Assassinating Al-Hariri Fits Washington’s Plan

The likelihood that Syria was involved in the assassination is zilch. One can hardly imagine a greater disaster for poor Syria who has been scrambling to avoid the American bludgeon for the last four years. Few people realize that Syria provided more assistance in the first year of the war on terror after 9-11 than any other nation. That’s of little consequence now, as the US is on a mission to quickly integrate the entire region beneath the American standard and prove that it can be trusted with its continued stewardship of the world economy.

To understand who assassinated Rafik al-Hariri we don’t need to look any further than the $1.5 billion US Embassy currently under construction in Baghdad. The new embassy, the largest of its kind in the world, will facilitate 1,800 employees and serve as the regional nerve center for American political and economic activity. What does this have to do with al Hariri?

It demonstrates that the US is establishing a massive command center for its future domination of the entire Middle East. This suggests that Lebanon must be entered into the family of client states who accept a subservient role to American military and economic power, and who willingly comply with the requirements of the regional constable, Israel.

Al Hariri’s assassination provides the raison d'être for severing ties with Syria and for transforming Lebanon into a US vassal. This conforms nicely with Israel’s ambition to surround itself with non-threatening states as well as affording access to the vital water resources of Lebanon’s Wazzani River. In other words, the murder of al Hariri has created some extremely fortunate opportunities for both Israel and the US; merging seamlessly with their overall objectives in the region.

The likelihood that Syria was involved in the assassination is zilch. One can hardly imagine a greater disaster for poor Syria who has been scrambling to avoid the American bludgeon for the last four years. Few people realize that Syria provided more assistance in the first year of the war on terror after 9-11 than any other nation. That’s of little consequence now, as the US is on a mission to quickly integrate the entire region beneath the American standard and prove that it can be trusted with its continued stewardship of the world economy.

Fortunately, there are cracks and fissures appearing everywhere in the US artifice and new alliances between former allies of America are forming almost by the day. This creates a dangerous new threat to the empire and violates the “three grand imperatives” of imperial strategy: “to prevent collusion and maintain dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.” (Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, p. 40) Alliances between the major players (India, Iran, Brazil, Venezuela, Russia, China and the EU) demonstrate that the “barbarians” are coming together more swiftly than imagined, creating a potential roadblock for Middle East consolidation. This explains why this risky gambit was put into play.

We should also consider the assassination in terms of the drooping dollar. If Washington’s plan to control Middle East oil does not succeed, the dollar is headed for the landfill. There’s no way that the world will continue to hold paper that represents $8 trillion worth of debt unless that happens to be the only way they can purchase the oil that’s essential to their industries. The Bush administration is on a tight “time-line” which requires ham-fisted tactics to play out on city streets in foreign capitals. The murder of al Hariri fits conveniently within this regional strategy.

It’s a marvel to see how quickly the forces of empire swing into action when a major event like this transpires. Less than 10 hours after the assassination, Washington was withdrawing its ambassador without even scant knowledge of who was responsible. The press, of course, was immediately deployed to perform its task of “finger-pointing” at Syria and to create the spurious narrative of why such a suicidal action would be in their interest. The US organized small demonstrations in Beirut to march around in front of adoring camera lens to create the impression that the Lebanese masses held Syria accountable. (A nice touch that the US used effectively in both Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia) And the Bush team worked feverishly to frame Syria with an onslaught of prepared accusations and innuendo. By now, we should all know the drill: the main players like Bush stay above the fray and make no reckless claims of guilt on Syria’s part, while his emissaries in the media and the Congress heap suspicion on the target state. (Isn’t this what happened with the “Swift-boat” fiasco? Bush pretended not to be involved while his underlings and the media devoured Kerry in full view of the national audience.)

The next phase of this farce is to expel Syria’s 15,000 soldiers from Lebanon so that Israel-America can begin the arduous task of establishing another client regime.

As for Syria, Russia has entered the breach announcing that it will go ahead with a “controversial sale of weapons despite the objections of Ariel Sharon.” (Russian made surface-to-air SA-18 missiles. Russia made a similar deal with Venezuela just last week)

Is this just the beginning of an arms race in the Middle East to counter American and Israeli ambitions?

It appears that at least some of the “vassals” are beginning to tire of Washington’s murderous antics and are willing to counter with the only thing that will discourage further aggression -- a viable deterrent.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.

