Bekijk Volledige Versie : Clark: DOD heeft plannen om het hele Midden-Oosten aan te vallen
New book: U.S. conspiring to attack Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan as part of ''war on terror''
22-09-2003, 11:23
Two years following the September 11 attacks, a retired U.S. army general and presidential aspirant, says the Bush administration has charted a scheme for a five-year war against "terrorism" that would include militarily coercing Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan and Somalia.
Wesley Clark, who is among ten Democrats competing for their party's nomination in next year's U.S. presidential race, says he learned of the plan from officers in the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he met them in November 2001.
According to An Nahar on Monday, Clark's revelations are included in a book he authored and is soon to hit the book stores.
The officers involved in the military plan, according to Clark, believe that "attacking countries is more effective than hunting individuals, organizations or charities."
Clark, however, disagrees with their analysis, saying that although Tehran continues to support Hizbullah and Syria still encourages Hamas, neither group is targeting Americans.
His counterproposal is to establish, under the umbrella of the UN, an international force to overpower Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network and to form an international tribunal for "global terrorism." (Albawaba.com)
Geplaatst door lennart
New book: U.S. conspiring to attack Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan as part of ''war on terror''
22-09-2003, 11:23
Two years following the September 11 attacks, a retired U.S. army general and presidential aspirant, says the Bush administration has charted a scheme for a five-year war against "terrorism" that would include militarily coercing Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan and Somalia.
Wesley Clark, who is among ten Democrats competing for their party's nomination in next year's U.S. presidential race, says he learned of the plan from officers in the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he met them in November 2001.
According to An Nahar on Monday, Clark's revelations are included in a book he authored and is soon to hit the book stores.
The officers involved in the military plan, according to Clark, believe that "attacking countries is more effective than hunting individuals, organizations or charities."
Clark, however, disagrees with their analysis, saying that although Tehran continues to support Hizbullah and Syria still encourages Hamas, neither group is targeting Americans.
His counterproposal is to establish, under the umbrella of the UN, an international force to overpower Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network and to form an international tribunal for "global terrorism." (Albawaba.com) kortom we weten nog niet wat Clark zegt, maar hebben enkel de geruchten zoals ze in arabische media zijn terecht gekomen ... Laten we even wachten op wat Wesley Clark zelf zegt voordat we een definitief oordeel vellen.
Geplaatst door jaja
kortom we weten nog niet wat Clark zegt, maar hebben enkel de geruchten zoals ze in arabische media zijn terecht gekomen ... Laten we even wachten op wat Wesley Clark zelf zegt voordat we een definitief oordeel vellen.
Dat plan is er zeker wel
sterker nog, in het Pentagon hebben ze wel tientallen militaire plannen klaarliggen, niet alleen over het Midden-Oosten....het is alleen de vraag of ze uitgevoerd worden :vierkant:
Wel interessant. Maar inderdaad worden er vele plannen gemaakt die deels tot oefening dienen en geen officiële status hebben. Dat doet ieder leger en hoort bij de training. Daarom zou ik graag de status van dat plan weten.
Simon
Geplaatst door jaja
kortom we weten nog niet wat Clark zegt, maar hebben enkel de geruchten zoals ze in arabische media zijn terecht gekomen ... Laten we even wachten op wat Wesley Clark zelf zegt voordat we een definitief oordeel vellen.
Sukkel... Maar wel MEMRI op hun woord geloven.
The Clark Critique
Exclusive: In an excerpt from his new book, the ex-general argues that Bush is leading us astray in the war on terror
By Gen. Wesley K. Clark
NEWSWEEK
Sept. 29 issue — In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, many in the Bush administration seemed most focused on a prospective move against Iraq. This was the old idea of “state sponsorship”—even though there was no evidence of Iraqi sponsorship of 9/11 whatsoever—and the opportunity to “roll it all up.” I could imagine the arguments. War to unseat Saddam Hussein promised concrete, visible action.
