the 1940s, there was no strategic “real time” coordination in military actions between broad geographic regions

Global warfare is based on the coordinated deployment of a single dominant military power, which oversees the actions of its allies and partners.

With the exception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Second World War was characterized by the use of conventional weapons. The planning of  a global war relies on the militarization of outer space. Were a war directed against iran to be launched, it would not only use nuclear weapons, the entire gamut of new advanced weapons systems, including electrometric weapons and environmental modification techniques (ENMOD) would be used.

The United Nations Security Council

The UN Security Council adopted in early June a fourth round of sweeping sanctions against The Islamic Republic of Iran, which included an expanded arms embargo as well “tougher financial controls”. In a bitter irony, this resolution was passed within days of the United Nations Secrity Council’s outright refusal to adopt a motion condemning Israel for its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters. 

Both China and Russia, pressured by the US, have endorsed the UNSC sanctions’ regime, to their own detriment. Their decision within the UNSC contributes to weakening their own military alliance, the Shanghai  Cooperation organization (SCO), in which Iran has observer status. The Security Council resolution freezes China and Russia’s respective bilateral military cooperation and trade agreements with Iran. It has serious repercussions on Iran’s air defense system which in part depends on Russian technology and expertise.

The Security Council resolution grants a de facto “green light” to wage a pre-emptive war against Iran.

The American Inquisition: Building a Political Consensus for War

In chorus, the Western media has branded Iran as a threat to global security in view of its alleged (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. Echoing official statements, the media is now demanding the implementation of punitive bombings directed against Iran so as to safeguard Israel’s security.

The Western media is beating the drums of war. The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people’s inner consciousness, the notion that the Iranian threat is real and that the Islamic Republic should be “taken out”.

A consensus building process to wage war is similar to the Spanish inquisition. It requires and demands submission to the notion that war is a humanitarian endeavor.

Known and documented, the real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance, yet realities in an inquisitorial environment are turned upside down: the warmongers are committed to peace, the victims of war are presented as the protagonists of war. Whereas in 2006, almost two thirds of Americans were opposed to military action against Iran, a recent Reuter-Zogby February 2010 poll suggests that 56 % of Americans favor a US-NATO military action against Iran. 

Building a political consensus which is based on an outright lie cannot, however, rely solely on the official position of those who are the source of the lie.

The antiwar movement in the US, which has in part been infiltrated and co-opted, has taken on a weak stance with regard to Iran. The antiwar movement is divided. The emphasis has been on wars which have already occurred (Afghanistan, Iraq) rather than forcefully opposing wars which are being prepared and which are currently on the Pentagon’s drawing board. Since the inauguration of the Obama administration, the antiwar movement has lost some of its impetus.

Moreover, those who  actively oppose the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, do not necessarily oppose the conduct of “punitive bombings” directed Iran, nor do they categorize these bombings as an act of war, which could potentially be a prelude to World War III.

The scale of antiwar protest in relation to Iran has been minimal in comparison to the mass demonstrations which preceded the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq.

The real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance.

The Iran operation is not being opposed in the diplomatic arena by China and Russia; it has the support of the governments of the frontline Arab states which are integrated into the NATO sponsored Mediterranean dialogue. It also has the tacit support of Western public opinion.

We call upon people across the land, in America,  Western Europe, Israel, Turkey and around the world to rise up against this military project, against their governments which are supportive of military action against Iran, against the media which serves to camouflage the devastating implications of a war against Iran.

The military agenda support a profit driven destructive global economic system which impoverishes large sectors of the world population.

This war is sheer madness.

World War III is terminal. Albert Einstein understood the perils of nuclear war and the extinction of life on earth, which has already started with the radioactive contamination resulting from depleted uranium. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

The media, the intellectuals, the scientists and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate the untold truth, namely that war using nuclear warheads destroys humanity, and that this complex process of gradual destruction has already commenced.

When the lie becomes the truth there is no turning backwards.

When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor, Justice and the entire international legal system are turned upside down: pacifism and the antiwar movement are criminalized. Opposing the war becomes a criminal act. 

The Lie must be exposed for what it is and what it does.

It sanctions the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children.

It destroys families and people. It destroys the commitment of people towards their fellow human beings.

It prevents people from expressing their solidarity for those who suffer. It upholds war and the police state as the sole avenue.

It destroys both nationalism and internationalism.

Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force.

This profit driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies. 

Let us reverse the tide.

Challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corproate lobby groups wich support them  

Break the American inquisition.

Undermine the US-NATO-Israel military crusade.

Close down the weapons factories and the military bases.

Bring home the troops. 

Members of the armed forces should disobey orders and refuse to participate in a criminal war. 

Part II Comming Soon

NATO Pulls Pakistan Into Its Global Network by Rick Rozoff

In four months the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will hold a summit in Lisbon, Portugal. The host country was one of the 12 nations that founded the United States-dominated military bloc 61 years ago.

The rival grouping that was created six years after NATO’s formation and its expansion into Turkey and Greece in 1952 and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955, the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact), formally dissolved itself almost twenty years ago.

In the interim since its formation, having grown to 16 members by 1982 with the incorporation of Spain, NATO expanded from 12 to 28 member states and absorbed 12 nations in Eastern Europe over the past 11 years. The last dozen were, except for two former Yugoslav federal republics (Croatia and Slovenia), earlier part of the Warsaw Pact and in three instances (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) also of the Soviet Union.

The North Atlantic military bloc’s sole right to maintain its name is that its major powers do largely have coastlines on the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean. The majority of its members do not. Since the Warsaw Pact’s demise and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has subordinated all of Europe through full membership and the Partnership for Peace and more advanced programs.

The newest members of NATO graduated through successive stages of integration from the Partnership for Peace to Individual Partnership Action Plans and Membership Action Plans to full membership. All supplied troops for the occupation of Iraq and now have forces serving under NATO in the Afghan war zone.

Current members of the Partnership for Peace program in Europe are: Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Ireland, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine. Bosnia, Moldova and Montenegro now have Individual Partnership Action Plans and Ukraine was recently granted a special Annual National Program. Russia was a member of the Partnership for Peace from 1992-1999, but suspended participation in that program and the Permanent Joint Council with NATO over the Alliance’s 78-day bombing war against Yugoslavia in 1999. However, in 2002 the NATO-Russia Council was inaugurated and though in abeyance after the 2008 Georgia-Russia war is functioning again.

All three former Soviet South Caucasus states – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia – are Partnership for Peace members. The first two also have Individual Partnership Action Plans (introduced in 2002) and Georgia its own Annual National Program, which NATO awarded it shortly after its five-day war with Russia in 2008.

In Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are in the Partnership for Peace. Kazakhstan is the first country outside of Europe (inclusive of the Caucasus) to receive an Individual Partnership Action Plan.

In the Middle East and Northern and Western Africa, the following countries are NATO Mediterranean Dialogue partners: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. Israel and Egypt each have an Individual Cooperation Program with NATO introduced in the last three years under enhanced Mediterranean Dialogue provisions. Egypt and Jordan have small troop contingents in Afghanistan.

Under the auspices of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative of 2004, NATO has strengthened military ties with the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. All but Oman and Saudi Arabia have formalized military cooperation arrangements with NATO. The United Arab Emirates is one of 46 official Troop Contributing Nations for NATO’s war in Afghanistan and there are also Bahraini soldiers in the war theater.

The Brussels-based military bloc also has a category of military cooperation called Contact Countries, which to date include Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. All four have assisted the war in Afghanistan in various capacities and all but Japan have provided NATO with troops. Other Asia-Pacific states have deployed troops to serve under NATO in Afghanistan and as such are arguably already Alliance partners. Those countries include Singapore, Mongolia and Malaysia.

