-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: June 15, 2007 7:12:14 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Summer of Hassam: Bush Triggers Domino Effect in the
Middle East
IAEA chief in Iran attack warning
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6753017.stm
The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog has warned that resorting to
military action against Iran over its nuclear programme would be
"an act of madness."
Mohammed ElBaradei also said Iran was close to reaching large-scale
levels of uranium enrichment without providing assurances its
programme was peaceful.
Enriched uranium can be used to fuel nuclear reactors but can also
be made into nuclear weapons material.
The West has accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge Iran
denies.
Mr ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) , said the stalemate between Iran and the UN Security
Council was leading to confrontation.
He said any use of force to shut down Iran's nuclear programme
"would be catastrophic, it would be an act of madness -- and it
would not solve the issue".
Israel readying public for 'all-out war'
By YAAKOV KATZ
Jerusalem Post, May 31, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?
cid=1180527968263&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
With Iran racing toward nuclear power and IDF preparations for the
possibility of a conflict with Syria and Hizbullah in high gear,
the Home Front Command plans to launch a publicity campaign to
prepare the public for war.
Within a few weeks it intends to inform the public about what
people need to do in the event of attack.
The campaign was not connected to a specific event or threat but
was meant to brace the public for war in general, senior IDF
officers said.
"Our job is to prepare for an all-out war," Col. Hilik Sofer, head
of the Home Front Command Population Division, told The Jerusalem
Post Wednesday. "We prepare for a wide range of possibilities since
it doesn't make any difference [which Arab country] the threat
comes from."
Several weeks ago, the Home Front Command distributed pamphlets in
Netivot and Ashkelon explaining how to behave during a Kassam
attack. Both cities are within 15 kilometers of the Gaza Strip.
The IDF has deployed early warning systems outside Netivot and
Ashkelon. They have not been activated, pending government approval.
Next week, Sofer will meet with heads of government offices and
local councils to discuss ways to improve service to the public at
a time of emergency.
"We know that the Palestinians have Kassams that can reach 12-
kilometer distances and even farther," Sofer said. "And even though
Kassams have yet to fall there, we'd best be prepared."
In March, the Home Front Command, the Israel Police, Magen David
Adom, the Fire and Rescue Services and other emergency services
held a two-day exercise throughout the country that dealt with
extreme scenarios, including mega-terrorist attacks and
nonconventional missile attacks.
The drill was the country's largest ever and implemented lessons
from the Second Lebanon War last summer.
------------------
War, Bloody Civil War
Benjamin R. Barber
Fri Jun 15, 3:04 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070615/cm_huffpost/052367
Push aside just for a moment the stories about Paris Hilton and the
endless Presidential campaign and the sub-prime mortgage crisis,
and behold to the East the grim specter of civil war in the Arab
world.
The fiercest wars are civil wars. More Americans were killed in our
civil war than in any other. The Russian civil war that accompanied
the Communist Revolution was bitter and destructive, corrupting
Bolshevism and helping establish Stalinism. More recently, Rwanda
and Yugoslavia imploded around horrendous, sometimes genocidal
conflicts that were nightmarish parodies of civil wars.
And now, as a consequence of American policies rationalized by
democratic idealism but propelled by cynical lies and a good deal
of just plain stupidity, the Middle East is descending into that
worst of all man-made catastrophes. In Iraq, Gaza, in Syria, and in
Lebanon too, the specter of civil war looms, threatening peoples
far beyond Iraq.
Hamas vs. Fatah, Hezbollah vs.the Government of Lebanon, Shiite vs.
Sunni -- blood feuds driven by what the ancient Greeks called The
Furies -- those vengeful Gods of the underworld who remember
everything and forgive nothing. You can come between nations at
war, separate states in conflict, but there is no way to pull apart
cousins and brothers set on murdering one another.
America might as well go home because there is no longer anything
it can do to arrest the free fall that is the Iraqi civil war. They
are already slaughtering one another without conscience or
consciousness, brother for brother, mosque for mosque, tribe for
tribe, imam for imam. And are likely to continue until the Furies
are sated and burrow back into their dark blood holes at a time of
their own choosing.
