CIA seeks significant expansion of its assassination drone fleet

 

American premier spy agency the CIA has called for a significant expansion of its fleet of assassination drones to bolster the agency’s terror campaign of targeted bombings in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/19/267543/cia-seeks-to-expand-terror-drone-fleet/

American spy agency, the CIA, has called for a significant expansion of its fleet of assassination drones to bolster the agency’s terror campaign of targeted bombings in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.

The plan, submitted to the White House by CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) Director David Petraeus, would enable the spy agency not only to boost its persisting campaign of deadly strikes against suspected militant areas in Yemen and Pakistan, but also shift the assassination drones to “emerging al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots,” US daily The Washington Post reported on Friday, quoting officials that spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue.

One American official said the request by Petraeus, a former top military official who commanded US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, reflects a US concern that “political turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa has created new openings for al-Qaeda and its affiliates,” according to the report.

“With what happened in Libya, we’re realizing that these places are going to heat up,” said the official, referring to the September 11 incident at the US Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi, where four Americans, including the US ambassador to the African country, were killed following a massive anti-US demonstration to protest the release of a film that grossly insulted Muslims and their highly revered Prophet Mohamed (PBUH).

No decision has so far been taken about shifting armed CIA assassination drones into the North Africa region but contingency plans are being mapped out, according to the official. “I think we’re actually looking forward a little bit.”

American officials at the White House, the CIA and the Defense Department have refused to comment on the drone expansion proposal, says the daily, and those who did, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Washington officials, says the report, are “particularly concerned” about the emergence of pro-al-Qaeda militants in North Africa, following the downfall of pro-US regimes in Libya and Mali.

Seeking to reinforce their intelligence surveillance in the region, the US has been forced to “rely on small, unarmed turboprop aircraft disguised as private planes.”

The CIA, according to the report, also maintains a separate fleet of stealth surveillance drones, the use of which were exposed when one of them was brought down intact in 2011 by Iranian forces while on a surveillance flight over the country. Such drones were also used to monitor “bin Laden’s compound” in Pakistan before a US military assault to kill him, the daily claims.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has promoted collaborations between the CIA and the military in what it advertises as “counterterrorism operations,” leading to “a blurring of their traditional roles,” according to the Post. In Yemen, the CIA routinely “borrows” the aircraft of the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to carry out strikes. The joint command is growingly engaged in operations that resemble espionage.

Moreover, says the daily, any decision to extend the reach of CIA’s fleet of armed assassination drones would most likely require the spy agency to establish additional secret bases overseas. The CIA relies on American military pilots to fly the drones from bases in the southwestern US “but has been reluctant to share overseas landing strips with the Defense Department.”

The CIA’s pilotless Predators used in terror strikes over Pakistan are flown out of airstrips along the border in Afghanistan. The agency established a secret base on the Arabian Peninsula when it began its drone attacks over Yemen, even though JSOC drones are flown from a separate facility in Djibouti.

On Wednesday, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced that contrary to US claims, 80 percent of people killed by US assassination drone strikes in the country are innocent civilians.

Talking to reporters outside the Parliament, Malik added that the total of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks conducted by US drones in Pakistan amounted to 336 attacks, killing nearly 2,300 people.

Despite Islamabad’s repeated calls on Washington to end the terror drone attacks, the US government continues its strikes on the tribal regions of the country.

Meanwhile in Yemen, a recent report by the country’s National Organization for Defending Rights and Freedoms states that over 300 people have been killed in the strikes carried out in the southern regions of the country so far in 2012.

The aerial attacks were initiated by former US President George W. Bush, but have escalated under President Barack Obama.

The United Nations has censured American drone attacks as targeted killings and says they flout international law.

Mali: US Africa Command (AFRICOM) Prepares for Another “Humanitarian” Military Intervention?

 

By: Patrick Henningsen

http://21stcenturywire.com/2012/10/12/africom-is-a-go-obama-prepares-a-new-intervention-in-mali-using-somalia-as-his-model/

Source: Global Research

http://www.globalresearch.ca/applying-the-somalia-model-us-africa-command-africom-prepares-for-humanitarianmilitary-intervention-in-mali/5308015

Obama has been carrying the AFRICOM ball down the field after the directive was launched under George W. Bush in 2007. Washington DC, led by African Secretary, Jonnie Carson, speaks to its public at a level deserving of an uninformed, Helen Keller-esque populace, claiming that Somalia was ‘a big success’ because Washington spooks spent $500 million backing an “African Proxy Force” that allegedly “drove out al Qaida” in that country. And it is no coincidence that massive untapped oil reserves in the Puntland region in northeastern Somalia were recently announced in early 2012.