NATO has initiated a Tripartite Commission consisting of its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the armed forces of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A complement to the U.S.-Afghanistan-Pakistan Tripartite Commission, in 2008 former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl Inderfurth referred to it as the Trilateral Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission, which is a more accurate, if not its formal, title.

A tally of 28 full NATO members and the partners mentioned above produces a list of at least 70 of the 192 members of the United Nations which are linked to the Western military bloc in some manner.

Of all those nations, Pakistan is the second largest, its population of 170,000,000 only surpassed by that of the U.S. It is also one of only seven nations that acknowledge possessing nuclear weapons.
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NATO’s grip on Pakistan was increased in 2005 when the military bloc became involved in an earthquake relief operation in the country, NATO’s second mission in Asia.

After that Pakistani military officers attended training courses at the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany for the first time in 2006. The Pakistani Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, General Ehsan ul Haq, visited NATO Headquarters in Brussels in the same year.

In 2007 Jaap de Hoop Scheffer became the first NATO secretary general to travel to Pakistan. In the same year Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited NATO Headquarters.

The next year President Pervez Musharraf made the same trip, followed by his Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, ten months afterward.

In January of 2009 NATO chief Scheffer visited Pakistan to meet with newly installed President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Army chief General Kayani.

Returning the favor, Kayani paid a visit to NATO Headquarters in May, and the next month President Zardari, nine months after assuming his post, traveled to NATO Headquarters for a meeting with the bloc’s top governing body, the North Atlantic Council, being the first elected president of Pakistan to do so. In October of last year NATO conducted an international seminar on Pakistan in Brussels which included the ambassadors of all 28 of the bloc’s member states. In December NATO launched an Individual Tailored Cooperation Package to consolidate the integration of Pakistan.

This year Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi was at NATO Headquarters in February to meet with the new secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and to address the North Atlantic Council, and last month Prime Minister Gilani led a large government delegation to the same location, where he also met with Rasmussen and addressed the North Atlantic Council.

On either end of the International Conference on Afghanistan held in Kabul on July 20, NATO Secretary General Rasmussen visited Tajikistan, where French NATO forces have been stationed since 2002 and where recent reports detail plans for the U.S. to open a training center [1], and Pakistan.

On July 19 Rasmussen met with Tajik Defense Minister Sherali Khairulloyev and Security Council Secretary Amirkul Azimov to coordinate a common Afghan strategy.

He arrived in Pakistan on July 21, six days after a twenty-member Pakistani parliamentary delegation completed a four-day trip to NATO Headquarters in Belgium “to share information about the Alliance’s policies and activities and to strengthen political dialogue between NATO and elected representatives of Pakistan.” [2]

The group was also taken to the Allied Command Operations Headquarters, formerly known as Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), the central command of NATO military forces.

While in Islamabad this Wednesday, Rasmussen was accompanied by a large delegation which included NATO Spokesman James Appathurai and Robert Simmons, NATO’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Security Cooperation and Partnership and its first Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia. [3] Simmons was also in Pakistan in May when he spoke at a conference entitled “NATO’s Transition and its Relation with Pakistan.” 

His comments at the time included the assurance that “Pakistan is NATO’s valued partner and our common challenge is war in Afghanistan.”

A report of his visit stated, “Simmons emphasized that NATO does not want to limit [itself] to high level dialogue with Pakistan but also to have practical cooperation by making use of the instrument of [an] Individual Cooperation Program to cover civilian and military affairs” [4], the same name as that used by NATO for its advanced partnerships with Israel and Egypt.

On May 21 Rasmussen and other NATO officials met with Pakistani President Zardari and with Chief of Army Staff General Kayani and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majid in separate meetings at the military’s General Headquarters. During the meeting with General Majid, discussion “focused on the future NATO strategy for Afghanistan [and] the
status of NATO-Pakistan relations including a proposed framework to institutionalize enduring, broad-based and mutually beneficial future cooperation.” [5]

During Zardari’s meeting with Rasmussen, the Pakistani president stated he “appreciated training facilities offered by NATO to Pakistani officers and called for further increasing such facilities,” and “hail[ed] NATO’s intended support for training counter-terrorism units.” [6]

Last year the Pakistani military launched a “counterinterrorist” offensive in the Swat Valley and adjoining parts of the North-West Frontier Province that dwarfed in comparison fighting on the other side of the Durand Line, leading to 3,000,000 civilians being displaced according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Oxfam among other sources. There can be little doubt that the operation was ordered by Washington.

Over the past two years the U.S. has killed over 1,000 people with drone missile attacks in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. There have been reports of NATO helicopter gunship and commando raids in Pakistan launched from Afghanistan.

On July 21 NATO chief Rasmussen said that “Pakistan and NATO enjoy an important relationship and intend to build upon it…it goes beyond Afghanistan.” Indeed. Rasmussen also “commended Pakistan’s operations in the Tribal Areas….He mentioned the tripartite arrangement with NATO and said [NATO] would encourage Pakistan to continue it.” [7]

NATO’s first war in Asia and its first ground war is not limited to Afghanistan. In touting his organization’s “long-term partnership with Pakistan,” the Alliance’s secretary general added that NATO’s presence in Afghanistan and several adjoining nations was “driven not by calendar, but by commitment.” [8]

NATO is in South and Central Asia to stay. In Afghanistan, in Pakistan and in the former Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan following suit and India next in line. (The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, began a two-day visit to India on July 23, and pledged a continued “commitment” to South and Central Asia.)

In November NATO will endorse its new Strategic Concept, the first since it began its Eastern expansion at the fiftieth anniversary summit in Washington, D.C. in 1999. It is NATO’s first 21st century, first avowedly expeditionary military doctrine. It is the blueprint for global NATO, with partners and operations on at least five continents.

US Is No Stranger to Double-Dealing: The Role of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its links to the CIA

Following the revelation by WikiLeaks that there have been fresh allegations that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is secretly aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan, sections of the US media rushed to accuse Islamabad of supporting both sides of the decade-old conflict. A lengthy op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday said that Pakistan had been involved in double-dealing for years. “Despite the billions of dollars the United States has sent in aid to Pakistan since September 11, [the revelation] offers powerful new evidence that crucial elements of Islamabad’s power structure have been actively helping to direct and support the forces attacking the American-led military coalition”, the New York Times said.

Critics of Pakistan tend to forget, however, that double-dealing is Washington’s favourite foreign policy strategy. When weaker nations adopt the same method they are merely following in the footsteps of the master. Furthermore, if the ISI maintains strong ties with the Taliban, the US was the main sponsor and supporter of both the ISI and the Taliban.

In fact, since the early years of the Cold War, the US regarded Islam as a key foreign policy tool to achieve its strategic objectives in the Gulf and the Middle East. Washington believed that the best way to contain the Soviet Union in this region was by establishing a green belt that stretched from Pakistan in the east to Egypt in the west. Mohammad Hassanein Heikal, a well-known Egyptian commentator, claimed that this plan was revealed to him by General Alfred Armistead, who was in charge of US military aid to Third World countries. Heikal also claimed that this same point was mentioned again when he met former US secretary of state John Foster Dulles. Dulles told Heikal, “Your region was floating on two seas: oil and religion”. During this period, the US relied on the support of what it considered moderate Islamic governments. These included Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Morocco, Indonesia, Turkey and Iran.

In 1979, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US was no longer in a position to rely solely on moderate Islamic governments to protect its interests in the region. It hence established a ‘Rapid Deployment Task Force’ intended to intervene at short notice in the event of further Soviet advancement towards the Gulf. It also had other aims in mind.

In an interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that the US plan in Afghanistan was to force the Soviet Union to invade the country. By supporting Islamic elements against the Marxist regime in Kabul, the US intended to destabilise the predominantly Muslim parts of Soviet Central Asia and drag Moscow into the Afghan quicksand where a war of attrition could be started. Hence, Brzezinski devised a strategy that envisaged establishing an Islamic alliance against the Soviet invasion. Brzezinski believed that because of the ideological antipathy between Islam and Communism, Islamic states would serve as a bulwark against the Soviets. Subsequently, he flew to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to sell the US plan. Brzezinski’s tour was highly successful. Saudi Arabia agreed to provide financial support, Egypt weapons and Pakistan training and logistics. The Soviet Union was duly defeated in Afghanistan and ultimately collapsed.

