A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Bill Kelly]

either you are for the dictators or you are against them.

Jesus Christ,a fucking "Bushism"......Bill,the State Department is looking for a few good men.It could be your lucky day.

I'm not trying to dirty anybody, I just don't think that you can chose which dictators you like and which ones you don't like.

Okay,here it is again Bill,please take notes this time.Nobody likes dictators or tyrants on this forum!Get it?Stop insulting us!

Okay, then we all agree and are on the same side - all against Tyrants and Dictators. No more insults, especially those directed at me.

I have been fighting the CIA and the USA military agenda for decades - and here, and only here, am I branded a CIA propagandist because I find no hint that the CIA predicted, foresaw or encouraged the Arab Spring revolutions, that I also support.

But there are those, especially those who claim to be liberals and leftists, who suddenly discovered Libya after the USA and NATO support of the rebels - and branded that a new extension of the USA war policies of the past decades.

In fact, it was Chris Stevens who convinced the USA that the Libyan rebels were for real, that they were fighting for a new democrtic state, and that policy change is a major shift in US policy that nobody seems or wants to see.

BK

[Magda Hassan]

Absolute war crime.

Turkey's military continues to shell Syria while the government awaits parliamentary approval for military operations on its neighbor's territory after five Turkish civilians were allegedly killed by casual fire from Syria.
Several Syrian soldiers have been killed in artillery shelling from Turkish territory on Thursday night, reports the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
Ankara has confirmed it is firing on positions of the Syrian military. Artillery strikes have been made early on Thursday morning targeting the Tel Abyad district 10 km inside Syrian territory.
Turkish authorities have written to the UN Security Council on Thursday about the alleged shelling of its territory from Syria.
In a letter addressed to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Ankara classifies Syria's actions as "an act of aggression from Syria against Turkey" and has demanded measures be taken against Damascus to ensure the territorial integrity and security of Turkey.
Spokesperson for the US State Department Victoria Nuland has called on to Russia to "use its influence on the Assad regime" and said Washington will continue co-operating with Moscow in search of a solution to the Syrian crisis, which the US understands as transition of authority from President Bashar al-Assad.

http://rt.com/news/turkey-syria-shelling-dead-631/

[Peter Lemkin]

Okay, then we all agree and are on the same side - all against Tyrants and Dictators. No more insults, especially those directed at me.

I have been fighting the CIA and the USA military agenda for decades - and here, and only here, am I branded a CIA propagandist ....
BK

Bill Kelly is many things and many very good things....one thing he is not is a CIA propagandist nor apologist; ditto USA military agenda, generally, IMHO. He may not see all of the 'Arab Spring' [or other] events as having the same motives behind the players and other 'actors and effectuators' behind those players that some others on this Forum see and believe, including myself (at times), but as Rodney King once said, "Can't we all just get along...?"

His work on JFK is top shelf and his views on other topics deserve at least, I think, a polite review...if not total agreement with. While most of the regular posters on this Forum have a wide 'set' of overlapping viewpoints, I hope it doesn't get too inbred - to the point where honest [non troll/Sunsteinian cognitive dissidence] differences of opinion and interpretation are not allowed.

I can't prove, but I'd be willing to bet that Bill Kelly has earned a nice thick FBI and likely even a CIA file.....not for fidelity with those noxious organizations...but with his work to get them both to release documents and his critique of their actions. So have many of us on this Forum.....for our own thoughts and efforts. Something of which I think we all should be proud and unites us in some strange club [which has precious few club benefits and no free drinks nor perks....]:mexican:

[Magda Hassan]

Syria: The Grenades on Turkey are NATO Ammunition

BY JERRY DANDRIDGE
OCTOBER 6, 2012 POSTED IN: INTERNATIONAL

Syria: NATO Ammunition was used to attack Turkish border town. FSA responsible.

