More Israeli Mossad Connections to 9/11

Mordechai Sones
Nachaliel, Israel
Prisonplanet.com
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Having viewed Jesse Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory documentary episode dealing with the Sept. 11 attacks, I would like to call your attention to a detail that the research team may have overlooked, namely the proprietorship of Hangar 17, where the only known 9/11 evidence still in existence is locked away from public scrutiny.

When viewed from a certain angle, Hangar 17 in JFK airport has a prominent, unfaded billboard that says ” Tower Air “. Tower Airlines was an * Israeli * airline that went bankrupt in 2000 . None other than Hangar 17 housed Tower Air’s then brand-new corporate headquarters.

Why does 9/11 evidentiary material that would provide clues such as the absence or presence of Super Thermite or other explosive material in the dust from the blasts sit for “safekeeping” in the former Executive Headquarters of a ten-year-defunct Israeli front organization that contracted heavily for the U.S. Defense Department and still has an unfaded sign hanging on the building?

Mike Ruppert reported that the Israeli container and freight-shipping corporation Zim , who occupied several floors in the Twin Towers and is widely known to do extensive operational support work for the Mossad, vacated all their offices days before the attacks – and they vacated in violation of their lease.

As excellent as Jesse Ventura’s expose is, Wikipedia openly identifies Tower as an American airline, controlled, however, by Israelis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Air . ): “Major artifacts from the World Trade Center are housed for safekeeping in the former Tower Air Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy International Airport.”

As a matter of fact, while posing as a dinky, small-time Israeli airline that played second-fiddle to El-Al by catering mainly to Israel-New York Orthodox Jewish air traffic (dubbed affectionately by their clientele ” ChassidicAir ” – Tower even printed and distributed booklets on the arcane Halachic aspects of how to face Jerusalem during the uninterruptible Standing Prayer on New York-bound flights should the “Fasten Seat Belts” sign start flashing during turbulence), Tower Air won several exclusive major contracts from the United States Department of Defense to transport U.S. armed forces personnel to overseas locations. Tower was the second largest troop carrier during the first Persian Gulf War, flying U.S. troops and cargo in 300 sorties.

In 1993, Tower kept busy flying U.S. military personnel and cargo to support operations in Somalia. It was the first airline to fly troops into Mogadishu and also transported refugees for the United Nations during the conflict. The pattern in my mind that caused the Tower Air sign in Conspiracy Theory to jump out at me like a red flag upon seeing it was established in the late ’80’s and early ’90’s, when, in my capacity as the Diplomatic Project Director for the Federation for American Afghan Action, I identified one of the many facets of Israeli involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair, and exposed a U.S./Israeli front organization that was operationally similar to Tower Air in many respects. It was (and is, as far as I’m aware) called the Intergraph Corporation , which served as the diversion pipeline mechanism to Iran for SuperHawk spare parts from allied military installations in Western Europe through Israel to Iran, rendering entire U.S.and NATO ground-to-air missile defense umbrellas inoperative and vulnerable. I personally saw Intergraph shipments in Ben Gurion Airport’s Mamman Hangar building while investigating the matter in collaboration with a former Westinghouse employee who was fired and subsequently victimized in a campaign to destroy his livelihood and several murder attempts, similar to the campaigns that have been and are currently being waged against me.

Eleven years ago, during Netanyahu’s first tenure as Israel’s Prime Minister, my Report on the Acquiescence of the Israeli Government in Palestinian Authority First Strike in Judea and Samaria (published as Policy Paper #107 by the Ariel Center for Policy Research) made it to the desk of the Israeli Minister of Defense (one may Google the report), whose office contacted me for an “interview”, and since then I have learned a double lesson: how brittle are the evil policies of betrayal and abandonment when smashed by the light of public exposure and indignation, and how no brutality will be considered too low to commit for a government functionary who has been faced with a choice between loyalty to a principle of human values, ethics, or morals on the one hand, and loyalty to a source of power on the other – and has chosen the latter. Every action he will subsequently make will be dedicated to suppression and cover-up of his convoluted covert agendas, even if it means condemning inconvenient innocents to suffering or death. I was targeted in a murder attempt by the Israeli government (a police car rammed me as I was waiting at a red light; no less than six ambulances were pre-positioned at the scene and evacuated bystanders who suffered minor injuries while leaving me in my totaled car at the scene); while thank God the attempt at my life was unsuccessful, I did sustain among other things spinal damage and a fractured pelvis that has rendered me crippled until this day, and for the past six years witnessed a craftily orchestrated campaign to destroy my twenty-year-marriage and once beautiful family with six children whom I am currently in the midst of battling for with Israel’s own version of Child Protective Services. And woe to the man who does not have the money to either heal or defend himself against the vengeance of the wicked ones of this world.

There are several more parallels and similarities to Hangar 17 that demonstrate just how far, and with what determined desperation the power-hungry Hollow People In Power are willing to go to topple the walls of civilization. In a global society that has become careless of justice, a materialist civilization that daily grows more and more insecure and panicky as awareness begins to seep through that they are standing over an abyss, the bourgeois barbarians and morally castrated scumbags will never acknowledge defeat or concede the only imperative that holds for them any relevance: their appetite to concentrate and maintain power. Our obligation – those of us who have fought to retain enough of our souls to sense the impending tragedy – is to continue our struggle against the extinction of the idea of mission. Our mission – recalling that simplest of truths for which the Founding Fathers battled tyranny to establish our nation, that there are things more precious than life, and more horrible than death – is to establish a formal political mechanism to achieve and express a consensus based upon that “simple truth” of life and death so that those who seek to trample that line may no longer be remotely comfortable in the ease with which they swindle us into accepting their tyrannical objectives.

The Next False Flag: An Attack On the U.S. Embassy in Yemen

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
January 4, 2010

Earlier today, the Daily Telegraph reported that a truck of explosives and weapons managed to slip past a surveillance operation in Sana’a, Yemen.

“The revelations came as western diplomatic missions in Sana’a went into lockdown following threats from al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate, which has taken responsibility for a failed attempt to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day,” the newspaper reported. “The identity of those who smuggled the weapons contingent into Sana’a has not been disclosed, and it is unclear if its disappearance is linked to al-Qaeda’s increasingly powerful Yemeni branch, al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.”

Yemeni guards stand outside the US embassy in Sanaa, one day after an attack on the embassy killed 19 people in September 2008.

“Diplomats dismissed speculation that the vanishing convoy could presage an imminent attack on Western interests in the city.”

An attack on “Western interests” or an embassy or two would play right into the hands of the U.S. and Britain.

Gordon Brown has said he will convene a summit of world leaders on the Yemen problem at the end of this month.