Serious allegations

After the end of the Cold War, political Islam fell from grace. After 9/11 in particular, the US started accusing Saudi Arabia and Pakistan of creating a “monster”. In a report on the September 11, 2001 attacks released after months of investigation by a joint panel of the US House and Senate intelligence committees, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were accused of having funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable groups and other organisations that were suspected of assisting the September 11 hijackers.

The Bush administration made most of the 900-page report public but, for “national security reasons”, decided to classify 28 pages. The declassified part focused on the role played by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in financing and training Islamic activists in the 1980s and 1990s. In Afghanistan and Bosnia, the report accused Riyadh and Islamabad of supporting Arab Mujahideen fighting Soviet and Serb forces. Yet, the report failed to mention that successive Republican and Democratic administrations had also provided financial and logistical support for the Afghan Mujahideen and that the CIA had led a coordinated effort to expel the Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The report also ignored the fact that covert support for the Mujahideen received bipartisan backing in the 1980s and that under the Reagan administration Washington provided Islamic fighters with some of the most sophisticated weapons in its arsenal, including the Stinger anti-aircraft missile. As for Bosnia, the report failed to acknowledge that the Clinton administration had urged Saudi Arabia to pay for Iranian-made arms shipped to Bosnian Muslims through Turkey and that Arab Mujahideen were parachuted over Bosnia by US airplanes.

But apparently, all this does not amount to double-dealing in the eyes of some Americans.

 writen by Dr Marwan Al Kabalan is a lecturer in media and international relations at Damascus University’s Faculty of Political Science and Media in Syria.

Anglo-American Ambitions behind the Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the Destabilization of Pakistan by Larry Chin

It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been manuevering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto does not change this agenda. In fact, it simplifies Bush-Cheney’s options.

Seeding chaos with a pretext

“Delivering democracy to the Muslim world” has been the Orwellian rhetoric used to mask Bush-Cheney’s application of pressure and force, its dramatic attempt at reshaping of the Pakistani government (into a joint Bhutto/Sharif-Musharraf) coalition, and backdoor plans for a military intervention. Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan’s military.

The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of “chatter” among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto, well before the actual attempts took place.

As succinctly summarized in Jeremy Page’s article, “Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? The Main Suspects”, the main suspects are 1) “Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants who saw her as a heretic and an American stooge”, and 2) the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, a virtual branch of the CIA. Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari directly accused the ISI of being involved in the October attack.

The assassination of Bhutto has predictably been blamed on “Al-Qaeda”, without mention of fact that Al-Qaeda itself is an Anglo-American military-intelligence operation.

Page’s piece was one of the first to name the man who has now been tagged as the main suspect: Baitullah Mehsud, a purported Taliban militant fighting the Pakistani army out of Waziristan. Conflicting reports link Mehsud to “Al-Qaeda”, the Afghan Taliban, and Mullah Omar (. Other analysis links him to the terrorist A.Q. Khan.

Mehsud’s profile, and the reporting of it, echoes the propaganda treatment of all post-9/11 “terrorists”. This in turn raises familiar questions about Anglo-American intelligence agency propaganda involvement. Is Mehsud connected to the ISI or the CIA? What did the ISI and the CIA know about Mehsud? More importantly, does Mehsud, or the manipulation of the propaganda surrounding him provide Bush-Cheney with a pretext for future aggression in the region?

Classic “war on terrorism” propaganda

While details on the Bhutto assassination continue to unfold, what is clear is that it was a political hit, along the lines of US agent Rafik Harriri in Lebanon. Like the highly suspicious Harriri hit, the Bhutto assassination has been depicted by corporate media as the martyring of a great messenger of western-style “democracy”. Meanwhile, the US government’s ruthless actions behind the scenes have received scant attention.

The December 28, 2007 New York Times coverage of the Bhutto assassination offers the perfect example of mainstream Orwellian media distortion that hides the truth about Bush/Cheney agenda behind blatant propaganda smoke. This piece echoes White House rhetoric proclaiming that Bush’s main objectives are to “bring democracy to the Muslim world” and “force out Islamist militants”.

In fact, the openly criminal Bush-Cheney administration has only supported and promoted the antithesis of democracy: chaos, fascism, and the installation of Anglo-American-friendly puppet regimes.

In fact, the central and consistent geostrategy of Bush-Cheney, and their elite counterparts around the world, is the continued imposition and expansion of the manufactured “war on terrorism”; the continuation of war across the Eurasian subcontinent, with events triggered by false flag operations and manufactured pretexts.

In fact, the main tools used in the “war on terrorism” remain Islamist militants, working on behalf of Anglo-American military intelligence agencies—among them, “Al-Qaeda”, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI. Mehsud fits this the same profile.

Saving Bush-Cheney’s Pakistan

In an amusing quote from the same New York Times piece, Wendy Chamberlain, former US ambassador to Pakistan (and a central figure behind multinational efforts to build a trans-Afghan pipeline, connected to 9/11), proudly states: “We are a player in the Pakistani political system”.

Not only has the US continued to be a “player”, but one of its top managers for decades.

Each successive Pakistani leader since the early 1990s—Bhutto, Sharif and Musharraf—have bowed to Western interests. The ISI is a virtual branch of the CIA.

While Musharraf has been, and remains, a strongman for Bush-Cheney, questions about his “reliability”, and control—both his regime’s control over the populace and growing popular unrest, and elite control over his regime—have driven Bush-Cheney attempts to force a clumsy (pro-US, Iraq-style) power-sharing government. As noted by Robert Scheer, Bush-Cheney has been playing “Russian roulette” with Musharraf, Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif—each of whom have been deeply corrupt, willing fronts for the US.

The return of both Bhutto and the other former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has merely been an attempt by the US to hedge its regional power bets.

What exactly were John Negroponte and Condoleeza Rice really setting up the past few months?

Who benefits from Bhutto’s murder?

The “war on terrorism” geostrategy and propaganda milieu, the blueprint that has been used by elite interests since 9/11 to impose a continuing world war, is the clear beneficiary of the Bhutto assassination. Bush/Cheney and their equally complicit pro-war/pro-occupation counterparts in the Democratic Party enthusiastically support the routine use of “terror” pretexts to impose continued war policies.

True to form, fear, “terrorism”, “security” and military force, are once again, the focuses of Washington political rhetoric, and the around-the-clock media barrage.

The 2008 US presidential candidates and their elite campaign advisers, all but a few of whom enthusiastically support the “war on terrorism”, have taken turns pushing their respective versions of “we must stop the terrorists” rhetoric for brain-addled supporters. The candidates whose polls have slipped, led by 9/11 participant and opportunist Rudy Guiliani, and hawkish neoliberal Hillary Clinton, have already benefited from a new round of mass fear.

Musharraf benefits from the removal of a bitter rival, but now must find a way to re-establish order. Musharraf now has an ideal justification to crack down on “terrorists” and impose full martial law, with Bush-Cheney working from the shadows behind Musharraf—and continuing to manipulate or remove his apparatus, if Musharraf proves too unreliable or broken to suit Anglo-American plans.

The likely involvement of the ISI behind the Bhutto hit cannot be overstated. ISI’s role behind every major act of “terrorism” since 9/11 remains the central unspoken truth behind current geopolitical realities. Bhutto, but not Sharif or Musharraf would have threatened the ISI’s agendas.

Bhutto, militant Islam, and the pipelines

Now that she has been martyred, many unflattering historical facts about Benazir Bhutto will be hidden or forgotten.

