Russian warships entering Syrian waters to inhibit foreign invasion as opposition calls for no-fly zone ...

In what represents the most confrontation between the West and Russia over the issue of Syrian intervention to date, Haaretz reports that a Syrian news agency said that Russian warships are due to arrive in Syrian territorial waters.

Haaretz characterizes this move as “a clear message to the West that Moscow would resist any foreign intervention in the country’s civil unrest,” and indeed it is a clear message that comes with threat of military repercussions.

Previously Russia has made it clear that they will not support yet another Western intervention in Syria but with the Arab League suspending Syria this week over their crackdown on armed opposition protesters, the stakes are getting higher by the day.

To make the already tense situation astoundingly worse, the former Syrian colonel and current leader of the Free Syrian army is calling for international intervention in no uncertain terms whatsoever.

There is truly nothing left to interpretation anymore, the Syrian opposition is armed, and as Riad al As’ad the leader of the Free Syrian Army said to Businessweek via telephone interview, “Our operations are increasing and we will reach the presidential palace. The regime is going to fall. It may take longer if there is no foreign assistance, but it’s not going to stay. It’s finished.”

“With the three separate attacks this week, they have raised the ante and are preparing the ground for a no- fly zone, similar to the scenario in Libya, which may have the support of a number of countries,” Theodore Karasik, the director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai told Bloomberg.

While As’ad claims that no country has offered to support the Free Syrian Army yet, the fighting group “welcomes all assistance.”

Yet Mohammad Riad Shaqfa, the exiled leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood said that, “If other interventions are required, such as air protection, because of the regime’s intransigence, then the people will accept Turkish intervention. They do not want Western intervention.”

Either Shaqfa is out of the loop or “all assistance” means “only Turkey.” I tend towards speculating that Shaqfa is just attempting to make foreign intervention more palatable, when in reality Turkey invading would mean Western nations taking part as well.

Of course, like Libya, this would be under the guise of a “support” role which in actuality means flying the vast majority of bombing runs and missions.

Yet Shaqfa’s assertion is completely contrary to the facts.

Reuters reports that France said it was encouraging Syrian opposition groups, including the Paris-based Syrian National Council, yet they claim they are opposed to outside military intervention.

“In any case we are helping them, we are encouraging them to get organized,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told the French BFM Radio.

As’ad is calling for a so-called buffer zone in the north on the border between Syria and Turkey along with another in the south near the Jordanian border, supposedly “to help them bring the fight closer to Assad.”

The Arab League also proposed sending hundreds of so-called observers to Syria, but one wouldn’t be out of line in pointing out that Arab League nations helped obliterate Libya, specifically Qatar which was directing and fighting with the rebels in every major battle throughout the entirety of the uprising.

I believe that it might be a bit foolish to assume that observers are only observers and not so-called “trainers” who will help train, direct and fight with the opposition against Bashar al-Assad’s government.

As I have pointed out countless times now, all of the signs are pointing to a Libya-type scenario unfolding in Syria and all I can say is that I truly hope that I am wrong about this.

However, the Syrian government has already decried the United States’ “blatant interference” in the uprising there, and the reality of American interference is hardly arguable at this point.

Prominent U.S. politicians like John McCain, who just happens to be the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, have openly called for foreign intervention in Syria.

Earlier this month, the Syrian government accused the United States of funding terrorists in Syria, along with the clear meddling America has participated in recently.

The fact is, just like Libya, these so-called protesters, who are better characterized as a well-armed rebellion, have absolutely no interest in a peaceful resolution.

The Syrian opposition has declared that they will not hold any talks with the Assad government, and we saw this same thing with the al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan rebels.

The Russians are quite aware of this fact, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made this quite clear in talks with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe in early September.

Lavrov pointed out that the Syrian opposition’s outright refusal to hold talks with the government clearly indicates that they are seeking international backing in the vein of what the Libyan rebels received.

Lavrov further emphasized the fact that international support could well lead to “new bloodshed” in Syria.

The Syrian opposition has also established a proto-government of sorts, straight out of the Western-backed Libyan playbook.

Instead of the National Transitional Council or Transitional National Council (NTC/TNC) depending on the news source, it is the Syrian National Council (SNC).

Is anyone else a bit amazed at the fact that they would follow the Libyan blueprint after seeing Libya absolutely decimated?

