topic by
real watcher
8/4/2002 (16:14) |
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''The long term strategy of Israel and how it affects the U.S.''
Printed on Saturday, August 03, 2002 @ 00:52:04 EDT
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=559
By Raff Ellis
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) ˆ Often times, while reading the headlines or
watching the news, one has to ask, 'What could the Israelis be
thinking?' What could possibly be the point of the seemingly
indiscriminate carnage and destruction? Rooting out the terrorists or
revenge is often the official explanation. But tiny babies are not
terrorists yet they are killed by the dozens. Olive trees are not
terrorists yet they are uprooted by the hundreds. Homes are not
terrorists but they are destroyed by the thousands. Buildings and
factories are labeled bomb factories and are shelled into oblivion.
One need only examine these actions to discern the overall strategy of
the country that is behind them.
The Israelis have always lusted for land acquisition. For evidence of
this you may note that as far back as 1973, Ariel Sharon himself
enunciated the settlement policy for the West Bank. He said his aim
was to create facts on the ground, facts that would not be able to be
undone 25 years hence, and 200,000 odd settlers later this is exactly
what has happened.
The initial invasion of U.N. mandated Palestinian areas in 1948, the
Sinai invasion in 1956, the 1967 war and the 1983 Lebanese incursion
manifest a strategy that is expressly meant to expand Israeli borders
and acquire resources. The only time Israelis were forced to give up
territory was after the original Sinai invasion in 1956, subsequently
reoccupied in 1967, and the 22 yearlong occupation of South Lebanon.
It is not in their plans to give up either the Golan Heights or the
West Bank, or to settle for just those territories. Their foot-
dragging approach to the farcical peace negotiations bears witness to
their real objectives.
The current onslaught in the West Bank is meant to do one thing: make
life so miserable for the indigenous inhabitants that they will have
no choice but to leave. Palestinians are made homeless by the
thousands. Curfews restrict movement for even the most basic
necessities: work, food and health care. How long can people exist
under such conditions, especially given the seeming indifference of
the rest of the world?
The controlling Likud Party has announced plans to immigrate one
million more Jews, and the consequent need for water resources to
support these immigrants has as its sub-mandate the conquest and
annexation of additional land. Hence, no matter how many negotiations
are started or abandoned, there will be no Palestinian State.
What of the United States' role in all this? An examination of its
moves since the infamous September 11th attack shows that George W.
and Company are surely making it up as they go along. In the aftermath
of the World Trade Center destruction, and after Bush and Cheney
emerged from hiding, the president announced that he supported a
Palestinian State. This statement was prompted by the initial belief
that the lack of progress in Middle East peace talks was the root
cause for the attack.
The Israeli lobby saw the WTC incident as an opportunity to justify
its strategic designs, and sprang into action launching a frenetic
public relations' action. Arafat was labeled Israel's bin Laden, and
Palestinian resistance organizations were accused of being in cahoots
with al Qaeda and a threat to the U.S. It didn't take long before the
administration backpedaled from its initial statements while Israel
opted into 'the war on terrorism.'
The U.S. began smoking out bin Laden and his terrorist band, a notion
that appealed to the resurgent patriotic fervor that gripped the
nation. The Taliban provided an opportunity for tangible results,
something the folks back home could appreciate on the nightly news:
you know, precision bombing and all that. The elusive bin Laden was
not good sound bite material. Now that the Taliban have been
dispatched, a perpetual 'war on terrorism' has expanded into the next
best thing: Saddam Hussein and Hezbollah. Many experts believe that a
dramatic military action will take place before the November elections
to keep the war momentum going and the poll numbers high.
A cursory look at the product of Israeli lobbying effort reveals a
foreign policy strategy that is designed to isolate the U.S. from all
countries in the Middle East. Banging the drum for an Iraqi invasion,
resolutions condemning Syria and Iran, labeling Hezbollah as one of
the foremost terrorist organizations in the world, the vilification of
Arafat and the P.L.O. and the public relations campaign against Saudi
Arabia are all examples of furtherance of this long-term strategy.