Bhutto herself was intimately involved in the creation of the very “terror” milieu purportedly responsible for her assassination. Across her political career, she supported militant Islamists, the Taliban, the ISI, and the ambitions of Western governments.

As noted by Michel Chossudovsky in America’s “War on Terrorism”, it was during Bhutto’s second term that Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and the Taliban rose to prominence, welcomed into Bhutto’s coalition government. It was at that point that ties between the JUI, the Army and the ISI were established.

While Bhutto’s relationship with both the ISI and the Taliban were marked by turmoil, it is clear that Bhutto, when in power, supported both—and enthusiastically supported Anglo-American interventions.

In his two landmark books, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid richly details the Bhutto regime’s connections to the ISI, the Taliban, “militant Islam”, multinational oil interests, and Anglo-American officials and intelligence proxies.

In Jihad, Rashid wrote:

“Ironically it was not the ISI but Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the most liberal, secular leader in Pakistan’s recent history, who delivered the coup de grace to a new relationship with Central Asia. Rather than support a wider peace process in Afghanistan that would have opened up a wider peace process in Afghanistan, Bhutto backed the Taliban, in a rash and presumptuous policy to create a new western-oriented trade and pipeline route from Turkmenistan through southern Afghanistan to Pakistan, from which the Taliban would provide security. The ISI soon supported this policy because its Afghan protégé Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had made no headway in capturing Kabul, and the Taliban appeared to be strong enough to do so.”

In Taliban, Rashid provided even more historical detail:

“When Bhutto was elected as Prime Minister in 1993, she was keen to open a route to Central Asia. A new proposal emerged backed strongly by the frustrated Pakistani transport and smuggling mafia, the JUI and Pashtun military and political officials.”

“The Bhutto government fully backed the Taliban, but the ISI remained skeptical of their abilities, convinced that they would remain a useful but peripheral force in the south.”

“The US congress had authorized a covert $20 million budget for the CIA to destabilize Iran, and Tehran accused Washington of funneling some of these funds to the Taliban—a charge that was always denied by Washington . Bhutto sent several emissaries to Washington to urge the US to intervene more publicly on the side of Pakistan and the Taliban.”

Bhutto’s one mistake: she vehemently supported the pipeline proposed by Argentinian oil company Bridas, and opposed the pipeline by Unocal (favored by the US). This contributed to her ouster in 1996, and the return of Nawaz Sharif to power. As noted by Rashid:

“After the dismissal of the Bhutto government in 1996, the newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his oil minister Chaudry Nisar Ali Khan, the army and the ISI fully backed Unocal. Pakistan wanted more direct US support for the Taliban and urged Unocal to start construction quickly in order to legitimize the Taliban. Basically the USA and Unocal accepted the ISI’s analysis and aims—that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would make Unocal’s job much easier and quicken US recognition.”

Her appealing and glamorous pro-Western image notwithstanding, Bhutto’s true record is one of corruption and accommodation.

The “war on terrorism” resparked 

Every major Anglo-American geostrategic crime has been preceded by a convenient pretext, orchestrated and carried out by “terror” proxies directly or indirectly connected to US military-intelligence, or manipulated into performing as intelligence assets. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is simply one more brutal example.

This was Pakistan’s 9/11; Pakistan’s JFK assassination, and its impact will resonate for years.

Contrary to mainstream corporate news reporting, chaos benefits Bush-Cheney’s “war on terrorism”. Calls for “increased worldwide security” will pave the way for a muscular US reaction, US-led force and other forms of “crack down” from Bush-Cheney across the region. In other words, the assassination helps ensure that the US will not only never leave, but also increase its presence.

 The Pakistani election, if it takes place at all, is a simpler two-way choice: pro-US Musharraf or pro-US Sharif.

 While the success of Bush-Cheney’s 9/11 agenda has met with mixed results, and it has met with a wide array of resistance (“terroristic” as well as political), there is no doubt that the propaganda foundation of the “war on terrorism” has remained firm, unshaken and routinely reinforced. 

As for Nawaz Sharif, who now emerges as the sole competitor for Musharraf, he, like Musharraf and Bhutto, is legendary for his accommodation to Anglo-American interests—pipelines, trade, and the continued US military presence. As Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie noted in the book Forbidden Truth, the October 1999 military coup led by Musharraf that originally toppled Sharif’s regime was sparked by animosity between the two camps, as well as “Sharif’s personal corruption and political megalomania”, and “concerns that Sharif was dancing too eagerly to Washington’s tune on Kashmir and Afghanistan”. 

In other words, Bush-Cheney wins, no matter which asset winds up on the throne.

The Destabilization of Pakistan by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

The Destabilization of Pakistan by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky has the contents of US document in which plan for breaking and destablizing Pakistan is given.The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has created conditions which contribute to the ongoing destabilization and fragmentation of Pakistan as a Nation. 

The process of US sponsored “regime change”, which normally consists in the re-formation of a fresh proxy government under new leaders has been broken. Discredited in the eyes of Pakistani public opinion, General Pervez Musharaf cannot remain in the seat of political power. But at the same time, the fake elections supported by the “international community” scheduled for January 2008, even if they were to be carried out, would not be accepted as legitimate, thereby creating a political impasse. 

There are indications that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was anticipated by US officials: 

“It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region. 

Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan’s military… 

The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of “chatter” among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto, well before the actual attempts took place.

Political Impasse

“Regime change” with a view to ensuring continuity under military rule is no longer the main thrust of US foreign policy. The regime of Pervez Musharraf cannot prevail. Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation. 

A new political leadership is anticipated but in all likelihood it will take on a very different shape, in relation to previous US sponsored regimes. One can expect that Washington will push for a compliant political leadership, with no commitment to the national interest, a leadership which will serve US imperial interests, while concurrently contributing under the disguise of “decentralization”, to the weakening of the central government and the fracture of Pakistan’s fragile federal structure. 

The political impasse is deliberate. It is part of an evolving US foreign policy agenda, which favors disruption and disarray in the structures of the Pakistani State. Indirect rule by the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus is to be replaced by more direct forms of US interference, including an expanded US military presence inside Pakistan.

This expanded military presence is also dictated by the Middle East-Central Asia geopolitical situation and Washington’s ongoing plans to extend the Middle East war to a much broader area. 

The US has several military bases in Pakistan. It controls the country’s air space. According to a recent report: “U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units” (William Arkin, Washington Post, December 2007). 

The official justification and pretext for an increased military presence in Pakistan is to extend the “war on terrorism”. Concurrently, to justify its counterrorism program, Washington is also beefing up its covert support to the “terrorists.”

The Balkanization of Pakistan

Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan “in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan.” (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005). According to the NIC-CIA,  Pakistan is slated to become a “failed state” by 2015, “as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons”. (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005): 

“Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi,” the former diplomat quoted the NIC-CIA report as saying.

Expressing apprehension, Hasan asked, “are our military rulers working on a similar agenda or something that has been laid out for them in the various assessment reports over the years by the National Intelligence Council in joint collaboration with CIA?” (Ibid)

The US course consists in  fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan. This course of action is also dictated by US war plans in relation to both Afghanistan and Iran. 

This US agenda for Pakistan is similar to that applied throughout the broader Middle East Central Asian region. US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government. 

The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State and redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Pakistan’s Oil and Gas reserves

Pakistan’s extensive oil and gas reserves, largely located in Balochistan province, as well as its pipeline corridors are considered strategic by the Anglo-American alliance, requiring the concurrent militarization of Pakistani territory. 

Balochistan comprises more than 40 percent of Pakistan’s land mass, possesses important reserves of oil and natural gas as well as extensive mineral resources. 