Just as Washington’s corporate interests are hidden behind ‘humanitarian interventions’, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron will run the same facade. Last February he hosted an international conference on Somalia, where he pledged more aid, financial help and measures “to fight terrorism” in Somalia. Cameron does not tell you that those so-called terrorist forces are funded and supported, and ultimately steered – by the western intelligence agencies – whereby they control all sides of the local conflict. Note they are using the same recycled narrative in Mali now, fighting “Islamic extremists” there – promoting freedom and democracy in the region etc.

Mali’s vast potential wealth lies in mining, agricultural commodities, and oil - and these proven reserves are not currently exploited. Interestingly enough, Ghana and Mali together account for 5.8% of total world gold production. These assets are the true focus of US and UK interests in Africa – not humanitarian concerns.

 

The 2012 Somalia Oil Conference was a mere pre-negotiation meeting to discuss how oil assets would be divided up between the US, UK and other remaining energy players – demonstrating what is the real agenda with AFRICOM. Obama supporters will naturally give this President a free pass on Africa because he is of part African descent, not realizing that he is running the exact same agenda as his Republican predecessor. What corporate agents like Jonnie Carson does not tell electorate plebs is that the US has recently infested itself in Libya, Uganda, Somalia, North Sudan and elsewhere, and now has its eyes set on Mali. The initial goal of US domination of Africa is outlined in the AFRICOM documents, and names the eviction of China from the continent as task number one.

Africa Pulse spells it out: “Strong economic growth in the past decade among African countries rich in oil and minerals has failed to make a significant dent on their poverty levels, according to a World Bank report.”

In other words, the Anglo-American imperialists would like to eliminate competition for Africa’s bountiful resources, continuing a centuries-old policy of raping the Dark Continent and leaving nothing but perpetual internal strife and poverty behind.

America’s Secret War in Africa

By: Julie Lévesque

Source: Global Research

http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-secret-war-in-africa/5307958

The U.S. secret warfare is alive and well. In addition to its military command in Africa (AFRICOM), America has been deploying special forces all over the continent according to an AP article from October 2, 2012:

Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya. The soldiers’ mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage. (Kimberly Dozier, White House widens covert ops presence in North Africa, AP, October 2, 2012.)

The U.S. is spreading its clandestine army all over Africa. As reported by Nile Bowie back in April, the goal is to balkanize the African continent:

At an AFRICOM Conference held at Fort McNair on February 18, 2008, Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller openly declared the guiding principle of AFRICOM is to protect “the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market”, before citing China’s increasing presence in the region as challenging to American interests [36].

In 2007, US State Department advisor Dr. J. Peter Pham commented on AFRICOM’s strategic objectives of “protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance, a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment.” (Nile Bowie, COVERT OPS IN NIGERIA: Fertile Ground for US Sponsored Balkanization, Global Research, April 11, 2012.)

The “War on Terror” fraud serves to cover up the destabilization of Africa with a view to taking control of its resources. The Balkans were destabilized for the same purpose in the 1990’s:

In Liar’s Poker The Great Powers, Yugoslavia and the Wars of the Future, Michel Collon explains how the Balkans were destabilized “to control oil pipeline routes, dominate Eastern Europe as well as weaken and get a hand over Russia” as well as” insure [the establishment of US] military bases [in Eastern Europe and the Balkans].” (Michel Collon, Liar’s Poker The Great Powers, Yugoslavia and the Wars of the Future, Editions Aden, 1998, p. 129.)

A similar process, over a large geographic region, is occurring in the Middle-East:

“Syria, Iran and Iraq signed an agreement for a gas pipeline in July 2011, which plans to link the Iranian South Pars field – the world’s largest – to Syria and therefore to the Mediterranean Sea. Another important oil field was discovered near Homs in Syria, which could become an alternative hub of energy corridors in opposition to those passing through Turkey and other routes controlled by U.S. and European companies” (Manlio Dinucci, L’art de la guerre. Syrie : l’Otan vise le gazoduc, October9, 2012)

America’s clandestine army will resort to drone warfare to assert control over the African resources. Although the U.S. and its allies have financially and materially supported Al-Qaida-linked mercenaries to topple the Libyan government and are operating in the same fashion in Syria, we are told that the “counter terror effort indicates that the administration has been worried for some time about a growing threat posed by Al Qaeda and its offshoots in North Africa.” (Dozier, op.cit.)