I WENT BACK through the Pentagon in November 2001, and one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. So, I thought, this is what they mean when they talk about “draining the swamp.” It was evidence of the Cold War approach: Terrorism must have a “state sponsor,” and it would be much more effective to attack a state than to chase after individuals, nebulous organizations, and shadowy associations.
gaat verder op:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/969671.asp?0bl=-0
Geplaatst door lennart
The Clark Critique
Exclusive: In an excerpt from his new book, the ex-general argues that Bush is leading us astray in the war on terror
By Gen. Wesley K. Clark
NEWSWEEK
Sept. 29 issue — In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, many in the Bush administration seemed most focused on a prospective move against Iraq. This was the old idea of “state sponsorship”—even though there was no evidence of Iraqi sponsorship of 9/11 whatsoever—and the opportunity to “roll it all up.” I could imagine the arguments. War to unseat Saddam Hussein promised concrete, visible action.
I WENT BACK through the Pentagon in November 2001, and one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. So, I thought, this is what they mean when they talk about “draining the swamp.” It was evidence of the Cold War approach: Terrorism must have a “state sponsor,” and it would be much more effective to attack a state than to chase after individuals, nebulous organizations, and shadowy associations.
gaat verder op:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/969671.asp?0bl=-0 Clark heeft dus ook echt gesprekken gevoerd met een hoge officier over een plan om 5 tot 7 landen militair aan te pakken. Bij deze trek ik mijn sceptische opmerking in en buig mijn hoofd in deemoed ...:)
Dat plan zal na Irak nu wel in de ijskast zijn gegooid. Ze hebben er de mankracht niet meer voor. Ze gingen er blijkbaar vanuit dat de bevolking ze juichend binnen zou halen ...
Waarmee maar weer eens blijkt dat de supermacht VS niet al-wetend en al-sturend is, maar zo nu en dan knullig bezig is op basis van niet volledige - en soms foute - intelligence.
Clark's analyse geeft aan dat er ook anders gedacht wordt en werd ... wellicht gooit men het nu over een andere boeg ...
Hmm DOD was dat niet die opgerolde underground bende hackers?
Geplaatst door mrz
Hmm DOD was dat niet die opgerolde underground bende hackers?
Klopt, maar ze waren overmoedig geworden, door toegang tot illegale warez sites te verkopen. Vandaar. Overigens is de meerderheid niet opgepakt, alleen een paar Amerikanen.
Neo-Jacobins Push For World War IV
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." If neoconservatives have their way, Americans will soon be repeating this refrain.
The identical lies used to deceive Americans about Iraq are now being recycled to justify invading Syria and Iran.
Before exploring this fact, first understand that there is nothing conservative about neoconservatives. Neocons hide behind "conservative" but they are in fact Jacobins.
Jacobins were the 18th century French revolutionaries whose intention to remake Europe in revolutionary France’s image launched the Napoleonic Wars.
In an outstanding article, "The Ideology of American Empire," in the current issue of Orbis, Professor Claes Ryn conclusively shows that neocons are, in truth, neo-Jacobins. More dangerous an enemy of the US and its traditional values than Muslims, neo-Jacobins have seized control of the Bush presidency and US foreign policy. They will stop at nothing to achieve their goal of World War IV in the Middle East.
It is now absolutely certain that the American public and President Bush were bamboozled into invading Iraq by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, an unsavory assortment of lesser neo-Jacobin notables who inhabit the higher reaches of the Bush administration, and their neo-Jacobin allies in the Likud Party controlled media in New York City and Washington DC.
On September 17 President Bush confessed his folly: "We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in September 11." Yet according to polls, a majority of Americans still believe that Iraq was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center. Whose propaganda led Americans to this utterly mistaken belief?
An extensive search in Iraq has failed to turn up any evidence of any weapons of mass destruction, much less nuclear weapons. The image of "mushroom clouds going up over American cities," which was used to panic Congress into accepting an invasion of Iraq, has turned out to be – as every expert knew at the time – nothing but propaganda worthy of Heinrich Himmler and Paul Joseph Goebbles. The fabrications about Iraq’s intentions toward the US rival Hitler’s declaration that Poland had attacked Germany.
