Joe Hack

In a move that reeks of hypocrisy and double-standards, the Bush administration has signed a deal that will provide Israel with $30bn (£14.8bn) of military aid over the next 10 years. Lest we forget, it is the Bush administration which has so vehemently condemned what it alleges are Irans atempts to provide small-scale military asistance to insurgents in Iraq and those opposing Israels occupation of Palestinian land. You would have wonder, as an objective observer, what the Bush administration would say if any other country tried to supply $30billion dollars of killing machines to any opponents of Israel in the middle east.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has said the aid will preserve his country’s military advantage over other countries in the Middle East. The new military aid package represents a massive 25% increase from present levels. The Bush administration also announced multi-billion-dollar arms deals with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Gulf states last month. Washington says it wants to help its allies in the Middle East meet their security needs and counter the growing power of Iran in the region. Opponents say that the USA is engaging in a dangerous escalation of arms supply which will undoubtedly inflame an already desperate situation.Mr Burns, with sinister echoes of George Orwells 1984, called the $30 billion package of killing machines an “investment in peace”. The money must be used to purchase military equipment from the US defence industry, although Israel will also be permitted to use 26.3% to buy equipment from local companies. So coincidentally an indirect boost to Bushs friends in the weapons industry at the expense of the American taxpayer ? The arrangement requires Congressional approval, but Mr Burns said he thought there would be little opposition. Sadly, he is probably right.

Now I do not for one moment dispute the right of Israel to exist, although I firmly believe that its illegal occupation of Palestinian land remains a festering sore in the middle east that will fan the flames of conflict for as long as it goes on. It is quite likely, although not proven, that other countries like Iran and Syria are supplying various resistance groups .. insurgents .. call them what you will .. with very low-level assistance in terms of hardware, A few rifles, bits of explosive, certainly nothing large-scale like warplanes or tanks or cluster bombs or other sophisticated weaponry. It is an indisputable fact, however, that the Bush administration is pouring huge and unprecedented levels of weaponry into Israel which will do nothing but perpetuate the present desperate conflict. In terms of meddling where it has no business, America stands head and shoulders over any other power in the middle-east. But the truth is that for as long as Israel has the overwhelming military and nuclear superiority that it enjoys over its neighbors there is very little incentive for a moderate compromise to be reached. I am painting no-one exclusively as the bad guys because in the first place I do not go in for such simplistic bullshit and secondly because there is genuinely fault on all sides, but one-sided massive injections of killing machines is NOT the solution.

The only power on earth that might bring peace to the middle east right now is America and since he was elected president Bush has stubbornly and steadfastly refused to do a damn thing to help . All he seems to be capable of doing is to pour even more weapons into one of the longest-running and most bloody conflicts in modern times. It is exactly like throwing gasoline onto a fire. Whatever your feelings about Israel, and I know some Americans have a strange loyalty that defies logic or morality, what Bush is doing is really NOT the answer. In fact, it is the problem.Tags:al quaeda atrocity Bush civilian killing Israel Political News republican terrorism war on terroral quaeda, atrocity, Bush, civilian killing, Israel, Political News, republican, terrorism, war on terror

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After the bloody humiliation America is suffering in Iraq, and with the lowest approval ratings for any president ever, you’d have thought George W Bush would have learned something. Apparently not if recent reports in the Guardian newspaper are correct. Its looking increasingly like the idiot is thinking of attacking Iran. God help us all ! Whats that you say ? Iran just happens to have the worlds second largest reserves of crude oil ? Well golly, theres a coincidence, eh ?

The hardening of policy apparently follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although, or perhaps because, the Bush administration is in deep and desperate trouble over Iraq it is now seeking to turn the focus of public attention onto Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.”. Thats enough to send a shiver down the collective spine of the rest of the civilized world.

The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course you will recall that this is the same administration which stated so categorically that Iraq had WMD and viciously attacked any critics who dared question that assertion. We all remember that, don’t we ? I hope so. This is the same administration, Cheney particularly, that tried to claim Al Quaeda was a reason for the attack on Iraq despite all intelligence services saying categorically that was simply not true, that Iraq was a terrorist-free zone until after the US invasion. So we can all have absolute faith in anything the Bush administration says about Iran, right ?

Hardline vice-president, Deadeye Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. The only moderate voices have been the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates. Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Deadeye Dick Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. “The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,” the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush. The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway, given that it is widely internationally peceived that Israel does not act without Washingtons tacit approval..

“The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action,” Mr Cronin, Director of Studies at the ISS said. “The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself.”. Iran currently, and with some justification, feels itself to be under considerable threat from the US. Almost half of the US’s 277 warships are stationed menacingly close to Iran, including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time. Stop and think for a moment about how the US would feel if there were over a hundred Iranian warships along its coastline and warlike statements were coming out of Iran. If the boot were on the other foot Americans would be very, very nervous. Thats a no-brainer.

Bush and Cheneys hardline stance is deeply unpopular internationally. There is a very clear lack of support for military action from any of Americas previous allies and it would have to be very much a case of Bush going it alone against the force of overwhelming worldwide opinion.if he indeed opts for Cheneys preferred ‘attack’ policy. Because of that no decision on military action is expected until next year and in the meantime the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route although given the attitudes of Bush and Cheney one can only wonder how whole-hearted this approach will really be.