The Iran-India pipeline corridor is slated to transit through Balochistan. Balochistan also possesses a deap sea port largely financed by China located at Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea, not far from the Straits of Hormuz where 30 % of the world’s daily oil supply moves by ship or pipeline. (Asia News.it, 29 December 2007) 

Pakistan has an estimated 25.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven gas reserves of which 19 trillion are located in Balochistan. Among foreign oil and gas contractors in Balochistan are BP, Italy’s ENI, Austria’s OMV, and Australia’s BHP. It is worth noting that Pakistan’s State oil and gas companies, including PPL which has the largest stake in the Sui oil fields of Balochistan are up for privatization under IMF-World Bank supervision. 

According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Pakistan had proven oil reserves of 300 million barrels, most of which are located in Balochistan. Other estimates place Balochistan oil reserves at an estimated six trillion barrels of oil reserves both on-shore and off-shore

Covert Support to Balochistan Separatists

Balochistan’s strategic energy reserves have a bearing on the separatist agenda. Following a familiar pattern, there are indications that the Baloch insurgency is being supported and abetted by Britain and the US. 

The Baloch national resistance movement dates back to the late 1940s, when Balochistan was invaded by Pakistan. In the current geopolitical context, the separatist movement is in the process of being hijacked by foreign powers. 

British intelligence is allegedly providing covert support to Balochistan separatists (which from the outset have been repressed by Pakistan’s military). In June 2006, Pakistan’s Senate Committee on Defence accused British intelligence of “abetting the insurgency in the province bordering Iran” [Balochistan]..(Press Trust of India, 9 August 2006). Ten British MPs were involved in a closed door session of the Senate Committee on  Defence regarding the alleged support of Britain’s Secret Service to Baloch separatists  (Ibid). Also of relevance are reports of  CIA and Mossad support to Baloch rebels in Iran and Southern Afghanistan.

It would appear that Britain and the US are supporting both sides. The US is providing American F-16 jets to the Pakistani military, which are being used to bomb Baloch villages in Balochistan. Meanwhile, British alleged covert support to the separatist movement (according to the Pakistani Senate Committee) contributes to weakening the central government.

The stated purpose of US counter-terrorism is to provide covert support as well as as training to “Liberation Armies” ultimately with a view to destabilizing sovereign governments. In Kosovo, the training of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the 1990s had been entrusted to a private mercenary company, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), on contract to the Pentagon.  

The BLA bears a canny resemblance to Kosovo’s KLA, which was financed by the drug trade and supported by the CIA and Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND).

The BLA emerged shortly after the 1999 military coup. It has no tangible links to the Baloch resistance movement, which developed since the late 1940s. An aura of mystery surrounds the leadership of the BLA.

Baloch population in Pink: In Iran, Pakistan and Southern Afghanistan

Washington favors the creation of a “Greater Balochistan” which would integrate the Baloch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran and possibly the Southern tip of Afghanistan (See Map above), thereby leading to a process of political fracturing in both Iran and Pakistan. 

“The US is using Balochi nationalism for staging an insurgency inside Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province. The ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan gives a useful political backdrop for the ascendancy of Balochi militancy”

Military scholar Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters writing in the June 2006 issue of The Armed Forces Journal, suggests, in no uncertain terms that Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of  a separate country: “Greater Balochistan” or “Free Balochistan” (see Map below). The latter would incorporate the Pakistani and Iranian Baloch  provinces into a single political entity. 

In turn, according to Peters, Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) should be incorporated into Afghanistan “because of its linguistic and ethnic affinity”. This proposed fragmentation, which broadly reflects US foreign policy, would reduce Pakistani territory to approximately 50 percent of its present land area. (See map). Pakistan would also loose a large part of its coastline on the Arabian Sea.      

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, have  most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles. Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted, before he retired to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.” (Ibid)

 “Strong Economic Medicine”: Weakening Pakistan’s Central Government

Pakistan has a federal structure based on federal provincial transfers. Under a federal fiscal structure, the central government transfers financial resources to the provinces, with a view to supporting provincial based programs. When these transfers are frozen as occurred in Yugoslavia in January 1990, on orders of the IMF, the federal fiscal structure collapses:

“State revenues that should have gone as transfer payments to the republics [of the Yugoslav federation] went instead to service Belgrade’s debt … . The republics were largely left to their own devices. … The budget cuts requiring the redirection of federal revenues towards debt servicing, were conducive to the suspension of transfer payments by Belgrade to the governments of the Republics and Autonomous Provinces.

In one fell swoop, the reformers had engineered the final collapse of Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, Global Research, Montreal, 2003, Chapter 17.)

It is by no means accidental that the 2005 National Intelligence Council- CIA report had predicted a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan pointing to the impacts of “economic mismanagement” as one of the causes of political break-up and balkanization.

“Economic mismanagement” is a term used by the Washington based international financial institutions to describe the chaos which results from not fully abiding by the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program. In actual fact, the “economic mismanagement” and chaos is the outcome of IMF-World Bank prescriptions, which invariably trigger hyperinflation and precipitate indebted countries into extreme poverty.  

Pakistan has been subjected to the same deadly IMF “economic medicine” as Yugoslavia: In 1999, in the immediate wake of the coup d’Etat which brought General Pervez Musharaf to the helm of the military government, an IMF economic package, which included currency devaluation and drastic austerity measures, was imposed on Pakistan. Pakistan’s external debt is of the order of US$40 billion. The IMF’s  “debt reduction” under the package was conditional upon the sell-off to foreign capital of the most profitable State owned enterprises (including the oil and gas facilities in Balochistan) at rockbottom prices . 

Musharaf’s Finance Minister was chosen by Wall Street, which is not an unusual practice. The military rulers appointed at Wall Street’s behest, a vice-president of Citigroup, Shaukat Aziz, who at the time was head of CitiGroup’s Global Private Banking. CitiGroup is among the largest commercial foreign banking institutions in Pakistan.

There are obvious similarities in the nature of US covert intelligence operations applied in country after country in different parts of the so-called “developing World”.  These covert operation, including the organisation of military coups, are often synchronized with the imposition of IMF-World Bank macro-economic reforms. In this regard, Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure collapsed in 1990 leading to mass poverty and heightened ethnic and social divisions. The US and NATO sponsored “civil war” launched in mid-1991 consisted in coveting Islamic groups as well as channeling covert support to separatist paramilitary armies in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

A similar “civil war” scenario has been envisaged for Pakistan by the National Intelligence Council and the CIA:  From the point of view of US intelligence, which has a longstanding experience in abetting separatist “liberation armies”, “Greater Albania” is to Kosovo what “Greater Balochistan” is to Pakistan’s Southeastern Balochistan province. Similarly, the KLA is Washington’s chosen model, to be replicated in Balochistan province.

The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, no ordinary city. Rawalpindi is a military city host to the headquarters of the Pakistani Armed Forces and Military Intelligence (ISI). Ironically Bhutto was assassinated in an urban area tightly controlled and guarded by the military police and the country’s elite forces. Rawalpindi  is swarming with ISI intelligence officials, which invariably infiltrate political rallies. Her assassination was not a haphazard event. 

Without evidence, quoting Pakistan government sources, the Western media in chorus has highlighted the role of Al-Qaeda, while also focusing on the the possible involvement of the ISI. 

What these interpretations do not mention is that the ISI continues to play a key role in overseeing Al Qaeda on behalf of US intelligence. The press reports fail to mention two important and well documented facts: 

1) the ISI maintains close ties to the CIA. The ISI  is virtually an appendage of the CIA. 

2) Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA. The ISI provides covert support to Al Qaeda, acting on behalf of US intelligence.  

The involvement of either Al Qaeda and/or the ISI would suggest that US intelligence was cognizant and/or implicated in the assassination plot.