Who then will pacify Gaza? Who can stymie Hezbollah? Who should
step between Sunni and Shiite? It is not just Israel, but Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and Turkey that are now at risk. Even countries like
Syria and Iran who think they will find a way to profit from these
wars are at risk. Does President Ahmadinejad really think, once the
Americans are gone, that the Sunni militias and their al Qaeda
allies of convenience will swoon and vanish in the face of Iranian
meddling? Can Israel benefit from the mayhem at its doorstep?
And how exactly are neighboring states supposed to respond? Do
something and you are the new Americans, villains because you
intervene, even if in the name of neutrality and justice. Do
nothing and war rages on, ever more dangerous to your own internal
security and stability.
These, then, are the fruits of Bush's bungling: the entire Middle
East consumed by civil war, the whole Arab world at risk. And worst
of all, for the United States, finally an environment cultivated by
the Furies in which terrorism can truly flourish - stark and
brutish anarchy.
-----------------
Arab Media Reports Syria Making Preparations for War with Israel
by Hana Levi Julian
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122765
(IsraelNN.com) A Qatari newspaper, Al Watan, reported Friday that
Syria is making concrete preparations for war with Israel, saying
that the Syrian government has removed the Government and State
Archives from the Damascus area. According to the paper, this move
indicates preparations for war.
Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash confirmed on Al-Jazeera
Arabic world news satellite TV last week that Syria is indeed
engaged in active preparations for a war with Israel. The conflict,
said the Syrian MP, is expected to break out during the summer months.
Officials close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reported Sunday that
their efforts to begin negotiations with Syrian President Bashar Al-
Assad have gone unanswered. They also said that Mr. Assad’s failure
to reply signaled that his claims of wanting peace were not honest
and were meant to improve his own status in the international
community.
Last week, the head of Mossad, Israel’s international intelligence
agency, Meir Dagan, warned that Syrian President Assad was putting
up a smoke screen by claiming he wants to open peace talks with the
Jewish State.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has also raised the issue
numerous times. “The IDF is preparing for an escalation on both the
Palestinian and the northern fronts,” he said bluntly during a
speech to the IDF Officers Training School earlier in the year.
The IDF held a large-scale exercise ten days ago simulating a
Syrian invasion to Israel’s north. Infantry units, tank divisions
and the Air Force took part in the exercise, which took place at
the Shizafon IDF installation, in the southern Negev.
Asked about the exercise by Army Radio, Defense Minister Amir
Peretz said that the IDF was indeed preparing for the possibility
of war with Syria, but said this does not mean that Israel would
initiate such a war. "Our preparedness is not an indication of any
decision by either us or Syria to go to war -- these are purely
defensive measures," he said.
---------------
All-out civil war in Palestine
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/features/
article_1318135.php/All-out_civil_war_in_Palestine
By Claude Salhani Jun 15, 2007, 15:10 GMT
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- The violent confrontation
between warring Palestinian factions unfolding in Gaza is far more
than a civil war. It`s a coup d`etat accompanied by a civil war.
And it`s also the most serious, most nefarious chapter in the short
history of the Palestinian Authority.
The heavy fighting pitting forces loyal to Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, against members of the Islamist Hamas
movement, have not only revived fears of an intra-Palestinian civil
war, but they have shattered the dream of the Palestinians gaining
independence and ruling themselves as a sovereign nation at any
time in the foreseeable future.
The defeat of Abu Mazen`s Fatah forces in the Gaza Strip represents
much more than a defeat for the mainstream Palestinian political/
military movement. The mega-fiasco in Gaza is also a defeat of U.S.
foreign policy in the region; it is the culmination of a policy of
inaction on the part of the Bush administration. It represents a
failure of Israel`s policy vis-a-vis the Palestinian territories.
After nearly 40 years of occupation Israel finds itself facing a
far more hostile environment in Gaza than when they entered the
territory in 1967. And possibly far more consequential in the Arab
world, the resumption of fighting amongst Palestinians represents a
defeat -- and loss of prestige -- for Saudi Arabia`s King Abdallah
who tried to broker a cease-fire among the warring factions.