In the United States the corporate media continues to beat the war drums and spread absurd hysteria about a supposed al-Qaeda faction in Yemen. We are expected to believe a rag-tag gang of terrorists in one of the world’s poorest countries pose a threat to freedom-loving Americans the same way a sanctions-ravaged Iraq posed a threat after Saddam ganged up with Osama and al-Qaeda — one of the more colorful lies spun by the warmongering and Muslim-hating neocons.

Last October authorities in Yemen busted a terrorist cell accused of attacking the U.S. embassy the previous month. According to a reported filed with the state-run Saba news agency, the group had links to Israeli intelligence. “The report, quoting an unnamed source, said investigations and data retrieved from a computer seized from the cell, showed there was correspondence between the Islamic Jihad group’s deputy leader Bassam Abdullah Fadhel Al-Haidari and an Israeli intelligence agency,” the Indo-Asian News Service said.

The Islamic Jihad, reported to have links with the Al Qaeda, had claimed responsibility for the attack on the US embassy in Sana’a Sep 17, which had claimed 18 lives, including that of an Indian woman.

Saba quoted the source as saying that the correspondence between the two sides included a request from the Israeli side to implement terrorist attacks inside Yemen.

“An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the Yemeni president’s statement was without foundation,” the BBC reported. “To believe that Israel would create Islamist cells in Yemen is really far-fetched. This is yet another victory for the proponents of conspiracy theories,” said Igal Palmor.

In fact, Israel has a long and sordid history of false flag attacks.

In 1950, a series of deadly attacks in Iraq were attributed to Israeli intelligence.

Four years later, Israeli false flag operatives exploded bombs in the British and American cultural centers and libraries in Cairo and blamed it on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel supported and encouraged Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Hamas in order to counter the influence of a secular PLO. “Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet, which had a feeling that they could use it to hem in the PLO,” said Charles Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. A former senior CIA official speaking to UPI described Israel’s support for Hamas as “a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative.”

During the Six Day War, Israel attacked the USS Liberty and attempted to blame it on Egypt.

In the early 1970s, Israel teamed up with Jordan to support Muslim Brotherhood terrorism against Syria.

In the 1980s, Israel conducted a bombing campaign in Europe to counter A. Q. Khan’s nuclear proliferation network, which helped Pakistan build a nuclear weapon.

Oded Yinon’s paper, “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties,” published in the winter of 1982 issue of Kivunim, suggested Arab States should be destroyed from within by exploiting their internal religious and ethnic tensions.

In September of 2000, India’s largest news weekly reported that a Mossad attempt to infiltrate al-Qaeda failed when undercover agents were stopped on their way to Bangladesh by Indian customs officials.

A year later, the Army School of Advanced Military Studies in the United States said the following about Israeli intelligence: “Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target US forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.”

In 2005, US Intelligence officers reported that insurgents in Iraq used Beretta 02 pistols minus serial numbers. “Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as US authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance,” the UPI reported.

In 2002, officials from the Palestinian Authority accused Mossad of setting up a fake al-Qaeda terrorist cell in Gaza. Then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said that Israel had set up the mock cell in order to justify attacks in Palestinian areas, according to the BBC.

“Not one big success of the Mossad has ever been made public,” Ephraim Halevy, head of the Mossad from 1998 to 2002, told 60 Minutes in 2003.

The U.S. also has a record of using and planning false flag attacks, most notably Operation Northwoods.

Andreas von Bülow, former German Minister for Research and Technology and a long-time member of German parliament, said in 2002 the attacks on September 11, 2001, were a false flag attack. “Whoever wants to understand the CIA’s methods, has to deal with its main task of covert operations: Below the level of war, and outside international law, foreign states are to be influenced by inciting insurrections or terrorist attacks, usually combined with drugs and weapons trade, and money laundering,” he told Tagesspiegal.

In addition to its long history of covertly overthrowing governments around the world, the CIA plotted false flag attacks in Europe to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran (according to CIA agent Robert Baer).

CIA operatives and patsies are legendary, as Webster Tarpley documents in his book, 9/11 Synthetic Terrorism: Made in USA. (Tarpley told Russia Today that the failed attack on a US passenger jet traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit was a set-up provocation controlled by US intelligence.)

If an embassy or other Western interests are bombed in the next few days in Yemen, a finger should be pointed at the CIA, Mossad, or both, not the rag-tag supposed al-Qaeda franchise operating in the country.

Embassies closed in Yemen due to supposed al-Qaeda threats.

On January 3, the Yemeni Foreign Ministry declared the threat posed by al-Qaeda is “exaggerated” by the U.S.

Finally, it should be noted that al-Qaeda was established by the CIA in Yemen, as CIA contractor Billy Waugh admitted in his autobiography. “I worked right there with these al-Qaeda operatives,” Waugh wrote in Hunting the Jackal with Tim Keown.

Research related links

1. Obama Blames al-Qaeda for Christmas False Flag, Sets Stage for Yemen Attack
2. US Embassy in Yemen closes in response to ongoing al-Qaida threats
3. The little known “false flag” attack to make a killing on the speculation market
4. False Flag Event in Detroit a Pretext to Invade Yemen
5. Al-Qaeda claims rocket attack on US oilmen in Yemen
6. Yemen Exploits al-Qaeda to Get More Money from U.S.
7. Obama Sends Brennan to Sell Yemen Attack on Sunday News Shows
8. False Flag Cyanide Attack Planned for the DNC?
9. U.S. Reviews Targets for Yemen Strike
10. Advisor to FBI in Anthrax Investigation Says Attack Was False Flag Terror
11. Obama administration prepares public opinion for attack on Yemen
12. Pakistani Security Consultant Calls Mumbai Attacks A “Botched” False Flag

Rabbis Want Palestinians Ethnically Cleansed From The West Bank And Gaza?

Rabbis to US Ambassador: Time to 'Go Biblical' with Arabs

By Gil Ronen

January 02, 2009 "IsraelNN" -- A delegation of the Rabbinical Congress for Peace (RCP) met with U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mr. James Cunningham, today and called for a reassessment of the entire U.S. policy vis-à-vis the Israelis and Palestinians. The rabbis told Ambassador Cunningham that it was time to try the Biblical approach to the dispute over the Land of Israel.

"The past 17 years have proven without a shadow of a doubt that every square inch ceded by Israel to the Palestinians was transformed into a platform of hatred and terrorism," RCP Director Rabbi Avrohom Shmuel Lewin told the ambassador. "In other words, the 'land for peace' formula in the Israel-Palestinian context, besides being a formula that goes against the Divine will, is ineffective, obsolete, and an exercise in futility. Most of all it is a dangerous policy that only leads to bloodshed and instability in the region and harms vital American interests in the region as well," Lewin said.