This is just one of the many pieces of the puzzle indicating that this is a Western-engineered faux revolution to justify armed intervention.

Yet, unlike Libya, Russia has pledged their support to the Assad government and they are actually backing it up with military firepower.

This will undoubtedly make for a much muddier situation for the U.S.-led NATO forces with the help of Arab League nations to wade into.

Lavrov has recently pointed out that the so-called Free Syrian Army assault on an Airforce Intelligence compound on the peripheries of Damascus was “already completely similar to civil war,” and he couldn’t be more correct.

You can no longer pretend to be a peaceful pro-democracy movement when you’re using rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns to assault a military base.

The 10-member military council that leads the Free Syrian Army has taken full credit for this assault while also destroying an armed personnel carrier (APC) at another intelligence agency base in Aleppo, according to the spokesman, Ammar al-Wawi.

The armed assault does not end there, indeed army defectors using rocket-propelled grenades to attack the Baath Party offices in the town of Maaret al-Numan.

As’ad claims that the Free Syrian Army gains 100-200 new members every time they conduct an attack on government targets.

According to As’ad the group’s fighters are spread out amongst all of the hotbeds of conflict that have seen the most action in the eight-month uprising.

These include suburbs of the Syrian capital of Damascus, the central cities of Homs and Hama, the southern region of Daraa, the norther province of Idlib, the port city of Latakia, and the eastern town of Deir al-Zour.

Even the establishment media seems to be picking up on the fact that the Syrian uprising isn’t just a bunch of peace-loving pro-democracy protesters dancing in the streets and hugging each other while the bloodthirsty Assad heartlessly slaughters them.

As Liz Sly for The Washington Post points out, in a blog of course as this is far from front-page material for a rag like The Washington Post, “If there were any doubt that the Syrian uprising is rapidly evolving into an armed insurgency, an unverified video posted on the Internet depicting what appears to be the ambush of a military vehicle by defected soldiers seems to dispel it.”

Her inclusion of “unverified” is a bit out of order seeing as the Free Syrian Army openly brags about the attack.

The Syrian state-run SANA news agency reported a rise in military casualties which clearly indicates that there is a well-armed insurgency in Syria.

The absurd part about this whole Syria debacle is that armed insurgents are free targets for American troops and drones nearly anywhere on Earth, yet when Assad attempts to defend his own government and his military; it is suddenly a humanitarian crisis.

This kind of doublethink and moral pragmatism disgusts me, and the fact that so many Westerners can reconcile this is beyond me.

Hopefully the Russian presence in Syrian territorial waters will deter any foreign invasion, be it Turkey or the U.S.-led NATO forces that are still washing the blood of Libyan civilians off their hands.

Any situation in which foreign troops invade Syria will not be a positive one for the invaders or the people of Syria.

Just like Libya, it will undoubtedly lead to a total destruction of the infrastructure, followed by looting of the natural resources and then the gold rush that is involved in rebuilding a country they just bombed into the Stone Age.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lieand has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

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Top Russian general: NATO expansion raises danger of nuclear conflict ...

By The Associated Press

Russia sees NATO’s expansion to include formerSoviet bloc countries in eastern and central Europe as a key threat to its security.

Russia is facing a heightened risk of being drawn into conflicts at its borders that have the potential of turning nuclear, the nation’s top military officer said Thursday.

Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, cautioned over NATO’s expansion eastward and warned that the risks of Russia being pulled into local conflicts have “risen sharply.”

Makarov added, according to Russian news agencies, that “under certain conditions local and regional conflicts may develop into a full-scale war involving nuclear weapons.”

A steady decline in Russia’s conventional forces has prompted the Kremlin to rely increasingly on its nuclear deterrent. The nation’s military doctrine says it may use nuclear weapons to counter a nuclear attack on Russia or an ally, or a large-scale conventional attack that threatens Russia’s existence.

Russia sees NATO’s expansion to include former Soviet republics and ex-members of the Soviet bloc in eastern and central Europe as a key threat to Russia’s security.

Makarov specifically referred to NATO’s plans to offer membership to Georgia andUkraine as potentially threatening Russia’s security. Russia routed Georgian forces in a brief August 2008 war over a separatist province of South Ossetia. Moscow later recognized South Ossettia and another breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia as independent states and increased its military presence there.

Makarov warned that the planned pullout of NATO forces from Afghanistan could trigger conflicts in neighboring ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that could “grow into a large-scale war.”

In its military doctrine, Russia has also described U.S. missile defense plans as another major security challenge, saying it could threaten its nuclear forces and undermine their deterrence potential.

Moscow has agreed to consider NATO’s proposal last fall to cooperate on the missile shield, but the talks have been deadlocked over how the system should operate. Russia has insisted that the system should be run jointly, which NATO has rejected.

Makarov also said Russia is struggling to get enough recruits for the 1-million military, as the number of draftees has shrunk dramatically because of demographic changes.

He said that the military is aiming to gradually increase the number of contract soldiers and eventually form an all-volunteer army. He didn’t mention a specific time frame.

The statement marked a sharp change of course for the top military brass who previously insisted that Russia needs to maintain the highly unpopular draft because an all-volunteer military would be too costly.

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Venezuela: Nuclear Conflict Looms ahead if Iran and Syria are Attacked ...

After a long break caused by serious health problems, Venezuela’s H. Chavez resumed on November 15 the practice of televised addresses on key policy issues. As a key message prompted by the recent developments, the Venezuelan leader sent to his nation and to the international community a strong warning about the threat of anuclear conflict currently brewing in the Middle East… “There’s a nuclear war threat…The most guilty [of this risk] is the United States government and its allies such as Israel, who have many nuclear bombs,” said Chavez in a voice full of emotion.

The US propaganda campaign built around the myth of Iran’s nuclear-arms ambitions has been unfolding for years, growing increasingly hysterical in the process. Chavez at all times reiterated Venezuela’s support for Iran, expressing confidence in the civilian character of the country’s nuclear program. The statements invariably drew  Washington’s ire or even allegations of the Venezuelan regime’s complicity with Ahmadinejad in secretly building nuclear weapons. Among other groundless claims, the US information warfare forces floated the fictitious story of uranium mining in Venezuela in the interests of the Iranian nuclear programand even fed to the media photographs of the Venezuelan uranium mine which, as it transpired shortly, actually showed a bicycle-assembling factory which used Iranian-supplied components. No apologies followed, as for the Empire lies are a normal instrument employed to influence the world around. The world is used to hearing lies from US presidents, secretaries of state, defense secretaries, bankers, journalists, diplomats, and intelligence operatives. The intensity of alarmist call for a global war on terror, ostensibly to counter the terrorist threat targeting the US at all angles, peaked in the wake of the September 11, 2001 drama when the Trade Center in NY was blown up on the order from the US “shadow government”. A tide of US special operations immediately swept across the world from Afghanistan and Iraq to Russia.

At the moment Syria, like Iran, is facing an unprecedented smear campaign. Armed groupstrained by the US and Israeli intelligence services are penetrating the country with the mission of destabilizing Bashar al-Assad’s regime and igniting clashes, which could be cited internationally as a pretext for an intervention. The mercenaries’ atrocities in Syria seem to indicate that they have been trained by the US, Israeli, and French instructors who gained much of their past experience in Libya. Israeli commandos and Mossad operatives are particularly notorious for cruelty. Tel Aviv is fanning the internal strife in Syria to weaken the country militarily in the run-up to air raids against Iran’s allegedly arms-related nuclear infrastructures, along with its command and communication centers, air-defense installations, and munitions depots.

With memories still fresh of what happened in Iraq and Libya, of the sufferings the countries’ populations had to endure, and of the killings of S. Hussein and M. Gadhafi, Iran is determined to fight back in every way possible, and the Pentagon is fully aware of the perspective. US military planners warned the White House that the consequences of a military campaign against Iran can prove unpredictable, and B. Obama, who has permanently looked exhausted recently, decided to take time and, within several weeks, to consult with the US allies. The forecast at the moment is that Washington will not go beyond pushing for tighter sanctions against Iran, but chances are the US is simply trying to cause Tehran to lose vigilance.

The pro-Zionist global media provide extensive coverage of the potential plans for an attack on Iran, throwing in pieces of disinformation or attempting to intimidate the country. At the end of a long process of forging evidence of Iran’s making dirty bombs and bacteriological warfare in secret laboratories, the Western intelligence agencies may have started to believe in what they preached and now take seriously Tehran’s pledges of a crushing retaliatory strike. From Chavez’s perspectives, neither the US nor Israel can be trusted, Iran has serious reasons for concern, and provocations can take place any moment. Iran’s foes have no shortage of prefabricated scenarios, and some of the Western analysts in fact suggested using tactical nuclear weapons to  inflict maximal damage on the Iranian military infrastructure. This may be the reason why Chavez had to stress that no government has the right to resort to nuclear weapons as no nations, including their own, would stay unharmed, and the radioactivity would put life on Earth as a whole in jeopardy.

In September, 2011, Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolás Maduro delivered a message on behalf of Chavez to the 66th session of the UN General Assembly. The sense of concern behind the talk resonated with the audience as Maduro said: “an unprecedented, imperialist and permanent war had begun”. The Venezuelan envoy maintained that the unlimited power of the military and financial oligarchy which, to boost its own revenues, is destroying the world and de facto runs a large group of countries, leads the world to a global catastrophe. He further stressed that war has to be a way of life for the financial capital as, destroying societies, wars help the chosen few to amass unbelievable riches. In the nearest future the world will be confronted with the threat of a new series of colonial wars being unleashed, with Libya as the starting point, to revitalize the global capitalist system now trapped in a deep structural crisis.  

It is clear that the escalation around Iran and Syria, least the launch of military campaigns against the two countries, would cast a long shadow over the relations between Moscow and Washington. For Moscow, the independence and sovereignty of Iran and Syria are important from the standpoint of geopolitical stability along Russia’s southern frontier, and the Kremlin becomes increasingly vocal about this aspect of the situation. So far, there is no impression that Washington and Tel Aviv, eager to make another step towards global dominance, are ready to take Moscow’s position into account.  

Discussing ways of taming the US and NATO, Chavez constantly invokes the themes of the multipolar world, alternative centers of power, and the cooperation between such countries as China, Russia, India, and Brazil in the name of peace. So far, however, their leaders appear to be lacking the will needed to put an end to the rising neocolonialism and unabashed international banditry.

Global Research Articles by Nil Nikandrov

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2011 Poll: Only 6% of the EU would support Military Action against Iran ...

According to a 2011 poll by Transatlantic Trends very few people in the EU, US, and Turkey would support military action against Iran.
The report starts with preamble by saying: “In a year of tumult and upheaval, with political revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, natural catastrophes in Japan,economic turmoil in Europe and theUnited States, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and heated debates over NATO, Transatlantic Trends paints a picture of a complex relationship between the United States andEurope and how they respond to global challenges. Transatlantic Trends shows that people respond to complexity with nuance rather than simplification.”

One of its key findings was in regards to Iran and the support that US, EU, and Turkish citizens would provide their states for a military attack on Iran.

In Section Four (Transatlantic Security), the poll states: “Very few people in the EU (6%), the United States (13%), and Turkey (4%) preferred military action over other options.”

See the report.

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Asia-Pacific: US Ramps Up Global War Agenda ...

Like a schoolyard bully, President Barack Obama is flexing American military muscle as he currently sweeps through the Asia-Pacificregion. The nominal impetus for the tour was the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in Hawaii last week. But rather than discussing “economics” (the E in APEC), the salient focus for Obama and his entourage appears to be “war” – and in particular laying down battle lines to China.

Testy relations with China is nothing new for Washington given recent months of US haranguing over trade and finance, but what Obama’s bombast signals is a sinister ramping up of the militarist agenda towards Beijing.

As if bouncing underlings and lackeys into his gang, the American president has moved on from Honolulu with stopovers in Australia, Indonesia and elsewhere. Given the primary economic power of China in the hemisphere, it might be thought appropriate for Obama to make a cordial visit to Beijing to discuss partnerships and policies to revive the global economy. But no. The omission of China on this major US tour seems to be a deliberate snub to Beijing and a message to the region: that China is to be isolated and ringfenced. This is the stuff of warmongering writ large.

The blatant aggression is naturally smoothed over and made palatable by the Western mainstream media. Reporting on Obama’s unilateral belligerence at the APEC, the Washington Post bemoans: “Try as he might to focus Asian and Pacific leaders on forging new economic partnerships during a regional summit here, President Obama has spent much of his time in private meetings with his counterparts discussing another pressing concern: national security [that is, US military power].”

The Financial Times reports breathlessly: “Barack Obama will not set foot in China during his swing through the Asia-Pacific region… yet the country’s rapid economic ascent and military advances will provide the backdrop for almost everything he does on the trip.”

Note the assertion that it is China’s “military advances” that are prompting US concerns, not the more reasonable and realistic observation that Washington is the one beating the war drums.

The FT goes on to say: “The Pentagon is quietly working on a new strategy dubbed the AirSea Battle concept, which is designed to find ways to counter Chinese military plans to deny access to US forces in the seas surrounding China.”

In “seas surrounding China” it may be thought by some as entirely acceptable for Beijing to “deny access to US forces”. But not, it seems, for the scribes at the FT and other Western mainstream media, who transform US offence/Chinese defence into Chinese offence/US defence. One can only imagine how that same media would report it if China announced that it was intending to patrol nuclear warships off California.

As previously noted by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research, theSouth China Sea’s untapped reserves of oil and other minerals are a major driver in US maneouvring. China stands to have natural territorial rights to these deposits and has much more valid claim to the wealth than the US, whose counter-claims on the matter seem at best arrogant and at worst provocative. Again, one can imagine the US and mainstream media reaction if China was eyeing oil and gasfields off Alaska.

But there is a bigger geopolitical agenda here, as Global Research has consistently analysed. The increasing US militarism in Asia-Pacific is apiece with the globalization of war by the US/NATO and its allies. The shift in policy is, as the Washington Post lamely tells us, “the US reasserting itself as a leader in the Asia-Pacific after years of focusing on [illegal] wars in the Middle East.”

However, this is not a dynamic that should be viewed as somehow normal and acceptable. This is, as we have stated, an escalation of global aggression by powers that are “addicted to war” as a matter of policy.

Top of the US hit list is China. Washington’s criminal wars in Iraq and Libya have in particular been aimed at cutting China out of legitimate energy investments in the Middle and East and North Africa (and Africa generally). That in itself must be seen by Beijing as a flagrant assault on its overseas’ assets. Not content, it seems, with achieving that dispossession of vital Chinese energy interests, Washington is now pushing its insatiable appetite all the way into China’s domain. But such unprecedented aggression is made to appear by the US government and the dutiful mainstream media as a natural entitlement where refusal by the other party is perversely presented as “military plans to deny access”.

Obama’s visit to Australia this week is undoubtedly aimed at further twisting the threat to China. In Darwin, the US president is overseeing the opening of a base that will see for the first time US Marines being able to conduct war games on Australian soil. Thousands of kilometers from China, this development may at first seem inconsequential. But then we are told that the move is designed to station US military “out of the reach of Chinese ballistic missiles”. The insinuation is unmistakable and menacing: China is an imminent threat. Somehow, without issuing any such aggressive moves, Beijing is suddenly made to look as if it is prepared to launch ballistic missiles at US installations.

It is tempting to call this US-led dynamic of global war “dysfunctional”. But, disturbingly, it is not merely dysfunctional. The global war dynamic is a function of the collapse of capitalism and democracy in the US and Europe (the brutal police crackdown on Occupy protesters across the US is evidence of the latter). War on the world is the logical outcome of this failed system, as history has already shown us with the horrors of World War One and Two.

Karl Marx once noted: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce”. To avert another “farce” in which the horrors of history are repeated, we need to once and for all challenge the root cause: capitalism.

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Iran loses top missile expert in explosions ...

Brig. Hassan Moghadam, head of Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) missile development and sections of its nuclear program, was killed in one of the two consecutive explosions that hit two IRGC bases 46 kilometers west of Tehran Saturday, Nov. 12. The official fatality figure is 32.  Fourteen hours after explosions blasts could still be heard and fires raged.  debkafile’s exclusive sources report the bases are located in Malard, a town in the Shahryar district. The Moadarres facility was the first to be hit, while the second and bigger blast occurred at Amir-al-Mo’menin.

Their force was such that the Iranian Red Crescent rushed 45 ambulances to the two facilities plus 23 buses converted to first-aid vehicles and a helicopter to evacuate the critically injured.

However, only six rescue workers were given access to the Moadarres base and none were permitted to enter Amir-al-Mo’menin because of the facility’s sensitivity.

 Fourteen hours after the explosions, the blasts continued and fires raged. Surrounding streets were closed and reporters kept away from the scene.

Our sources report increasing evidence that the first explosion was caused by a failed effort to mount a nuclear warhead on a Shahab-3 intermediate-range missile.

It was powerful enough to shatter windows and damage shops in Tehran. People gathering on street corners wondered if Israel had attacked Iran’s nuclear sites or destroyed Revolutionary Guards missile bases.  They recalled Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s threat Thursday, Nov. 10 to take the war to the streets of Tel Aviv if Tehran was attacked.

IRGC spokesman, Brig. Ramedan Sharif, sharply denied what he said was speculation that the military base was linked to Iran’s nuclear program. “This blast is not related to any nuclear tests,” he said in response to widespread rumors. He insisted the explosion had occurred at an ammo store which was part of the Guards’ “self-sufficiency” system, a term they apply to their munitions plants and the factories manufacturing missile components.

The Iranian authorities, after raising the fatality figure to 32, withheld information on the injured, most of which where transferred to IRGC rather than civilian hospitals. Some may have been foreign engineers or scientists whose presence Tehran is anxious to conceal.

The Emergency Council which deals with extraordinary happenings liable to affect the regime’s stability met in emergency session Saturday night.

Earlier Saturday, debkafile reported on the two huge explosions at two separate military bases west of Tehran killing dozens of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), wounding many more and trapping an unknown number under rubble.

In Tehran, 40 kilometers away, windows were shattered and damage caused vehicles and shops. The blasts were heard in Tehran’s center.

debkafile’s military and Iranian sources report that the explosions may have been part of a series carried out by Iranian dissident groups last month.

The suspicion of sabotage was strengthened by the occurrence Friday of a big fire at a Tehran warehouse used according to our sources by the IRGC for crowd dispersal gear.
The ammo base blown up Saturday in the town of Malard in Shahryar district contained large quantities of rubber bullets, tear gas and other ordnance. A short time later, the second explosion hit a light arms depot at a military camp of Bidganeh several kilometers away. That both were accidents is hardly credible. The two blasts were confirmed by the Iranian lawmaker Hossein Garussi without further details.

Tehran recently broke up an armed dissident group called Oghab. Three members were executed and the others were allowed to flee the country. An organization of that name operates in the United States, but its leader denied involvement in any sabotage operations inside Iran.

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Hillary Clinton’s Deceptive Bluffs on Iran’s Nuclear Program ...

When Hillary Clinton doesn’t make sense

U.S. President Barack Obama will be a lame duck next year and the officials in his administration, especially his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are hilariously doing their best to make sure that they haven’t spared any effort to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries and sabotage the stability and security of those whom they call “enemies”, like Iran.

On October 27, Hillary Clinton gave an exclusive interview to the UK’s state-funded, state-run BBC Persian TV and in an attempt aimed at reaching out to the Iranian nation, made bombastic remarks which have certainly infuriated the Iranian nation and demonstrated that the hostile behavior and antagonistic stance of the U.S. government toward the Iranian nation is a manifestation of the idiom “the leopard can’t change its spots.”

At the beginning of the interview, Clinton referred to the sanctions imposed against Iran by the U.S. and its European allies and said that these sanctions are targeted at forcing the Iranian government into abandoning its nuclear program which she called is an effort to construct nuclear weapons and not for civilian purposes. Forgetting the detrimental impacts of economic sanctions against the ordinary people, Clinton talked of theUnited States as a friend of the Iranian people, and said that she wanted to reaffirm her country’s “very strong support for and friendship toward the people of Iran.” She further added that the behavior of the United Statestowards the Iranian government is different from its behavior toward the Iranian people, and by saying that, she clearly paraded her diplomatic naiveté and artlessness. How do you justify enmity with a government which is democratically elected by a group of people which you claim of being supportive of?

Secondly, maybe Mrs. Secretary has forgotten that the U.S. itself is the largest possessor of nuclear weaponsin the world. How can such a police state which has so far killed millions of people around the world, from Nagasaki and Hiroshima to Baghdad and Kabul, boast of its concerns about the development of nuclear bombs by a country which is the most pacifist country in a boiling and tumultuous region such as Middle Eastand hasn’t ever invaded nor attacked any country in the past century?

A Reuters report quoting U.S. officials revealed in May 2010 that the U.S. has an arsenal of 5,113 nuclear warheads. It is the only country which has used nuclear weapons in the warfare and the only nation that has conducted around 1,054 nuclear tests and developed many long-range weapon delivery systems. So, who is really entitled to be concerned? Shouldn’t the international community be anxious about the nuclear arsenal of the self-proclaimed superpower, the U.S.? Who may guarantee that the U.S. won’t use its nuclear weapons in the prospective wars which it will be waging in the future? If the criterion of imposing financial sanctions is the possession of nuclear weapons and pursuing the development of them, why shouldn’t the U.S. or its Middle East client state, Israel, which is the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, be the target of sanctions? A report by Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis showed that between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent at least $8.15 trillion in present day terms on nuclear weapons development. Which country can be pinpointed on the world map which has invested in nuclear program, even for peaceful purposes, so enormously?

But it was not only Clinton’s deceptive bluffs on Iran’s nuclear program that seemed perplexing and ridiculous. She lived beyond her means by claiming that the international community is angry at what Iran is today and wants a better future for its people!

“But I would ask you to put yourself in the position of the international community and those who seek a better future inside Iran. If you do not want to have a conflict, if you do not want to just give way to behavior that is very reckless, as we saw in this recent plot against the Saudi ambassador, potentially dangerous, sanctions is the tool that we have at our disposal to use,” she said.

Clinton went on to raise the issue of the alleged terror plot against the Saudi ambassador in Washington and attributed this plot to Iran. She, however, certainly remembers that they were the agents of CIA, MI6 and Mossad in Iran that assassinated four Iranian nuclear scientists immediately after their name was put on the UNSC sanctions list. Wasn’t the assassination of Dariush Rezaei, Massoud Alimohammadi or the foiled assassination plot against Fereydoon Abbasi a conspicuous sponsorship of terrorism by a government which calls itself the number one defender of democracy and peace? Wasn’t awarding the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to the President of such a country which murders and kills people with impunity some kind of degrading and humiliating this prestigious award?

But an interesting juncture in Clinton’s interview with BBC was where a recorded video containing a question by one of the viewers of BBC was aired. The viewer asked Hillary Clinton about America’s perpetual adherence to double standards, its support for repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, its backing of the dreadful coup d’etat against the democratic government of Iran’s then Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and its heinous shooting down of the Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988 which claimed the lives of 290 innocent passengers including 254 Iranians. Clinton was apparently taken aback by the question as her awkward response showed that the U.S. government has never found any way to account for its hypocritical policies and actions: “we have consistently spoken out about Bahrain and we have pushed the government to do more, and we support the independent investigation… We know that everything we have done in the course of our 235-plus year history is going to appeal to or be supported by everyone, and we take our history seriously. So, for example, we’ve expressed regret about what was done in 1953… And then we also have tried to point out that the tragedy of the shooting down of the airline is something that we deeply are sorry for, and we have said that repeatedly.”

Isn’t it ludicrous? Shooting down a civilian aircraft, killing all the 290 people aboard and then simply saying that we are sorry? Overthrowing a democratic government which reflected the communal will of a nation and then simply saying that we are sorry? Waging wars and imposing sanctions which hurt the daily life of the ordinary people and saying that we are sorry?

Of course Hilary Clinton’s interview with BBC Persian was a fiasco and a political debacle. She just showed her lack of political finesse and once again brought to mind that the wolf may lose his teeth, but never his nature. Clinton is the representative of a country which throughout the history has repeatedly betrayed the Iranian nation. Perhaps expressing deepest apologies to the Iranian nation and changing their hostile attitude can be the first step which the American politicians should take in order to have the bitter memories of their mischievousness wiped off the minds of Iranian people.

Source

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Israel launches new missile that can reach New York and Tokyo ...

Israeli military men conducted a successful launch of Jericho-3 intercontinental ballistic missileon Wednesday. The test was carried out at the Palmahim air base, the Irish Timessaid. At the same time, officials with IsraelDefense Forces said that they had conducted the tests of a new missile engine in the morning of November 2. The launch of the missile could be seen from Ashkelon to Tel Aviv, Newsru Israel said.

According to publications in the media, the three-stage missile is capable of delivering a 750-kilo warhead to a distance of more than 10,000 kilometers. If the reports about the range of Jericho-3 are true to fact, then it means that the missile can reach such cities as Tokyo and New York. The distance between these two cities and Tel Aviv makes up a bit more than 9,000 kilometers.

According to Western sources, Israel passed the Jericho-3 missile into service in 2008. However, the work on the project still continues, MissileThreat.com says.

According to the publication, the takeoff weight of the missile makes up 29 tons. The missile is 15.5 meters long. The website says that in addition to the 750-kilo nuclear warhead, a Jericho-3 is capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles.

Even though the Jericho-3 is designed for deep underground basing, it will be possible to launch the missile from mobile platforms, including railway platforms. The high speed of the missile makes it practically invincible for interception.

The Palmahim airbase is a range ground for testing various missile systems including Hetz and Jericho. Palmahim is the base for the Hetz-2 missile defense system. In addition, Israel uses the base as a spaceport.

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Was Israel Behind a Deadly Explosion at an Iranian Missile Base?

Israeli newspapers on Sunday were thick with innuendo, the front pages of the three largest dailies dominated by variations on the headline “Mysterious Explosion in Iranian Missile Base.” Turn the page, and the mystery is answered with a wink. “Who Is Responsible for Attacks on the Iranian Army?” asks Maariv, and the paper listswithout further comment a half-dozen other violent setbacks to Iran’s nuclear and military nexus. For Israeli readers, the coy implication is that their own governmentwas behind Saturday’s massive blast just outside Tehran. It is an assumption a Western intelligence source insists is correct: the Mossad — the Israeli agency charged with covert operations — did it. “Don’t believe the Iranians that it was an accident,” the official tells TIME, adding that other sabotage is being planned to impede the Iranian ability to develop and deliver a nuclear weapon. “There are more bullets in the magazine,” the official says.

The powerful blast or series of blasts — reports described an initial explosion followed by a much larger one — devastated a missile base in the gritty urban sprawl to the west of the Iranian capital. The base housed Shahab missiles, which, at their longest range, can reach Israel. Last week’s report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had experimented with removing the conventional warhead on the Shahab-3 and replacing it with one that would hold a nuclear device. Iran says the explosion was an accident that came while troops were transferring ammunition out of the depot “toward the appropriate site.” (See why ties between the U.S. and Iran are under threat.)

The explosion killed at least 17 people, including Major General Hassan Moqqadam, described by Iranian state media as a pioneer in Iranian missile development and the Revolutionary Guard commander in charge of “ensuring self-sufficiency” in armaments, a challenging task in light of international sanctions.

Coming the weekend after the release of the unusually critical IAEA report, which laid out page upon page of evidence that Iran is moving toward a nuclear weapon, the blast naturally sharpened concern over Israel’s threat to launch airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Half the stories on the TehranTimes website on Sunday referenced the possibility of a military strike, most warningof dire repercussions.

But the incident also argued, maybe even augured, against an outright strike. If Israel — perhaps in concert with Washington and other allies — can continue to inflict damage to the Iranian nuclear effort through covert actions, the need diminishes for overt, incendiary moves like air strikes. The Stuxnet computer worm bollixed Iran’s centrifuges for months, wreaking havoc on the crucial process of uranium enrichment.

And in Sunday’s editions, the Hebrew press coyly listed what Yedioth Ahronoth called “Iran’s Mysterious Mishaps.” The tallies ran from the November 2007 explosion at a missile base south of Tehran to the October 2010 blast at a Shahab facility in southwestern Iran, to the assassinations of three Iranian scientists working in the nuclear program — two last year and one in July. (See photos of the semiofficial view of Iran.)

At the very least, the list burnishes the mystique of the Mossad, Israel’s overseas spy agency. Whatever the case-by-case reality, the popular notion that, through the Mossad, Israel knows everything and can reach anywhere is one of the most valuable assets available to a state whose entire doctrine of defense can be summed up in the word deterrence. But it doesn’t mean Israel is the only country with a foreign intelligence operation inside Iran. The most recent IAEA report included intelligence from 10 governments on details of the Iranian nuclear effort. And in previous interviews, Western security sources have indicated that U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies have partnered with Israel on covert operations inside Iran. Sometimes the partner brings specific expertise or access. In other cases, Iranian agents on the ground who might harbor misgivings about Israel are allowed to believe they are working only with another government altogether.

Saturday’s blast was so powerful it was felt 25 miles away in Tehran, and so loud that one nearby resident with combat experience thought he had just heard the detonation of an aerial bomb. “Frankly it did not sound like an arms depot from where I was because when one of those goes off, it is multiple explosions over minutes, even hours depending on the size of the facility,” the resident says. “All I heard was one big boom. I was sure from the quality of the noise that anyone in its immediate vicinity was dead. Something definitely happened, but I would not trust the [Revolutionary] Guards to be absolutely forthcoming as to what it was.”

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