Consider the implications if Saddam Hussein really had possessed WMD – especially ones that could be deployed in 45 minutes as asserted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair: the entire US-British invasion force, concentrated in a tiny area of Kuwait, could have been destroyed by one or two weapons. If Bush really believed Iraq had WMD, he was criminally negligent for making sitting ducks out of our troops.
Senator Ted Kennedy is correct when he said on September 18 that the case against Iraq was "a fraud" made up to give Republicans a political boost. As much as I hate to admit it, the evidence is on Senator Kennedy’s side.
However, being caught red-handed in fraud does not deter neo-Jacobins with an agenda. Clutching firmly to their propaganda that Iraqis are desperate to shower US troops with flowers and kisses but are prevented by dead-enders among the Saddam Hussein remnants, neo-Jacobins now agitate for invading Syria and Iran.
On September 16, Undersecretary of State John Bolton in testimony before Congress declared Syria to be a "rogue state" armed with weapons of mass destruction and called for "regime change."
On September 17, Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter testified to Congress that Iran has the ability to launch missiles with biological warheads and that Iran’s nuclear program is a genuine threat both to the Middle East and the US.
On September 19, Paul Bremer, head of the US occupation government in Iraq, suggested in an interview with The Telegraph (UK) that Iran was involved in the bombings and killings of occupational forces in Iraq, echoing neo-Jacobin Michael Ladeen’s assertion that the US cannot win in Iraq unless it overthrows Iran.
Here we go again. The same propaganda. Only the targets are new.
Where will the troops come from to invade Iran and Syria?
It is now widely known that we have insufficient forces to pacify Iraq. The US government has been forced to dishonor its contract with the reserves and National Guard by forcing these weekend soldiers to stand in for regular army troops.
Not even billions of dollars have sufficed to bribe other governments to send their soldiers to Iraq. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander of our occupation army in Iraq, said on September 18 that in order to protect his troops, he would consider pulling his forces out of major Iraqi cities the moment Iraqi security forces were prepared to take control.
Yet, President Bush’s anti-Arab policymakers want to greatly multiply the attacks on our troops by inserting them into Syria and Iran!
Are the neo-Jacobins in charge of the US government totally delusional? Are they totally disconnected from reality? Or is this more fraud to start two more wars before the American public wakes up to the neo-Jacobin agenda?
The neo-Jacobins are rushing to get America involved in a general Middle Eastern war before Americans have time to think. The terrorist scare which worked the first time is being employed again. Once we have attacked other sovereign Islamic countries, we will have to bring back the draft in order to raise the necessary armies or resort to nuclear weapons.
If the American public falls for the second round of neo-Jacobin propaganda, neither do they deserve, nor will they have, liberty and democracy.
The only weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East are Israel’s 200 nuclear warheads. Israel has the real thing, not a mere desire for a program that might produce a weapon in the future.
It is Israel – not Iran – who has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
It is Israel that occupies by force of arms parts of Syria and Palestine. Arabs do not occupy Israeli territory.
It is Israel that treats Palestinians the way National Socialists treated Jews by bottling them up in ghettos and assassinating them at will.
On September 18 President Bush declared: "Arafat has failed as a leader." What Bush means is that Arafat, unlike Bush, has failed to carry out Israel’s orders. Arafat’s support in Palestine far exceeds Bush’s support in the US or Sharon’s support in Israel.
Every day the Israelis bite off another piece of Palestine. Arafat is a "failed leader" because he has not led Palestinians off into the wilderness for 40 years, the better to deliver Palestine up to Israel.
The root of the Middle Eastern problem is Israel’s uncanny ability to manipulate American public opinion and US foreign policy. This unique power means Israel doesn’t have to compromise. Instead, the Israelis escalate and involve us ever more deeply and one-sidedly in their disputes with Arabs.