This article was first published at www.dissidentvoice.org.

White House Targets El Baradei

IAEA Head, El Baradei, Alleges Smear Campaign Against Him

LONDON,The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, denounced what he said was a campaign to discredit him that had called into question his impartially in the Middle East, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel to be published Monday.

"There's a real campaign against me, trying to drag me through the mud," ElBaradei said.

The Egyptian head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said he's been accused of not being impartial toward Muslim countries in getting them to reveal any secret nuclear activity.

The administration of US President George W. Bush has criticized the IAEA over Iran, which the United States believes is conducting a secret nuclear weapons program.

The Washington Post reported in December that the Bush administration had listened in on telephone conversations between ElBaradei and Iranian diplomats, seeking ammunition to oust him. The White House has refused to comment on the report.

"I have nothing to hide professionally. But it is not very nice when you apparently can't even talk in private on the telephone with your wife or your daughter," ElBaradei told Der Spiegel.

Some in the US administration have expressed the desire to block ElBaradei from serving a third term as IAEA chief on the basis that he is not firm enough with Iran.

©2005 IranMania.com

SCOTT RITTER SAYS U.S. PLANS JUNE ATTACK ON IRAN, ‘COOKED’ JAN. 30 IRAQI ELECTION RESULTS

On Friday evening in Olympia, former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter appeared with journalist Dahr Jamail. -- Ritter made two shocking claims: George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and the U.S. manipulated the results of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq....

Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

Olympians like to call the Capitol Theater "historic," but it's doubtful whether the eighty-year-old edifice has ever been the scene of more portentous revelations.

The principal theme of Scott Ritter's talk was Americans’ duty to protect the U.S. Constitution by taking action to bring an end to the illegal war in Iraq. But in passing, the former UNSCOM weapons inspector stunned his listeners with two pronouncements. Ritter said plans for a June attack on Iran have been submitted to President George W. Bush, and that the president has approved them. He also asserted that knowledgeable sources say U.S. officials "cooked" the results of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

On Iran, Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism.

The former Marine also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George W. Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom," were not so free after all. Ritter said that U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%.

Asked by UFPPC's Ted Nation about this shocker, Ritter said an official involved in the manipulation was the source, and that this would soon be reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a major metropolitan magazine -- an obvious allusion to New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh.

On Jan. 17, the New Yorker posted an article by Hersh entitled The Coming Wars (New Yorker, January 24-31, 2005). In it, the well-known investigative journalist claimed that for the Bush administration, "The next strategic target [is] Iran." Hersh also reported that "The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer." According to Hersh, "Defense Department civilians, under the leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-weapons, and missile targets inside Iran. . . . Strategists at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have been asked to revise the military’s war plan, providing for a maximum ground and air invasion of Iran. . . . The hawks in the Administration believe that it will soon become clear that the Europeans’ negotiated approach [to Iran] cannot succeed, and that at that time the Administration will act."

Scott Ritter said that although the peace movement failed to stop the war in Iraq, it had a chance to stop the expansion of the war to other nations like Iran and Syria. He held up the specter of a day when the Iraq war might be remembered as a relatively minor event that preceded an even greater conflagration.

Scott Ritter's talk was the culmination of a long evening devoted to discussion of Iraq and U.S. foreign policy. Before Ritter spoke, Dahr Jamail narrated a slide show on Iraq focusing on Fallujah. He showed more than a hundred vivid photographs taken in Iraq, mostly by himself. Many of them showed the horrific slaughter of civilians.

Dahr Jamail argued that U.S. mainstream media sources are complicit in the war and help sustain support for it by deliberately downplaying the truth about the devastation and death it is causing.

Jamail was, until recently, one of the few unembedded journalists in Iraq and one of the only independent ones. His reports have gained a substantial following and are available online at dahrjamailiraq.com.

Friday evening's event in Olympia was sponsored by South Puget Sound Community College's Student Activities Board, Veterans for Peace, 100 Thousand and Counting, Olympia Movement for Justice & Peace, and United for Peace of Pierce County.

