Iran 82

'Russian Admiral Says U.S. Navy Prepares Missile Strike on Iran.
By Moscow News01/15/07 "MosNews"

U.S. Navy nuclear submarines maintaining vigil off the coast of Iran indicate that the Pentagon’s military plans include not only control over navigation in the Persian Gulf but also strikes against Iranian targets, a former commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Eduard Baltin has told the Interfax news agency.“The presence of U.S. nuclear submarines in the Persian Gulf region means that the Pentagon has not abandoned plans for surprise strikes against nuclear targets in Iran. With this aim a group of multi-purpose submarines ready to accomplish the task is located in the area,” Admiral Baltin said.He made the comments after reports that a U.S. submarine collided with a Japanese tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.“American patience is not unlimited,” he said. “The submarine commanders go up to the periscope depth and forget about navigation rules and safety measures,” the admiral said. Currently there is a group of up to four submarines in the Persian Gulf area, he said. So far they only control navigation in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and in the Arabian Sea, he said. They might receive different orders in future: to block off the Gulf of Oman, that is the Iranian coast, and, if need be, launch missile strikes against ground targets in Iran, he said.'

Lees verder: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16186.htm Of: http://www.mosnews.com/news/2007/01/15/admiral.shtml

Iran 81

Al Jazeera bericht:

'Exiles train to overthrow Tehran.

Washington has warned that it will not tolerate Iran supporting armed
groups fighting in Iraq, but in the far northeast of the country Al
Jazeera discovered armed Iranian exiles training to overthrow the
government in Tehran.
John Cookson visited members of the outlawed left-wing Kurdish-
Iranian Komala group, in their base.
The group accuses the Islamic government of persecuting the country's
ethnic minorities.
From their base the fighters cross the porous border into Iran to
carry out attacks. Al Jazeera witnessed a group of highly motivated
men carry out a mock attack on Iranian forces.
Komala, otherwise known as the Revolutionary Toilers of Iran, was
founded in 1969, and is affiliated to the Communist party of Iran but
has softened its left-wing stance in recent years.
The United States has become interested in working with the group and
last year Abdullah Muhtadi, a senior representative of the party,
travelled to Washington for a conference of Iranian minority groups.
"The change is possible and this is not the destiny of the Kurds to
live under oppression. Yes, everybody feels that something is going
to happen and something must happen," Muhtadi told Al Jazeera.
After 40 years in exile many of the group believe their time has come.
One Komala commander told Al Jazeera: "I can see the end ... I think
it is going to be very soon."'

The Empire 142

'U.S. says it will 'go after' Iran, Syria networks in Iraq.
By News Agencies

BAGHDAD - The United States plans to "go after" what it said were networks of Iranian and Syrian agents in Iraq, U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Monday."We're going after their networks in Iraq," he told a news conference, as he laid out the new U.S. and Iraqi strategy to end sectarian violence at what Khalilzad called a "defining moment" for Iraq.U.S. forces are holding five Iranians following a raid on an Iranian government office in Arbil last week - the second such operation in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday that increased U.S. military activity in the Persian Gulf is meant to counter "very negative" behavior by Iran and undercut its belief that American forces are overcommitted in Iraq.Gates said the time is not right for diplomatic talks with Iran, but left open that possibility for the future.After meeting with senior officials at NATO headquarters, Gates was asked at a news conference what was behind the Bush administration's decision to deploy a Patriot missile battalion and a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf region - moves announced in connection with a further buildup of ground troops in Iraq.He noted that the United States has taken a leading role in Gulf security for many decades."We are simply reaffirming that statement of the importance of the Gulf region to the United States and our determination to be an ongoing strong presence in that area for a long time into the future," he said.'

Lees verder: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/813691.html

The Empire 141

'Escalation in the Middle East
By Rep Ron Paul0
"Information Clearing House"

