Israel pits US against Iran, then ducks when the SH*T hits the fan

As usual, israelis get US to do their dirty work while they avoid casualties by keeping a low profile.

When will Americans learn that it doesn't 'pay' to be a zionist hitman?

Israel’s chief of military intelligence warned on Sunday that Hezbollah, Syria and Iran were preparing for a possible attack on Teheran by Israel’s main ally the United States as early as this summer.

Amos Yadlin told the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel’s three principal foes were steeling their defences because they feared a US attack on Iran, a senior official who attended the meeting told AFP.

‘Their preparation is defensive ahead of war,’ the official quoted Yadlin as saying on condition of anonymity. ‘They fear a war initiated by the Americans because they understand that there might be an attack against Iran over the summer, but not by Israel.’

Although Yadlin insisted Israel had no intention of becoming embroiled in such a conflict, he warned that any moves by the Jewish state could be wrongly interpreted by its neighbours as a sign of hostile intent.

‘If the Americans launch an offensive in Iran, Hezbollah and Syria will think the move had been coordinated with Israel and would expect Israel to strike them too,’ another government official at the meeting told AFP.

Yadlin said he feared a repeat of 1967 when sabre-rattling, brinkmanship and miscalculations upset a fragile calm and plunged the region into war.

‘We might again find ourselves in a war no one wanted,’ Yadlin told ministers.

What Chutzpah!

Zionists have been DEMANDING war for over four years, yet when everyone around them is dead and buried they will deny they ever wanted it.

‘Israel must be prepared and make sure its steps will not lead to any miscalculation on the other side.’

‘Israel is closely following developments on this front out of a concern that the three players might misinterpret certain steps taken by Israel,’ Yadlin was quoted as saying.

Unbelievable.

israelis never cease to amaze me with their treachery and their cowardice as they meticulously plan to sit it out, while Americans and Iranians duke it out.

Yadlin said Hezbollah was abiding by a UN-brokered ceasefire in southern Lebanon, but alleged the Shia militants were busily rearming north of the Litani river -- out of the jurisdiction of UN peacekeepers. * * *

‘Hezbollah has no intention of getting into a second round of conflict,’ Yadlin was quoted as saying. ‘But it is busy rebuilding its forces and has accelerated those efforts for fear of a summer attack.’

On Saturday, Iran’s joint chief of staff warned Arab states neighbouring Israel against what he called a ‘Zionist suicide attack’ this year.

‘The Zionists plan to carry out a suicide plot in the summer,’ the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Major General Hassan Firouzabadi as saying.

He predicted that an Israeli attack would start from Lebanon and Syria and proceed to Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

It will begin in May when the third US aircraft carrier is scheduled to arrive in the Gulf.

We have very little time to stop them.

Posted in

• cowards
• divide and conquer
• instigate
• Iran
• Israel
• US
• war
• zionism

Submitted by qrswave on Mon, 2007-04-02 00:48. qrswave's blog

Dahr Jamail gives an Iraq update with exclusive video from Iraq

March 25, 2007

Dahr Jamail on Free Speech TV "SouceCode" Gives Iraq Update with Exclusive Video from Baghdad

March, 2007 - Dahr Jamail on Free Speech TV Show "SourceCode"

In this 10 minute piece, Dahr Jamail gives an Iraq update with exclusive video from Iraq. He describes some of the origins of the "sectarianism" that the US corporate media is so apt to point to when discussing the violence in Iraq, and shows how the US has been involved in fueling the sectarian tensions.

See the streaming WMV file (30 megs)

Download the high-res file (100 megs mpeg)

View the Streaming Flash file (30 megs)

Posted by Dahr_Jamail at 05:34 PM

Divide and conquer: The strength of a regional Sunni-Shi'i alliance executed along with Saddam

Kristen Ess

02 January 2007

Why execute Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Eid Al-Adha, the Muslim holiday of sacrifice and feast; the time to slaughter the sheep and give the meat to the poor, money to relatives and the impoverished, and toys to the children?

Why did the United States choose a Shi'i client government after it captured Saddam Hussein?

The "divide and conquer" technique seems so easily employed in the Middle East. Under US occupation, Iraq has fallen apart in Sunni – Shi'i fighting, not that it did not exist before, but not to the same extent in intention. Under Israeli occupation, Palestine has fallen apart with the Hamas – Fateh fighting. But the issue of timing and political party in Iraq may have more to do with the United States' publicly stated plan this summer for its "New Middle East" than originally thought.