'Land for peace doesn't work'
The delegation was headed by Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, Chairman of the RCP, who is also the Rabbi Central Tel Aviv where the US embassy is located. Rabbi Gerlitzky presented the ambassador with the Halachic (Jewish legal) ruling signed by over 350 prominent rabbis in Israel that it is forbidden to give up even one inch of territory controlled by Israel today because it will bring bloodshed and instability to the region.

"In the name of the overwhelming majority of rabbis in Israel," he said, "we request of you Mr. Ambassador, to convey our Halachic message to President Barack Obama that it is time for a complete reversal and reassessment of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The 'land for peace' policy never worked and harms U.S. interests in the region and the world at large."

The ambassador was visibly moved by Rabbi Sholom Gold, a leading rabbi in Jerusalem, who described the suffering that the Jewish People have endured ever since the implementation of the Oslo Accords and the agreements that followed. "It's all a play of words, there is no peace process," he said. "From the day that we started conceding and withdrawing we did not have one day of rest and peace. Why should our enemies want to make peace with us when they see that with terrorism they get what they want? Even the U.S., Israel's supposedly best friend, sides with them in demanding a freeze and evacuation of settlements. Is the triumph of Arab terror one of American interests?" Gold asked.

Going Biblical
"Who knows, Mr. Ambassador, maybe this is your defining moment."

Rabbi Dov Lior, the Rabbi of Kiryat Arba-Hevron, said: "G-d gave the US the power and influence to affect the rest of the world and supporting Israel is the key to America's success."

Ambassador Cunningham told the rabbis that he does not see how the problem can be solved “without taking into consideration the Palestinians,” to which Rabbi Gold remarked: "Ever since we started taking the Palestinians into consideration the situation only worsened."

The ambassador asked the rabbis, "So what is your solution to the problem?"

Rabbi Gerlitzky replied: "You must switch the entire approach to the situation. We all believe in the Holy Bible and up until now we tried every formula except for that which is delineated in the Bible. Let's try it and who knows, Mr. Ambassador, maybe this is your defining moment, that G-d Almighty has placed you in this capacity in order to precipitate a new course which will bring a true peace to the entire region."

Al-CIA-Duh Claims Responsibility for Fudged Underwear Bombing

Infowars.com
December 28, 2009

Three days after the underwear bomber managed to detonate a blasting cap and burn himself in the air above Detroit, the CIA and bogus global jihadist network have claimed responsibility for the boneheaded “attack.”

From the AFP this afternoon:

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula claimed the failed December 25 bombing of a US-bound aircraft in a statement posted on an Islamist website on Monday, US monitoring organization SITE Intelligence said.

SITE is a known Israeli intelligence asset that makes a lot of money fleecing the American taxpayers and promulgating the scary and mythical al-Qaeda and jihadist threat. It is the ideological twin of MEMRI.

More on SITE from Prison Planet:

SITE, described as “a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, that provides information related to terrorist networks to the government, news media, and general public,” has a rather suspicious history. “The listed staff consists of two individuals, and the website seems to be an aggregator of publicly-available data on the internet, mostly consisting of current news items,” notes the SourceWatch wiki. SITE’s “Terrorism Library, on cursory investigation, looks to be a straight data scrape from the U.S. Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism – 2003, Appendix B.”

Not surprisingly, SITE is connected to Israeli intelligence. “Rita Katz is Director and co-founder of the SITE Institute. Born in Iraq, her father was tried and executed as an Israeli spy, whereupon her family moved to Israel [the move has been described as both an escape and immigration in different sources]. She received a degree from the Middle Eastern Studies program at Tel Aviv University, and is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic. She emigrated to the US in 1997.” Katz’s partner, Josh Devon, is less colorful. “Devon is Senior Analyst and co-founder of the SITE Institute. He has a BA from University of Pennsylvania (English) and a BS from Wharton College (Economics). Devon is currently attending the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University with the intentions of receiving an International Studies Degree with a focus on the Middle East,” that is to say a globalist perspective on the Middle East. According to this article, SAIS is a CFR cover. “CFR member Zbigniew Brzezinski is SAIS Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy…. CFR member Paul Wolfowitz, Ph.D. is SAIS Chairman and Dean.” As well, SAIS appears to be connected to the American Enterprise Institute, where the neocons get their criminal minds.

Research related links

1. Because You’ll Believe Anything: Unknown Terrorist Group Claims Responsibility For Marriot Bombing
2. Corporate Media Claims Underwear Bomber Connected to al-Qaeda
3. U.S. Stocks Decline as Al-Qaeda Claims Role in Bombing Attempt
4. Will The US Government Accept Responsibility For The Slaughter Of Over 1,000,000 Iraqis.
5. Napolitano Says Americans Have a Responsibility to Spy On Each Other
6. Florida Cops Deny Responsibility in Death of Pot “Criminal”
7. Netanyahu ‘will coax Obama into Iran war’
8. Murdoch Claims Video Game Came From al-Qaeda
9. Iran Claims to Arrest MKO Terrorists at Protest
10. Hoekstra says 9/11 hijackers spiritual leader ordered bombing of US airliner
11. Bombing to make the Gaza prison even more secure for Israel
12. Afghanistan Accuses “Foreign Intelligence Agency” Of Deadly Embassy Bombing

Western Governments Funding Taliban & Al-Qaeda To Kill U.S. Troops, Destabilize Countries

Sunni terrorist groups armed, funded, and moved around the global chessboard to suit geopolitical agenda of Anglo-American establishment

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, July 2, 2009

Recent revelations concerning the U.S. importing Taliban members into Iraq to foster false flag terrorism is merely the tip of the iceberg when compared to the U.S. intelligence complex’s multi-decade history in sponsoring Sunni Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups around the world.

Wayne Madsen recently revealed how Taliban fighters were being imported from Afghanistan into Iraq to attack civilians and U.S. soldiers, as well as how Muqtada al-Sadr’s al-Mahdi Army was being allowed to import materials to make IEDs.

However, this is just one aspect of how the U.S. has used terrorist groups as pawns on the global chessboard, moving them around the globe in line with their geopolitical objectives.

As is voluminously documented, the U.S. first worked covertly with Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979-1989.

Following this, the Al-Qaeda pawns were moved on to Bosnia shortly after the outbreak of war in 1992 to fight against Bosnian Serbs who were subsequently the target of NATO air strikes.

Following the end of the war, “hundreds of Bosnian passports were provided to the mujahedeen by the Muslim-controlled government in Sarajevo,” according to Lenard Cohen, professor of political science at Simon Fraser University. This all happened with the approval of the United Nations and the United States, who had brokered the peace deal to end the war.

“They also set up secret terrorist training camps in Bosnia — activities financed by the sale of opium produced in Afghanistan and secretly shipped through Turkey and Kosovo into central Europe,” reports the National Post.