A Permanent Housing Collapse? by Shamus Cooke

The recent chaos that erupted when 30,000 people waited hours in the Atlanta, Georgia heat to receive applications for subsidized housing is a mere symptom of a worsening national problem.�
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The housing market appears to be on a never-ending downward spiral, with the much-discussed “recovery” always around the next corner.
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The reasons that such a recovery is impossible at the moment should be obvious: millions of people do not have jobs; millions of others work only part time; millions more work fulltime but make very little money; and additional millions fear losing their jobs.
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Under these circumstances, there can be no recovery in the housing market, which will continue to contribute to the broader depression-like economy in the U.S.
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Interestingly, an op-ed article in The New York Times, entitled The 30 year Prison, actually took these realities into account when analyzing the housing crisis. The 30 year mortgage is the cornerstone of the residential housing market, which allowed millions of Americans to become homeowners.
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But the economic conditions that allowed such a mortgage are disappearing. According to the op-ed author, Katherine Stone, one crucial problem of the housing crisis is that “…today’s mortgages are designed for yesterday’s borrowers.”
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Ms. Stone makes clear that “yesterday’s borrowers” are people who could expect to have job security and were paid a livable wage. Thus, 30 year Mortgages  “…work well as long as homeowners have stable, long-term jobs that enable them to regularly make their monthly payments.”
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“But these days such careers are increasingly scarce. Therefore, any effort to recover from the crisis must include more flexible mortgages that take today’s employment landscape, with its frequent job-hopping and episodic unemployment, into account.” (August 14, 2010).
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Of course banks are never very eager to be “flexible” with loans.
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Nevertheless, Ms. Stone is part of the recent wave of journalists and politicians who have discovered that there is a “new normal” in the U.S. economy, which will inevitably have profound changes on how millions of people live their life.  If the economy continues in the same direction it has been traveling for the last thirty years, with the needs of corporate owners overriding those of the employees, the “new normal” will demand that not only housing, but many other aspects of life be changed to suit the long-term joblessness and low wages that politicians and businessmen would like to make permanent.
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Adequate housing is a basic human right. But often basic rights take a back seat to corporate profits.
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Sometimes these basic rights must be demanded. The right to decent housing, a job that pays a living wage, health care, and peace could all be easily achieved in the United States if the economy were arranged with this purpose in mind. Sadly, it is not. It will take a mass movement of working people to re-arrange the priorities of those in power, or to put different people in power, so that the country’s resources are directed to those creating the wealth, or in the most need of it.
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Helping jump start this movement should be the priority of every working/unemployed person. The first mass demonstrations to achieve working-class demands will be held on October 2nd, in Washington, D.C. and in other cities.  Local demonstrations, community forums, or town halls can be held locally to coincide with the larger demonstrations, thus amplifying our voices. One demonstration will not be enough, but hopefully October 2nd will be the first step working people take towards empowerment, greater organization, and political independence. Once we learn to march and shout our demands in unison, greater goals can be achieved.

US – China Crisis: From “Gunboat Diplomacy” to Confrontation by Rick Rozoff

On August 16 the U.S. and its South Korean military ally began this year’s Ulchi Freedom Guardian military exercises in South Korea. The ten-day warfighting drills involve 56,000 troops from the host country and 30,000 from the U.S. Last year’s version of the annual war games featured the same amount of South Korean soldiers but only a third as many American troops, 10,000. The commander in charge of the American forces, General Walter Sharp, described the current exercise as “one of the largest joint staff directed theater exercises in the world.” In all over 500,000 South Korean military and government participants are involved.

Ulchi Freedom Guardian 2010 is the latest and largest in a series of almost uninterrupted war games and naval maneuvers conducted over the past five weeks in the region: The Korean Peninsula, the seas on either side of it, and the South China Sea.

Three of the four nations involved are regional actors: South Korea, China and Vietnam. The other is not: The United States.

Washington led the four-day Invincible Spirit joint war games with South Korea in the Sea of Japan off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula from July 25-28, which were highlighted by the participation of the almost 100,000-ton nuclear-powered supercarrier USS George Washington among 20 warships, 200 warplanes including F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, and 8,000 troops. A Chinese news agency said of the exercises that “they were no ordinary war games” but “were unprecedented in the past three decades both in terms of scale and weaponry. The resources involved were said to be enough for launching a full-scale war….”

“The US-South Korean war games were said to be aimed at preventing a repeat of incidents like the sinking of South Korea’s Cheonan warship and maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula. However, the war games were more than enough to intimidate the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea….They were actually a show of force against China….” 

After their completion, the South Korean government announced that the U.S. and Seoul will conduct “a joint military exercise every month until the end of the year.”

The Nimitz class aircraft carrier George Washington returned to its base in Japan only to head to the South China Sea eleven days later to engage with another major U.S. warship in the first-ever joint naval exercises with Vietnam in the neighborhood of the Spratly and Paracel islands. The docking of the USS John S. McCain destroyer in a Vietnamese harbor and the “lurking” of USS George Washington in the South China Sea near the two island chains were both unprecedented events.

The maneuvers were an open challenge to and clear act of defiance toward China, following by two weeks U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement in the Vietnamese capital that the U.S. was prepared to intervene in territorial disputes over the above-mentioned islands on behalf of claimants Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, the Philippines and Malaysia against China.

Two days before throwing down the gauntlet to Beijing, Clinton and Robert Gates, Admiral Michael Mullen, and Admiral Robert Willard – the last three America’s top defense official, top military commander and chief of its largest overseas combat command, U.S. Pacific Command – were in South Korea to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War. The conflict whose start they marked soon escalated into the U.S.’s first war with China, a point hard to miss in the current context.

While in South Korea, Gates, Mullen and Willard confirmed plans for regular U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises, including in the Yellow Sea off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula. The bulk of the sea’s coastline is Chinese territory.

The four-day U.S.-South Korean naval exercises late last month were initially to have been conducted in the Yellow Sea, but were moved to the other end of the Koreas, the Sea of Japan, because of Chinese objections.

If the ongoing Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise is an annual event and one scheduled well in advance, the U.S.-led naval exercises off Korean and  Vietnamese shores were not. And if the Invincible Spirit war games were announced as strictly targeted at North Korea, joint maneuvers with Vietnam in the South China Sea had nothing to do with the March 26 sinking of the South Korean Cheonan warship.

The past month has witnessed an unbroken succession of military activities near and off China’s coasts; some scheduled, some hastily arranged; some routine, some extraordinary; some conducted by one or another regional state, several under the lead of the U.S.

To place matters in perspective, on March 4 the Chinese government announced a $78 billion defense budget for 2010 with the lowest annual growth rate – 7.5% – since 1989, half that of recent years. According to a New York Times report on the topic and on the date in question, “China’s military spending is still dwarfed by that of the United States, which has about $719 billion in outlays this year for national defense.”  Assuming the accuracy of the above figures, U.S. military spending per capita this year will be almost forty times that of China, $2,330 to $60.

The U.S. has eleven aircraft carriers, ten of them nuclear-powered supercarriers, and eleven carrier strike groups. China has no aircraft carriers. Unlike the U.S., China is not building a global interceptor missile system with land, sea, air, and space components nor is it developing an equivalent of the Pentagon’s Prompt Global Strike project to strike any spot on earth within minutes.

China has not been guilty of military aggression against another nation since 1979, when it attacked northern Vietnam (with Washington’s blessing).

In anticipation of the deployment of USS George Washington to what at the time what thought to be the Yellow Sea, China’s People’s Liberation Army held a military supply exercises in that sea on July 17 and 18. Codenamed Warfare 2010, drills were held “amid reported tension over a scheduled joint exercise between the United States and Republic of Korea (ROK) navies.”

The exercises were held “deep in the Yellow Sea” and “aimed at improving defense capabilities against long-distance attacks.”

“Four helicopters and four rescue vessels were deployed for the exercise….Tanks were also loaded onto vessels at a port in Yantai, Shandong province….Similarly, rail[s] transported tanks to ships and other military equipment was transferred to vessels….The exercise focused on transporting military supplies for future joint battles….The drill came at a sensitive time with Washington and Seoul scheduled to hold a joint military exercise in the Yellow Sea.”