Although the Pentagon assures that “[t]here are no plans at this stage for unilateral U.S. military operations”, the article states quite to the contrary that a unilateral drone warfare is what awaits Africans:

Delta Force group will form the backbone of a military task force responsible for combating al-Qaida and other terrorist groups across the region with an arsenal that includes drones. But first, it will work to win acceptance by helping North African nations build their own special operations and counter terror units. (Ibid.)

The hypocritical discourse that follows indicates in which African states the“free flow of natural resources to the global market” and “access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources” will be protected under the “War on Terror” pretext:

The Obama administration has been concerned about the growing power and influence of al-Qaida offshoots in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and North Africa. Only the Yemeni branch has tried to attack American territory directly so far, with a series of thwarted bomb plots aimed at U.S.-bound aircraft. A Navy SEAL task force set up in 2009 has used a combination of raids and drone strikes to fight militants in Yemen and Somalia, working together with the CIA and local forces.

The new task force would work in much the same way to combat al-Qaida’s North African affiliates, which are growing in numbers and are awash in weapons from post-revolutionary Libya’s looted stockpiles. They are well-funded by a criminal network trafficking in drugs and hostages.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb or AQIM, and Nigerian-based extremist sect Boko Haram are arguably the two largest and most dangerous affiliates.

The top State Department official for African affairs said Tuesday that the militants in Mali “must be dealt with through security and military means.” (Ibid.)

And even though we are told there are “no plans at this stage for unilateral U.S. military operations”, Johnnie Carson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs seems to contradict this claim:

“any military action up there must indeed be well planned, well organized, well resourced and well thought through” and, how thoughtful, “be agreed upon by those who are going to be most affected by it.” (Ibid.)

British initiative undermines Canada

 

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/24/263345/canada/

The UK government will announce plans to team up with Canada in handling foreign policy, a move many Canadians believe would return the country to the colonial eras.

Britain and Canada are to clinch an agreement to establish joint diplomatic missions in other states in a bid to cut costs, but analysts say it will compromise Canada’s sovereignty and independence as the country needs to work based on an independent foreign policy.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague will meet his Canadian counterpart John Baird in Ottawa on Monday to work out the details of the new partnership and sign the agreement, which could eventually involve Australia and New Zealand.

Hague has said in a statement that the new partnership will give Britain "a bigger reach abroad for less cost".

"As [Prime Minister] David Cameron said when addressing the Canadian parliament last year: 'We are two nations, but under one Queen and united by one set of values'", Hague said in the statement.

Canada, a former UK colony, is described as a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy with The Queen Elizabeth II of Britain as Sovereign.

As a constitutional monarch, The Queen abides by the decisions of the Canadian government, but she continues to play important ceremonial and symbolic roles. The Queen is represented in Canada on a day-to-day basis by a Governor-General, who is appointed by The Queen.

This is while that Britons, themselves, are seeking ways to get rid of the monarchy and its eye-watering economic costs, which are imposed on the British taxpayer.

Republic, an anti-monarchy campaign group, which campaigns for a "democratic Britain with an elected head of state", will this year begin campaigning to include the royals in Freedom of Information laws and to abolish the royal veto over legislation.

In Canada, critics are raising questions about the new partnership deal between London and Ottawa.

New Democratic Party (NDP) foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar questions whether the government's cost-cutting measures will compromise Canada's independence and its foreign policy.

"I think it has a lot to do with the fact that this government is cutting severely on diplomacy," Dewar said. "And its priorities on diplomacy and multilateral institutions have waned."

Other analysts believe the initiative will have a negative impact on Canada’s image around the world.

"This is not the time to be cutting corners in how we sell ourselves... We're seen as a country that has managed our economic affairs, we're seen as a leader, we're seen as independent of the U.S., independent of the U.K., and this is the moment where we should be selling Canada on our own and not doing it with others", says Fen Hampson, who is with the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), an independent, non-partisan think tank on international governance.

Canada is a country where Zionist regime of Israel takes care of its authorities’ undue anger towards other nations.

Earlier this month, when Canada abruptly announced a cut-off of diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the surprise move as a “clarion call to action” .

The Canadian government was actually doing the bidding of Israel and Britain when it instructed Iranian diplomats in Ottawa to leave within five days.

The Canadian move was described as
bizarre and irresponsible, which, an official said, removed Canada as a potential player in the Middle East.

However, the British Foreign Secretary hopes other Commonwealth countries like Australia and New Zealand will join the Canada-U.K. initiative so they can pool their resources and extend their reach abroad.