'In light of the dramatic escalation of violence in Gaza and
President Abbas` move to disband the Palestinian government, the
U.S. needs to urgently rethink its failed policy in the Middle
East,' said Daniel Levy, a senior fellow and director of the
Prospects for Peace Initiative at The Century Foundation.
http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1537810220070615
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. response to the Hamas takeover of
Gaza may be to lavish support on the West Bank while trying to
isolate Hamas in the coastal strip, a strategy that could further
radicalize the Islamist movement, analysts said on Friday.
Hamas' military victory demonstrated the failure of the U.S. effort
to strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in his
power struggle with Hamas, which the European Union, the United
States and Israel view as a terrorist group.
It leaves the United States with fewer options to pursue
comprehensive peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and
makes the idea of a two-state solution even more remote because
Palestinians are now split between a Fatah-led West Bank and a
Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
------------------------
Assassination brings Lebanon closer to civil war
14 June 2007
http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=43762
A sign of the times. I arrive home in Beirut from Paris, am just 20
minutes into my apartment when the windows of my office blow open
with a single "crack". A tremendous explosion rolls across the
Lebanese capital. Out of the house, 500 metres running down the
Corniche and smoke is billowing from the Staff Sporting Club.
Soldiers shouting, cops trying to keep the first reporters away,
but I skulk through the ruins next to the sea with an old Lebanese
photographer friend and we find ourselves in the wreckage of a
tourist ghost train, all mangled tracks and carriages. "Enter at
Your Risk," it says over the tunnel and on the other side is a
burning car containing the corpse of Lebanon's latest assassination
victim.
And not just "any" victim. The man in the smouldering vehicle is
Walid Eido, a Beirut member of parliament, a former judge, much
revered - anti-Syrian, of course, otherwise he would not be dead,
would he? - and a supporter of Saad Hariri, son of the murdered
former prime minister Rafik who was killed in an even bigger
explosion on 14 February 2005, a thousand metres on the other side
of my apartment. What is it about Beirut that turns this beautiful,
sun-blessed city into a crematorium so quickly?
Eido was killed with his son Khaled and I saw their corpses,
roasted, covered in cheap plastic bags so that Lebanon's greedy
photographers could not use their last mortal remains on page one.
Walid Eido's two bodyguards died with them. The "Sporting" was a
hangout for Hariri's men but, as usual, this assassination must
have been well planned, well co-ordinated, paid for way up front.
And what a knife into the body politic of the Hariri camp. Hariri's
majority party is the reason why the government of Fouad Siniora
survives, supported - heaven help them - by the Americans,
abandoned by the Hizbollah who persuaded six Shia ministers to
resign from the cabinet last year. Could there have been a more
devastating target for the government's enemies last night?
Walid Eido represented a constituency in Beirut's tough Sunni
Muslim Basta area, a populist politician who had constantly
condemned Syria's "interference" and had more recently turned on
Hizbollah's political action against the government. When the pro-
Syrian militia group, who withstood Israel's devastating
bombardment of Lebanon last summer, pitched their tents across the
centre of Beirut in an attempt to bring down Siniora's government,
it was Eido who referred to this as "occupation".
And what will be the reaction to this latest and most outrageous of
murders? In the aftermath of the bombing, amid the ghost-train
wreckage and the overturned dodgems and the ash-covered swimming
pools, there was only shock. But each crisis is worse than the
previous. Each assassination - of a communist politician, of a
journalist, of a Christian MP - each outbreak of guerrilla violence
- 61 soldiers have now been killed fighting Fatah al-Islam in the
north - quick-marches Lebanon faster towards the abyss. Over the
past few months, the bombs have gone off close to midnight, an
industrial estate here, a Christian or Muslim shopping mall there,
always too late to cause mass casualties. And that is the point, of
course, to threaten rather than kill. But what if the next bomb
goes off at midday rather than midnight? How many casualties then?
This is the nightmare with which Lebanese live. If, in working-
class Basta tonight, the crowds can be contained (by a largely Shia
Muslim army), what of tomorrow?
It is to the enormous esteem of the Lebanese that they have refused
to embark on another civil war despite every provocation. But the
provocations have not run out. It can get much, much worse. But --
and I tire of repeating this in my reports -- not a single Lebanese
assassination has been solved since 1976.
See what's free at AOL.com.
www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/
<A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