The inability of the US to impose an evenhanded settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the breeding ground of terrorists.
The US invasion of Iraq has bred more terrorists.
Bush’s neo-Jacobins will not be content until they have 600 million enraged Muslims at our throats.
How did maniacs dead set on World War IV get in control of the US government?
Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts8.html
The war game
David Hirst's account of the Arab-Israeli conflict, The Gun and the Olive Branch, caused a storm 25 years ago. In this edited extract from his new and updated edition he offers a personal and highly controversial view of the current crisis in the Middle East
Sunday September 21, 2003
The Observer
By the summer of 2002, George Bush had firmly set his new course: 'regime change' and reform in the Muslim and Arab worlds, and, where necessary, American military intervention to achieve it. Hitherto, it had been assumed that the US could not go to war in one of the two great zones of Middle East crisis - Iraq and the Gulf - before it had at least calmed things down in the other, older and more explosive one, Palestine. But the American administration's neo-conservatives had a very simple answer to that. The road to war on Iraq no longer lay through peace in Palestine; peace in Palestine lay through war on Baghdad.
It was all set forth, in its most comprehensive, well-nigh megalomaniac form, by Norman Podhoretz, the neo-cons' veteran intellectual luminary, in the September 2002 issue of his magazine, Commentary. Changes in regime, he proclaimed, were 'the sine qua non throughout the region'. They might 'clear a path to the long-overdue internal reform and modernisation of Islam'.
This was a full and final elaboration of that project, 'A Clean Break', which some of his kindred spirits had first laid before Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu back in 1996. It was the apotheosis of the 'strategic alliance', at least as much an Israeli grand design as an American one.
Under the guise of forcibly divesting Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, the US now sought to 'reshape' the entire Middle East, with this most richly endowed and pivotal of countries as the lynchpin of a whole new, pro-American geopolitical order. Witnessing such an overwhelming display of American will and power, other regimes, such as Hizbollah-supporting Syria in particular, would either have to bend to American purposes or suffer the same fate.
With the assault on Iraq, the US was not merely adopting Israel's long-established methods - of initiative, offence and pre-emption - it was also adopting Israel's adversaries as its own. Iraq had always ranked high among those; it was one of its so-called 'faraway' enemies. These had come to be seen as more menacing than the 'near' ones, and especially since they had begun developing weapons of mass destruction.
So excited was Israeli premier Ariel Sharon about this whole new Middle East order in the making that he told the Times, 'the day after' Iraq, the US and Britain should turn to that other 'faraway' enemy - Iran. For Israel, the ayatollahs' Iran had always seemed the greater menace of the two, by virtue of its intrinsic weight, its fundamentalist, theologically anti-Zionist leadership, its more serious, diversified and supposedly Russian-assisted nuclear armaments programme, its ideological affinity with, or direct sponsorship of, such Islamist organisations as Hamas or Hizbollah.
Nothing, in fact, better illustrated the ascendancy which Israel and the American 'friends of Israel' have acquired over American policy-making than did Iran. Quite simply, said Iran expert James Bill, the 'US views Iran through spectacles manufactured in Israel'. Impressing on the US the gravity of the Iranian threat has long been a foremost Israeli preoccupation.
By the early 1990s, the former Minister Moshe Sneh was warning that Israel 'cannot possibly put up with a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands'. That could and should be collectively prevented, he said, 'since Iran threatens the interests of all rational states in the Middle East'. However: 'If the Western states don't do their duty, Israel will find itself forced to act alone, and will accomplish its task by any [ie including nuclear] means.' The hint of anti-American blackmail in that remark was nothing exceptional; it has always been a leitmotif of Israeli discourse on the subject.
The showdown with Iraq has only encouraged this kind of thinking. 'Within two years,' said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, 'either the US or Israelis are going to attack Iran's [nuclear sites] or acquiesce in Iran being a nuclear state.'
