Rehmat's World
April 24, 2010 ·
Here is a country which has not invaded any of its neighbors for over 200 years; is a signatory to NPT and has a very moderate military budget of US$5.6 billion and no nuclear bomb. This country is constantly projected as a “nuclear threat” to the world by the US, which has military presence in 145 countries and an annual military budget of US$692 billion and close to 9,000 nuclear bombs – and Israel which has invaded each of its neigboring countries during it 62-year existence and with an annual military budget of US$13.3 billion plus US$3 billion annual USAID and between 240-400 nuclear bombs.
Interestingly, a poll taken among the 15-EU in states in 2003 showed that 59% of the 7,500 participants believed that Israel poses the greatest threat to the world peace followed by the US. A 2007 European survey carried out by the Harris Research for the Financial Times (FT) showed that 32% of the respondents believed that the US is the biggest threat to the world than any other country. In 2006, The Populus poll showed that 73% of the British participants wanted London to distance itself from Washington’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while 62% called London to be more critical of Israel.
American author William Pfaff in his latest article, titled LIES AND WARS, wrote:
It is a dismaying reflection that the facilitators of major violence thus far in the 21st century have been lies told by democratic governments. The lies are continuing to be told, about the supposed “existential” menace posed by Iran to Israel, America and (if you believe some European leaders) Western Europe…..
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was motivated by the neoconservative illusion that the Iraqi people would welcome invasion and become a force for democracy, and friends to Israel. Instead, the death of Saddam Hussein and destruction of his government, the wrecking of Iraqi urban society and the country’s infrastructure and industry, which will take years to reconstruct, ignited anarchic insurrection and sectarian conflict, delivering the country into the power and influence of a much larger and more important enemy of both the United States and Israel—Iran. Another lesson about lies, one might have thought.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reportedly sent a secret letter to President Barack Obama in January reviewing the military options available if diplomacy and the new American attempt to intensify international sanctions on Iran fail to produce the desired halt in Iran’s effort, if that is what it is, to build a nuclear deterrent.
If Iran does pursue a nuclear capability, once again it is to deter attack. Precisely the same objection exists to theories of Iranian aggression as to those lies put forward in 2002-03 about Iraq posing a nuclear menace to the world.
Once more, the threat is a polemical invention, intended to frighten American and Israeli (and European) voters and to prompt a preemptive attack on Iran. The reason Gates expressed his uncertainties to the president is that he, too, recognizes that the conflict with Iran is constructed from fictions—which, as with the lies about Iraq, may turn into another war, whose consequences are sure to be worse for all concerned than the fiasco and tragedy of America’s invasion of Iraq.
Interestingly, a poll taken among the 15-EU in states in 2003 showed that 59% of the 7,500 participants believed that Israel poses the greatest threat to the world peace followed by the US. A 2007 European survey carried out by the Harris Research for the Financial Times (FT) showed that 32% of the respondents believed that the US is the biggest threat to the world than any other country. In 2006, The Populus poll showed that 73% of the British participants wanted London to distance itself from Washington’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while 62% called London to be more critical of Israel.
American author William Pfaff in his latest article, titled LIES AND WARS, wrote:
It is a dismaying reflection that the facilitators of major violence thus far in the 21st century have been lies told by democratic governments. The lies are continuing to be told, about the supposed “existential” menace posed by Iran to Israel, America and (if you believe some European leaders) Western Europe…..
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was motivated by the neoconservative illusion that the Iraqi people would welcome invasion and become a force for democracy, and friends to Israel. Instead, the death of Saddam Hussein and destruction of his government, the wrecking of Iraqi urban society and the country’s infrastructure and industry, which will take years to reconstruct, ignited anarchic insurrection and sectarian conflict, delivering the country into the power and influence of a much larger and more important enemy of both the United States and Israel—Iran. Another lesson about lies, one might have thought.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates reportedly sent a secret letter to President Barack Obama in January reviewing the military options available if diplomacy and the new American attempt to intensify international sanctions on Iran fail to produce the desired halt in Iran’s effort, if that is what it is, to build a nuclear deterrent.
If Iran does pursue a nuclear capability, once again it is to deter attack. Precisely the same objection exists to theories of Iranian aggression as to those lies put forward in 2002-03 about Iraq posing a nuclear menace to the world.
Once more, the threat is a polemical invention, intended to frighten American and Israeli (and European) voters and to prompt a preemptive attack on Iran. The reason Gates expressed his uncertainties to the president is that he, too, recognizes that the conflict with Iran is constructed from fictions—which, as with the lies about Iraq, may turn into another war, whose consequences are sure to be worse for all concerned than the fiasco and tragedy of America’s invasion of Iraq.
Uprooted Palestinian
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