Shortly before the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Sunni terrorist groups moved into Kosovo, Serbia’s southern province, to aid the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Albanian terrorist faction that was being supported by the U.S. and NATO in its terror campaign against Serbs in the region.

“The United States, which had originally trained the Afghan Arabs during the war in Afghanistan, supported them in Bosnia and then in Kosovo,” reports the Post.

With the help of Bin Laden’s terror network, backed up by the U.S. and NATO, no less than 90% of Serbians were “ethnically cleansed” and forced to leave the region, while the international media played its role dutifully in portraying the Albanians as the “victims” of Serbian aggression.

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky writes, “The fact of the matter is that the Atlantic Alliance had been supporting a terrorist organization. The KLA was not supporting the rights of ethnic Albanians. Quite the opposite. The activities of this terrorist organization on the ground, in Kosovo, provided NATO and the US with the pretext to intervene on humanitarian grounds, claiming that the Serb authorities had committed human rights violations against ethnic Albanians, when in fact the NATO sponsored KLA was involved in terrorist acts on behalf of NATO, which triggered a response from the Serb police and military.”

Barely weeks before 9/11, former members of Al-Qaeda who had subsequently joined the Kosovo Liberation Army were airlifted out of Macedonia by U.S. paratroopers.

As German sources reported, “Samedin Xhezairi, also known as Commander Hoxha, joined the Kosovo Liberation Army when armed conflict in Kosovo began, fighting in three operation zones. He was a fighter in Chechnya, trained in Afghanistan and acted as the commander of the Mujahideen 112th Brigade operating in the summer of 2001 in the region of Tetovo [Macedonia]. In August of the same year 80 members of the 3/502 battalion of U.S. paratroopers evacuated him from Aracinovo [Macedonia], together with his Albanian extremists and 17 instructors of the U.S. private military company MPRI which was training the Albanian paramilitary formations.”

“In other words, the US military was collaborating with Al Qaeda, which according to the Bush administration was involved in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. Yet, the US military was working hand in glove with “enemy number one” barely a few weeks before 9/11, and we are led to believe that the Bush administration is committed to waging a battle against Al Qaeda,” wrote Chossudovsky.

Following the invasion of Afghanistan, MSNBC reported that in November 2001, hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters were rescued from Kunduz and flown out on Pakistani air force cargo planes. This could not have possibly happened without the approval of U.S. forces who had secured the region.

With the U.S. now attacking targets in Pakistan under the pretext of going after the Taliban, the lineage of how this situation developed, with the U.S. moving their pawns around the globe at the most opportune times, can be clearly traced.

All the more revealing therefore were the comments of Qari Zainuddin, a former Taliban leader who defected to the Pakistani government, alleging that the Taliban were senselessly attacking civilian targets and that they were working with U.S. and Israeli intelligence. A few days after he dropped this bombshell, Zainuddin was shot dead.

Meanwhile, in Iran, A senior member of the Jundullah terrorist group confessed in an Iranian court case to being trained and financed by the U.S. and Israel.

Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Under the 2007 program aimed at destabilizing Iran and fomenting regime change, the U.S. government is arming and bankrolling Jundullah to carry out terrorist attacks in Iran, such as the May bombing of a mosque in Sistan-Baluchestan which killed 25 people.

In addition, the fingerprints of another U.S. sponsored terror group, Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which was formerly allied with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, have been found in the recent election unrest in Iran. In addition to supporting terror groups from Iraq, the Anglo-American establishment has also staged terror attacks, such as the February 2006 Samarra mosque bombing.

And if there aren’t enough terrorists in supply, why not just dress up and pretend to be them? That’s what two British SAS members did when they were caught dressed in Arab garb with fake beards, driving a car full of explosives while shooting at Iraqi police officers in Basra in September 2005.

After the SAS men were caught in the act and taken to jail, U.S. and British forces launched a rescue operation, blowing up half the prison and allowing 150 inmates to escape.

All over the Middle East and the Balkans, from Afghanistan, to Bosnia, to Serbia, to Pakistan, to Iraq and to Iran, the United States, through black budget programs, has funded and armed Sunni Al-Qaeda terrorist groups to destabilize and topple regimes targeted by the Anglo-American establishment.

This documented fact debunks the “war on terror” as a cruel hoax and exposes how current events in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran are being carefully orchestrated while the media sells the public on the belief that manufactured sock-puppet enemies, and not geopolitical domination and control of resources and the global drug trade, are why these wars are being fought, when in reality groups like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are firmly in the pocket of the U.S. military-industrial complex.

McKinney Kidnapping Ignored By Media

Womanist Musings
July 8, 2009

Had it not been for twitter, I doubt that I would even have been aware that Cynthia McKinney was held hostage in Israel after attempting to deliver aid and supplies to the Palestinians.  There has been a resounding silence on this issue as CNN, MSNBC and other mainstream media sources rush to give us the latest news on the death of Michael Jackson.

Jackson was truly an iconic figure, however the man is dead and Cynthia is alive. His memorial is receiving massive coverage and the announcement that his body would be present was considered breaking news. Even Palin’s resignation has garnered more media and internet attention.  Though McKinney is safely back on US soil, her wellbeing during her ordeal was of little concern.

As celebrities and media personnel rush to speak about the ways in which Michael Jackson transcended race, the erasure of the plight of McKinney proves that race and gender continue to divide the country.

Read entire article

Ahmadinejad: West's claims of democracy "sheer lies"

TEHRAN, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Western countries' claims of democracy are "sheer lies," citing a recent anti-racism conference, the official IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.

    "The recent anti-racism conference in Geneva ...proved that the West's claims of freedom of expression and democracy were sheer lies," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

    "All their claims about freedom of expression are nothing ... they had made several plans to prevent speeches at the Geneva conference," he added.

    "Despite their cultural, economic and social dominance over the world, they are on the verge of collapse," he said.

    Ahmadinejad made the remarks during his visit to Shiraz, capital of Iran's southern province of Fars.

    On Monday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi criticized Western states for their intolerance at the Geneva conference.

    Western states were intolerant when hearing the similarities between racism and "Zionism" in the conference, Qashqavi said.

    Ahmadinejad's speech at Durban Review Conference on racism in Geneva on April 20 caused a turmoil and sparked walkout by dozens of European delegates.

    Addressing the UN conference, Ahmadinejad criticized the creation of a "totally racist government in occupied Palestine" in1948, calling it "the most cruel and racist regime." 

Israel: unelected former general "running the country"

The militarisation of Israeli society. Israel’s Mephistopheles by Jonathan Cook

Global Research, February 26, 2009

Nazareth: It is not entirely surprising that Amos Gilad, an Israeli general who once sued his own government for “irreversible mental damage” caused by his role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, has publicly courted controversy again.