Controlling oil supplies is of course the linchpin in any U.S.
strategy it cobbles together. So, it is not far fetched to see that
the long-term contingency plan for Israel, along with the American
presence already there, is to invade the Saudi oil fields when the
time is ripe. The Saudis control half of the spare production capacity
of O.P.E.C., and they've gone on record to say that shutting off oil
is not in the cards this time around. The destabilization of their
regime would be a prima facie cause for military intervention.
Without the projected oil pipeline through Afghanistan and the
continued oil supply from the Arab States, America would have a hard
time justifying its adventures in the Middle East. For the Israelis,
however, their long-term expansion is driving their strategy and it
has co-opted U.S. policy to insure success. As this strategy goes
forward, one has to wonder what the economic and political
reverberations throughout the rest of the world will be.
[Raff Ellis lives in the U.S. and is a retired former strategic
planner and computer industry executive. He has had an abiding and
active interest in the Middle East since early adulthood and has
traveled to the region many times over the last 30 years.]
Raff Ellis encourages your comments: guestbox102@YellowTimes.org
YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted,
or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the
original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to
http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=559
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''Nuke the cows: beef irradiation and its consequences''
Printed on Sunday, August 04, 2002 @ 02:00:25 EDT
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=561
By Mitch Jones
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) ˆ On Saturday, June 29, 2002, a press conference and
a rally were held in front of a downtown Rochester, NY Wegmans store.
Wegmans is a Western New York grocery chain. The coalition that held
the event is called Irradiated Food Free NY (IFFNY). Other activists,
including consumer advocates, food safety groups and
environmentalists, joined in endorsing the event.
The issue in question was irradiated beef, which Wegmans had begun to
carry earlier this year, under its own label. Wegmans prides itself on
being a food safety innovator. For example, they demanded that
thermometers be installed on all freezers that carry their meat,
including trucks that transport the meat from the supplier. The slogan
for Wegmans became 'Beef You Feel Good About', after the E. coli scare
of the 1990s.
Wegmans claims that beef irradiation improves the safety of their
meat, killing bacteria which inevitably get on the meat. Their
advertising boasts that hamburgers can now be served raw or 'just the
way you like it' - as their plastic bags have printed on them.
In a series of letters to the editor of a Rochester paper called the
Democrat and Chronicle, Wegmans representatives responded to
criticisms of irradiation that had appeared in various op-ed pieces.
They defended irradiation as a miracle of modern technology, and
reminded consumers of the store's commitment to food safety in the
past. The opposition, however, continued their criticism of what they
consider an over-simplified solution to a complex problem.
Wegmans has pegged the Greater Rochester area as a test market for
irradiated beef, says IFFNY. Their objective is to find out how the
community will react to it, and most importantly, how it will sell.
Local activists feel that protesting irradiation will not only achieve
the goal of stopping Wegmans from carrying irradiated beef under its
brand name, but also will contribute to raising consumer awareness of
the safety and nutrition of the food they eat.
Irradiation is a technology developed in the 1960s by the U.S. Army
and NASA. It shoots gamma rays or X-rays at the food in order to
prevent reproduction of bacteria and other harmful microorganisms. The
nuclear rays, however, do not kill bacteria that may already be on the
meat. They only prevent their reproduction.
The current system used by the Titan Corporation employs conventional
electricity and electron beams, and is generally thought to be the
safest method. X-rays and gamma rays still pose a hazard to workers,
however, as an accident at the irradiation plant could expose workers
to harmful radiation.
There is a concern that zapping food with radioactive waves will take
pressure off meat packers to tighten their standards of inspection. I
was in Greeley, Colorado, at the time that an outbreak of E. coli was
traced to the Greeley ConAgra packing plant. Residents of Greeley that
I talked to expressed disappointment over the company's handling of
the situation. It was reported in the Greeley Tribune that a
representative from ConAgra had stated that the USDA didn't inform the
company of the outbreak in time for them to recall the tainted beef
that had already gotten to consumers.
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