Home > Israel prepares to drag Syria & Iran into war
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How Israel mistook an "aircraft rigged with explosives" for a missile,
as the Associated Press reports, is not explained. However, blaming Iran
certainly fits the picture, as both Israel and the United States are
trying to drag Iran and Syria into Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and thus
widen the conflict, as planned.
Israel Prepares to Invade Syria
by Kurt Nimmo
July 15, 2006
As to be expected, the story about a Hezbollah drone hitting an Israeli
warship was tweaked this morning to fit the emerging agenda. "Senior
Israeli army officers said Saturday that the rocket which hit an Israeli
missile boat off the Lebanese coast Friday night was an Iranian-built
radar-guided C-802," reports the Bangkok Post.
How Israel mistook an "aircraft rigged with explosives" for a missile,
as the Associated Press reports, is not explained. However, blaming Iran
certainly fits the picture, as both Israel and the United States are
trying to drag Iran and Syria into Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and thus
widen the conflict, as planned.
In a Market Watch article provocatively entitled "Bush points finger at
Hezbollah, Syria," we learn that our ruler, attending a globalist confab
in St. Petersburg, Russia, has blamed Syria for Israel’s invasion.
"In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why
the violence occurred in the first place," said Bush. "And that’s
because Hizbullah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into
Israel and because Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers," Naharnet
reports.
No mention here of the hundreds of Lebanese held illegally in Israeli
torture dungeons. Earlier this month, the Lebanese government complained
to the UN Secretary General representative in Beirut about "the nonstop
arrest of detainees, and ... the hundreds of missing persons, which poses
as a violation of human rights."
Israel has admitted abducting Lebanese for political purposes, but for
some reason this fact is not mentioned in the corporate media. In the
late 90s, before Israel was evicted from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah,
it was a common practice for Israel to abduct entirely innocent Lebanese
and hold them as "bargaining chips, " and not hold them, according to
Amnesty International, "for their own actions but in exchange for
Israeli soldiers missing in action or killed in Lebanon." As usual,
these facts are ignored by our appointed ruler and the corporate media.
According to the al-Hayat newspaper in London, "Israel gave Syria 72
hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity, bring about release of kidnapped IDF
troops," or else, reports Yedioth Internet, "it would launch an
offensive with disastrous consequences," in other words Syria will
suffer the same sort of attacks Lebanon is now suffering.
Not unusually, word of this warning emerged from the Pentagon, currently
under the control of Likudite neocons. Al-Hayat reported "a senior
Pentagon source warned that should the Arab world and international
community fail in the efforts to convince Syria to pressure Hizbullah
into releasing the soldiers and halt the current escalation Israel may
attack targets in the country," in other words civilian infrastructure
will be targeted.
As if to confirm Israel’s impending invasion of Syria, Foreign Minister
Erkki Tuomioja of Finland said the European Union considers "the
situation to be very bad and there is still the possibility that it
could get worse and that the conflict could spread, especially to
Syria.... This is in no way desirable. The consequences could be really
uncontrollable," reports Reuters.
Of course, it is eminently "desirable" for the Israeli government and
the neocon faction currently riding high in the government of the United
States, as they have plotted for some time to go after Syria and Iran,
that is to say blowing up its civilian infrastructure and slaughtering
its citizens.
Al Bawaba reports "Israeli warplanes launched four missiles at a border
crossing point between Lebanon and Syria on Saturday, witnesses said. A
Syrian army position is located in the area" near Masnaa. "Witnesses
said Israeli planes fired four rockets at the Masnaa crossing point
between the last Lebanese post and the first Syrian army position on the
Beirut-Damascus road," Reuters adds. Moreover, according to the
al-Mustaqbal Lebanese news network, "the IAF hit targets belonging to
the Syrian army" prior to the Masnaa raid, Yedioth Internet reports.
As if to remind us the real target is not puny little Hezbollah and
Hamas, but rather Syria and Iran, neocon kingpin William Kristol,
writing from his perch at the Murdoch funded Weekly Standard, tells us
the "war against radical Islamism is likely to be a long one. Radical
Islamism isn’t going away anytime soon. But it will make a big
difference how strong the state sponsors, harborers, and financiers of
radical Islamism are. Thus, our focus should be less on Hamas and
Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders-Syria and
Iran." No translation is in order-the United States must attack Iran and
Syria, that is after Israel stirs up the cauldron with a provocative
bombing campaign. "For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they
are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of
standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more
boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is
provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be
perceived as weak."
Israel’s enemies are the enemies of the United States, as Israel has the
White House, Pentagon, and Congress under its thumb, from rabid
pro-Israel activists in decisive positions in the Bush administration to
AIPAC’s stranglehold over Congress.
Syria and Iran are next on the bombing sortie. Syria will be an easy
target, as it is nearly as helpless as Lebanon, but Iran will be a tough
nut to crack.
If Israel attacks Iran, as it has threatened for months (and has
acquired the military hardware to do so), all hell will break loose,
especially for the U.S. troops in Iraq, currently facing the distinct
possibility of a Shia revolt and "civil war."
Expect the United States to react accordingly.
Addendum
According to Stratfor Intelligence, Israel plans not only to launch "a
major, sustained assault into southern Lebanon to eliminate the Lebanese
militant group Hezbollah," up to the Litani River, of course, but also
plans to "make a pre-emptive strike against the Syrian air defense
network, which Israeli planes successfully penetrated in June, buzzing
Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s private residence," a sort of warning
of things to come, as I noted the other day. Stratfor has more
confidence in Syria’s air force than I do, but then I’m not an
"intelligence expert," as Strafor claims to be:
Despite the political stunt flyby, Syria’s air defense network is
still amply equipped and its air force boasts, among other aircraft, 80
MiG-29 and 10 Su-27 fighters. Operationally, Syria has always crumbled
when it faced the IDF, and its air defense and pilot training regimens
are certainly below par. But nevertheless, Syria’s air defense network
extends over much of southern Lebanon and poses a very real danger to
IAF operations over Lebanon. Israel successfully devastated this air
force in 1982 in a pre-emptive strike. If the Israelis decide that Syria
might resist their efforts in Lebanon, Israel will not hesitate to take
the network out. A devastating pre-emptive strike is preferable to a
protracted engagement with the whole air defense network at full alert-a
much more complex endeavor that would detract from operations in
Lebanon. As long as the Israelis leave Syrian assets intact, they fight
with an exposed right flank.
As Strafor views it, Israel will launch a ground offensive as soon as
July 16 "when the reservists of the Israeli Northern Command who were
just activated will have had 72 hours to spin up. However, since rockets
fired from Lebanon hit Israel’s port city of Haifa on July 13, Israel’s
7th Armored, Golani and Barak Brigades-some of the elite and most
decorated units of the regular Israeli army-might push ahead as far as
the Litani and let the reservists catch up later."
As the Lebanese well understand, another occupation of their country
will result in human rights abuses, as the Israelis consider the
Lebanese on par with the Palestinians.
In 1998, the Commission on Human Rights deplored "the continued Israeli
violations of human rights in the occupied zone in southern Lebanon and
western Bekaa, demonstrated in particular by the abduction and ongoing
arbitrary detention of Lebanese citizens [in the Khiyam and Marjayoun
torture centers], the destruction of their dwellings, the confiscation
of their property, their expulsion from their land, the bombardment of
peaceful villages and civilian areas, and other practices violating the
most fundamental principles of human rights." In short, the Lebanese may
expect the same sort of brutality meted out to the Palestinians.
Of course, this criminal behavior, stretching over nearly two decades,
has nothing to do with the formation and radicalization of Hezbollah.