 

On Monday, Ehud Olmert, Israel’s outgoing prime minister, suspended Mr Gilad as his envoy to Egypt, responsible for negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas, after Mr Gilad called the prime minister’s truce conditions “insane”.

 

The move threatened to unleash a political storm in Israel. Ehud Barak, the defence minister and a longtime ally of Mr Gilad, rushed to denounce Mr Olmert’s decision. He insisted that Mr Gilad, a defence ministry official in charge of diplomatic and security issues, would continue with his other duties.

 

Mr Gilad’s fingerprints are to be found on most of the hawkish policies approved by the political leadership since the start of the intifada in 2000, including the emasculation of the Palestinian Authority, the “disengagement” from Gaza, and the promotion of civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

 

In a sign of Mr Gilad’s indispensability, Mr Olmert was forced to make an embarrassing climbdown two days later and reinstate the wayward official after Mr Gilad submitted a written apology.

 

Israeli commentators have noted that Mr Gilad has sought over the years to erode the distinction between military and political influence. Writing in Haaretz newspaper, Akiva Eldar has accused Mr Gilad of being “a mephisto in and out of uniform” who has turned his department “into one of the most important power centres in the country”.

 

Popularly known as the “National Explainer”, Mr Gilad opened the rift with Mr Olmert last week when he gave an interview to Maariv, another daily newspaper, over his role in negotiating a renewed ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.

 

Mr Gilad, who brokered the six-month truce that preceded Israel’s recent three-week Gaza offensive, is said to have believed an agreement was at hand in which Hamas would end both arms smuggling into and rocket fire out of Gaza in return for the opening of border crossings.

 

Angered that Mr Olmert effectively stalled the talks at the last minute by also linking the ceasefire to the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in 2006, Mr Gilad told the paper: “I don’t understand what they are trying to do. Insult the Egyptians? … This is insanity, simply insanity.”

 

Until recently, talks about Sgt Shalit’s release had focused on a prisoner exchange in which Hamas is demanding freedom for hundreds of Palestinians.

 

When Mr Gilad refused to apologise, Mr Olmert suspended him as envoy and lodged a complaint with the Civil Service Commission. Mr Olmert’s move, in the last days before he leaves office, threatened to set him on a collision course with defence officials, who appear keen to agree to a long-term ceasefire with Hamas.

 

Mr Barak’s staff issued a stern rebuke of the prime minister, warning that Israel would “suffer the consequences”. Mr Barak himself called the decision “shameful” and described Mr Gilad as “a dedicated and outstanding civil servant”.

 

Mr Barak’s close ties to Mr Gilad date to his premiership, when Mr Gilad briefed him as head of military intelligence’s research department.

 

Contrary to the pragmatic, almost dovish, image he has now acquired inside Israel, Mr Gilad has traditionally been regarded as an ultra-hawk.

 

It was his briefings at the time of Camp David in 2000, in which he claimed that the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, was determined to use the second intifada to destroy Israel, that gave weight to Mr Barak’s slogan “There is no partner for peace”.

 

Four years later, in June 2004, a series of military officials revealed that Mr Gilad had doctored intelligence reports and presented a false picture to the politicians.

 

In reality, according to the director of military intelligence, Amos Malka, the evidence showed that Arafat wanted to reach a deal with Israel and had been taken by surprise by the ferocity of the popular Palestinian uprising.

 

In response, Mr Gilad defended his briefings, calling Arafat “incredibly dangerous” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

 

At the same time, he won a disability allowance from the defence ministry for developing diabetes following what he called “heavy emotional pressure” during the 1982 Lebanon war, which had left him psychologically scarred.

 

Mr Gilad is blamed by some Israeli analysts for fuelling Israel’s hawkish policies throughout the second intifada.

 

Commenting in 2004, Roni Ben Efrat noted that Mr Gilad’s false intelligence had provided the political justification “for isolating Arafat and attempting to replace him with Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas]. It lies today at the root of the plan to disengage unilaterally from Gaza.”

 

However, the false intelligence revelations, as well as claims of mental impairment, did little to dent Mr Gilad’s subsequent influence. He went on to become the army’s co-ordinator in the occupied territories and helped Mr Barak’s successor, Ariel Sharon, engineer the reoccupation of the West Bank and crush the Palestinian Authority.

 

He also promoted the view that Israel was on the front line in the “war on terror”. In Feb 2003, a month before the US invasion of Iraq, he stated that Mr Arafat and Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, “believe in the same path, the path of terror meant to break Israel”.

 

When he took over diplomatic and security issues at the defence ministry in May 2003, Reuven Pedatzur, a military analyst, warned that the appointment marked “another step in the process of militarisation [of] Israeli society”. He added: “Civilians – and civil worldviews – have been totally excluded from any involvement or influence in the diplomatic process.”

 

Since Mr Olmert’s effective resignation in September over corruption allegations, and as Israel still waits for a new prime minister to emerge, government officials have complained that, despite being unelected, Mr Gilad is as good as “running the country”.

 

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

 