Bush, who has never spoken in criticism of Israels secret nuclear arsenal and who was instrumental in sharing nuclear technology with India in contravention of long-standing US policy, is likely at some point to hype the notion of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability as a justification for military action. Iran has repeated categorically that their only interest is in the development of peaceful nuclear technology. Sporadic talks are under way between the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, on the possibility of a freeze in Iran’s uranium enrichment programme. Tehran has so far re-asserted its right to peaceful nucdlear development but has provisionally agreed to another round of talks at the end of the month. The pot simmers.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El Baradei, has said that there are signs of Iran slowing down work on the enrichment plant it is building in Natanz. Negotiations took place in Tehran last week between Iranian officials and the IAEA, which is seeking a full accounting of Iran’s nuclear activities before Tehran disclosed its enrichment programme in 2003. The agency’s deputy director general, Olli Heinonen, said two days of talks had produced “good results” and would continue. At the UN, Bush is pushing for tougher economic sanctions against Iran but other UN member states are resisting.

We all know that Bush and Cheney have previous form for hyping up imaginary threats to justify military action. They have previous form for going against world opinion too. So its all desperately worrying. Be very watchful. If you suddenly start seeing feverish claims from the Bush camp in the tame news media about the ‘Threat of Iran’ please remember Iraq. Take nothing whatsoever on trust. Demand independent (for example the UN) verification. This is important. There have been over 600.000 lives lost in Iraq so far and theres no end in sight. We cannot afford to be lied and manipulated into another deadly debacle like that ever again.

We won’t get fooled again.

-Tags:army Bush Dick Cheney insurgency iran Iraq Israel nuclear Political Rants politics terrorism terrorist US military war on terror wmdarmy, Bush, Dick Cheney, insurgency, iran, Iraq, Israel, nuclear, Political Rants, politics, terrorism, terrorist, US military, war on terror, wmd

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After the longest farewell in the history of politics, Tony Blair has finally resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was a leaving characterized by the same spin and cheesey schmaltz that has flawed British politics for the last ten years. Instead of diving straight into the trough of the lucrative American lecture circuit though, his Tony’ness is now apparently off to bring peace to the middle east ! Yes, you heard me right !The group of four (America, Russia, the EUU and the UN) charged with promoting a middle east peace settlement have appointed him as their special envoy to do just that. If you didn’t laugh you’d have to cry. It is, of course, purely and simply a Bush appointment.  He’s throwing Tony a bone for his poodle-like subservience over Iraq and at the same time placing a tame mouthpiece in the middle-east to push a pro-US agenda. Yet another cynical move that thinks its pretty clever but is, in fact, dumb as a bucket of spanners.

The Israel/ Palestine conflict is a running sore that infects not just the middle-east but the rest of the world. A just, equitable solution is desperately needed. No-one could argue with that. So what are Blair’s credentials for this utterly crucial job ? Well lets think. Together with Bush he invaded Iraq on the basis of either outright lies or ‘flawed evidence’  (depending on how charitable you wish to be). That catastrophic mistake has led directly to the deaths of an estimated 600,000 people so far and turned a further 4 million into refugees.  The invasion and continuing occupation has de-stabilised the whole region,  pushed Iraq towards civil war, created a new breeding ground for extremist terrorism, and unarguably made the whole world a much more dangerous place.

More recently, when Israeli war-planes and tanks were waging war on Lebanon and the whole world was demanding a ceasefire, Blair joined with Bush and the Israeli PM as the only three world leaders blocking any such move, thereby allowing the unneccessary killing of civilians to continue. Impressive credentials as a supposedly unbiased ‘peace-broker’, eh ? And those are just a few of the highlights of Mr Blairs involvement in the middle east, where he is probably the second most hated western leader (after Mr Bush of course) and is generally regarded as nothing more than a mouthpiece for the USA and Israel. So in what crazy alternate universe was Mr Blair seen as the ideal man to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine ? There are any number of distinguished politicians who could have done this vital job and God knows someone certainly needs to do it, and quick.  In reality it would be difficult to find anyone who is a *worse* candidate for the job than Mr Tony Blair. He has no credibility in the middle-east whatsoever and is regarded with deep suspicion. Which kind of makes you question Mr Bushs seriousness about the whole process, or his understanding of the situation, or possibly both. But whats new ?

 Is it just me, or is the world getting crazier by the day ? You really and truly couldn’t make stuff like this up, could you ?

Joe HackTags:agenda American Blair British Bush catastrophic mistake civil war cynical flawed evidence Iraq Israel Israeli Joe Hack killing of civilians Lebanon middle east no credibility Palestine peace Political Rants politics Prime Minister refugees special envoy terrorism Tony Blair United Kingdom USAagenda, American, Blair, British, Bush, catastrophic mistake, civil war, cynical, flawed evidence, Iraq, Israel, Israeli, Joe Hack, killing of civilians, Lebanon, middle east, no credibility, Palestine, peace, Political Rants, politics, Prime Minister, refugees, special envoy, terrorism, Tony Blair, United Kingdom, USA

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