To where this Israeli-American, neo-conservative blueprint for the Middle East will lead is impossible to forecast. What can be said for sure is that it could easily turn out to be as calamitous in its consequences, for the region, America and Israel, as it is preposterously partisan in motivation, fantastically ambitious in design and terribly risky in practice.
Even if, to begin with, it achieves what, by its authors' estimate, is an outward, short-term measure of success, it will not end the violence in the Middle East. Far more likely is that, in the medium or the long term, it will make it very much worse. For the violence truly to end, its roots must be eradicated, too, and the noxious soil that feeds them cleansed.
It is late, but perhaps not too late, for that to happen. The historic - and historically generous - compromise offer which Yasser Arafat, back in 1988, first put forward for the sharing of Palestine between its indigenous people and the Zionists who drove most of them out still officially stands. It is completely obvious by now that, without external persuasion, Israel will never accept it; that the persuasion can only come from Israel's last real friend in the world, the US; that, for the persuasion to work, there has to be 'reform' or 'regime change' in Israel quite as far-reaching as any to be wrought on the other side.
Given the partisanship, it is, admittedly, highly unlikely to happen any time soon. But if it doesn't happen in the reasonably foreseeable future, there may come a time when it can no longer happen at all. The Palestinian leadership may withdraw its offer, having concluded, like many of its people already have, that, however conciliatory it becomes, whatever fresh concessions it makes, it will never be enough for an adversary that seems to want all.
The Hamas rejectionists, and/or those, secular as well as religious, who think like them, may take over the leadership. The whole, broader, Arab-Israeli peace process which Anwar Sadat began, and which came to be seen as irreversible, may prove to be reversible after all. In which case, the time may also come when the cost to the US of continuing to support its infinitely importunate protégé in a never-ending conflict against an ever-widening circle of adversaries is greater than its will and resources to sustain it.
That would very likely be a time when Israel itself is already in dire peril. And if it were, then America would very likely discover something else: that the friend and ally it has succoured all these years is not only a colonial state, not only extremist by temperament, racist in practice, and increasingly fundamentalist in the ideology that drives it, it is also eminently capable of becoming an 'irrational' state at America's expense as well as its own.
The threatening of wild, irrational violence, in response to political pressure, has been an Israeli impulse from the very earliest days. It was first authoritatively documented, in the 1950s, by Moshe Sharett, the dovish Prime Minister, who wrote of his Defence Minister, Pinhas Lavon, that he 'constantly preached for acts of madness' or 'going crazy' if ever Israel were crossed. Without a 'just, comprehensive and lasting' peace which only America can bring to pass, Israel will remain at least as likely a candidate as Iran, and a far more enduring one, for the role of 'nuclear-crazy' state.
Iran can never be threatened in its very existence. Israel can. Indeed, such a threat could even grow out of the current intifada. That, at least, is the pessimistic opinion of Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 'If it went on much longer,' he said, 'the Israeli government [would] lose control of the people. In campaigns like this, the anti-terror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing. I regard a total Israeli defeat as unavoidable. That will mean the collapse of the Israeli state and society. We'll destroy ourselves.'
In this situation, he went on, more and more Israelis were coming to regard the 'transfer' of the Palestinians as the only salvation; resort to it was growing 'more probable' with each passing day. Sharon 'wants to escalate the conflict and knows that nothing else will succeed'.
But would the world permit such ethnic cleansing? 'That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother." I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1046411,00.html
Grappig zeg, als ik het zeg ben ik anti-semiet, maar gelukkig heeft Creveld dezelfde opinie.
Israel moet gedwongen worden om vrede te sluiten, anders is het afgelopen met Israel en wellicht de rest van de wereld. Israel dwingen vrede te sluiten is dus juist niet anti-semitisch en mensen die vinden dat Arabieren eerst moeten stoppen met vechten voordat ze overwegen om Israel te dwingen concessies te maken zijn wel anti-semitisch.