This is a translation of the recent blog post by the German Blog "Alles Schall und Rauch" about the allegedly attack of a Turkish border town by the Syrian Arab Army. It seems that NATO ammunition was used in this attack.
This implies, that the Syrian Arab Army (the Syrian government) cannot be responsible for this attack because the Syrian Arab Army does not own these NATO ammunition. In addition, as several reports in recent months have already confirmed, the Western-backed radicals, terrorists and religious fanatics are supplied by several powers with weapons, money, and ammunition.
NATO ammunition is partly included in this supply for these fighters. This was already confirmed by recent pictures of seized weapon depots in Syria, but also by some Turkish reports. The translation of this article is below.

Syria: The Grenades on Turkey are NATO Ammunition

It's just like it is so often reported to me, the NATO countries provide the terrorists of Al-CIAda (Al Qaeda) either directly or indirectly via the friendly Gulf States with weapons and ammunition that will be used against themselves later. This is what happened during the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and now at the bombardment of the Turkish border town from Syria.
Terrorists in Syria are firing 120mm mortar shells:

NATO Ammunition

The Turkish daily "Yurt" writes in its latest issue, which the grenades, which were fired at the Turkish border village Akçakale, come from the NATO stocks.
Thus, it is clear, not the Syrian military has fired them, because it has not such ammunition, but the terrorists themselves did, that were hired by NATO. Again, a staged provocation, in order to have a reason (pretext) for going to war against Syria.
According to the chief editor of the Turkish daily "Yurt", Mr. Merdan Yanardag, the newspaper has received reliable information that Turkey has supplied the grenades to the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA), which later killed five civilians in the Turkish border town of Akçakale and numerous people were injured.

"This information confirms, that the wrong policies of the Erdogan government are behind the bombardment of the city with mortar shells, which has cost the lives of five Turks," wrote Yanardag.

That means in plain text, that Erdogan is a traitor and a murderer of his own people! He is a puppet of the U.S. and conducts its criminal policy of a "regime change" in Syria.

NATO Ammunition

I have investigated the matter and I have researched by the inscription of the mortars, 120 AE HE-TNT, of who produces them. In fact, it is NATO ammunition.
According to Jane's Defence Weekly, this ammunition is produced by various defense firms in Europe, such as the Spanish Explosivos Alaveses SA (EXPAL), which is part of the Maxam Defence Group.
Example of a firing of these 120mm mortar shells:



The Turkish daily "Yurt" has already confirmed by documents and videos in July, how the Turkish Intelligence is involved in terror attacks in Syria, but also confirmed, how training camps (for the terrorists) are established by the Turkish government near the city of Yayladağı, near the Syrian border, in order to smuggle the terrorists from there into Syria.
In one of these videos, the Turkish daily showed how a lot of Turkish terrorists, who spoke Turkish, have attacked a police station in the Syrian village of al-Sha'abaniya.
The Turkish newspaper also has quoted some of inhabitants of this region, these inhabitants said that the armed terrorists, who are hosted in these camps, have crossed the border (to Syria) in order to carry out terror attacks and massacre at the Syrian civilian population; they were not stopped by the Turkish border guards.
Locals have stressed, that the district of Yayladağı is a refuge area for thousands of terrorists, while the Turkish (Erdogan) government is doing nothing to protect the Turkish citizens from these people. The region forms the southern part of Turkey, bordering to Syria.
This means, that the Erdogan government is operating state terrorism against its neighbor Syria, but also against their own citizens.
Source: Die Granaten auf die Türkei sind NATO-Munition

[Magda Hassan]

[Magda Hassan]

German state TV reports that Syrian rebels officially claim responsibility for attack on Turkey

Posted on October 5, 2012
by R. Teichmann

On Oct. 4th, the German state TV channel ZDF reported on the attack on Turkey several times.

In its "Mittagsmagazin" at 1300 hours it reports as follows:
02:06 02:32
German:
„Raketen- und Granatfeuer. Die Türkei übt Vergeltung für einen Angriff von syrischer Seite. Gestern Nachmittag hatten syrische Rebellen einen türkischen Ort in Grenznähe beschossen. Seit Wochen schon warnt Ankara davor, die Türkei zu provozieren. Inzwischen haben sich die syrischen Rebellen ganz offiziell zu der Provokation bekannt."
Translation:
"Rocket and mortar fire. Turkey takes revenge after an attack from the Syrian side. Yesterday afternoon Syrian rebels fired on a Turkish village close to the border. For weeks Ankara had warned against provoking Turkey. Meanwhile Syrian rebels officially claimed responsibility for the provocation."

Only 3 hours later in its "Heute in Europa" at 1600 hours it reports:
01:40 01:52
German:
"Raketen und Granatfeuer. Vergangene Nacht übte die Türkei Vergeltung für einen Angriff von syrischer Seite. Gestern Nachmittag hatten Rebellen einen türkischen Ort in Grenznähe beschossen."
Translation:
"Rocket and mortar fire. Last night Turkey took revenge for an attack from the Syrian side. Yesterday afternoon rebels fired on a Turkish village close to the border.
0220 0227
German:
Aussage eines Einheimischen (Türke): „Die syrischen Rebellen versuchen, uns in ihren Konflikt zu verwickeln. Wir müssen da sehr vorsichtig sein."
Translation:
Testimony of a local Turk: "The Syrian rebels try to draw us into their conflict. We have to be very careful here."

In their main evening news "Heute" at 1900 hours they report:
01:40 01:53
German:
„Raketen- und Granatfeuer. Vergangene Nacht übte die Türkei Vergeltung. Gestern Nachmittag hattendie Syrer einen Ort in Grenznähe beschossen. Die Spannungen zwischen den Nachbarn waren eskaliert Ankara schlug zurück."

Translation:
"Rocket and mortar fire. Last night Turkey took revenge. Yesterday afternoon the Syrians fired on a Turkish village close to the border. The tensions between the neighbours had escalated Ankara retaliated."

In the late evening news "Heute Journal" at 2300 hours they reported:
0154 0205
German:
"Raketen und Granatfeuer. Vergangene Nacht übte die Türkei Vergeltung. Gestern Nachmittag warvon syrischer Seite ein Ort in Grenznähe beschossen worden. Die Spannung eskalierte. Ankara schlug zurück."
Translation:
"Rocket and mortar fire. Last night Turkey took revenge. Yesterday afternoon a village close to the border had been fired upon from the Syrian side. The tension escalated Ankara retaliated."
0235 0242
German:
"Zerschossene Häuser und menschenleere Straßen. Noch ist nicht einmal klar, wer eigentlich geschossen hat, die syrische Armee oder die Rebellen."
Translation:
"Houses shot to pieces and streets devoid of people. It is not even clear yet who really fired, the Syrian army or the rebels."

The first victim of war is the truth

The first report clearly states that the rebels officially claimed responsibility for the attack on Turkey.
It is telling to see how the pressure on this TV station worked. They had to back-paddle:

At 1300 it was the Syrian Rebels officially claiming responsibility. In the main evening news at 1900 it was the Syrians (suggesting the Syrian army). This is a prime example of how the first and probably most authentic and truthful report is turned and twisted by the spin doctors to come to the desired result. In these times of Orwellian double speak we have to give credit to the ZDF that they did not stick with "The Syrians did it" but at least ended with a question mark - in the late evening they leave it open who was responsible.

Supporting the original ZDF report that the rebels are responsible for the attack is another video (Source: Syria News) which shows that the rebels have the equipment to carry out such an attack. These mortar shells are Russian-made, at least, the armed Western-backed fighters state this in this video on YouTube. It seems that they use ammunition that they got by attacks of arms depots of the Syrian Arab Army.
http://news-beacon-ireland.info/?p=7271

[Peter Lemkin]

Syria, the story thus far

"Today, many Americans are asking indeed I ask myself," Hillary Clinton said, "how can this happen? How can this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated, and at times, how confounding the world can be." 1

The Secretary of State was referring to the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya September 11 that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans. US intelligence agencies have now stated that the attackers had ties to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.2

Yes, the world can indeed be complicated and confounding. But we have learned a few things. The United States began blasting Libya with missiles with the full knowledge that they were fighting on the same side as the al-Qaeda types. Benghazi was and is the headquarters for Muslim fundamentalists of various stripes in North Africa. However, it's incorrect to claim that the United States (aka NATO) saved the city from destruction. The story of the "imminent" invasion of Benghazi by Moammar Gaddafi's forces last year was only propaganda to justify Western intervention. And now the United States is intervening at present without actual gunfire, as far as is known against the government of Syria, with the full knowledge that they're again on the same side as the al-Qaeda types. A rash of suicide bombings against Syrian government targets is sufficient by itself to dispel any doubts about that. And once again, the United States is participating in the overthrow of a secular Mideast government.

At the same time, the Muslim fundamentalists in Syria, as in Libya, can have no illusions that America loves them. A half century of US assaults on Mideast countries, the establishment of American military bases in the holy land of Saudi Arabia, and US support for dictatorships and for Israel's genocide against the Palestinians have relieved them of such fanciful thoughts. So why is the United States looking to forcefully intervene once again? A tale told many times world domination, oil, Israel, ideology, etc. Assad of Syria, like Gaddafi of Libya, has shown little promise as a reliable client state so vital to the American Empire.

It's only the barrier set up by Russia and China on the UN Security Council that keeps NATO (aka the United States) from unleashing thousands of airborne missiles to "liberate" Syria as they did Libya. Russian and Chinese leaders claim that they were misled about Libya by the United States, that all they had agreed to was enforcing a "no-fly zone", not seven months of almost daily missile attacks against the land and people of Libya. Although it's very fortunate that the two powers refuse to give the US another green light, it's difficult to believe that they were actually deceived last spring in regard to Libya. NATO doesn't do peacekeeping or humanitarian interventions; it does war; bloody, awful war; and regime change. And they would undoubtedly be itching to show off their specialty in Syria perhaps even without Security Council blessing except that NATO and the US always prefer to attack people who are exceptionally defenseless, and Syria has ballistic missile capabilities and chemical weapons.

It's likely that the American elections also serve to keep Obama from expanding the US role in Syria. He may have concluded that there are more votes in the Democratic Party base for peace this time than for waging war against his eighth (sic) country.

The propaganda bias in the Western media has been extreme. Day after day, month after month, we've been told of Syrian government attacks, using horrible means, almost invariably with the victims described as unarmed civilians; without any proof, often without any logic, that it was actually the government behind a particular attack, with the story's source turning out to be an anti-government organization; rarely informing us of similar behavior on the part of the rebel forces. In May, the BBC included pictures of mass graves in Iraq in their coverage of an alleged Syrian government massacre in Houla, Syria. The station later apologized for the pictures saying that they had been submitted to the BBC by a rebel group. 3 On June 7, Germany's leading daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing opponents of Assad, reported that the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and that the bulk of the victims were members of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad.

According to a report of Stratfor, the private and conservative American intelligence firm with high-level connections, many of whose emails were obtained by Wikileaks: "most of the [Syrian] opposition's more serious claims have turned out to be grossly exaggerated or simply untrue." They claimed "that regime forces besieged Homs and imposed a 72-hour deadline for Syrian defectors to surrender themselves and their weapons or face a potential massacre." That news made international headlines. Stratfor's investigation, however, found "no signs of a massacre", and warned that "opposition forces have an interest in portraying an impending massacre, hoping to mimic the conditions that propelled a foreign military intervention in Libya." Stratfor then stated that any suggestions of massacres were unlikely because the Syrian "regime has calibrated its crackdowns to avoid just such a scenario ... that could lead to an intervention based on humanitarian grounds."4

Democracy Now long a standard of progressive radio-TV news has been almost as bad as CNN and al Jazeera (the latter owned by Qatar, an active military participant in both Libya and Syria). The heavy bias of Democracy Now in this area goes back to the very beginning of the Arab Spring. The program made some unfortunate choices in its mideast news correspondents, seemingly only because they spoke Arabic and/or had contacts in the region. Where have you gone Amy Goodman? RT (Russia Today) has stood almost alone amongst English-language television news sources in offering an alternative to the official Western line.

Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research, notes that "Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria are but a sequence of stops on a global roadmap of permanent war that also swings through Iran. Russia and China are the terminal targets." When the Syrian government is overthrown and in all likelihood the Western forces will not relent until that happens the al Qaeda types will be dominant in the Syrian version of Benghazi. The American ambassador would be well advised to not visit.

[Adele Edisen]

Why I Dislike Israel
By Philip Giraldi

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e32668.htm

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
his article was originally posted at AntiWar

October 06, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - Even those pundits who seem to want to distance U.S. foreign policy from Tel Aviv's demands and begin treating Israel like any other country sometimes feel compelled to make excuses and apologies before getting down to the nitty-gritty. The self-lacerating prologues generally describe how much the writer really has a lot of Jewish friends and how he or she thinks Israelis are great people and that Israel is a wonderful country before launching into what is usually a fairly mild critique.

Well, I don't feel that way. I don't like Israel very much. Whether or not I have Jewish friends does not define how I see Israel and is irrelevant to the argument. And as for the Israelis, when I was a CIA officer overseas, I certainly encountered many of them. Some were fine people and some were not so fine, just like the general run of people everywhere else in the world. But even the existence of good upstanding Israelis doesn't alter the fact that the governments that they have elected are essentially part of a long-running criminal enterprise judging by the serial convictions of former presidents and prime ministers. Most recently, former President Moshe Katsav was convicted of rape, while almost every recent head of government, including the current one, has been investigated for corruption. Further, the Israeli government is a rogue regime by most international standards, engaging as it does in torture, arbitrary imprisonment, and continued occupation of territories seized by its military. Worse still, it has successfully manipulated my country, the United States, and has done terrible damage both to our political system and to the American people, a crime that I just cannot forgive, condone, or explain away.

The most recent outrage is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's direct interference in U.S. domestic politics through his appearance in a television ad appearing in Florida that serves as an endorsement of Republican candidate Mitt Romney. The Netanyahu ad and his involvement in the election has been widely reported in the media and has even been condemned by several leading Jewish congressmen, but it has elicited no response from either Obama or Romney. Both should be condemning in the strongest terms the completely unprecedented intervention by a foreign head of government in an American election. That they are saying nothing is a testament to the power that Israel and its friends in Congress and the media have over the U.S. political establishment. Romney might even privately approve of the ads, as he has basically promised to cede to Netanyahu the right to set the limits for U.S. policy in the Middle East.

And why is Benjamin Netanyahu in such a lather? It is because President Barack Obama will not concede to him a "red line" that would automatically trigger a U.S. attack on Iran. Consider for a moment the hubris of Netanyahu in demanding that Washington meet his conditions for going to war with Iran, a nation that for all its frequently described faults has not attacked anyone, has not threatened to attack anyone, and has not made the political decision to acquire a nuclear weapon in spite of what one reads in the U.S. press. At the U.N., Netanyahu's chart showing a cartoon bomb with a sputtering fuse reminiscent of something that might have been employed by an anarchist in the 1870s failed to pass any credibility test even for the inevitable cheerleaders in the U.S. media. If the U.S. is to go to war based on a Netanyahu cartoon then it deserves everything it gets when the venture turns sour, most likely Iraq Redux, only 10 times worse.

Even more outrageous, and a lot less reported in the media, were the comments made by Patrick Clawson, director of research for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), an organization founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). WINEP is widely viewed as a major component of the Israel Lobby in Washington and is closely tied to the Israeli government, with which it communicates on a regular basis. Clawson heads WINEP's Iran Security Initiative. At a briefing on Sept. 24 he said, "I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough, and it's very hard for me to see how the United States … uh … president can get us to war with Iran.… The traditional way America gets to war is what would be best for U.S. interests."

Note that Clawson states his conviction that initiating a crisis to get the U.S. involved in a war with Iran and thereby fooling the American people into thinking that it is the right thing to do is actually a "U.S. interest." He cites Pearl Harbor, Fort Sumter, the Lusitania, and the Gulf of Tonkin as models for how to get engaged. Which inevitably leads to Clawson's solution: "if the Iranians aren't going to compromise it would be best if someone else started the war … Iranian submarines periodically go down. Some day one of them may not come up…. We are in the game of using covert means against the Iranians. We could get nastier at that." Clawson is clearly approving of Israel's staging an incident that would lead to war, possibly even a false-flag operation carried out by Israel that would implicate the United States directly, or he is urging the White House to do the job itself.

Clawson not surprisingly has never served in the U.S. military and has a Ph.D. in economics from the New School for Social Research, which would at first glance seem to disqualify him from figuring out how to set up a covert operation to sink a submarine and thereby start a war. He might be seen as moderately ridiculous, but like many of his neoconservative colleagues he is well wired into the system. He writes regularly for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal; appears on television as an "expert"; and is a colleague at WINEP of the ubiquitous Dennis Ross, sometimes called "Israel's lawyer," who was until recently President Obama's point man on the Middle East. Clawson is a useful idiot who would be registered as an agent of the Israeli government if the Justice Department were doing its job, but instead he is feted as a man who tells it like it is in terms of American interests. The distortion of the foreign-policy decision-making in this country is something that can be attributed to Clawson and his host of fellow travelers, all of whom promote Israel's perceived interests at the expense of the United States. And they do it with their eyes wide open.

I will deliberately avoid belaboring another Israel Firster Pamela Geller and her New York subway posters calling Palestinians savages and Israelis civilized, as I am sure the point has been made about how any lie that can serve the cause of Israel will be aggressively defended as "free speech." A poster excoriating Jews or blacks in similar terms as "savages" would not have seen the light of day in New York City, another indication of the power of the Lobby and its friends to control the debate about the Middle East and game the system.

And then there are the reasons to dislike Israel and what it represents that go way back. In 1952's Lavon Affair, the Israelis were prepared to blow up a U.S. Information Center in Alexandria and blame it on the Egyptians. In 1967, the Israelis attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty, killing 34 crewmen, and then used their power over President Lyndon Johnson to block an investigation into what had occurred. In 1987, Jonathan Pollard was convicted of spying for Israel with investigators determining that he had been the most damaging spy in the history of the United States. In the 1960s, Israelis stole uranium from a lab in Pennsylvania to construct a secret nuclear arsenal. And the spying and theft of U.S. technology continues. Israel is the most active "friendly nation" when it comes to stealing U.S. secrets, and when its spies are caught, they are either sent home or, if they are Americans, receive a slap on the wrist.

And Israel gets away with killing American citizens literally in the cases of Rachel Corrie and Furkan Dogan of the Mavi Marmara. And let's not forget Israel's treatment of the Palestinians which has made the United States complicit in a crime against humanity. Tel Aviv has also played a key role in Washington's going to war against Iraq, in promulgating a U.S.-led global war on terror against the Muslim world, and in crying wolf over Iran, all of which have served no U.S. interest. Through it all, Congress and the media are oblivious to what is taking place. Israel is a net recipient of over $123 billion in U.S. aid and continues to get $3 billion a year even though its per capita income is higher than that of Spain or Italy. No one questions anything having to do with Israel while Congress rubber-stamps resolution after resolution virtually promising to go to war on Israel's behalf.

I have to admit that I don't like what my own government is doing these days, but I like Israel even less and it is past time to do something about it. No more money, no more political support, no more tolerance of spying, and no more having to listen to demands for red lines to go to war. No more favorable press when the demented Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a cartoon at the U.N. The United States government exists to serve the American people, no more, no less, and it is time that our elected representatives begin to remember that fact.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is a contributing editor to The American Conservative and executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
his article was originally posted at AntiWar

Adele

[Adele Edisen]

(From Information Clearing House - AE)

Report says U.S., Israel Plan Iran Attack

By UPI

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- The United States and Israel are considering a surgical strike on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, Foreign Policy magazine says.

Based on a source reported to be close to discussions between the sides, the report published Monday maintains the strike may only take "a couple of hours" involving a "day or two," and would be conducted using "primarily bombers and drone support."

If such a strike is carried out it would set the Iranian nuclear program back many years, the report said and would do so without civilian casualties.

Benefits of such a strike would be regional, Foreign Policy says.

It quotes an unnamed advocate saying the outcome would be "transformative" -- "saving Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, reanimating the peace process, securing the (Persian) Gulf, sending an unequivocal message to Russia and China, and assuring American ascendancy in the region for a decade to come."

Such a strike cannot be conducted by Israel alone and would require the involvement of the United States, "whether acting alone or in concert with Israel and others," the report says.

The report maintains that taking into account the progress made between Israel and the U.S. administration in recent weeks, such a strike would be the easiest way for President Barack Obama to defuse Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's critique on Iran.

"It's not the size of the threatened attack but the likelihood that it will actually be made, that makes a military threat a useful diplomatic tool. And perhaps a political one, too," the report says.

This article was originally posted at UPI

See also - Ahmadinejad acknowledges threat of attack, promises crushing' response: Iranian president says coming period will be tumultuous and controversial'

Adele

[Peter Lemkin]

(From Information Clearing House - AE)

Report says U.S., Israel Plan Iran Attack

By UPI

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- The United States and Israel are considering a surgical strike on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, Foreign Policy magazine says.

Based on a source reported to be close to discussions between the sides, the report published Monday maintains the strike may only take "a couple of hours" involving a "day or two," and would be conducted using "primarily bombers and drone support."

If such a strike is carried out it would set the Iranian nuclear program back many years, the report said and would do so without civilian casualties.

Benefits of such a strike would be regional, Foreign Policy says.

It quotes an unnamed advocate saying the outcome would be "transformative" -- "saving Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, reanimating the peace process, securing the (Persian) Gulf, sending an unequivocal message to Russia and China, and assuring American ascendancy in the region for a decade to come."

Such a strike cannot be conducted by Israel alone and would require the involvement of the United States, "whether acting alone or in concert with Israel and others," the report says.

The report maintains that taking into account the progress made between Israel and the U.S. administration in recent weeks, such a strike would be the easiest way for President Barack Obama to defuse Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's critique on Iran.

"It's not the size of the threatened attack but the likelihood that it will actually be made, that makes a military threat a useful diplomatic tool. And perhaps a political one, too," the report says.

This article was originally posted at UPI

See also - Ahmadinejad acknowledges threat of attack, promises crushing' response: Iranian president says coming period will be tumultuous and controversial'

Adele

It was the US that first encouraged a nuclear program in Iran when their puppet dictator, the Shah, was in power.....that same program is now demonized when the puppet regime is gone. Its OK for Israel to have between 200-400 undeclared nukes, and Pakistan some unknown number [both with the secret permission/help/blessing of the USA], but not others.....and all this 'high moral posturing' from the only nation to ever have USED nuclear weapons to destroy two cities and most who lived in them! [and then only to warn and scare the Soviet Union and the rest of the World as to who was 'boss' after WWII.....the incinerated Japanese be damned; besides, we got their hidden gold - which still funds much of the covert ops, black ops and dirty doings of today....but that is another story....