Getting Pushed Into War

It is bad enough that the neoconservatives are pushing for war with Iran but now we have the Netanyahu administration telling the US that it is disappointed with the 'progress' of US action against Iran.  With nuclear scientists and engineers dying unexpectedly, there is obviously a covert war being conducted within Iran by western powers , specifically Israel and the USA.

We are experiencing another episode of 'war fever' that precedes actual conflict or war.  This has occurred periodically in US history most notably in the run-up to the Spanish American and WWI.    When Hearst Artist Frederic Remington, cabled from Cuba in 1897 that "there will be no war," William Randolph Hearst cabled back: "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."   Today, we have Rupert  Murdoch newspapers and cable news channels providing edited pictures and film to convince the American people to support a war with Iran.  Over a century later, the media and government work hand in hand to propagandize the American people.  It is a well known fact that the US media is owned or controlled by oligopolies with interests in petroleum and the military-industrial complex.

If the American people (anesthetized by sports, pop culture and selfish pursuits), could step back and be analytic and look at the situation objectively,  they would see the absurdity of the USA with thousands of nuclear warheads and Israel with hundreds if not thousands itself, willing the plunge the world into World War III with Russia and China because of Iran's nuclear program that may produce enough nuclear material for one bomb.  Would the American people be willing to live with tens of thousands of military casualties and perhaps millions if nuclear weapons are deployed and a couple came through to hit US cities?

Last night I listened to a Chris Matthews interview on CSPAN concerning his new book on John F. Kennedy.  It was a very good exchange between Sam Donaldson and Mathews and I learned that if  Kennedy had followed the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and mad General Curtis LeMay in particular and attacked Cuba in 1961, Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that we would have launched nuclear missiles against New York City.  I paused when I heard that since my family was living in New York City at the time and I was a grade school child.   Thank God Kennedy was level headed and a imperfect but practicing Catholic but he did not want to risk a nuclear war over a seemingly minor issue.  He negotiated with the Soviets and removed US missiles from Turkey.  The crisis was avoided........and I am still alive to write about it.

Let's give other children today in Iran and Israel the chance to write about it fifty years from now.  The late Pope John Paul II  was the most consistent and frequent promoter of peace and human rights for the last two decades.From Iraqi War I to Iraqi War II, he has echoed the voice of Paul VI, crying out before the United Nations in 1965: War No More, War Never Again!

We should heed his advice and turn our backs on the malefactors of evil who push war as a first option before other options have even been tried.  Is Israel wants another Mideast war and feels that it is in its best interests, let them do it on their own.

Netanyahu Deputy Disappointed with Obama on Iran

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior Israeli official voiced disappointment in the Obama administration on Sunday, saying "election-year considerations" lay behind its caution over tough Iran sanctions sought by U.S. legislators.

While Washington has been talking tougher about Iran's nuclear work and threat to block oil export routes out of the Gulf if hit with harsher sanctions, new U.S. measures adopted on December 31 gave President Barak Obama leeway on the scope of penalties on the Iranian central bank and oil exports.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel's vice prime minister, contrasted the administration's posture to that of France and Britain, which he said "are taking a very firm stand and understand sanctions must be imposed immediately."

"In the United States, the Senate passed a resolution, by a majority of 100-to-one, to impose these sanctions, and in the U.S. administration there is hesitation for fear of oil prices rising this year, out of election-year considerations," Yaalon told Israel Radio.

"In that regard, this is certainly a disappointment, for now."

The Democratic president says he is determined to deny Tehran -- which insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful needs only -- the means to develop an atom bomb. His aides cast their sanctions strategy as a bid to work collaboratively with foreign powers and win over states that import Iranian oil without triggering price-boosting shocks to energy markets.

MIXED MESSAGES

The remarks by Yaalon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, appeared to jar with praise centrist Defence Minister Ehud Barak offered last month for what he described as Obama's resolve against Iran.

Running for re-election in the face of Republicans who hold sway over big pro-Israel constituencies, Obama has sought to burnish his credentials as a friend of the Jewish state despite having frosty relations with Netanyahu.

In a phone conversation with the prime minister on Thursday, Obama "reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel's security," the White House said. Both sides said the leaders' discussion dealt with Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Reputed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, Israel sees the makings of a mortal threat in Iran's uranium enrichment and missile projects, and has threatened to resort to force if it deems diplomatic isolation of its foe a dead end.

The prospect of Israel worsening regional instability with a unilateral strike has stirred worry in war-weary Washington.

Obama's top military adviser, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey, was due to make his first visit to Israel on Thursday.

Israeli media predicted Dempsey would seek to persuade his hosts not to "surprise" the United States on Iran. The U.S. embassy had no immediate information about the visit's agenda.

Yaalon, himself a former top armed forces commander, said Israel should not "leap forward" to attack Iran.

"But Israel has to be ready to defend itself," he said. "Let's hope we do not arrive at that moment."

Netanyahu sounded sanguine last week about the efficacy of big-power pressure on Iran, telling an Australian newspaper: "For the first time I see Iran wobble ... under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank."

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)