Shi'i Iran would not back down to the US and Shi'i Syria was gaining power and influence. Shi'i Hizbullah in Lebanon defeated the Israeli army in the minds of the local population. And the Shi'is are the underdogs in Lebanese government and society; the trouble makers to the middle class, and powerful Sunnis, and the even more powerful Christians. But with the Hizbullah perceived defeat of Israel that is all it took: perception. No matter how many Lebanese the Israelis killed this summer, in the end Hizbullah was deemed to defeat the undefeatable Israeli military even with all of its US backing. The myth that Israeli forces were invincible in the Middle East was shattered.

And Saddam Hussain was also one who was considered to have fought the Israelis and won in the past. Why have a Shi'i government execute him on the first day of Eid Al-Adha while the American press reported that "in the end it was his Shi'i enemies who carried out the execution?" Now Iran is getting nearly as condemnations in Palestine for the execution as the Americans are.

To divide and conquer, it is necessary that there previously exist points of contention, and sometimes major ones at that. But all it then takes is to vigorously promote that divide. And what has the US to be afraid of? A unified Middle East; a strong Iran that was working closely with Syria, with both countries funding the Lebanese resistance movement Hizbullah and its Secretary General Hassan Nassrullah, and some say Hamas. And we all know what happened to Hamas after they were democratically elected. The party was destroyed, and so was much of Palestine. Certainly the unity was destroyed with the US-led political and economic blockade. Hamas became the "root of the problem" even though the people voted for them, with the population some how forgetting who was behind it all. And Sunni Hamas was strongly supported by Shi'i Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah.

Nassrullah was in strong support of Palestine, in particular the armed resistance in the Gaza Strip, which the Israelis likened in the press this Fall to a nascent Hizbullah. And with the Palestinian Muslim population being Sunni, what better way than to severe the quickly growing alliance in the forms of moral, military and economic support that Hamas, and other facets of the armed resistance, were receiving. The support was coming from Hizbullah, Syria (where the exiled Hamas political bureau leader, Khaled Mesha'al, lives) and Iran, which the US has been trying to take down through its accusations of nuclear weapons and threats of sanctions and war. And in many Palestinian denunciations of the US in the execution of Saddam Hussain, Iran is being included.

Why on Eid Al-Adha?

Why are the American newspapers so heavily promoting the Sunni – Shi'i divide?

It is not only to remove US culpability, after all that was the original intention behind the US war on Iraq: to take down Saddam. But after years of the American press vilifying the Shi'is as the "fanatics," as the "fundamentalists," the Shi'is suddenly now have the moral authority in the United States.

Simply because Saddam was a Sunni?

Doubtful.

Or perhaps the US corporate media outlets know no better and are basing their limited analysis on the Sunni-Shi'i divide that has existed in Iraq, but that was hardly insurmountable, even now given the current conditions.

If that divide were cleverly exploited, it could certainly guarantee a non-unified Middle East.

But if it were not, that would mean a strong Middle East, undivided, and not in keeping with the US vision of the "New Middle East."

Divide and conquer

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DAOUD KUTTAB, THE JERUSALEM POST

Dec. 10, 2006

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A strange phenomenon has been taking place over the past few years. Israel has been carrying out a systematic plan to try and separate Gaza from the West Bank. Little attention has been given to this effort separating people - and a country - using administrative measures.

This phenomenon began in the late 1980s with the launch of the Palestinian intifada, was accelerated in the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, and has been accelerated even more since the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, causing a critical human and economic crisis.

Gaza, the West Bank, as well as Israel were part of historic Palestine. In 1948, with the creation of the State of Israel, they were abruptly divided. The Egyptian authorities were left to administer the Gaza Strip, whose population had been doubled as a result of the Nakba, sending Palestinian refugees from the southern towns of Palestine to Gaza.

On the other hand, the West Bank was held by Transjordan. In April 1949, Transjordan became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and one year later, in 1950, the West Bank became constitutionally an integral part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. While Egypt didn't confer citizenship on the Palestinians of Gaza, West Bankers became Jordanian citizens.

All this changed after the June 1967 war. In an ironic twist of history, these two sectors of Palestine were reunited, albeit under Israeli occupation. Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank were able to travel freely back and forth even though this meant going through the pre-'67 Israeli territory. And since all were part of a single economic area, the movement of people and goods went on uninterrupted for tens of years.