--

NOTE: Dahr Jamail will make three more appearances in the Puget Sound area this weekend: (1) SATURDAY, FEB. 19, 7:00 p.m., at the Kirkland Congregational Church, 106 5th Avenue, Kirkland WA. Admission $5 -- Sponsored by Evergreen Peace & Justice; (2) SUNDAY, FEB. 20, 1:00 p.m. at the Vashon Land Trust. Vashon Islanders for Peace will be hosting Dahr Jamail and Bert Sacks on the subject of Exit Strategies from Iraq. For more information, contact: Kate Hunter, 206-463-5117; (3) SUNDAY, FEB. 20, 7:30 p.m. at UW Kane Hall, Room 120. Hosted by the Interfaith Network Of Concern for the people of Iraq (INOC), the University of Washington -- Department of Communication, the Iraqi Community Center of Seattle (ICCS), and the United Nations Association, Seattle. For more information contact the Rev. Richard Gamble at Keystone United Church of Christ 206 632-6021.

--Mark Jensen is a member of United for Peace of Pierce County.

We Aren't Fighting to Win Anymore

U.S. Troops in Iraq are Only Trying to Buy Time.

Pending the final judgment of President Bush's war, this much we can say for sure: Two years after the dash on Baghdad seemingly affirmed the invincibility of the U.S. armed forces, the actual limits of American power now lay exposed for all to see. Our adversaries, real and potential, are no doubt busy contemplating the implications of those limits.

Americans of a certain age will recall Douglas MacArthur's pithy aphorism: "There is no substitute for victory." The remark captures an essential element of our military tradition. When the United States goes to war, it fights to win, to force the enemy to do our will. To sacrifice our soldiers' lives for anything less — as MacArthur charged was the case in Korea and later unambiguously became the case in Vietnam — smacks of being somehow un-American.

But among the various official statements being issued to explain events in Iraq, any mention of military victory has become notable by its absence. Tacitly — unnoticed even by the war's critics — the Bush administration has all but given up any expectation of defeating the enemy with whom we are engaged.

In the early days of the insurgency, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez vowed to use "whatever combat power is necessary to win," displaying all the pugnacity of a George Patton or Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf. "That's what America expects of me," declared Sanchez in December 2003, "and that's what I'm going to accomplish." Senior commanders no longer make such bold promises. Nor do senior civilian officials in Washington.

Indeed, today the Bush administration's aim is not to win but to relieve itself of responsibility for waging a war that it began but cannot finish. Debate in national security circles focuses not on deploying war-winning technologies or fielding innovative tactics that might turn the tide, but on how we can extricate ourselves before our overstretched forces suffer irreparable damage.

Optimists are placing their hopes on a crash program to create a new Iraqi security force that just might permit us in a year or so to begin reducing the size of our garrison. Pessimists have their doubts. But virtually no one is predicting we will be even remotely close to crushing the insurgency. The decisive victory promised by the war's advocates back in March 2003 — remember all the talk of "shock and awe"? — has now slipped beyond our grasp.

Of course, following the heady assault on Baghdad, the conflict took an unexpected turn — precisely as wars throughout history have tended to do. As a consequence, today a low-tech enemy force estimated at about 10,000 fighters has stymied the mightiest military establishment the world has ever seen. To be sure, the adversary cannot defeat us militarily. But neither can we defeat it. In short, U.S. troops today are no longer fighting to win, but simply to buy time: This has become the Bush administration's substitute for victory. Worse, in a war such as in Iraq, time is more likely to work in the other guy's favor.

Whether this reality has yet to fully sink in with the majority of the American people is unclear. No doubt President Bush hopes the citizenry will continue to snooze. Better to talk about Social Security reform and banning gay marriage than to call attention to the unhappy fact that we are spending several billion dollars per month and losing, on average, two soldiers per day — not to prevail but simply to prolong the stalemate. Moreover, if the administration gets its way, we can expect that expenditure of blood and treasure to continue for many months, until there emerges an Iraqi government able to fend for itself or Iraq descends into chaos.

Pending the final judgment of President Bush's war, this much we can say for sure: Two years after the dash on Baghdad seemingly affirmed the invincibility of the U.S. armed forces, the actual limits of American power now lay exposed for all to see. Our adversaries, real and potential, are no doubt busy contemplating the implications of those limits.

So too must we. Our effort to do so should begin with the admission that the idea, promoted during the heady spring of 2003, that through the aggressive use of military power the United States might transform the Islamic world and cement U.S. global preeminence was a dangerous delusion. It remains a delusion today.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of international relations at Boston University and author of "The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War" (Oxford University Press, 2005).

© 2005 LA Times