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

The Politics Of Bollocks

by John Pilger

Global Research, February 7, 2009

Information Clearinghouse Growing up in an Antipodean society proud of its rich variety of expletives, I never heard the word bollocks. It was only on arrival in England that I understood its majesterial power. All classes used it. Judges grunted it; an editor of the Daily Mirror used it as noun, adjective and verb. Certainly, the resonance of a double vowel saw off its closest American contender. It had authority. A high official with the Gilbertian title of Lord West of Spithead used it to great effect on 27 January. The former admiral, who is security adviser to Gordon Brown, was referring to Tony Blair's famous assertion that invading countries and killing innocent people did not increase the threat of terrorism at home. "That was clearly bollocks," said his lordship, who warned of the perceived "linkage between the US, Israel and the UK" in the horrors inflicted on Gaza and the effect on the recruitment of terrorists in Britain. In other words, he was stating the obvious: that state terrorism begets individual or group terrorism at source. Just as Blair was the prime mover of the London bombings of 7 July 2005, so Brown, having pursued the same cynical crusades in Muslim countries and having armed and disported himself before the criminal regime in Tel Aviv, will share responsibility for related atrocities at home. There is a lot of bollocks about at the moment. The BBC's explanation for banning an appeal on behalf of the stricken people of Gaza is a vivid example. Mark Thompson, the director general, cited the BBC's legal requirement to be "impartial... because Gaza is a major ongoing news story in which humanitarian issues... are both at the heart of the story and contentious." In a letter to Thompson, David Bracewell, illuminated the deceit behind this. He pointed to previous BBC appeals for the Disasters Emergency Committee that were not only made in the midst of "an ongoing news story" in which humanitarian issues were "contentious", but demonstrated how the BBC took sides. In 1999, at the height of the illegal Nato bombing of Serbia and Kosovo, the TV presenter Jill Dando made an appeal on behalf of Kosovar refugees. The BBC web page for that appeal was linked to numerous articles meant to support the gravity of the humanitarian issue. These included quotations from Blair himself, such as "This will be a daily pounding until [Slobodan Milosevic] comes into line with the terms that Nato has laid down." There was no significant balance of view from the Yugoslav side, and not a single mention that the flight of Kosovar refugees began only after Nato had started bombing. Similarly, in an appeal for the victims of the civil war in the Congo, the BBC favoured the regime of Joseph Kabila without referring to the Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other reports accusing his forces of atrocities. In contrast, the rebel leader Nkunda was "accused of committing atrocities" and was ordained the BBC's bad guy. Kabila, who represented western interests, was clearly the good guy – just like Nato in the Balkans and Israel in the Middle East. While Mark Thompson and his satraps richly deserve the Lord West of Spithead Bollocks Blue Ribbon, that honour goes to the cheer squad of President Barack Obama, whose cult-like obeisance goes on and on. On 23 January, the Guardian's front page declared, "Obama shuts network of CIA 'ghost prisons' ". The "wholesale deconstruction [sic] of George Bush's war on terror", said the report, had been ordered by the new president who would be "shutting down the CIA's secret prison network, banning torture and rendition...". The bollocks quotient on this was so high that it read like the press release it was, citing "officials briefing reporters at the White House yesterday". Obama's orders, according to a group of 16 retired generals and admirals who attended a presidential signing ceremony, "would restore America's moral standing in the world". What moral standing? It never ceases to astonish that experienced reporters can transmit PR stunts like this, bearing in mind the moving belt of lies from the same source under only nominally different management. Far from "deconstructing [sic] the war on terror", Obama is clearly pursuing it with the same vigour, ideological backing and deception as the previous administration. George W. Bush's first war, in Afghanistan, and last war, in Pakistan, are now Obama's wars – with thousands more US troops to be deployed, more bombing and more slaughter of civilians. On 22 January, the day he described Afghanistan and Pakistan as "the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism", 22 Afghan civilians died beneath Obama's bombs in a hamlet populated mainly by shepherds and which, by all accounts, had not laid eyes on the Taliban. Women and children were among the dead, which is normal. Far from "shutting down the CIA's secret prison network", Obama's executive orders actually give the CIA authority to carry out renditions, abductions and transfers of prisoners in secret without the threat of legal obstruction. As the Los Angeles Times disclosed, "current and former intelligence officials said the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role." A semantic sleight of hand is that "long term prisons" are changed to "short term prisons"; and while Americans are now banned from directly torturing people, foreigners working for the US are not. This means that America's numerous "covert actions" will operate as they did under previous presidents, with proxy regimes, such as Augusto Pinochet's in Chile, doing the dirtiest work. Bush's open support for torture, and Donald Rumsfeld's extraordinary personal overseeing of certain torture techniques, upset many in America's "secret army" of subversive military and intelligence operators as it exposed how the system worked. Obama's nominee for director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said the Army Field Manual may include new forms of "harsh interrogation", which will be kept secret. Obama has chosen not to stop any of this. Neither do his ballyhooed executive orders put an end to Bush's assault on constitutional and international law. He has retained Bush's "right" to imprison anyone, without trial or charges. No "ghost prisoners" are being released or are due to be tried before a civilian court. His nominee for attorney-general, Eric Holder, has endorsed an extension of Bush's totalitarian USA Patriot Act, which allows federal agents to demand Americans' library and bookshop records. The man of "change", is changing little. That ought to be front page news from Washington. The Lord West of Spithead Bollocks Prize (Runner-up) is shared. On 28 January, a national Greenpeace advertisement opposing a third runway at London's Heathrow airport summed up the almost willful naivety that has obstructed informed analysis of the Obama administration. "Fortunately," declared Greenpeace beneath a God-like picture of Obama, "the White House has a new occupant, and he has asked us all to roll back the spectre of a warming planet." This was followed by Obama's rhetorical flourish about "putting off unpleasant decisions". In fact, Obama has made no commitment to curtail the America's infamous responsibility for the causes of global warming. As with Bush and most modern era presidents, it is oil, not stemming carbon emissions, that informs the new administration. Obama's national security adviser, General Jim Jones, a former Nato supreme commander, made his name planning US military control over the exploitation of oil and gas reserves from the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Guinea in Africa. Sharing the Bollocks Runner-up Prize is the Observer, which on 25 January published a major news report headlined, "How Obama set the tone for a new US revolution". This was reminiscent of the Observer almost a dozen years ago when liberalism's other great white hope, Tony Blair, came to power. "Goodbye Xenophobia" was the Observer's post-election front page in 1997 and "The Foreign Office says Hello World, remember us". The government, said the breathless text, would push for "new worldwide rules on human rights and the environment" and implement "tough new limits" on arms sales. The opposite happened. Last year, Britain was the biggest arms dealer in the world; currently it is second only to the United States. In the Blair mould, the Obama White House "sprang into action" with its "radical plans". The new president's first phone call was to that Palestinian quisling, the unelected and deeply unpopular Mohammed Abbas. There was a "hot pace" and a "new era", in which a notorious name from an ancien regime, Richard Holbrooke, was dispatched to Pakistan. In 1978, Holbrooke betrayed a promise to normalise relations with the Vietnamese on the eve of a vicious embargo that ruined the lives of countless Vietnamese children. Under Obama, the "sense of a new era abroad", declared the Observer, "was reinforced by the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state". Clinton has threatened to "entirely obliterate Iran" on behalf of Israel. What the childish fawning over Obama obscures is the dark power assembled under cover of America's first "post-racial president". Apart from the US, the world's most dangerous state is demonstrably Israel, having recently killed and maimed some 4,000 people in Gaza with impunity. On 10 February, a bellicose Israeli electorate is likely to put Binyamin Netanyahu into power. Netanyahu is a fanatic's fanatic who has made clear his intention of attacking Iran. In the Wall Street Journal on 24 January, he described Iran as the "terrorist mother base" and justified the murder of civilians in Gaza because "Israel cannot accept an Iranian terror base (Gaza) next to its major cities". On 31 January, unaware he was being filmed, Israel's ambassador in Australia described the massacres in Gaza as a "pre-introduction" - dress rehearsal - for an attack on Iran. For Netanyahu, the reassuring news is that Obama's administration is the most Zionist in living memory – a truth that has struggled to be told from beneath the soggy layers of Obama-love. Not a single member of Obama's team demurred from Obama's support for Israel's barbaric actions in Gaza. Obama himself likened the safety of his two young daughters with that of Israeli children while making not a single reference to the thousands of Palestinian children killed with American weapons - a violation of both international and US law. He did, however, demand that the people of Gaza be denied "smuggled" small arms with which to defend themselves against the world's fourth largest military power. And he paid tribute to the Arab dictatorships, such as Egypt, which are bribed by the US Treasury to help the US and Israel enforce policies described by the United Nations Rapporteur, Richard Falk, a Jew, as "genocidal". It is time the Obama lovers grew up. It is time those paid to keep the record straight gave us the opportunity to debate informatively. In the 21st century, people power remains a huge and exciting and largely untapped force for change, but it is nothing without truth. "In the time of universal deceit," wrote George Orwell, "telling the truth is a revolutionary act." John Pilger is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global Research Articles by John Pilger

Unusually Large U.S. Weapons Shipment to Israel: Are the US and Israel Planning a Broader Middle East War?

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, January 11, 2009 A very large delivery of  US weaponry to Israel consisting of 3,000 tons of "ammunition" is scheduled to sail to Israel. The size and nature of the shipments are described as "unusual":  "Shipping 3,000-odd tons of ammunition in one go is a lot," one broker said, on condition of anonymity.  "This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven't seen much of it quoted in the market over the years," he added. "Shipping brokers in London who have specialized in moving arms for the British and U.S. military in the past said such ship charters to Israel were rare. (Reuters, Jan 10, 2009)  The Pentagon has entrusted a Greek merchant shipping company to deliver the weapons to Israel:   "The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tons of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show. The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as "ammunition" on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.  A "hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.(Ibid)  It is worth noting that a similar unusually large shipment of  US ordinance to Israel was scheduled in early December:   "Tender documents indicate that the German ship hired by the US in early December also carried a massive cargo of weapons that weighed over 2.6 million kg [2600 tons] and filled up to 989 standard 20-foot containers to Ashdod from North Carolina." (Press TV, 10 Jan 2009) Are These Large Shipments of Ordinance Connected to the Invasion of Gaza? The request by the Pentagon to transport ordinance in a commercial vessel, according to Reuters, was made on December 31, 4 days after the commencement of the aerial bombings of Gaza by F16 Fighter jets.  Analysts have hastily concluded, without evidence, that the 2 shipments of "ammunition" were intended to supply Israel's armed forces in support of its military invasion of Gaza. "A senior military analyst in London who declined to be named said that, because of the timing, the shipments could be "irregular" and linked to the Gaza offensive." (Reuters, January 10, 2009) These reports are mistaken. Delivery of ordinance always precedes the onslaught of a military operation. The ordinance required under "Operation Cast Lead" was decided upon in June 2008. Further to Tel Aviv's request under the US military aid program to Israel, the U.S. Congress approved in September 2008 the transfer of 1,000 bunker-buster high precision GPS-guided Small Diameter Guided Bomb Units 39 (GBU-39).  The GBU 39 smart bombs produced by Boeing were delivered to Israel in November. They were used in the initial air raids on Gaza:  "...The Israel Air Force has used the new lightweight GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb acquired from the USA, in the recent attacks in Gaza. The [Jerusalem] Post mentioned the new weapons ordered last September having arrived last month [November], and already put to action with the IAF fighters. These weapons could have been deployed by the Boeing/IAF F-15Is, since sofar SDB is cleared for use only with this type of aircraft. It is highly unlikely that the bulk of the weaponry included in these two large shipments, scheduled to arrive in Israel in late January, is intended to be used in Israel's military operation in Gaza. The GBU-39 is lightweight (130 kg). The entire shipment of GBU 39s (1000 units) would be of the order of a modest 130 tons. In other words, the specifications of the GBU 39 do not match the description of the "unusually large" and  "heavy" shipment of ordinance.  GBU-39 Escalation Scenario The shipment ordered on December 31 is of the order of 3000 tons, an unusually large and heavy cargo of "ammunition" pointing to the transfer of heavy weaponry to Israel.  According to US military statements, the ordinance is for stockpiling, to be used "at short notice" in the eventuality of a conflict:  "This previously scheduled shipment is routine and not in support of the current situation in Gaza. ...The U.S. military pre-positions stockpiles in some countries in case it needs supplies at short notice." (Reuters, 10 Jan 2009, emphasis added) Whatever the nature of these large weapons shipments, they are intended for use in a future military operation in the Middle East.  Since the launching of the Theater Iran Near Term Operation Operation (TIRANNT) in May 2003, an escalation scenario involving military action directed against Iran and Syria has been envisaged. TIRANNT was followed by a series of military plans pertaining to Iran. Numerous official statements and US military documents have pointed to an expanded Middle East war. What these shipments suggest is that the "escalation scenario" not only prevails, but has reached a more active stage in the process of US-Israeli military planning.  Whether these weapons will be used or not is not known. The central question, in this regard, is whether the Gaza invasion is part of a broader military adventure directed against Lebanon, Syria and Iran, in which heavier weaponry including US made bunker buster bombs will be used.  History of US Weapons Shipments to Israel  The stockpiling of US made bunker buster bombs by Israel has been ongoing since 2005:   "The United States will sell Israel nearly 5,000 smart bombs in one of the largest weapons deals between the allies in years. Among the bombs the [Israeli] air force will get are 500 one-ton bunker busters that can penetrate two-meter-thick cement walls; 2,500 regular one-ton bombs; 1,000 half-ton bombs; and 500 quarter-ton bombs. The bombs Israel is acquiring include airborne versions, guidance units, training bombs and detonators. They are guided by an existing Israeli satellite used by the military. The sale will augment existing Israeli supplies of smart bombs. The Pentagon told Congress that the bombs are meant to maintain Israel's qualitative advantage [against Iran], and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests." (Jewish Virtual Library: September 21-22, 2004, Haaretz / Jerusalem Post.) The actual shipments of US made bunker buster bombs started in 2005. The US approved in April 2005, the delivery of:   some 5,000  "smart air launched weapons" including some 500 BLU 109 'bunker-buster bombs.  The (uranium coated) munitions are said to be more than 'adequate to address the full range of Iranian targets, with the possible exception of the buried facility at Natanz, which may require the [more powerful] BLU-113 bunker buster [a variant of the GBU 28]'" (See Michel Chossudovsky, Planned US-Israeli Nuclear Attack on Iran, Global Research, May 1, 2005) The BLU-109 is smaller than the GBU 28. "It  is a 2,000lbs warhead that can be used in combination with a GPS guidance kit [...], and can penetrate up to 15 feet of fortified concrete." (See F16.net) In 2006 at the height of the Lebanon War in August 2006, a major shipment of the 2.2 ton GBU 28 bombs, according to the New York Times, was dispatched to Israel.  The GBU 28 is produced by Raytheon. It was used against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, has the the capability of penetrating some 20 feet of reinforced concrete. (Haaretz, 9 Nov 2008)  In contrast to the GBU 39 smart bombs (130 kg) used against Gaza, each GBU-28 weighs a hefty 2.2 tons.   "The Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) is a special weapon developed for penetrating hardened Iraqi command centers located deep underground. The GBU-28 is a 5,000-pound laser-guided conventional munition that uses a 4,400-pound penetrating warhead." Federation of American Scientists,  (For a visual depiction see  "Bob Sherman, How the GBU-28 works", USA Today on-line.).   GBU-28 Video of GBU 28 on UTube The recent unusually large shipments of weaponry to Israel are part of the 2004 agreement between Washington and Tel Aviv, financed by US military aid to Israel.  As mentioned above, there is a history of delivery of bunker buster bombs (including the GBU 28), going back to 2005. While the nature and composition of these recent weapons shipments to Israel are not known, one suspects that they include the heavier version of the bunker buster bombs including the GBU-28.  In this regard, it is worth noting that last Summer, Israel requested the Pentagon to deliver GBU-28 bunker buster bombs. The stated purpose was to use them in the eventuality of a military operation directed against Iran.  In September 2008, according to US and Israeli press reports quoting Pentagon officials, Tel Aviv's request was turned down. According to the reports, Washington categorically refused to deliver the shipment of GBU 28 bunker buster bombs, to be used to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. "Instead" Washington accepted to deliver the lightweight GBU-39 for use against Gaza.  The U.S. had "rejected an Israeli request for military equipment and support that would improve Israel's ability to attack Iran's nuclear facilities." The Americans viewed [Israel's] request, which was transmitted (and rejected) at the highest level, as a sign that Israel is in the advanced stages of preparations to attack Iran. They therefore warned Israel against attacking, saying such a strike would undermine American interests. They also demanded that Israel give them prior notice if it nevertheless decided to strike Iran. In early September, Haaretz reported that the request had included GBU-28 "bunker-buster" bombs. In mid-September, the U.S. agreed instead to sell Israel 1000 GBU-39 "bunker buster" bombs which Israeli military experts said "could provide a powerful new weapon" in Gaza, AP reported. So: when Israel requested weapons that the U.S. expected would be used for bombing Iran, the U.S. said no, and added explicitly that it did not want to see an Israeli attack on Iran. And there was no Israeli attack on Iran. (Defense Update.com, December 2008) Media Disinformation The official statements and press reports are bogus. Israel and the US have always acted in close coordination. Washington does not "demand that Israel give them prior notice" of a military operation: The report in Haaretz suggests that the Bush Administration was adamant and did not want the Israelis to attack Iran. In fact, the reports suggested that the US would shoot down Israeli planes, if they tried to attack Iran: "Air-space authorization: An attack on Iran would apparently require passage through Iraqi air space. For this to occur, an air corridor would be needed that Israeli fighter jets could cross without being targeted by American planes or anti-aircraft missiles. The Americans also turned down this request. According to one account, to avoid the issue, the Americans told the Israelis to ask Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for permission, along the lines of "If you want, coordinate with him." (Haaretz Nov 9, 2008)  This Israeli report is misleading. Israel is America's ally. Military operations are closely coordinated. Israel does not act without Washington's approval and the US does not shoot down the planes of its closest ally.    The Nature and Composition of  the Recent US Weapons Shipments to Israel These unusually large shipments of ordinance would normally require Congressional approval.  To our knowledge, there is no public record of approval of the unusually large shipments of heavy "ammunition" to Israel.  The nature and composition of the shipments are not known. Was Israel's request for the delivery of the 2.2 ton GBU 28 accepted by Washington, bypassing the US Congress? Are GBU 28 bombs, each of which weighs 2.2 tons part of the 3000 ton shipments to Israel. Are tactical bunker buster mini-nuclear bombs included in Israel's arsenal? These are questions to be raised in the US Congress.   The two shipments of "ammunition" are slated to arrive in Israel, respectively no later than the 25th and 31st of January.  Secretary Robert Gates who remains at the helm of the Department of Defense ensures continuity in the military agenda.   Preparing for a Confrontation with Iran: Beefing Up Israel's Missile Defense System In early January, the Pentagon dispatched some 100 military personnel to Israel from US European Command (EUCOM) to assist Israel in setting up a new sophisticated X-band early warning radar system. This project is part of the military aid package to Israel approved by the Pentagon in September 2008: "The Israeli government requested the system to help defend against a potential missile attack from Iran. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates signed off on the deployment order in mid-September. ....   Once fully operational, the system will be capable of tracking and identifying small objects at long distance and at very high altitude, including space, according to U.S. Missile Defense Agency officials. It also will integrate Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile detection network. “This will enable the Israelis to track medium- and long-range ballistic missiles multiple times better than their current radar allows them to,” Morrell said. “It will … more than double the range of Israel's missile defense radars and increase its available engagement time.” This, he said, will greatly enhance Israel’s defensive capabilities. “There is a growing ballistic missile threat in the region, particularly from Iran,” Morrell said. “And no one in the region should feel more nervous about that threat than the Israelis. And they clearly do, and they have asked for our assistance.” (Defense Talk.com, January 6, 2009, emphasis added.) The new X-band radar system 'permits an intercept soon after launch over enemy instead of friendly territory" (Sen. Joseph Azzolina, Protecting Israel from Iran's missiles, Bayshore News, December 26, 2008).  The X-band radar would "integrate Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors." (Ibid)  What this means is that Washington calls the shots. The US rather than Israel would control the Air Defense system:  ''This is and will remain a U.S. radar system,' Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. 'So this is not something we are giving or selling to the Israelis and it is something that will likely require U.S. personnel on-site to operate.'" (Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009, emphasis added).  In other words, the US military controls Israel's Air Defense system, which is integrated into the US global missile defense system. Under these circumstances, Israel cannot launch a war against Iran without the consent of the US High Command.  The large shipments of US ordinance, slated to arrive in Israel after the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States and Commander in Chief are part of the broader program of US-Israeli military cooperation in relation to Iran.  The reinforcement of Israel's missile defenses combined with the large shipments of US weapons are part of an escalation scenario, which could lead the World under an Obama Administration into a broader Middle East war.  New Cold War? There has been a military build on both sides. Iran has responded to the Israeli-US initiative, by beefing up it own missile defense system with the support of Russia. According to reports (December 21), Moscow and Tehran have been holding talks on the supply by Russia of "medium-range air defense systems - specifically, S-300 surface-to-air missile systems" (Asian Times, January 9, 2009)