Palestinians from Nablus or Hebron married and started families with fellow Palestinians from Gaza or Rafah. Students from Khan Yunis or Deir El-Balah attended universities in Bir Zeit or Al-Najah. Businesses in Ramallah or Hebron distributed their dairy products, stone, or toilet paper to the Gaza market, and trucks carrying bamboo furniture or sand made daily trips to Bethlehem or Jenin.

The 1991 Madrid Peace Conference and the 1993 Oslo Accords brought with them both a legal restriction of movement and a reaffirmation of the unity of Palestinian lands. The PLO-Israel Memorandum of Understanding devoted an entire chapter to routine safe passage to facilitate movement of people and goods. Signs were put up dedicating a special road between north Gaza and the Tarkumiya checkpoint, south of Hebron.

BUT ALL THIS seems like a charade now. Except for a few photo opportunities of a few buses traveling on the Gaza-West Bank route, the safe passage never materialized and the signs have entered the museum of Palestinian-Israeli failures.

Israel has never admitted it, but the plan for separating these two entities is obvious, even though largely underreported. Palestinians from Gaza wishing to travel to the West Bank, and vice versa, are unable to do so as a result of publicly-known as well as secret administrative decisions and guidelines.

Technically, of course, one can get the coveted permit to travel back and forth - but such passes were, I imagine, easier to come by in apartheid South Africa. Extreme humanitarian cases are often the only ones in which a limited time permit is allowed.

For a while Palestinians traveled from Gaza to the West Bank by flying from the Egyptian El-Arish airport and then crossing into the West Bank or vice versa, but even using nearby Arab countries is now administratively impossible. Democratically elected members of the Palestinian parliament, as well as many others have had to use video conferencing in order to communicate with fellow Palestinians. Only President Mahmoud Abbas and a few senior, "acceptable" PLO leaders have been allowed to travel into and out of Gaza.

WHAT THE Israelis hope to accomplish is unclear. Some feel they are still dreaming that one day Gaza will be administered by the Egyptians, and the West Bank by Jordan. Both Arab countries as well as all Palestinians vehemently oppose this.

And, in the meantime, Israel continues to violate the 13th clause of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement. You have the right to move about freely within your country. You also have the right to travel freely to and from your own country, and to leave any country."

Clutching at straws

The US has made a desperate attempt to divide and rule Iraqi Shias - but the White House is sorely mistaken if it thinks this will work.

Dilip Hiro

December 5, 2006 01:04 PM

President Bush's White House meeting with Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim stems from a recommendation in a memo sent to him on November 8 by his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley. The memo was published by the New York Times three weeks later.

The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, should free himself from the present narrow reliance on such radical Shia groups as the one led by Muqtada al-Sadr, suggested Hadley. One way to weaken the troublesome Sadr's political clout would be to isolate him within the Shia camp by bolstering the comparatively moderate Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) led by Hakim.

The advocates of this strategy stress that Hakim and Sadr are intense rivals, and that this rivalry dates back to the time when their fathers (Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim and Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr) vied for influence among Shias during the Ba'athist era.

They also note that in the Shia-dominated southern Iraq, the militias of Hakim (called Badr Brigades) and Sadr (called Mahdi army) have clashed occasionally.

Despite these differences, however, Sciri and Sadrists remain part of the ruling Shia bloc called the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), which also includes al-Daawa al-Islamiya (The Islamic Call) to which Maliki and his predecessor Ibrahim Jaafari belong.

Unlike Sicri, established in Tehran in 1982, and the older al-Daawa - outlawed by the Ba'athist regime - whose leaders went into exile in Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, the Mahdi army lacks any historical linkage with Iran.

After Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr and two of his sons were shot dead by government agents in February 1999, his youngest son, Muqtada, went underground. He resurfaced after the downfall of Saddam Hussein four years later when Saddam city - a district in Baghdad home to nearly 2 million Shias -was renamed Sadr city.

Sadr's faction has strong backing among young, underprivileged, urban Shias who form the bulk of the Mahdi army. It controls a bloc of 30 parliamentarians and six ministries. So it will be an uphill task to isolate Sadrists.

Overall, the UIA remains committed to establishing an Islamic regime and was instrumental in the adoption of article two in the Iraqi constitution: "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation: no law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam."