While the president’s announcement that an additional 20,000 troops would be sent to Iraq dominated the headlines last week, the real story was the president’s sharp rhetoric towards Iran and Syria. And recent moves by the administration only serve to confirm the likelihood of a wider conflict in the Middle East. The president stated last week that, “Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity- and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria.” He also announced the deployment of an additional aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf, and the deployment of Patriot air missile defense systems to countries in the Middle East. Meanwhile, US troops stormed the Iranian consulate in Iraq and detained several Iranian diplomats. Taken together, the message was clear: the administration intends to move the US closer to a dangerous and ill-advised conflict with Iran. As I said last week on the House floor, speculation in Washington focuses on when, not if, either Israel or the U.S. will bomb Iran-- possibly with nuclear weapons. The accusation sounds very familiar: namely, that Iran possesses weapons of mass destruction. Iran has never been found in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and our own Central Intelligence Agency says Iran is more than ten years away from producing any kind of nuclear weapon. Yet we are told we must act immediately while we still can! This all sounds very familiar, but many of my colleagues don’t seem to have learned much from the invasion of Iraq. House Democrats strongly criticized the Iraq troop surge after the president’s announcement, but then praised the president’s confrontational words condemning Iran. Many of those opposing a troop surge are not calling for a withdrawal of our troops from the Middle East, but rather for “redeployment.” Redeployment to where? Iran? We need to return to reality when it comes to our Middle East policy. We need to reject the increasingly shrill rhetoric coming from the same voices who urged the president to invade Iraq. The truth is that Iran, like Iraq, is a third-world nation without a significant military. Nothing in history hints that she is likely to invade a neighboring country, let alone America or Israel. I am concerned, however, that a contrived Gulf of Tonkin- type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran. The best approach to Iran, and Syria for that matter, is to heed the advice of the Iraq Study Group Report, which states:"… the United States should engage directly with Iran and Syria in order to try to obtain their commitment to constructive policies toward Iraq and other regional issues. In engaging with Syria and Iran, the United States should consider incentives, as well as disincentives, in seeking constructive results." In coming weeks I plan to introduce legislation that urges the administration to heed the advice of the Iraq Study Group. Dialogue and discussion should replace inflammatory rhetoric and confrontation in our Middle East policy, if we truly seek to defeat violent extremism and terrorism.Ron Paul is a Republican Congressman from Texas.'

Zie: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16180.htm

Iran 80

Het fascisme komt elke dag een stapje dichterbij. Alles wordt nu met brute kracht veranderd. Wat heerst is het recht van de sterkste, het neodarwinisme van de neocons.

De Guardian bericht:

'All the signs are that Bush is planning for a neocon-inspired military assault on Iran.

Dan Plesch.

The evidence is building up that President Bush plans to add war on Iran to his triumphs in Iraq and Afghanistan - and there is every sign, to judge by his extraordinary warmongering speech in Plymouth on Friday, that Tony Blair would be keen to join him if he were still in a position to commit British forces to the field.
"There's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue - in the country and the world - in a very acute way," said NBC TV's Tim Russert after meeting the president. This is borne out by the fact that Bush has sent forces to the Gulf that are irrelevant to fighting the Iraqi insurgents. These include Patriot anti-missile missiles, an aircraft carrier, and cruise-missile-firing ships.

Many military analysts see these deployments as signals of impending war with Iran. The Patriot missiles are intended to shoot down Iranian missiles. The naval forces, including British ships, train to pre-empt Iranian interference with oil shipments through the straits of Hormuz.
Having been given so much advice on what to do in Iraq - most notably by the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group - the president went with the recommendations of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI). So much for the idea that the Iraq debacle marginalised the neocons.
The political context as seen from inside the White House and Downing Street is that we are in a war as serious as the second world war. John Bolton exemplified this outlook when he compared US problems in Iraq with the fighting with Japan after Pearl Harbour.
Donald Rumsfeld and the AEI have developed a strategy for regime change in Iran that does not involve a ground invasion. Weapons of mass destruction will provide the rationale for military action, though it won't be limited to attacks on a few weapons factories. It will include limiting Iranian retaliatory capability, using bombers to destroy up to 10,000 targets in the first day of any war, and special forces flying in to destroy anything that's left.
In the aftermath, the US will support regime change, hoping to replace the ayatollahs with an Iran of the regions. The US and British governments now support a coalition of groups seeking a federal Iran. This may be another neocon delusion, but that may not be the point. Making Tehran concentrate on internal problems leaves it unable to act elsewhere.
Bush has said he will destroy the Syrian and Iranian networks in Iraq. These may include Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, but are also likely to target the Iranian-created Badr brigades, now wearing Iraqi police uniforms. In the south, the withdrawal of British troops to Basra airport looks more like a preparation to avoid a Shia backlash than a handover to the government of Iraq.
The US director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, explained that the threat to launch Hizbullah against Israel was the main deterrent to a US attack on Iran. Although politically Hizbullah scored a major victory in holding off the Israeli army last summer, in fact it was badly damaged.'

Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1990326,00.html

Martin Luther King

'Speaking Truth To Power.
A Time to Break Silence.
By Rev. Martin Luther King.

By 1967, King had become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."
Time magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi," and the Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."

King: 'I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.'

Luister of lees hier: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm

Op dit moment is er niemand met het morele overwicht die Martin Luther King bezat. Desondanks blijven zijn woorden van kracht. Wanneer komen wij in verzet tegen de immoraliteit van de oorlogen die gaande zijn en voorbereid worden? Waaarom blijven we zitten wachten? En waar wachten we op? Tot we als vee naar het slachthuis worden afgevoerd? Hopen we dat het allemaal wel voorbij waait? Waarom laten we de macht de waarheid niet horen?

