| If you don't get MER, you just don't
get it! 19 August 2004  MER is
Free
|
||
| News, Views, & Analysis Governments,
Lobbies, & the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know |
||
| "The most honest, most
comprehensive, and most
mobilizing news and analysis on the Middle East always comes from MER. It is indispensable!" - Robert Silverman - Salamanca, Spain |
||
| Comment on this and
other MER articles in
the MER
FORUM |
||
"Iran's public warning of a possible 'pre-emptive' attack on American
forces did not come by accident just as the U.S. and its puppet
regime are threatening to invade the Shrine of Ali in Najaf."
EDITORIAL:
Mid-East Realities - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - 19 August 2004:
As the U.S. prepared to attack and occupy Iraq last year this startling front-page actually appeared in the U.K. in the Daily Mirror. At the time, against most of international opinion and facing huge demonstrations around the world as well as in American streets, the Bush/Cheney regime in Washington kept insisting Iraq was 'illegally' armed with terrible weapons of mass destruction and somehow implicated in 9/11, al-Qaeda, and 'terrorism'.
At the time MER repeatedly said the Americans were purposely and propagandistically deceiving and lying; that it was all being orchestrated by a group of Israeli-connected ideologically zealotous "neocons" who had control of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the National Security Council; and that, Ahmed Chalabi, et. al., were corrupt hustlers purposefully spreading volumes of disinformation to the media in close coordination with the Americans and the Israelis.
Now, too late, the whole world knows that just about all the fears and justifications so crassly and deceptively foisted on all by the Americans and their sub-agents were nearly totally and quite grossly false and misleading. The culmination back then was the cravenly dishonest appearance by the once credible Secretary of State at the U.N., flanked by the Director of the CIA and he who is now the Ambassador pro-consul in Baghdad, attempting so shamelessly to threaten and manipulate the Security Council and indeed the whole world one more time.
We said all this then when it was far more difficult to do and when everything reasonable and sensible was being drowned out by the loud noises coming from official Washington and much of the in-tow corporate media.
Now in 2004 as a result of what the Bush/Cheney/Israeli regime insisted on doing the world is dangerously on fire -- passions, hatreds, and fears all now enraged and engaged in an escalating "clash of civilizations" full of crusading rhetoric essentially pitting the U.S., U.K., and Israel against Arab and Muslim countries and peoples everywhere. Remember former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir's ominous departing words to the Organization of the Islamic Conference last year?
Two years ago now Walter Cronkite -- the most prominent and credible American journalist of yesteryear -- publicly warned that the U.S. could be leading the world to World War III. About the same time one of Ariel Sharon's most trusted advisers off the record warned a small Jewish audience that he was "sure World War III was coming" and everyone must prepare. These detailed reports can also be found in the MER archives even though, as remarkable as it seems, they received hardly any play by the 'mainstream corporate' media.
Quite a few times since then the Israelis have warned that if the U.S. does not they may strike Iran, with Ariel Sharon saying in public just before the Iraq invasion that just as soon as it was completed the U.S. needed to take on Iran.
Now faced with continual threats, and with American troops on both sides of Iran in Afghanistan and Iraq, yesterday the Iranian Defense Minister said in public Iran would not wait to be attacked (as Iraq had done) but might pre-emptively attack U.S. forces in the region; this just days after publicly displaying new long-range missiles and loudly warning that Israel would be destroyed if it attacked Iran.
This is indeed how World Wars are made.
Iran's startling public warning of a possible pre-emptive attack on American forces did not come by accident just as the U.S. and its puppet regime are threatening to invade the Shrine of Ali in Najaf and force everyone by overwhelming firepower to comply with their dictates or die.
For what is happening these days in Najaf could just be the spark that ignites the entire region and maybe the entire world.
Once ignited, and some think this is already the case and that it is already too late to turn back, the fire could continue for some time as a slow burn gradually destroying and consuming more and more. Or it could become a series of regional explosions further fueling the escalating arms race sucking in more and more countries over time. Or something unexpected could happen and with passions already so enflamed everything could quickly spin totally out of control.
After all, though it is understandable most people try to overlook these realities and go about their daily lives, additional serious tensions in the subcontinent and in Asia over Taiwan and North Korea are also potentially explosive on their own -- with everything now greatly exacerbated by the tensions and fears and hatreds emanating from the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the Israeli killing and imprisonment of the Palestinians.
For the Muslims of the Middle East and the world now many of their most important historical cities and holy shrines are in one way or another occupied and controlled by Western and non-Muslim nations. Jerusalem by 'the Jewish state'. The area of Mecca and Medina ruled by a corrupt and scandalous regime enthroned by the British and dependent on the Americans to retain its hold. Historic Palestine divided by the British, the Hashemite throne still clinging to power in the East while in the West the Israelis have imprisoned the 'native' population and created apartheid realities worse than ever was the case in South Africa of old. And now Iraq is occupied by the Americans who at this very moment are besieging Najaf with their massive tanks, attack helicopters, shock troops, and puppet regime.
For make no mistake about it. The decisions about what happens in Iraq continue to be made by the occupying superpower, even if more remotely than when Paul Bremer was on daily TV daily -- a mistake his replacement, pro-consul Ambassador John Negroponte, is not repeating.
Make no mistake about it either. The historical responsibility for what is happening in the Middle East in these early opening years of the 21st Century, and today in Najaf, is primarily that of the United States. And the historical failings are that of other major nations and of the United Nations for not forcefully acting to maintain the integrity of international law and to stop Israel's rampant destruction and dispossession of the Palestinian people in the false name of 'security'.
Just recently in fact one of the greatest Western philosophers in the world publicly endorsed the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupier as fully justified both morally and politically. But as MER has pointed out many times don't expect to see such profound independent thinkers interviewed on the grossly inadequate corporate media talk shows or on the carefully choreographed Op Ed pages of the major newspapers.
Indeed so much of what has now happened in the crucial Middle East region can be traced back to the cancerous policies Israel has been pursuing year after year with the continual massive financing and arming of the United States.
Indeed when it comes to United States foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, Washington has its owns agenda but in addition and usually in tandem it is considerable influenced and pushed around by the powerful Israeli-Jewish Lobby. Everyone knows this basic reality; but few are able and willing to discuss it. And thus considerable blame and responsibility for what has happened, and for what is happening, also falls to the Jewish State of Israel and to its cadre of largely Jewish organizations and agents who work so evangelically on its behalf and at its direction.
It would be far more pleasant and much easier to remain quiet about and to try to overlook or excuse or rationalize all of this.
It would be far simpler to just accept and forget the past, to slide over all of these complicated and painful connections, and to try to put a better face on it all with talk of 'hope' this and 'hope' that.
It would be far easier to just accept the simplistic slogans of 'good' us and 'evil' them; the mantra-like repetitious scooping up of all who dissent as supporters of the 'terrorists'; the incessant non-stop flag-waving accompanied by the ritualistic lemming-like rhetoric about 'freedom' this and 'democracy' that.
But it's far more responsible and far more necessary to point out, as difficult and maddening as it is to do so, that we are already on the slippery slope and that time may be running out for us all.
Mark Bruzonsky*
* Mark Bruzonsky is the publisher of MID-EAST REALITIES (MER). His his bio information can be found at MiddleEast.Org/mab and he can be contacted at Mark@MiddleEast.Org, (202) 362-5266.