Moreover, the leaders of UIA constituents understand only too well that if they do not stay together they will end up suffering separately. In theological and hierarchical terms, Hakim, Sadr and other religious Shia leaders are duty bound to obey Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

In August 2004 there was a fortnight-long standoff between the 3,000 US marines and 1,500 Mahdi army militiamen when the marines tried to regain the Shia holy shrine of Imam Ali, where several hundred Mahdi militiamen were ensconced. It ended after a meeting between Sadr and Sistani on the latter's return from London following eye surgery. Sadr agreed to let Sistani's representatives take charge of the shrine while his militiamen and US marines left the city. (See page 547 of my book Secrets and Lies: the true story of the Iraq war.)

Following the parliamentary poll under the new constitution in December 2005, Jaafari was re-elected UIA leader, beating his rival by one vote. Even though he remained unacceptable to the Kurdish and Sunni MPs as well as Washington and London, he refused to step down. The ensuing crisis paralysed the government. Jaafari was unmoved. But when Sistani privately advised him to step down he did it instantly.

Sistani remains the single most important personality in Iraq today. He was the primary force behind the formation of the Shia-dominated UIA. And it was his endorsement of the UIA that gained it overwhelming popularity among Shias and turned it into the governing alliance.

Sistani refrains from interfering in day-to-day affairs of Iraq. Instead, he takes a public stand on such significant issues as the relationship with the occupying forces (he has refused to meet American or British officials), looting public and private property, and participating in elections and referendums.

"I want to see Iraq ruled by Iraqis and not by Americans," Sistani declared at the start of the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq. To achieve his aim, Sistani called on all believers to participate in the elections and referendums. Shias followed his call almost to the last voter. In the final analysis, therefore, it is Sistani, and Sistani alone, who counts. And he shows no sign of reversing his policy of rebuffing emissaries of the American or British government.

Iraq: Civil War or Divide and Conquer

<>Posted By ben On 30th November 2006 @ 15:01

Everyday the US Corporate Media bombards America with the “huge spike in violence” that inevitably means that Iraq is descending into civil war. We’re told there are two choices, it’s a civil war, or its “al Qaeda” - but there is a third option the corporate media refuses to utter.

Even high-school slackers have heard of the age-old strategy “Divide and Conquer”. Is it possible that there are outside forces working this strategy in Iraq today? Perhaps rogue elements inside some government(s) would like to conquer Iraq for the oil, permanent bases, strategic position, etc.

Why is it that nobody in the TV news world can utter this possibility? Is it really that outrageous to think that perhaps the same people that lied to launch the war, are still lying today to prolong the war?

Let’s look at a few “under-reported” stories:

• US car theft rings probed for ties to Iraq bombings
  Think about that: Car-bombs in Iraq are made with cars Stolen in the USA Does “al-Qaeda” have C-130s or huge ships capable of transporting the stolen cars to Iraq? If “al Qaeda” had operatives in America, would they really be stealing cars to ship them to Iraq? Seems quite illogical to me.
• Undercover British soldiers caught red-handed: Dressed as Arabs in a car full of explosives with a remote detonator
• Foreign Fighter Lie Exposed: 1300 insurgents arrested- all Iraqis, no foreigners
• Iraqis had a “No to the Occupation” Protest, which was much larger than the Saddam Statue Toppled “Celebration”
• Many Iraqis believe ’suicide’ bombings done by US to start a civil war
  “I believe it is the Americans who are doing this, pretending it is the Sunni, so there will be a civil war and they can control our wealth.”
• El Salvador-style ‘death squads’ to be deployed by US against Iraq militants
• “Death Squads” Negroponte appointed ambassador to Iraq: Six Months later, Death Squads appear

The question: Is it possible that “Divide and Conquer” is a strategy being employed by our own government, not just Bush and the Republicons, but also by the majority of DC Democrats. Is it possible that this is a war of conquest, and Americans are the modern day equivalent of the “good germans” duped by the gov’t propaganda.

Is it possible that millions of Americans are “willfully ignorant”, accepting the lies because it’s so much easier than confronting the fact that they’ve been supporting murderers and liars.

ps- dont’ forget about the numerous polls indicating that
MOST Iraqis want US Troops to leave.

Still believe it’s a Civil War? One last factoid to consider:
Out of Iraq’s 6.5 million married couples, 2 million are Sunni-Shia unions

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In Iraq, US Govt, headline news | 1 Comment
Article printed from Save the USA: http://benfrank.net/blog

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