As the U.S.-South Korean naval, air and anti-submarine exercises began on July 25, China’s navy (People’s Liberation Army Navy: PLAN) “conducted a large-scale, live-ammunition exercise in the South China Sea,” days before the arrival of USS John S. McCain and USS George Washington in the sea. They were supervised by Chen Bingde, commanding general of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff Department.

“Main battleships, submarines and combat aircraft from the PLAN’s three fleets took part in the drill, believed to be the largest naval maneuver since 1950 when the PLAN was formally formed….State media say China’s military forces this week conducted the largest exercise of its kind since the founding of the military, known as the People’s Liberation Army. The official Xinhua news agency reports numerous warships, submarines, and combat aircraft took part in live fire exercises held Monday [July 26] in the South China Sea.”

On August 3 China launched major air defense exercises which included 12,000 troops and 100 aircraft. China’s five-day exercise, called Vanguard 2010, took place “over the central province of Henan and the eastern coastal province of Shandong, which borders the Yellow Sea.” The maneuvers also involved air defence missiles and artillery units.

Two days later South Korea began its largest-ever anti-submarine drills in the Yellow Sea with several thousand military personnel, 29 ships and 50 aircraft. Marines based on islands close to the border with North Korea conducted live-fire exercises during the five-day event.

A report at the time provided details: “The military practiced sinking enemy submarines, and responding to coastal artillery fire. It also conducted a drill to deal with North Korean commandos….Some 4,500 people from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and maritime police are taking part in the exercise. The military has mobilized nearly 30 naval vessels, including the 14,000-ton amphibious landing ship Dokdo, 4,500-ton KDX-II class destroyers, and about 50 aircraft, including KF-16 fighter jets.”

No sensible observer can believe that all of the above developments – moves and countermeasures, drills and counter-drills – are actuated by the sinking of a South Korean corvette with the death of 46 sailors almost five months ago. The Chinese military establishment is not buying the argument.

In the last two and a half weeks articles have appeared in the Chinese press containing language that has not been heard in decades, perhaps in half a century. Warnings of military threats, appeals for caution and conciliation, fundamental reevaluations of U.S.-Chinese relations, pleas for de-escalation, and at times uncharacteristically harsh criticism of U.S. motives and actions.

Toward the end of July General Ma Xiaotian, deputy chief of general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang “spoke out against foreign warships entering, and military aircraft passing over, the Yellow Sea or any other offshore areas, because they pose a threat to China’s security.”

“China has to be alarmed when other powers display their military might near its territory. Will the US allow China to conduct military drills with neighboring countries in the Gulf of Mexico?

“Geographically, the Yellow Sea is the door to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which has important security implications for the Bohai Sea Rim, an important economic zone in China,” Xinhua pointed out.

The same feature mentioned that USS George Washington has an operational range of 600 kilometers and the warplanes on its deck a speed of 1,000 kilometers an hour, leaving even the Chinese capital of Beijing vulnerable to attack.

To confirm Chinese apprehensions, on August 6 a U.S. armed forces publication disclosed “The USS George Washington will participate in a joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise in the Yellow Sea in the near future, despite China’s opposition to the aircraft carrier operating near its eastern waters.”

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell stated on August 5 that the nuclear-powered supercarrier will participate in war games in the Yellow Sea which will “include anti-submarine, show-of-force and bombing exercises.” The George Washington may join the recently commenced Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises which continue to August 26.

Rear Admiral Yang Yi, former head of the Institute of Strategic Studies at the People’s Liberation Army’s National Defense University, said of the news that “China will definitely react harshly to the move. It’s hard to predict its specific reaction, but that will for sure cast a shadow over Sino-U.S. military relations.”

An unsigned editorial in the Global Times of August 9 titled “Taking a stand on US provocation” reacted to the Pentagon’s latest threat to dispatch the George Washington to the Yellow Sea.

“The words added to the already sizable distrust accumulated recently between China and the US. They also shattered the illusion of some Chinese over how the US treats China.

“In a short period of time, the Sino-US relationship has ebbed quickly and seems to be still in a downward trend.

“Various US politicians have expressed that the US does not see China as an enemy. However, words like these and recent actions by the US to contain China’s growth suggest otherwise.”

The piece continued in language one would be hard-pressed to recall reading since the early 1960s on the Chinese side, where for four decades Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski have been the most revered foreign political personalities:

“It seems as if the US is good at playing games. US politicians are sweet-mouthed but then stab you in the back when you are not looking.

“This year the US is testing China’s resolve over issues ranging from China’s offshore ocean sovereignty, to the Chinese yuan, to trade. Each time it seriously damages the mutual trust previously built.

“Sovereign unity and national resurgence are two missions China must accomplish.

“The biggest obstacle to fulfilling those missions comes from the US, especially from the Pentagon.”

A feature of the same day in the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily also commented on the deployment of the U.S. supercarrier, reminding its readers that “The Pentagon reportedly said Thursday, August 5, that the U.S. aircraft carrier USS George Washington would participate in a series of United States-Republic of Korea (ROK) joint naval exercises in the Yellow Sea. This series of U.S.-ROK military exercises includes anti-submarine maritime interdiction operations, bombing and special armed forces’ operations for a ’show of strength.’”

After quoting the president after whom the aircraft carrier was named that his nation should strive to cultivate amity and justice toward all and peace and harmony among nations, the Chinese newspaper asked: “With a lapse of more than 200 years, what kind of strength is the aircraft carrier named after this great American statesman to show?”
Also on August 9, a commentary by Major General Luo Yuan of the Academy of Military Sciences bearing the title “Chinese people won’t stand for US naval provocation,” was published which contained these excerpts:

“Just imagine whether the Chinese people will believe US President Barack Obama’s statement that ‘the US does not seek to contain China’ or US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s claim ‘we are in the same boat’ if a US aircraft carrier bursts into the Yellow Sea.”

Until recently “the US could pretend to not know the likely reaction, saying that its military exercise with South Korea was just over the Cheonan issue. Yet now, as the Chinese government has clearly shown grave concern over the US action, the US remains hard-set on going its own way. This is a deliberate provocation.”

The author, in what a Western newspaper called “a remarkably forthright view from such a senior military figure,”  also implied a reaction of a non-military nature: “Imagine what the consequence will be if China’s biggest debtor nation challenges its creditor nation….They should know that China’s rise is the general trend, and no weapons could resist it. China is the world’s largest market, so offending China means losing, or at least decreasing, market share.”

And he provided an example of the saying that turnabout is fair play: “Imagine how the US would feel if China showed the same ignorance of US interests and security as the US is doing now, and operated military exercises with US neighbors or competitors in its neighboring or sensitive regions.”

Four days later another article by the same writer appeared in the People’s Daily under the title “US engaging in gunboat diplomacy.” As “the United States has insisted on sending aircraft carriers to the Yellow Sea to provoke China,” it is clear to the military strategist that “the foreign policy of the United States is still showing three features that have long been part of its global strategy.”

The three components identified are hegemony, gunboat diplomacy and unilateralism.

Luo Yuan defined and gave examples of each:

Hegemony: “The philosophical foundation of the American hegemonic mindset is the deep-rooted ‘manifest destiny’ theory held by some Americans.

“According to the theory, the American nation is the most outstanding nation in the world. Its leadership in the world, which is bestowed by God, is undeniable. Therefore, Americans have the responsibility to handle world affairs and will appear wherever problems take place. Nevertheless, the results are usually the opposite – things become worse with the involvement of the United States….They believe that the American nation is the most excellent, so they must ‘lead the world’ and other nations have no choice but to follow them.”

Unilateralism: “The philosophical foundation of American unilateralism is based on a zero-sum game and its basic principle is: what I obtain must be what others lose and vice versa, so what others obtain must be what I lose.”