Iran 79

De Verenigde Staten is geboren uit geweld, de samenleving wordt er gekenmerkt door geweld, haar buitenlandse politiek is al vanaf het begin gebaseerd op geweld. Inmiddels vormt de Verenigde Staten de grootste bedreiging voor de wereldvrede. De Nederlandse politiek blijft evenwel volgzaam en dient de belangen van dit gewelddadig imperium.

'US military strike on Iran seen by April ’07.
Sea-launched attack to hit oil, N-sites
By Ahmed Al-Jarallah Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times 01/14/07 "Arab Times"

KUWAIT CITY: Washington will launch a military strike on Iran before April 2007, say sources. The attack will be launched from the sea and Patriot missiles will guard all oil-producing countries in the region, they add. Recent statements emanating from the United States indicate the Bush administration’s new strategy for Iraq doesn’t include any proposal to make a compromise or negotiate with Syria or Iran. A reliable source said President Bush recently held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.According to the source, Vice President Dick Cheney highlighted the threat posed by Iran to not only Saudi Arabia but the whole region. “Tehran is not playing politics. Iranian leaders are using their country’s religious influence to support the aggressive regime’s ambition to expand,” the source quoted Dick Cheney as saying. Indicating participants of the meeting agreed to impose restrictions on the ambitions of Iranian regime before April 2007 without exposing other countries in the region to any danger, the source said “they have chosen April as British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it will be the last month in office for him. The United States has to take action against Iran and Syria before April 2007.”Claiming the attack will be launched from the sea and not from any country in the region, he said “the US and its allies will target the oil installations and nuclear facilities of Iran ensuring there is no environmental catastrophe or after effects.” “Already the US has started sending its warships to the Gulf and the build-up will continue until Washington has the required number by the end of this month,” the source said. “US forces in Iraq and other countries in the region will be protected against any Iranian missile attack by an advanced Patriot missile system.”He went on to say “although US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice suggested postponing the attack, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney insisted on attacking Tehran without any negotiations based on the lesson they learnt in Iraq recently.” The Bush administration believes attacking Iran will create a new power balance in the region, calm down the situation in Iraq and pave the way for their democratic project, which had to be suspended due to the interference of Tehran and Damascus in Iraq, he continued. The attack on Iran will weaken the Syrian regime, which will eventually fade away, the source said.By Ahmed Al-Jarallah - Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times
US military strike on Iran seen by April ’07
Sea-launched attack to hit oil, N-sites By Ahmed Al-Jarallah Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times 01/14/07 "Arab Times" -- - KUWAIT CITY: Washington will launch a military strike on Iran before April 2007, say sources. The attack will be launched from the sea and Patriot missiles will guard all oil-producing countries in the region, they add. Recent statements emanating from the United States indicate the Bush administration’s new strategy for Iraq doesn’t include any proposal to make a compromise or negotiate with Syria or Iran. A reliable source said President Bush recently held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.According to the source, Vice President Dick Cheney highlighted the threat posed by Iran to not only Saudi Arabia but the whole region. “Tehran is not playing politics. Iranian leaders are using their country’s religious influence to support the aggressive regime’s ambition to expand,” the source quoted Dick Cheney as saying. Indicating participants of the meeting agreed to impose restrictions on the ambitions of Iranian regime before April 2007 without exposing other countries in the region to any danger, the source said “they have chosen April as British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it will be the last month in office for him. The United States has to take action against Iran and Syria before April 2007.”Claiming the attack will be launched from the sea and not from any country in the region, he said “the US and its allies will target the oil installations and nuclear facilities of Iran ensuring there is no environmental catastrophe or after effects.” “Already the US has started sending its warships to the Gulf and the build-up will continue until Washington has the required number by the end of this month,” the source said. “US forces in Iraq and other countries in the region will be protected against any Iranian missile attack by an advanced Patriot missile system.”He went on to say “although US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice suggested postponing the attack, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney insisted on attacking Tehran without any negotiations based on the lesson they learnt in Iraq recently.” The Bush administration believes attacking Iran will create a new power balance in the region, calm down the situation in Iraq and pave the way for their democratic project, which had to be suspended due to the interference of Tehran and Damascus in Iraq, he continued. The attack on Iran will weaken the Syrian regime, which will eventually fade away, the source said.By Ahmed Al-Jarallah - Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times.

Zie: http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/kuwait/Viewdet.asp?ID=9548&cat=a Of:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16169.htm