http://news.antiwar.com/2012/04/24/israeli-military-chief-iran-wont-develop-nuclear-weapons/
The comments, made in a high profile interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz on the occasion of Israeli Independence Day, also include an admonishment to avoid “hysteria” about Iran’s program. This probably won’t sit well with the nation’s civilian leadership, which is constantly claiming Iran is “close” to nuclear weapons capability.
Israeli Military Chief: Iran Won’t Develop Nuclear Weapons
Warns Against 'Hysteria' as Netanyahu Threatens Attack Again
by Jason Ditz, April 24, 2012
Adding to the hope that the constant threats of war are empty ones, Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz today expressed confidence of a diplomatic solution with Iran, adding that he didn’t think Iran would attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
The comments, made in a high profile interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz on the occasion of Israeli Independence Day, also include an admonishment to avoid “hysteria” about Iran’s program. This probably won’t sit well with the nation’s civilian leadership, which is constantly claiming Iran is “close” to nuclear weapons capability.
The interview in the Israeli press was in stark contrast to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interview with US media outlet CNN, in which he insisted that there were no questions about Iran’s nuclear weapons program and that the international sanctions had “better work soon.”
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have been expressing anger at the ongoing diplomatic negotiations with Iran, insisting that they have no hope of working. Defense Minister Ehud Barak even claimed last week that Israel might launch an attack while the negotiations were ongoing, saying that talking to the P5+1 didn’t “exempt” Iran from attack.
and.....
http://news.antiwar.com/2012/04/24/spurt-of-violence-in-syria-leaves-ceasefire-in-doubt/
Spurt of Violence in Syria Leaves Ceasefire in Doubt
Troops Shell Hama as Rebels Assassinate Top Military Leaders
by Jason Ditz, April 24, 2012
Nearly two weeks into the ceasefire, Syria is once again seeing an upswing in violence,with reports that the Syrian military killed some 28 civilians after UN observers toured Hama, and rebels launched fresh attacks near the capital of Damascus.
Rebels reportedly assassinated three top members of the Assad regime’s security forces, including a police commander and a top intelligence official. The deaths were part of a series of targeted assassinations by some rebel faction, but exactly which was not clear.
Meanwhile the Hama violence was condemned as unacceptable by UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan, but the exact toll was unclear. Though 28 seems to be the official figure, rebels claimed over 70 deaths in the shelling.
Exactly where this leaves the ceasefire is uncertain, but there is a scramble to get additional monitors into the country. Currently only eight monitors are in Syria, but the regime has approved of a UN mission of up to 300.
and....
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/04/24/the-regime-change-machine/
The world is in chaos, war is breaking out all over, there’s blood flowing in the streets of cities from the Middle East to Africa, but not to worry – we’ve got an “Atrocity Prevention Board”! Now doesn’t that make you feel much better?
The board is chaired by the infamous Samantha Power – whose advocacy of the “responsibility to protect” doctrine is credited with the Obama administration’s support for Islamist rebels in Libya, and is currently energizing calls for a similar intervention in Syria. The announcement of this new bureaucratic instrument of war was made by Obama at a recent speech delivered at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, where professional warmonger and Israel Firster Elie Wiesel took the opportunity to call for war with Iran and the President, for his part, announced the imposition of new sanctions on both Iran and Syria.
The atrocities this board is supposed to prevent are those that are not committed by the US: our atrocities, you understand, are really “humanitarian” acts, as opposed totheir atrocities, which are … well, just plain old atrocities. One can safely assume the cold-blooded murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, killed by US sanctions prior to the invasion, is not one of those atrocities to be considered by the Board. Nor willthose many thousands of Iraqi civilians who lost their lives in the war be so recognized.
No, designation will be reserved for the actions of governments that defy our will, like Iran and Syria. Obama singled out South Sudan and Libya as monuments to this policy of “atrocity prevention” – Libya, whose Islamist government is jailing,murdering, and otherwise repressing its own people, and South Sudan, a completely made-up “nation” that owes its very existence to Western intervention, routinelyarrests opposition figures and journalists, and is currently involved in putting downlocal and tribal insurgencies in the majority of its provinces (with our help, you can be sure).
The piddling atrocities carried out by such tinhorn despots as Bashar al-Assad and theIranian mullahs are nothing compared to the large-scale war crimes routinely committed by US forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our drones roam the world, wreaking random havoc on innocents and “terrorists” alike – oh, but that isn’t an “atrocity.” It’s “fighting terrorism.” That is how the world’s biggest perpetrator of atrocities gets to set up an “Atrocity Prevention Board” and not be laughed off the world stage.
Where oh where does the authority to set up such a board come from? There’s no mention of it in the Constitution – but, then again, you don’t want to be labeled a “constitutional fundamentalist,” do you? So please shut up about that, and go on to the next question: did Congress ever authorize the creation of such a board? Well, who cares if they did or not? Because we don’t even need Congress to approve adeclaration of war before the President calls out the troops – he can do so all on his own. After all, he’s the Emperor, the commander-in-chief, the Great Leader whose will is law when it comes to foreign policy. The Founders would be horrified – but who cares about those old white racists, anyhow? They would have been horrified by so much we take for granted that they might as well be aliens from another dimension: we can safely file their imagined objections away under “horse-and-buggy” and be done with them forever.
Yes, we live in a Brave New World, where, with the stroke of a pen, the Leader can create an entirely new government agency devoted to overseas espionage – the “Defense Clandestine Service,” which will no doubt cooperate with the Atrocity Prevention Board, the CIA, the DIA, and all the other alphabet-soup agencies that constitute the Regime Change Machine loudly revving up its motors. Together these assembled paper-pushers, political appointees, and military contractors constitute a formidable apparatus, well-oiled with billions of our tax dollars, to spread the “benefits” of American hegemony all across the globe: that’s “globalization” for you! All of them unaccountable, operating in secret, and owing loyalty only to themselves and whatever gang of thieves and opportunists happens to be running the US government at any particular moment.
Make no mistake: the “Atrocity Prevention Board” is an instrument of propaganda, targeted not at any foreign audience – which knows better than to take seriously the threadbare rationalizations of our bureaucrats – but at the US electorate, and, in particular, the policy-making elites. So, you don’t agree we ought to intervene in Nation X to save it from the depredations of Dictator Y? But the Atrocity Prevention Board has determined that a mass atrocity is scheduled to take place within days – what are you, a heartless “isolationist”?
In this way the machinery of war is prepared, public opinion is tamed, and the American agenda – global dominance [.pdf] – is implemented, with nary a protest to be heard.
The hypocrisy and duplicity of our ruling elites is boundless, and they don’t shy away from Orwellian phraseology: after all, who else would set up an “Atrocity Prevention Board” when they are themselves the single greatest perpetrators of atrocities on earth? That takes real chutzpah, a substance plentiful in Washington, D.C.
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