With an imaginary articulation of Washington’s policy, the author wrote: “No matter how many people it involves, I am superior to all others, and I can do whatever I like. Everything must bend to American interests and will.”   

Gunboat diplomacy: “The best example of U.S. gunboat diplomacy is the Naval Operations Concept 2010 approved by the U.S. president in May of this year, which vividly described U.S. ‘maritime interests.’ According to the 2010 concept, U.S. naval forces will develop six core competencies: forward presence, deterrence, maritime security, sea control, power projection and humanitarian assistance.”

He analysed the document’s six key elements ad seriatim:

> so-called forward presence means that the United States can send its gunboats to every corner of the world, tyrannize the weak and extend its security boundaries to others’ doorsteps. This way, the United States can even claim the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea are covered within its security boundary.

> so-called deterrence is no different from bully tactics, namely that “if you do not obey me, I will punch you.”

> so-called maritime security is to ensure the inviolability of U.S. gunboats. The United States only cares about its own safety, and it should not be expected to ever care about others’ safety.

> so-called sea control applies the logic of “whoever controls critical sea lanes controls the seas, and whoever controls the seas controls the world.”

> so-called power projection is obviously for war rather than peace.

> so-called humanitarian assistance is only for the Americans and U.S. allies, while others only receive brutal and rough treatment from the United States. 

A blunt indictment which also included the observation that “Ironically, the United States, which has a blind belief in its military force and ’speaks’ only through its gunboats, is at once embarrassingly trapped in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The day before the above comments appeared, Ni Lexiong, professor of international relations at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, wrote that “a potential military crisis is hidden in the gradually ‘maturing’ Sino-US relations. Why do both sides regularly organize military exercises? There must be specific imaginary enemies in military exercises. Regular and repeated military exercises are tests of national strategic plans and tactical details.

“Before the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German army had long been practicing the Schlieffen Plan, which called for a sudden attack on France on one side before Russia could mobilize on the other.”
The following day Rear Admiral Yang Yi, the former director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the People’s Liberation Army National Defense University who was quoted earlier, said in an analysis called “Cold War mindset harms peace” that:

“Washington has held intensive military exercises with allies in the Pacific Ocean and Northeast and Southeast Asia over the past months, quite close to China and its surrounding region….US-led exercises this year have drawn more concerns among regional members because of the unequivocal motive behind the exercises and the sensitivity of their locations….The large-scale military exercise [Invincible Spirit] is intended to send an unambiguous message to other regional countries, including China, that the US is still the strongest military power in the world and that Washington’s military dominance in Northeast Asia, and the wider Asia-Pacific region, cannot be challenged….As the world’s sole superpower with an unchallenged armed force, no single nation in the world can stop the US from conducting such activity, but Washington will inevitably pay a costly price for its muddled decision.”

He also warned that the global military colossus may have feet of clay: “When the long-established global strategic pattern changes to the US’ disadvantage, Washington’s adherence to the Cold War mentality and its excessive dependence on military means to resolve international disputes will lead the superpower to bigger strategic setbacks.”
Last week a Chinese source added to Major General Luo Yuan’s use of a term once thought outdated, gunboat diplomacy, another one from the same era and mindset, brinkmanship: “Washington and Seoul have chosen to ignore China’s security concerns time and again, and this should not be allowed to fester at China’s doorstep. This brinkmanship is an open defiance of China’s security environment.”

The Chinese press (on both sides of the Taiwan Strait) has recently published several features on the threat of the U.S. surrounding China with an Asian NATO, both analogue and extension of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

On August 14 the Xinhua News Agency wrote:

“The real intention of the US maneuvers in the waters of Northeast Asia…is to consolidate the US-South Korea and US-Japan military alliance and boost US military presence in the region, and therefore intimidate and contain China.”

“In addition to more troops in Afghanistan, the US military is transforming Guam into its new strategic strike center that could cover large areas of the Asia Pacific. It redeployed 60 percent of its nuclear submarine fleet to the Pacific and has been consolidating its bases in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.”

Late last month an English-language Taiwanese newspaper reported that “According to Chinese media reports, the US’s support for Vietnam in its bids for the Spratly and Paracel islands is meant to threaten China’s core interests and build a grand strategic alliance surrounding the country.

“The US is capitalizing on the contradictions among East Asian countries to form a front against China….”

A recent piece in the People’s Daily minced no words in reiterating the point:

“Relations between China and the United States have become decidedly testy in recent days and the US is anxious to find its proxies in the region by inciting their discontent with China and pulling them to the American side.”

The dynamic is being exacerbated with “tensions building and mounting in recent weeks over events in the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea, and with the signs that the US is trying to meddle [with] and dominate issues involving China.”

“The U.S. decision to include an aircraft carrier in the [upcoming Yellow Sea] exercise is considered especially provocative, and some Chinese suspect that Washington is sending a ’strong message’ about American power to China as well as North Korea. And that the US carrier maneuvered to its former foe Vietnam arouses wild speculations about whether the US is bent on building up a NATO in Asian version.”

“The Obama administration…is experimenting with a new, more insidious but very risky diplomatic strategy in the region, where it has for long played [the role of a] hegemonic power, to contain an emerging great power: Drifting from confrontation to confrontation with a rising China, as Washington is now doing. This will bring about the doomed fallout. In a not very long American history, perhaps, the only bitter lesson to the super war machine was taught by China – which has never rewarded it with a single chance to declare a complete victory on whatever occasion.”

“Like a contemptible wretch making trouble, these mean and petty actions taken by the so-called super power would fail to help it get the desired fruit – to effectively counterbalance China in Asia.”

Military strategist Colonel Dai Xu of the Chinese People’s Liberation Air Force wrote on August 11 that “One needs to have a basic understanding of the nature of the United States and its global strategy in order to comprehend its recent provocations in the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea. The 2010 US defense report said first and foremost the U.S. is a nation at war.

“From a historical perspective, the U.S. has continuously found enemies and waged wars. It has become part of its social formula. Without wars the US economy loses stimulus. Without enemies the U.S. cannot hold the will of the whole nation.

“Its recent military drills in the Yellow Sea and announcement to intervene in South China Sea affairs were efforts made to encircle China. It is attempting to build an ‘Asian NATO’ with Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).”

He added a recommendation to combat that U.S.-led siege:

“In order to prevent the U.S. from surrounding it, China needs to draw a clear bottom line. The U.S. is not allowed to coerce China to give in on matters concerning China’s territory and maritime sovereignty, national solidarity and regional issues. And it is not allowed to jeopardize China’s national interest by collaborating with neighboring countries….If the U.S. is adjusting its global strategic emphasis, China needs to reevaluate its strategy toward the U.S. China loves peace, but it will staunchly safeguard its national interests.”
A Global Times editorial of last week provided this perspective:

“In recent months, the US has been busy cementing alliances in Northeast Asia and inking a new agreement with China’s Southeast Asian neighbor Vietnam. The US intention is clear: to stir negative sentiment against China among neighboring countries.

“The US is trying to consolidate its scattered influence in the region. To some extent, it can manage to do so, given its geographic detachment, its global influence and its economic might….The US is returning to Southeast Asia with a clear political agenda. It is trying to expand US influence and strengthen cooperation with countries in the region, but seeds of distrust are also being planted with its attempt to contain China. Countries around the region must see these tactics for what they are.”

The French statesman Talleyrand, never burdened by either scruples or principles, said that we were given speech not to disclose but to disguise our thoughts. (La parole nous a été donnée pour déguiser notre pensée.)

The words of major Chinese military leaders and strategists quoted above, however, are not those of dissimulation or evasion, vainglory or bravado. They should be interpreted at face value: As the most dire of warnings, particularly the references to World War I and the Korean War. An armed conflict between the world’s two main economic powers would be a catastrophe for more than just Northeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean region