Smear campaign against Iran? - By Seema Mustafa - THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL, Mumbai, India

Steeped in their old practice of instantly blaming a certain favorite community, in case of any bomb blast incident, India's electronic media, saw no reason not to pick up Israel's instant charge on Iran for the Delhi car blast. However, this time around it had to eat humble pie, when an international consensus is emerging that Israel's charge is unproven and political and India and its media, at least should have hedged and waited for proof from their own national authorities, before spreading the charge. Their faux pas has exposed their unhealthy connection with corporate world and its demands on nursing prejudices against a certain community.

Of all the major India based TV Channels, Times of India's TIMES NOW, appeared to be as reckless as ever in repeating Israeli charge, without any care for either media responsibility or diplomatic propriety. As Justice Katju has pointed out, Media should now be under some level of scrutiny and accountability, so that it sticks to its hallowed role of informing people but not carrying out propaganda as paid media.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>
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http://www.freepressjournal.in/news/48934-smear-campaign-against-iran.html

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Smear campaign against Iran?

• India
• Feb 20, 2012

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The question that needs to be answered is: why would Iran risk its growing friendship with India by launching a terror attack against Israel? And that too on Indian soil? And that too against a lowly Israeli official?
 
By SEEMA MUSTAFA

Journalists, now it seems a long long time ago, were always told to verify facts before levelling allegations.

And that if the allegations came without facts to always use the words " alleged" or " claimed" making it clear that the version was an allegation and clearly not verified. Journalists were always told not to accept any version as the gospel truth, and make all possible attempts to clarify and find out the facts.

This changed dramatically with the advent of 24- hour television channels, that accepted any and everything that came their way as the final truth. So it was in New Delhi when a vehicle, in which an Israeli official was travelling, blew up mysteriously at a traffic crossing just yards from the Indian Prime Ministers residence. The television channels scrambled to beat each other in the coverage of the alleged attack. Israel predictably hit the ground running, insisting that Iran was responsible for the alleged bomb attack on the vehicle in which the woman was travelling even before the flames had been doused. Israeli Prime Minister set their particular political ball in motion when from Tel Aviv he declared that Iran had launched a terror attack on Israel within minutes and hours of the incident.

The media without facts, started carrying headlines and organizing discussions on the basis of the Israeli charge.

Iran and Israel battle it out on Indian soil, screamed the headlines as the nationalist anchors came on air shaking their heads, and wagging their little fingers in a " look at what is going on" stance.

It was very unfortunate that the Indian media decided to accept Israels allegations as the gospel truth without any regard for the facts, or the consequences.

The investigations had not even begun when the media decided to accept the Israeli version and launch into 'breaking news'and discussions claiming a Israel versus Iran war was being fought on Indian soil. The Iranian denial was drowned in the din and one suspects the over- eagerness to please the corporate and allied interests. By the second day sections of the print media had also started joining the bandwagon, with not a single story questioning Israels claims, and the legitimacy of its assertions.

Fortunately, despite the tremendous pressure from Washington and Tel Aviv, India has continued to resist the temptation to support Israel, and cut off links with Iran. It is no secret that the US made its displeasure of Indias renewed friendship with Iran very clear during Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathais visit to Washington.

But till date New Delhi seems to be holding out, although given Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs close proximity with the US one cannot say at this stage for how long, or for that matter whether it will last the course.

Fortunately there is a division in the strategic elite establishment that crowds government corridors. Iran is quite a favourite with the Indian people, as well as sections of the Establishment. Besides, given the dip in growth statistics it is apparent even to those in government that the need to mop up energy resources is urgent. And India cannot afford to dismiss Iran as it had earlier. Against this back the timing of the attack could not have been better for Israel, not Iran.

After a hiatus India had started to mend relations with Iran that was clearly a source of worry for Israel and the US. The question that thus, needs to be answered is: why would Iran at this stage risk its growing friendship with India by launching a terror attack against Israel? And that too on Indian soil? And that too against a lowly Israeli official? Sleuths across the world establish the motive first as an important aid in investigations of a crime. In this case Israel has a motive, in that it wants relations between India and Iran to sour and break. Iran does not have a motive as its efforts currently are to strengthen relations as it needs the friendship of India in countering the Israeli offensive.

Investigators also like to study the modus operandi. Till date the sticky bomb that was supposedly used to blow up the Israeli diplomatic vehicle has been used only by Israel in its targeted assassinations across the world. This magnetic bomb was used by Mossad operatives to kill Iranian nuclear scientists in recent months. 

Also it is a well known fact that Mossad specializes in such specific operations, and crosses borders and boundaries to reach and exterminate the targets. Iran has not adopted such a modus operandi as yet, and has really been more of a victim on this front than an aggressor. But now the Israelis would have the world believe that their weapons and their methods are being used by targeted nations who are bowed under sanctions, and being hit on an hourly basis by vicious propaganda and threats from powerful nations.

India did err by voting against Iran at a crucial juncture at the IAEA on the nuclear issue. It also dropped out of the energy rich Iran- Pakistan- India peace pipeline, under US pressure. There were many experts in this country who criticized this move, and it has taken some time for the UPA government to realize that Iran is essential for energy that is essential for growth that is essential for the ruling Congress to win the next general elections. Or at least have a chance to win.

India will make a major strategic mistake if it shifts position against Iran under the growing pressure. It might be recalled that after abstaining from a vote at the UNSC against Syria it has now sided with the US against Syria, costing it much goodwill in the neighbouring region.

Foreign policy under the UPA government has taken the shape of a see saw that bends on the one or the other side under pressure. This has weakened India's position in the developing world, as non- western governments are no longer sure of its policy at any given point in time. There have been many instances when the government has moved back from categorical assertions, in a volte-face that defies comprehension and flies in the face of consistency.

It is important for the media to be brought under some levels of accountability, by journalistic bodies that too seem to be quite oblivious of the irresponsible reportage. The tendency of anchors to play the police, jury and hangman is coming increasingly in the way of the exercise of good, responsible, independent journalism and it is time that the few media outfits that have survived the test of time take a lead in what should become a long and deep introspective exercise. Otherwise, the media will lose all respect of the people and instead of acting as a watchdog and a counter check on the recklessness of the executive and the legislature in particular, will become an oppressive instrument against the people of India and the nations interests.

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Must Watch - A Jewish/Zionist New World Order glimpse, that should be an eye opener to all targeted victims of their diabolic plans to control the world through successful manipulations and rule over its people. It clearly lays out how America's Federal Reserve Board was created to create and supply funds to their world-wide mission. It adds to the mystique of these public display of their audacious conspiracies, when they say its FAKE. They said the same thing about Protocol Of the Elders of the Zion. As up-loader on YouTube, Narsimhadev explains, even if it is not a real Illuminati orientation/training video, it is still very educational for the TRUTHs that it reveals and the facts that are well-known.

GHULAM MUHAMMED, MUMBAI
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>

Uploaded by Narsimhadev010 on May 11, 2011

Not a real Illuminati orientation/training video but still very educational for the TRUTHs that it does reveal. What a real orientation video might look like!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Plmr_NifP5I

 

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Comments posted on The Pioneer, over Ashok Malik’s article: India gets it all wrong again - By Ghulam Muhammed

Comments posted on The Pioneer, over Ashok Malik’s article: India gets it all wrong again:

One cannot ignore the difference of world view between an American Zionist warmonger like Kissinger and a traditionally pacifist India's then foreign minister Jaswant Singh. Jaswant Singh rightly avoided reply, out of politeness.

Why a country should have to have military alliances, so that it can fight wars. Why should it not try all diplomatic moves to avoid war and if time comes, why should it depend on others to join it in its own wars, like US and Israel and NATO always go about. Like a pack of hyenas, even when they can alone fight a war, and they did like in Iraq, without waiting for others to help them out.

I think Indian response on both Maldives and Iran, was most well considered and had for the first time avoided a knee jerk reaction, that some trigger happy countries expect India to jump at the first whistle. Those writers who have sympathies with US and Israel, are naturally use every logic to fault their own government. However, so much has now come out within the short period of a week or two on the nuances of Indian foreign policy on both subjects, it is rather too presumptuous to ignore the entire perspective and push an old jaundiced view of ideological preference when the matter involves 'appeasing' - the favorite Hindutva term -- the Muslim radicals, both in Maldives and in Iran. The real world is much more complicated than to be covered by ideological terminologies.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai

ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/item/51084-india-gets-it-all-wrong-again.html

Author:  Ashok Malik

New Delhi's foreign policy flip-flops have left the world wondering whether there is anything ideologically or strategically non-negotiable for India.

As External Affairs Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh once recounted a conversation with Mr Henry Kissinger, former United States Secretary of State. Pointing out India’s strategic precariousness, Mr Kissinger asked Mr Singh to name one country that would completely trust India and stand by it whatever the circumstances, and would be willing to go to war for it. “And don’t say Bhutan,” the American rounded off.

As Mr Singh described it, he kept quiet, feigning to ponder over the issue. Then he pretended to be hospitable and asked Mr Kissinger if he wanted tea, gently changing the subject.

The story is telling and its lessons are perennial. This is especially so at a time when India has found itself sucked into the Iran-Israel conflict and has suffered the diminution of its influence in the Maldives, a part of the world that should logically fall under its strategic umbrella.

Reams have been written about how New Delhi can in effect do nothing in terms of the clash between Teheran on the one side, and Tel Aviv and Washington, DC, on the other. It is said India is genuinely torn between different (sets of) friends, is concerned about the impact of conflict in West Asia on its diaspora, oil imports and economy — and therefore has little autonomy for action even if it was probably Iran-backed terrorists who tried assassinating a diplomat in the heart of New Delhi.

All of this is true, as is the truism that India is trapped between competing choices — doing business with Iran, becoming at least for a while its biggest oil customer; or backing Israel in preventing a nuclear-arms race among adversarial Muslim countries in its near-neighbourhood. However, at a fundamental level a plethora of choices of this nature also indicates the absence of a choice. Far from flexibility, it gives India’s strategic space a certain vulnerability.

The upshot of this is when it comes to the crunch, at the absolute essence, few countries implicitly trust India. This is not because they dislike India or believe it to be inherently evil. It is just that the process of decision-making in terms of foreign policy and strategic choices is so unpredictable, so susceptible to pressures — personal and political, media and electoral — that India comes across not as a resolute power but a fickle actor. In the Iran-Israel case, for instance, India is trying to balance things and please both. It is likely it will please none.

The mess in Male offers another window to the same predicament. It is now obvious India misjudged the timing and smoothness of the transition from President Mohamed Nasheed to the successor regime. The Indian Prime Minister was too quick to send a congratulatory letter to the new Government in Male, according it legitimacy with astonishing speed and without holding out for any benefits. That aside, India doggedly refused to term the displacement of Mr Nasheed as a coup without quite explaining how the overthrow of a democratically-elected leader could be anything but that.

Perhaps this was an error of judgement. Fair enough, even diplomats and Foreign Offices make mistakes. What compounded India’s folly was the flurry of news stories and media plants that followed. The Ministry of External Affairs claimed to have organised the transition in Male. Then it began a process of disparaging Mr Nasheed — saying he was unpredictable, authoritarian, anyway in bed with the Islamists, even if the Islamists were emerging even stronger with his departure.

Again all of this may be true, but the post facto rationalisation from South Block was rather perplexing. It created the impression that India was eager to curry favour with the new regime in Male, whatever the cost. It was diplomacy at its most clumsy.

A week ago, on Saturday, February 11, the Indian Express published a long report on Mr Nasheed’s relationship with India. The report was fairly detailed and obviously based on top-level briefings. One paragraph was astounding: “It’s learnt that Nasheed would regularly send lists of Maldivian students studying in India, who were suspected radicals. In fact, it was this effort which led to the discovery that many fundamentalist Maldivian groups were sending terror recruits in the garb of students to India, who would later smuggle themselves into Pakistan for training. He had also agreed to far-reaching defence arrangements with India after 26/11.”

However hard one tries, it is difficult to see the utility of this briefing. Indeed, the official who gave away this information is guilty of almost treason. In a couple of throwaway sentences, he revealed the President of another country was sending India names of dubious students. This has completely compromised Mr Nasheed in the Maldives, where his opponents will accuse him of prioritising Indian security over safety of and loyalty to his fellow citizens.

Is this how India treats a high-ranking intelligence asset, one at the level of head of state? After this, would any future political leader in the Maldives offer support and cooperation to India? Unable or unwilling to keep its mouth shut, what is the message the Indian establishment is sending?

A stolid, solid strategic and foreign policy establishment needs to have some key attributes — reticence, consistency, dependability and maturity. New Delhi often falters against these benchmarks. If at the end of the day it is left with weakened political leverage in Male, it will have only itself to blame. In the case of the attack on the Israeli diplomat, if India cannot convey a simple, unambiguous and public message to Iran that it will not tolerate its territory being used to launch a terror strike, how can it be expected to be taken seriously?

India has gone through this before. It blundered its way through the ‘revolution’ in Nepal without optimising its best interests. Today, it matters less in Kathmandu than it did a decade ago. In 1990, India was quite okay with Kuwait being gobbled up by Iraq. After the Americans and their allies went to war and liberated Kuwait, India looked mighty silly. Far from protecting its diaspora, New Delhi ended up hurting it. Indians were punished and denied jobs and contracts in reconstruction-era Kuwait.

Taking a cautious and calibrated approach in times of crisis is all very well, but this cannot become an excuse for following the line of least resistance. It ends up presenting India as a country that can live with and accept anything — a democratic Maldives, an Islamist Maldives, a nuclear Iran, a non-nuclear Iran, just anything. It leaves the world, and even stakeholders at home, wondering whether there is anything ideologically or strategically non-negotiable for India.

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Why Israel fears a nuclear Iran? By Dr. Robert Dickson Crane

Journal of America
http://www.journalofamerica.net/

February 1, 2012

Why Israel fears a nuclear Iran?

By Dr. Robert Dickson Crane

Writing under the title “Is a Nuclear Iran Really to Be Feared?” William Pfaff argues that the present Israeli policy is not based on fear of a nuclear attack by Iran (or by an Iranian proxy). “It is calculated to prevent the United States from imposing on Israel a solution to its relationship with the Palestinians. They do not wish a permanent legal frontier dividing them from some new and recognized Palestinian state—a frontier sponsored and also guaranteed by the United States, as well as by international law.”

I disagree with Pfaff 's explanation of the Israeli rationale for promoting an attack on Iran, namely, to distract America from a two state solution in Palestine, though I agree that neither Iran nor Israel are genuinely afraid of nuclear attack by the other.

The Israeli concern about Iran becoming a nuclear power is that a nuclear-armed Iran would eliminate the Israeli nuclear deterrent as its only security against conventional attack.  As long as Israel can wipe out all the major cities in the Middle East, Israel is impregnable.  If Iran can wipe out Israel, it would be foolhardy for Israel to wipe out anyone.  Such a standoff would reduce the Middle East to a strong Israeli conventional force against the combined conventional forces of half a dozen Arab countries, plus Turkey and Iran, perhaps reinforced by both Russia and China.  This would eliminate the Israeli option someday to drive all the Palestinians out of Palestine. 

Perhaps even more importantly, Israel, like France in the 1960s, can serve as a so-called catalytic force to attack any country, knowing that this would require America to attack also, because the alternative would be an attack on American so-called vital interests, including a terrorist attack on New York and Washington. 

If the Soviet Union had invaded Western Europe, the United States probably would not have come to Europe's support because this would have risked a Soviet attack on Washington.  If France, however, which was about to become the victim of a Soviet invasion, launched a single nuclear bomb toward Moscow, this would have led America to launch a preemptive attack on the Soviet Union in order to gain the advantage of a first versus a second strike. 

Thanks to Charles DeGaulle and his Force de Frappe, this deterred a U.S.-Soviet war and kept the peace for half a century. 

An Israeli nuclear monopoly would serve a similar purpose, which is one reason why America supports the Israeli strategy, even though in the long run for the Jews in the Middle East it could be suicidal. 

This catalytic logic is basic Strategy 101, the most basic of calculations, of which Bill Pfaff is quite familiar.  Therefore, I do not see why diverting the attention of the United States from a solution to the impasse in the Holy Land is his preferred explanation for the Israeli propaganda buildup for an American or Israeli/American attack on Iran's nuclear sites.  Israel knows also perfectly well that such an attack would not stop Iran's nuclear build-up, though it might delay a credible attack capability for a few years.  Israel is faced with an impossible dilemma.   

The only realistic solution would be for Israel to abandon the concept of a religious state and join an Abrahamic Federation of peoples with equal rights for everyone everywhere, based on economic cooperation (such as universal citizen ownership of the gas and oil fields off the coast of Gaza and Israel) as I and Norm Kurland have been advocating for decades.  When faced with the prospect of an unstable future based on brute force alone, which itself poses an existential threat to Jews, the Likudnik Israelis see no future other than to prepare for an Armaggedon, which is no solution to anything.

Perhaps the only way out is a Jewish Spring in America and similar "springs" elsewhere in the world, including Persian, Chinese, and Russian springs, and a Muslim Spring in America and the Middle East, based in part on the total rejection of all religious states everywhere as the worst of all polytheisms.  All the potential "springs" are interdependent, so the solution must begin everywhere. 

William Pfaff and I "grew up" together at Herman Kahn's Hudson Institute, which was the world's first professional long-range global forecasting firm back in the 1960s. 

Read William Pfaff’s article: Is a Nuclear Iran Really to Be Feared?

 
Dr. Robert Dickson Crane is the Co-Founder and Member of the Board of American Institute of International Studies (AIIS). He was once a colleague of William Pfaff at Herman Kahn's Hudson Institute, which was the world's first professional long-range global forecasting firm back in the 1960s.

UN 'Travesty': Resolutions Of Mass Destruction : By Medialens.org

http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=665:travesty-un-resolutions-of-mass-destruction-part-1&catid=25:alerts-2012&Itemid=69


February 14, 2012

UN 'Travesty': Resolutions Of Mass Destruction

It has been said that compassion is 'the only beauty that truly pleases' (Aryasura, The Marvelous Companion, Dharma Publishing, 1983, p.305). While beauty ordinarily provokes the fiery itch of desire or the sullen shadow of envy, compassion is cooling, blissful, inspiring awe and wonder. It implies an ability to stand outside our own needs as observers, to perceive the suffering of others as of equal or greater importance. But like all forms of beauty, compassion can be faked, exploited.

On February 4, Western politicians and journalists responded with outrage to the Russian and Chinese vetoing of a UN security council resolution calling for Syrian president Bashar Assad to step down as part of a ‘political transition’. UK foreign secretary, William Hague, said:

‘More than 2,000 people have died since Russia and China vetoed the last draft resolution in October 2011. How many more need to die before Russia and China allow the UN security council to act?

‘Those opposing UN security council action will have to account to the Syrian people for their actions, which do nothing to help bring an end to the violence that is ravaging the country. The United Kingdom will continue to support the people of Syria and the Arab League to find an end to the violence and allow a Syrian-led political transition.’

The corporate media took the same view. A leading article in the Independent commented:

‘Hillary Clinton described the vetoing of the UN resolution as a “travesty”. She is right. But this cannot be the international community's last word.’

Curiously, while Hague talked of the West’s determination ‘to find an end to the violence’, and the media railed against the Russians and Chinese for failing to seek the same, almost no-one noticed that the resolution had itself subordinated the possibility of a ceasefire to the demand for regime change.

The draft resolution did call ‘for an immediate end to all violence’. But it specifically demanded ‘that the Syrian government… withdraw all Syrian military and armed forces from cities and towns, and return them to their original home barracks’.

This one-sided demand that only Syrian government forces should withdraw from the streets closely resembled the Machiavellian device built into UN Resolution 1973 on Libya, passed on March 17, 2011.

This also called for ‘the immediate establishment of a cease-fire’ supported by ‘a ban on all flights’ in Libyan airspace. But crucially, the determination was added ‘to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi…’

This clearly had nothing to do with the mere banning of flights. Indeed, the authorisation to protect civilians by ‘all necessary means’ transformed Nato planes from neutral monitors of Libyan airspace into a ground-attack air force for ‘rebel’ fighters.

Far from bringing an end to the violence, UN Resolution 1973 unleashed overwhelming Western force in pursuit of regime change, in a war that was fought to the bitter end. To ensure the right outcome, Western and other powers supplied special forces and weapons, simply ignoring the resolution's call for 'strict implementation of the arms embargo' and 'excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory'. In short, the resolution resulted in a massive escalation in violence. Seumas Milne noted in the Guardian last week:

‘When it began, the death toll was 1,000 to 2,000. By the time Muammar Gaddafi was captured and lynched seven months later, it was estimated at more than 10 times that figure. The legacy of foreign intervention in Libya has also been mass ethnic cleansing, torture and detention without trial, continuing armed conflict, and a western-orchestrated administration so unaccountable it resisted revealing its members' names.’

The New York Times also reported last week: ‘The country that witnessed the Arab world’s most sweeping revolution [sic] is foundering’ with a government ‘whose authority extends no further than its offices’ and where ‘militias are proving to be the scourge of the revolution’s aftermath’.

Militia violence is rife – Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimates 250 separate militias in the city of Misrata alone. Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at HRW, said:

‘People are turning up dead in detention at an alarming rate. If this was happening under any Arab dictatorship, there would be an outcry.’

On January 26, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced its decision ‘to suspend its operations in detention centers in Misrata’. Detainees ‘are being tortured and denied urgent medical care’:

‘MSF doctors had been increasingly confronted with patients who suffered injuries caused by torture during interrogation sessions… In total, MSF treated 115 people who had torture-related wounds.... Since January, several of the patients returned to interrogation centers were again tortured.’

MSF general director Christopher Stokes commented:

‘Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.’

As ever, violence for which the West shares responsibility has been met with indifference and quickly forgotten. According to the media database Lexis-Nexis, Stokes' comments were mentioned once in half a dozen newspapers on January 27, with no follow up. Ironically, Bouckaert's comments on the absent 'outcry' have themselves been ignored.

As a result, the post-war disaster in Libya has given journalists little pause for thought on the merits of the West's latest 'humanitarian intervention' in Syria. Facts have to be recognised as real and important to have an impact.
'Further Measures'

Returning to the vetoed UN resolution, the one-sided demand that Syrian government forces withdraw, but not anti-government fighters, was combined with the demand that the Syrian government ‘facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system’ – regime change by any other name - ‘in an environment free from violence, fear, intimidation and extremism’. The draft text promised ‘to review implementation of this resolution within 21 days and, in the event of non-compliance, to consider further measures’.

The trap was clear enough – Syrian forces would have been ordered back to barracks. If the fighters had continued fighting and government forces had responded, this would have constituted ‘non-compliance’, opening the way for ‘further measures’, including foreign intervention leading to regime change. This would have given Syrian fighters every motivation to continue the violence in hopes of triggering the kind of Western intervention that destroyed Gaddafi and that they have been openly seeking.

None of this should come as a surprise. For the West, a peaceful solution in Libya (as in Iraq) was perceived as an obstacle to the actual goal, regime change. Milne observed last August: ‘If stopping the killing had been the real aim, Nato states would have backed a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement, rather than repeatedly vetoing both. Instead, UN Resolution 1973 ‘has since been used as Nato's fig leaf to justify the onslaught against Gaddafi and deliver regime change from the air’.

Consider, then, that we have strong evidence that the vetoed resolution on Syria would have escalated violence in pursuit of regime change (an illegal aspiration under international law). We have the clear example of Libya, from just last year, of very similar machinations producing regime change, a ten times increase in violence, and massive post-war chaos and violence.

If this isn’t enough to question the ‘black and white’ portrayal of the Russian and Chinese veto as a ‘travesty’, we can consider the filmed testimony of former Nato chief, General Wesley Clark, when he recalled a conversation with a Pentagon general in 2001, a few weeks after the September 11 attacks:

‘He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”’

Clark added:

‘They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.’

He recounted a conversation he had had in 1991 with Paul Wolfowitz, then US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, who told Clark: ‘we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran, Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us’.

In response, Clark said he asked himself: ‘the purpose of the military is to start wars and change governments? It’s not to deter conflicts?’

Clark’s conclusion will be blindingly obvious to future historians, if not to contemporary journalists:

‘[T]here are always interests. The truth about the Middle East is, had there been no oil there, it would be like Africa. Nobody is threatening to intervene in Africa. The problem is the opposite. We keep asking for people to intervene and stop [violence]. There’s no question that the presence of petroleum throughout the region has sparked great power involvement.’

It is hard to imagine Clark being dismissed as a crazed conspiracy theorist lacking 'insider' knowledge – he was Nato chief, after all. But his account has been ignored – talk of a hidden agenda of realpolitik challenges the Manichean view of the world that makes ‘humanitarian intervention’ possible. We can find only one mention of Clark's comments in all UK national newspapers – by Clark himself in an article for The Times in 2003 (Clark, ‘Iraq: Why it was the wrong war on the wrong enemy for the wrong reasons,’ The Times, October 23, 2003).

In light of the above facts and arguments, it is interesting to consider the comments of UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, who condemned the Russian and Chinese veto as ‘disastrous for the Syrian people’. The failure to agree on collective action, he said, had ‘encouraged the Syrian government to step up its war on its own people’.

But honest analysis suggests serious room for doubt - the vetoed resolution might itself have been disastrous for the Syrian people. With these words, the UN secretary-general told us much about his own position. Indeed, the near-unanimity in outrage that has characterised so much commentary, despite obvious holes in the reasoning, is symptomatic of a widespread conformity that defers to 'pragmatic' considerations rather than to common sense.

It is interesting, also, to consider in more detail the response of the corporate press.

On February 6, a cry of moral outrage arose from that collection of selfless humanitarians otherwise known as The Times newspaper. Responding to fighting in the Syrian city of Homs, which has included government shelling of civilian areas variously reported to have claimed scores or hundreds of lives, a Times leading article observed:

‘Pensioners, the sick, women, children - none was spared as the military took revenge on the centre of opposition to the Assad dictatorship.’ (Leading article, ‘Moral Blindness; Russia and China acted for self-serving motives in vetoing the Security Council's condemnation of the bloodshed in Syria,’ The Times, February 6, 2012)

The leader pulled no punches in describing ‘the carnage the regime's minders have tried to hide: corpses with their eyes gouged out, their skulls crushed, their faces burnt off.’

The editors fumed:

‘Russia's moral bankruptcy and China's self-serving blindness have been denounced from the Gulf to Morocco...’

As we saw in Part 1, and as also in this case, the denunciations are mostly offered by people drowning in hypocrisy. The Times concluded that, ‘no veto can, in the end, save [the Syrian government] from the fury of a nation so humiliatingly brutalised’.

Syrian government violence is real and horrific, but not a word in the article commented on the armed fighters in Syria that are reported to have killed many hundreds of Syrian troops and police. Unable to perceive the Western interests described by former Nato chief Wesley Clark (See Part 1), The Times was able to identify cynical self-interest elsewhere:

‘Russia is determined, above all, to protect its naval presence in Syria, thwart Western interests in the region and shield a regime that now owes it an existential debt.’

Compare The Times’ response to Israel’s far more destructive Operation Cast Lead offensive in the Gaza strip between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reported:

‘The magnitude of the harm to the population was unprecedented: 1,385 Palestinians were killed, 762 of whom did not take part in the hostilities. Of these, 318 were minors under age 18. More than 5,300 Palestinians were wounded, of them over 350 seriously so. Israel also caused enormous damage to residential dwellings, industrial buildings, agriculture and infrastructure for electricity, sanitation, water, and health, which was on the verge of collapse prior to the operation. According to UN figures, Israel destroyed more than 3,500 residential dwellings and 20,000 people were left homeless.’

Three Israeli civilians and six Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian fire.

In a leader, The Times sternly rejected the subsequent Goldstone Report – a mission established by the UN to investigate war crimes during the crisis. Goldstone found that crimes had been committed by both sides. Understandably, the report focused heavily on the ‘disproportionate use of force’ by the Israelis in its ‘deliberate targeting’ of Palestinian civilians. Despite the casualty figures, The Times found this absurd because ‘there is no equivalence between the actions of Israel in self-defence and those of Hamas in seeking to destroy it’.

Describing the offensive as merely an ‘incursion’ (the Syrian government’s attacks in Homs are a ‘massacre’ for The Times) the editors wrote of Israel:

‘It had no choice but to respond to [Palestinian] provocations.’ (Leading article, ‘The Gaza Trap; The Goldstone report is biased and Europeans on the UN Human Rights Council should reject it rather than abstaining,’ The Times, October 16, 2009)

Despite the obvious scale of the carnage, The Times claimed: ‘Israel adheres to standards higher than those of its enemies.’

A recent leader in the Independent expressed similar revulsion at Russia and China’s veto: ‘the violence in Homs in recent days – with fears of a full-scale military assault to come – is a direct result of their unforgivable self-interest’. It added:

‘Moscow has abandoned the Syrian people to the depredations of a regime that is daily becoming more murderous.’

As we have seen, the reality could be close to the reverse – the proposed resolution might have inflicted far worse violence on the Syrian people. It might have abandoned the Syrian people to the depredations of the West. As for the ‘unforgivable self-interest’ noted by the Independent, do we really believe – after Iraq and Libya – that US-UK interests are less self-centred?

Again, by contrast, two weeks into Israel’s Operation Cast Lead offensive, an Independent leader commented on January 10, 2009:

‘Israel's invasion of Gaza seemed depressingly far from an endgame last night, despite the encouraging signs from the UN Security Council. Although the Security Council produced a ceasefire resolution, it was fatally undermined by the American abstention.’

The US's undermining of UN action was not widely condemned as a ‘travesty’ at the time – how Hillary Clinton described the vetoing of the UN resolution on Syria, with the Independent’s approval. Instead, the Independent noted of Operation Cast Lead:

‘A good deal of nonsense has been spoken this past week regarding Israel's military operation. The most egregious contribution has come from a senior Catholic cardinal, who has compared the Gaza Strip to a "concentration camp". The comparison is entirely spurious…

‘Moreover, the idea being pushed by some propagandists in the West that the Israeli state is deliberately setting out to kill innocent Palestinians is just as offensive and wrong. The Israel administration's priority in this operation is to defend its citizens from rocket attacks by Hamas.’
Arming Bahrain - A William Hague Tragi-Comedy

Happily, not all of the Independent's coverage is as crass and biased as this. As discussed in Part 1, UK foreign secretary William Hague commented last week on the Russian and Chinese veto:

‘More than 2,000 people have died since Russia and China vetoed the last draft resolution in October 2011. How many more need to die before Russia and China allow the UN security council to act?’

Tragi-comically, two days later, the Independent reported:

‘Two Cabinet ministers will be challenged today over fears that British-made weapons have been used to suppress dissidents in Bahrain and Egypt.

‘Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, are to be tackled by MPs over arms sales worth more than £12m to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in just three months.’

The article continued:

‘Between July and September 2011, Britain sold weapons worth £2.2m to Bahrain, of which £1.3m was specifically for military use. It included gun silencers, naval guns and weapons sights.

‘At least 35 people died as the Gulf state's monarchy crushed the so-called Pearl Revolution last year. It called in help from its ally, Saudi Arabia, which sent troops and armored vehicles across the causeway linking the countries.

‘Over the same period £8.9m-worth of arms were sold to Saudi Arabia, of which £4.5m was for military use. It included parts for combat aircraft, for army vehicles and for machine guns.

‘As well as the suspicion that the UK could have indirectly helped to put down the Bahraini uprising, MPs will also raise concerns over Saudi Arabia's human rights record.’

Unfortunately, US and UK journalists almost never join the evidential dots for and against Hague and Cable’s claimed enthusiasm for ‘humanitarian intervention’. Hence this comment in a Guardian leader last week:

‘Does Russia really want to be the global protector of tyrants who turn their guns on their own people simply in order to get one back against the west after the overthrow of a worthless leader like Gaddafi?... Russia has put itself on the wrong side of the argument.’

The West’s extraordinary history of supporting tyrants – including Suharto, Somoza, Trujillo, Armas, Pinochet, Diem, Amin, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Saleh, Mubarak, and many others - makes this laughable. So, too, does the travesty of the US’s long history of vetoing UN resolutions intended to protect the Palestinians and others. The Guardian added:

‘There is a case, of an extremely limited sort, to be made for some of Russia's obstructionism over Syria. Moscow has decided it was misled by the west over Libya. It is therefore determined not to help sanction any sort of repetition over Syria (even though the vetoed UN motion explicitly renounced regime change and the use of force).’

Moscow has ‘decided’ nothing – it was misled over Libya. The UN did not authorise the regime change that the West achieved by transforming UN Resolution 1973 into a weapon of mass destruction.

Analysis of the wording of the failed UN resolution on Syria also makes a nonsense of the Guardian’s assurances on the West having ‘renounced regime change and the use of force’ – ‘further measures’ would have been sought after 21 days in the event of ‘non-compliance’.

The BBC’s Paul Wood, a safe pair of hands reporting from Homs, Syria, commented:

‘In the first hour or so, we heard a lot of gunfire from rebel fighters of the Free Syria Army. It was a futile gesture - Kalashnikovs against artillery.’

In October 2004, reporting from Iraq’s third city, Fallujah, the same Paul Wood referred to the ‘so-called “resistance fighters”’ of Fallujah. (Wood, BBC1, 13:00 News, October 22, 2004)

In 2004, Fallujah faced a rather more formidable foe than does Homs. It was subjected to all-out assault by 3rd Battalion/1st US Marines, 3rd Battalion/5th Marines, the US Army's 2nd Battalion/7th Cavalry, the 1st Battalion/8th Marines, 1st Battalion/3rd Marines, and the Army's 2nd Battalion/2nd Infantry, totalling 10,500 heavily armed troops. Some 2,000 Iraqi soldiers joined the attack. These were supported by massive air support, as well as Marine and Army artillery battalions. The 850-strong 1st battalion of the British Black Watch regiment was tasked to help encircle the city.

This was more than shelling; it was a major, World War II-style offensive on residential areas.

On November 30, 2004, the UN's Integrated Regional Information Network described the results:

‘Approximately 70 per cent of the houses and shops were destroyed in the city and those still standing are riddled with bullets.’ (‘Fallujah still needs more supplies despite aid arrival,’ www.irinnews.org, November 30, 2004)

In January 2005, an Iraqi doctor, Ali Fadhil, reported of the city:

‘It was completely devastated, destruction everywhere. It looked like a city of ghosts. Falluja used to be a modern city; now there was nothing. We spent the day going through the rubble that had been the centre of the city; I didn’t see a single building that was functioning.’

The Red Cross estimated 800 civilian deaths by November 16. Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia have also since been reported.

Paul Wood commented from Homs:

‘"The UN abandoned us," one Homs resident told me. "Who's going to help us now, who's going to help us now?"

‘People said that to me over and over; that they felt abandoned, alone.

‘After the failure of the vote in the UN Security Council at the weekend, they have lost hope that the outside world will help.

‘They expect the worst from a regime they fear can now act without restraint.’

We can recall nothing comparable from Wood in November 2004 as Fallujah was being devastated by the US-UK attack. Then, it would have been politically incorrect for a BBC journalist to suggest that Iraqi civilians ‘felt abandoned’, that they had ‘lost hope that the outside world will help’. After all, the BBC portrayed US and UK forces attacking Iraq as liberators. How could the people require saving from the troops sent to ‘save’ them? As Wood himself said in December 2005:

‘The coalition came to Iraq in the first place to bring democracy and human rights.’ (Paul Wood, BBC1, News at Ten, December 22, 2005)

Ironically, like other media that dismissed highly credible scientific analyses of the death toll in Iraq - published in one of the world's most respected medical journals, the Lancet - the BBC has been reporting hundreds of deaths in Homs based on anecdotal evidence and highly questionable sources. Robert Dreyfuss comments in The Nation:

‘The killings in Syria are ugly, but no doubt wildly exaggerated. Nearly all, repeat all, of the information about the violence in Syria is coming from a handful of exiled Syrian opposition groups backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and various Western powers. Did 200 people really die in Homs this past weekend, conveniently just on the eve of the UNSC debate [on the resolution]? Who knows? The only source for the fishy information, though ubiquitously quoted in the New York Times, the wire services, the network news and elsewhere, are the suspect Syrian opposition groups, who have axes galore to grind.’

A key source for BBC reporting has long been the British-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Aisling Byrne writes in the Asian Times:

‘Of the three main sources for all data on numbers of protesters killed and numbers of people attending demonstrations - the pillars of the narrative - all are part of the “regime change” alliance. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, in particular, is reportedly funded through a Dubai-based fund with pooled (and therefore deniable) Western-Gulf money…. What appears to be a nondescript British-based organization, the Observatory has been pivotal in sustaining the narrative of the mass killing of thousands of peaceful protesters using inflated figures, “facts”, and often exaggerated claims of “massacres” and even recently “genocide”.’

In an interview with ABC News, the Syrian Observatory’s Dr Mousab Azzawi gave an idea of the dispassionate tone of the analysis: ‘In two words, this is a genocide.’

Just as deep media scepticism in response to the peer-reviewed Lancet studies on Iraq was near-universal, so blind faith in the claims of Syrian ‘activist groups’ has become the accepted norm. A Telegraph leader even combined the two biases to paint the preferred picture:

'Over the weekend, the Syrian government carried out the most savage reprisals against its opponents since the recent uprising began. More than 200 people are thought to have been killed by artillery, tanks and mortars in Homs. That figure compares with the worst daily spikes in violence in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. And the death total in Syria over the past 11 months – more than 5,600, according to UN estimates – is well above that over the same period for its still troubled eastern neighbour.'

That is true, if we accept unsubstantiated reports from ‘activists’ in Syria. And if we ignore the Lancet’s science in favour of figures supplied by the obviously flawed and incomplete Iraq Body Count.

On the BBC’s Newsnight programme, high-profile anchor Jeremy Paxman opened the programme with:

‘We don’t know precisely how many people have been killed by the Syrian army as President Assad tries to murder those who oppose his dictatorship. But we do know that they include children. All this while China and Russia provide a form of diplomatic protection.’ (Newsnight, February 6, 2012)

Has Paxman ever accused Bush, Blair, Obama, Cameron or their armies of trying ‘to murder’ their opponents?

And Paxman’s opening question to Alexander Nekrasov, former Kremlin advisor: ‘Are you comfortable having the blood of Syrians on your hands?’

Imagine Paxman asking something comparable of a high-ranking British or American politician. But in fact Paxman could pose a similar question to Hague, Cameron and Obama: Why did the West prioritise regime change over peace in Libya, at such horrific cost? And why is it doing so now in Syria?

Paxman’s Newsnight colleague, Mark Urban, commented helpfully: 'the US, UK, and France have emphasised that their approach on Syria has been motivated by humanitarian compassion and the desire to see a transition to democracy, rather than a desire to strike a blow against Iran by toppling its close friend President Assad’.

Wesley Clark’s revelations, the facts, and simple common sense, suggest that genuine answers will not be found in the ‘humanitarian compassion’ of a Western political system notoriously in thrall to corporate interests.


SUGGESTED ACTION

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Please write to:

Paul Wood at the BBC

Email: paul.wood@bbc.co.uk

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Email: tony.gallagher@telegraph.co.uk

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Resist US blackmail on Iran By NITYA CHAKRABORTY - The Free Press Journal, Mumbai, India

 While Mumbai's 2 major English language newspapers, The Times of India and Indian Express are reluctant to follow Government's line of neutrality on the Delhi Bomb blast supposedly targeted on an Israeli Diplomatic car, Mumbai's FREE PRESS JOURNAL is apparently not vulnerable to Jewish and US pressure groups in India and had been publishing articles that go deeper into the intricacies of relations between India and Iran and how it is in our national interest to not to bow down to unwarranted and automatic hegemonic pressures from the US and Israel. India will have now on to be extra vigilant that the two rogue powers do not take revenge measures if and when India resists their blackmail.


Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai



http://www.freepressjournal.in/news/48295-resist-us-blackmail-on-iran.html

Resist US blackmail on Iran

• India
• Feb 16, 2012

By NITYA CHAKRABORTY  
The time has come for our Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to call the US bluff and frankly tell these Americans that Indians have enough intelligence to decide how to deal with the Iran issue and there is no need to be dictated by the foreign policy interests of another country.

Dr. Singh is a soft person and the US administration got the upper hand because of the Indian Prime Ministers big anxiety to get the India- US Nuclear Deal clinched at any cost. That phase is over and Indias hopes of getting a big deal by signing the Agreement, have not been fulfilled. Rather, the US has started direct interference in the trade policy of India by putting big pressure to join the trade embargo imposed by it unilaterally.

The US highhandedness has now gone too far. Following the incident involving the Israeli diplomat on Monday, the US has started an orchestrated campaign as if the Iranian Government is directly involved in the bomb blast and India has to join the war against terror with the US and Israel targeted at Iran. The US senators are warning the Indian officials in Washington against our soft handling of the Iranian issue and what is more, the US is protesting against the sending of an Indian business delegation to Teheran to boost bilateral ties.

Traditionally, the US administration has always had a powerful Jewish lobby to influence policies. They are most active in the US chambers and also pressure groups. There is a consistent campaign now that India is ignoring the US imposed sanctions on Iran and tough stand should be taken against India to ensure that it falls in line with the US position. This clamour began after the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's candid statement last month in Chicago that India would not care for US sanctions, it will abide by only sanctions imposed by the United Nations and its Iran policy will be based on its own understanding within the framework of the UN decisions.

This pressure from the US will be mounting in the coming days further and India has to make clear its position with an equally tough stand. India is a sovereign nation and it knows well how to abide by the international laws as also its national interests. Iran is India's second largest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia and India is working on a formula to arrange the payment for oil imports so that the crucial oil supplies are maintained and at the same time, the payments can be made to the Iranians who certainly need the funds as urgently as India requires the oil supplies. Discussions have taken place for stepping up exports of goods and services from India so that the liability due to oil imports get reduced.

India has the prerogative to decide on this and the US has no business to object to such arrangements China is expanding its exports to Iran and in the same manner, China is trying to reduce its dependence on oil supplies.

China is taking measures on the basis of its best trade interests and it is caring a hoot for the US sanctions. It has now got more leverage with Iranian regime and, in fact, China is waiting to expand its role further in energy and construction activities in Iran in the context of the withdrawal of some western companies from Iran. China is a big competitor to India in the west and central Asia region in the area of energy security and India can not leave the ground to China by reducing its commitments to Iran.

The US has made a mess of its foreign policy by getting influenced by the Israeli lobby in the administration. This lobby is for regime change in the Muslim nations to suit its own strategic interests. President Obama, despite his unorthodox views on a number of issues, is a prisoner to this set of people who are traditionally very strong in the Democratic Party leadership. In the Presidential elections year, the US despite all sabre rattling, cannot take any risk to hit Iran's so-called nuclear installations. Therefore, it wants to cripple Iran through trade embargo and other economic sanctions and it wants to rope in other nations including India to achieve its objective. India has to surrender its own strategic interests if it has to abide by US diktat. That will be a surrender of India's national interests to the US strategic interests.

Every country has its own perspective and understanding of its security concerns within the overall geo- political environment.
India has more concerns with the nuclear capability of Pakistan and the possible instability to the disadvantage of India in its neighbouring Afghanistan after the US withdrawal.

The US has not taken care till now to address the concerns of the Indian government.

Then how does US expect that India will join the trade embargo against Iran imposed by the US as a part of its strategic policy on regime change.

India has to give a fresh look at its so-called strategic ties with the US. India is not being fully involved in the US initiatives in Afghanistan. The post- US withdrawal situation may not be at all to India's advantage if the US moves on negotiations with the Taliban lead to some understanding. India which has good business equation with the Iranian regime is being pressurized by US to forgo that opportunity to serve US strategic interests. India's economic relations with Iran have nothing to do with Iran's policy on nuclearisation. 

This is a separate political issue being tackled in international forums. The US and EU are in fact pushing Iran to a hardened stand by economic sanctions.

For India, the issue of energy security is of prime importance in the economic planning of the country. India presently imports more than 70 percent of its crude oil from the other oil producing countries including Iran and Saudi Arabia.

This share might go up and India has a long- term interests in getting LNG supplies from Iran also. This necessitates a long- term relationship with Iran and that is possible within the parameters of the UN sanctions. India should talk to China, Russia and other BRICS members and see that BRICS take a stand on this issue at the summit in New Delhi next month. BRICS members are the engine of growth in the global economy. They have to stand up to the US blackmail and ensure that the trade embargo is not used to serve the strategic interests of any big nation.

WAS IT A STAGE- MANAGED CAR BOMB? - THE FREE PRESS JOURNAL - MUMBAI -INDIA

http://freepressjournal.in/news/48041-was-it-a-stage-managed-car-bomb.html

WAS IT A STAGE- MANAGED CAR BOMB?

• India
• Feb 15, 2012

OUR BUREAU New Delhi

The UPA Government is concerned over the possibility of the covert Israel- Iran conflict spilling over in the national capital, with Israel repeatedly pointing an accusing finger at Iran for the bombing of its embassy car near Prime Minister's residence on Monday, but without any evidence to back its claim.

Though India called it a " terror attack," both Home Minister P Chidambaram and External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna did not echo the Israeli accusations against Iran. Chidambaram Chidambaram merely said that the motorcyclist who planted the sophisticated magnetic explosive device on the Israeli car was "very well trained.'' All the pieces of the Israeli jigsaw do not seem to fit. Eyewitness Manjeet Singh, who was trailing the Israeli embassy's Innova car, has told the police that he did not see any motorcyclist sticking the reported magnetic bomb to the car. Security agencies are now probing the angle whether the attack was stage- managed by Israelis to ratchet up tensions with Iran. They are also looking at the possibility of the bomb being activated by a remote- controlled device.

Incidentally, the Israelis are not giving Indians any access to Tal ehoshua Koren, wife of the Israeli military attaché, who was wounded in the explosion.

In fact, on Tuesday the buzz was that she might be flown to Jerusalem as soon as her condition stabilises. Realizing that she might slip out of their hands, the security agencies have communicated to the Israeli authorities through the MEA that she will not be allowed to leave Delhi until her testimony is recorded. They want her to cooperate in the probe and stay put in the Capital for the time being.

The security agencies' inquiries at the private Primus Hospital, too, have been stonewalled. The hospital claims to have conducted surgeries on the military attaché's wife to remove shrapnel that pierced her in the explosion, but it is not providing any exact details, nor allowing the Indian sleuths to speak to her on the plea that she is still in the intensive care unit.

She was not as badly injured as the Primus doctors are claiming, sources said.

Every citizen in Israel has to compulsorily undergo army training and the calmness shown by Koren after the blast reinforces suspicion that a trained militia person could be part of the staged- managed bombing job. Koren was conscious and talking coherently with people who extricated her from the burning car, and even directed them to take her to the embassy and not to a hospital. The embassy staff, too, did not allow the police to take her to a government hospital, which raises suspicion, sources in the investigation team said. Also, the incident happened before she picked up her children from school.

The Indian security agencies have also sought information about the defused bomb in an Israeli embassy car in Georgia and the latest blasts in Bangkok to ascertain if there was any link, since media reports have suggested that the same kind of magnetic bombs were used there.

INVESTIGATORS ARRIVE: Israel, meanwhile, flew in its top detectives to join the investigations into the abortive attempt to blow up the car. Giving the first official sequence of the incident after getting a briefing from the police commissioner, Chidambaram said the device exploded within seconds. The biker took advantage of the red light at the crossing to come from behind to stick the sophisticated device on the trunk side of the rear door.

He said the CCTV cameras in the area were screened, but there was " no clear image of the motorcycle rider or the number plate." The Police Commissioner, in turn, said the bomb appears to be most sophisticated and could not have been assembled in India.

An intelligence alert that Israel may hit back has led to heightened security alert at the Iranian embassy here, even as Israeli sleuths who arrived from Tel- Aviv claimed four suspects involved in the Monday attack were holed up in the embassy.
----------

http://epaper.fpj.co.in/Details.aspx?id=15651&boxid=2245093

Unfazed by US, India to step up ties with Iran

India is set to ramp up its energy and business ties with Iran, with a commerce ministry team heading to Tehran later this month to explore fresh business opportunities

New Delhi

Unfazed by US sanctions and Israel linking Tehran to the attack on an Israeli embassy car here, India is set to ramp up its energy and business ties with Iran, with a commerce ministry team heading to Tehran to explore fresh business opportunities, reports IANS. The team is expected to go to Tehran later this month to discuss steps to expand India's trade with Iran, part of a larger strategy to pay for Iranian oil, said highlyplaced sources.

Despite the US and European Union sanctions on Iran, India recently sealed a payment mechanism under which Indian companies will pay for 45 percent of their crude oil imports from Iran in rupees.

Not just oil, India is also stepping up the refurbishing of the Chabahar Port in Iran and a strategic railway link that will offer it direct access to Afghanistan and the energy- rich Central Asia.

In recent years, India has taken care to insulate its multi- faceted ties with Iran from the West's collision with Tehran over its nuclear programme. The West accuses Iran of developing nuclear bombs.

India is uneasy at Israeli accusations about Iran's hand in the Monday bombing that targeted an Israeli embassy car, badly injuring the wife of the Israeli defence attache.

India, the sources said, does not want to be drawn into a diplomatic war of words between Tehran and Tel Aviv. Iran has rubbished Israeli charges as " empty lies". But with Israel launching a diplomatic offensive and the American Jewish Congress ( AJC) asking India to scale down its engagement with Iran, New Delhi could come under renewed pressure from the West to cut off ties with what the Americans say is a rogue regime.

India has launched a probe into the terror attack.

" The probe is on," is all Indian officials would say.

K C Singh, a former Indian ambassador to Iran, told IANS: " Anything is possible.

We have to wait and watch." Ajai Sahni, a terrorism expert, said that it was very unlikely that the attack would ever be traced to the Iranian state.

But he agreed that India could be under extra pressure as Israel may leverage the incident to portray Iran as a rogue regime.

The American Jewish Congress has told Indian ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao that it was " deeply troubled" by India's efforts to intensify trade relations with Iran " at the very moment when the US and fellow democracies are applying new economic pressures" on Tehran.

The Car Bomb that Exposed India's Sham Sovereignty - By Arun Shrivastava - Salem_News.com

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february142012/india-israel-as.php

Feb-14-2012 04:13

The Car Bomb that Exposed India's Sham Sovereignty

  
By Arun Shrivastava Salem-News.com

A targeted move to frame Iran? Would Mossad sacrifice their own?

(DELHI, India) - The important thing about the attack on Israeli diplomat’s car [Number: 109 CD 35; blue number plate with CD meaning Diplomatic Corps] is that it happened within the square mile of sanitized Delhi that rules over 1.2 billion Indians. This is an intensely patrolled area; at every intersection you will find a fast police car with armed policemen to cordon off an entire street or several streets within seconds of any terrorist event.

Therefore, it is simply inconceivable that a lone rider on a motorbike stopped by the Israeli diplomat’s car, attached an explosive device, and scooted from the scene before the car blew up. And all of this within seconds. Either the policemen were sleeping-all of them, at the same time-at quarter past three; or something else happened. The lone eye witness who saw something being attached could have been any one, or anything, we don’t know.

On Aurangzeb Road, an address to die for, every hour 1500-2000 cars move. By counting the stately mansions on this road, you can arrive at an approximate figure of India’s current dollar billionaires.

About fifteen years ago, one of the residents of Aurangzeb Road, a well connected big industrialist, was offered several million dollars in monthly rent and a deposit of a corpus of Rs 500 million in any bank anywhere in the world. This is one of the most beautiful homes on Aurangzeb Road and the person who offered the deal was the then Israeli Ambassador to India. Some folks are extremely pushy and today the Israeli Embassy is located somewhere on Aurangzeb Road.

Within hours of the attack that injured the wife of an Israeli diplomat, the Israeli Government was spewing venom on Iranians. And within hours, an embarrassed Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna, recently back from his Tel Aviv sojourn, came out with a guarded statement that ‘investigation have started’ [whatever that means]. By evening the American Zionist lobby passed its judgment that India’s relationship with Iran is a violation of decent international behavior.

Need Indians remind the Zionist lobby that India’s relationship with its West Asian neighbors goes back six millennia [i.e. 6,000 years x 365 days=2.19 million days] if not earlier? Zionist Israel arrived in these parts about six decades ago and that too illegally. Zionist bankers bank-rolled the British occupation of large part of Asia [East, South and West] and extracted their pound of flesh by dispossessing the Palestinians. Perhaps they made an offer that the Palestinians refused, just as the Indian businessman on Aurangzeb Road; and so they acquired a prime property in West Asia by force, and by deceit on Aurangzeb Road.

How many Iranian nuclear scientists have been done in by the Mossad? Hourly, we hear that Iranians must be stopped from becoming a nuclear power. Hourly we hear that Iran is a terrorist country; switch on the neo-liberal imperialist TV channels-CNN or BBC or Fox- and the presenters are usually frothing with spittle drooling from the corner of their slavish mouths.

What was the role of Mossad in Mumbai mayhem on the night of 26th November, 2008? The killing of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg brought about a global outcry almost in unison against anti-semitism and the vicious designs of Islamic terrorists. And within hours Abraham Foxman, Director of the Anti Defamation League, came out with his own variety of venom:

“  This brutal attack once again shows that terrorists single out Jews. The attack is a reminder that the world must stand up against all terrorism, because in the end no one is safe until terrorism is combated in all its manifestations."


It never occurred to this foxy Foxman that a determined terrorist would spare Chabad House for two victims when he/she can attack thousands living illegally in the remote villages in Kullu valley and around Dharamshala [Dalai Lama’s de facto capital]. 

Over 10,000 Israelis, mostly from the armed forces, come here, live illegally, smoke pot and screw around. Very soon, Yiddish, the Ashkenazi lingo, will become the second language in these parts. I know these villages very well.

Why has the Chabad House been under investigation in India? In February this year, the Israeli couple running the Mumbai Chabad was told to leave India? 4000 Chabad Houses in 73 countries, ostensibly to provide support to visiting Israelis, perhaps to supply pure Kosher meat, in reality a huge global network of ‘Crack.’ And this is not an isolated event. Since Mumbai mayhem, many Israelis all over India have been told to leave.

Is the Delhi car bombing related to the pressures being brought on by Israelis [the tail] that wags the dog [London and DC] for India to rethink buying oil and gas from Iran violating the “international sanction” imposed by a few imperialist powers? 

Blow up a few more high profile Israelis, in the square mile of the power centre of India and world’s mainstream media would blow your TV screens, so loud would be the condemnation of Islamic Jehadists from Iran. 

Holding 1.4 trillion dollars of ill gotten gains in the Zionist banks, the Indian political class will capitulate. Or lose their cash and properties in Monaco, London, Paris, and Cayman Islands.

Hasn’t it already? When 9/11 happened, the senile PM Vajpayee wanted Baby Bush to “select” his India as a key partner in West’s sham GWOT. His Home Minister, another senile politician Lal Krishna Advani, went to Tel Aviv a year earlier to forge an alliance to fight Islamic terrorists, giving vital operational base to the Mossad in sensitive Kashmir. Headed by Eli Katzir of the Israel Counter-Terrorism Combat Unit and Israeli military intelligence officials, a new era of “cooperation” with world’s Zionism starts and with each passing year, the Indian intelligence architecture got more and more deeply penetrated by those very forces that engineer terrorist acts worldwide.

Don’t the Indian intelligence agencies know what is going on? Of course they do; just as top operatives in the CIA and FBI know what was going on; the serious ones within French, German and British intelligence also know what is going on.

And they all know that Car No 109 CD 35 has served the purpose of terrifying the political class within the square mile. But the folks who live within that square mile have stashed too many billions in Israel friendly banksters’ banks not to take it rather seriously.

Iran-Israel war in Delhi – India in a fix By Ajith Vijay Kumar - ZEE NEWS

http://zeenews.india.com/news/exclusive/iran-israel-war-in-delhi-india-in-a-fix_758411.html

Zee Exclusive

Iran-Israel war in Delhi – India in a fix

 Last Updated: Tuesday, February 14, 2012,

Ajith Vijay Kumar

The attack on an Israeli Embassy car in Delhi has sent India’s security agencies in a tizzy and the least of their worries appears to be the realisation that a terror attack can be successfully attempted in the high-security zone near to Prime Minister’s residence.

But what undoubtedly is the biggest cause of alarm is Israel’s claim that the daring attack was carried out by arch-enemies Iran and its ‘proxy’ Hezbollah - a Shia Muslim militant group and political party based in Lebanon which came into prominence after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Inspired by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, Hezbollah leaders have called for the destruction of Israel, which they refer to as the ‘Zionist entity’.

Tel Aviv appears to have based its assessment about perpetrators of Delhi attack on the fact that simultaneous attack was also mounted on its Embassy in Georgia and because it had come a day after the fourth anniversary of the killing of Hezbollah’s deputy leader Imad Mughniyeh. Hezbollah had vowed to avenge Mughnieyeh’s assassination in a car-bombing in Damascus.

Moreover, Israel is also locked in a wider covert war with Iran over the latter’s nuclear program. There have been apparent attempts to sabotage Tehran’s nuclear ambition, including the unclaimed killings of several Iranian nuclear scientists – all blamed on Israel by Iran.

Iran has denied involvement in yesterday’s attacks and accused Israel of carrying out the attacks itself. Hezbollah made no comment.

For India, yesterday’s event brought forth the very real possibility of being big pulled into a conflict that is not of its own making.

New Delhi is surely at crossroads and risks upsetting the delicate balance it had achieved in its Middle-East policy. On one hand is its ever-growing strategic and defence relationship with Israel and on the other is the critical economic equation with Iran.

All along, India has been able to strike a middle path between the two, but after yesterday’s attack it is close to being forced to take sides – something it has avoided all along, but now may find it difficult to go further with.

So what’s at stake?

India-Iran : India’s relationship with Iran has been a long standing one. The civilisation bonds between the two nations run deep. In recent history, the ties improved after the Cold War freeze when both countries worked together in Afghanistan, in early 1990s, to provide support to the Northern Alliance in its fight against the Taliban.

But the fulcrum around which Indo-Iranian ties revolve today is trade. Iran is India’s second biggest source of crude oil and thus plays a critical role in keeping its growth engine on track.

India can’t easily let go off Iranian crude at a time when China and Russia are aggressively making their presence felt in the region.

Pressure from the West had forced India to vote against Iran over its nuclear program at the IAEA but New Delhi has always stopped short of joining the forces looking to isolate Tehran.

India's broader position on the issue is relatively straightforward. India believes that Iran has the right to pursue civilian nuclear energy but wants clarity on the way it goes about it.

Although reports have claimed that the West has promised New Delhi of ‘alternative sources of oil’ but it is certain that the promise comes with strings attached.

Moreover, India has world’s third largest Shia population and that too concentrated in politically important Uttar Pradesh, making it very difficult for the ruling class to take a belligerent stand against Iran.

India-Israel : Traditionally India has been pro-Arab (who can forget the bear hugs between Indira Gandhi and Yasser Arafat), but that changed in 1992 when diplomatic relationship was established with Israel. Over the years Israel has emerged as one of India’s biggest strategic partners and a dependable source of high-tech weaponry.

Owing to domestic ‘concerns’, India has been vocal on the Palestine issue but that hasn’t deterred the blossoming of relationship between the two nations.

Although India has been cautious and secretive about the depth of its relationship with Tel Aviv, both nations are believed to share intelligence in view of the growing threat of terrorism in their backyards, especially after the 26/11 incident when the Mumbai Chabad House was attacked claiming lives of a Jewish Rabbi and his pregnant wife.

More importantly, India has carefully set course to be in the good books of the US – Israel’s staunchest ally – and wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side at this critical juncture in world history.

The powerful Jewish lobby in Washington is already “deeply troubled” by India's growing ties with Iran and those who know how things work on the shores of the Potomac know that their views matter.

It is clear the Israel need us, if not for anything but at least to win the battle of perceptions – at a time when there are murmurs of an impending attack on Iran by Israel - in a world that is getting increasingly polarised.

Israel’s Ambassador to India Alon Ushpiz puts it this way: “What I would like to stress is that we are both close friends. When you feel close to someone – whether a nation or a state or individuals – you care about his well-being. India is close to our hearts.”

The middle path

Although it is increasingly getting clear that the sands have shifted considerably since the last time India went to the drawing board over its ‘equidistance’ policy in the Middle East. The winds have been blowing with gusto for some time now; the Arab spring metamorphosed into an event - then defined history - but also ended up kicking a lot of dust.

India voted on the wrong side in Libya but has made amends with Syria, all in the hope that the region gets stabilised even if it meant going against its own assessment of the situation.

But the fountainhead of all that India worries about in the Middle East is the morbid fear that the bloody haze from there would travel eastwards to aggravate the situation in the Af-Pak region and eventually cross the Wagah border.

India’s hands are already full; India has too many of its own battles to fight.

What raise the level of concern even further are the reports that a local terror cell – a Lashkar-e-Toiba module as per some reports - had carried out the Delhi car bombing with active help from outside.

If that outside source turns out to be Hezbollah then it points to the forging of a working relationship between Shia groups and Sunni groups like the LeT. And no one for sure knows what its import would turn out to be, as Hezbollah, which fights Israeli armed forces - one of world’s most tech-savvy forces, certainly has evolved newer ways to neutralise the opposition. If Pak-based terror outfits were to acquire that know how, then?

First Published: Tuesday, February 14, 2012, 17:44