Former British colonies, Australia, New Zealand and Canada never actually achieved independence. World government, for them, is an extension of the "British Empire" and independence would have been a step in the wrong direction.

Dempsey Backs Away from Obama’s Threat to Intervene in Syria

 

By: John Glaser

http://antiwar.com/

Source: Global Research

http://www.globalresearch.ca/dempsey-backs-away-from-obamas-threat-to-intervene-in-syria/

The top general of America’s military last week backed away from President Obama’s threats to intervene militarily in Syria against the Assad regime, warning that the worst-case scenario would be some kind of failed state in the embattled country.

Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff General Martin Dempsey stressed while on a trip to London that direct military action in Syria, even simply no-fly zones, might be beyond the US and NATO’s capabilities and counter to their interests.

Last week President Obama warned that his “calculation” to refrain from direct military intervention in Syria “could change” if Syria’s chemical or biological weapons begin “moving around or being utilized,” describing the WMD issue as a “red line” that would prompt direct military action, like setting up safe zones, no-fly zones, or worse.

But Dempsey explained it wouldn’t be that easy. He said frequent comparison of the Syrian situation with that in Libya, where a “no-fly zone” was imposed following a United Nations resolution, is at best a source of “amusement.”

General Dempsey warned that possible safe zones for refugees were not being considered for inside Syria, cautioning that imposing them could open the path to a breakout of war.

“If you chose to establish [a safe zone/no-fly zone] you would assume the responsibility for protecting it. If you are tasked to protect it you have to look at those who might seek to attack it or to influence it and that could take you, depending on weapons systems, it could take you to a limited no-fly zone it could take you to the point of having to interdict air and ballistic missile systems,” he said.

As far as forcibly ousting the Assad regime, Dempsey said, such a move would be far too destabilizing. He said a failed state in Syria would be the worst-case scenario and warned against allowing armed extreme jihadists and rebels with ties to al-Qaeda to increase their influence and expand control in a post-Assad Syria.

 

Israeli military occupies parts of Egypt’s Sinai, reports say

Reports say the Israeli military has occupied parts of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. (File photo)

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/12/255872/israel-occupies-parts-of-egypts-sinai/

The military forces of the Israeli regime have occupied parts of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula amid tension in the Egyptian territory, reports say.

The Israeli forces crossed the Egyptian border and entered Sinai Desert during the early hours of August 11, and advanced a few hundred meters.

Israeli media outlets have confirmed the presence of the troops in the area quoting a spokesperson of the Israeli army, but Egyptian officials denied possibility of Israeli forces entering their territory.

The Sinai Peninsula belongs to Egypt and the Tel Aviv regime claims it has moved its forces into the Egyptian territory to counter armed groups and the flood of African migrants into the occupied Palestinian territories.

Human rights activists in Israel have condemned the recent measures taken by the Israeli military against the African migrants, who have been the target of violent attacks by Israelis in the past weeks.

The Israeli regime announced on June 3 that migrants who crossed into the occupied Palestinian territories illegally could face up to three years of detention.

Human Rights Watch has criticized the Israeli regime for the new piece of legislation, saying Tel Aviv “punishes asylum seekers for irregularly crossing into Israel, in violation of their basic rights.”

The latest development in Egypt’s Sinai comes a few days after unknown gunmen killed 16 border security guards and injured several others in Egypt near the Sinai border with Israel on August 5.

Israel losing international support: UK envoy to Tel Aviv



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (file photo)

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/05/254580/israel-losing-intl-support-uk-envoy/

The British ambassador to Tel Aviv says international support for Israel among those in the political mainstream is eroding, driven by settlement expansion in the West Bank and continued restrictions on Gaza.

In an unusually forthright interview for Israel's Channel 10 news, Matthew Gould said he has detected a shift among the middle ground of British members of parliament towards a more critical view of Tel Aviv, The Guardian reported on its website.

There is "growing concern" in the UK over Israel’s hostility toward the Palestinians, Gould said.

"Support for Israel is starting to erode and that's not about these people on the fringe who are shouting loudly and calling for boycotts and all the rest of it. The interesting category is those members of parliament in the middle, and in that group I see a shift."

"The centre ground, the majority, the British public may not be expert, but they are not stupid and they see a stream of announcements about new building in settlements, they read stories about what's going on in the West Bank, they read about restrictions in Gaza. The substance of what's going wrong is really what's driving this," Gould said.

But, he added, Britain was "by no means unique" in its growing concern about the Israeli violence. "Anyone who cares about Israel's standing in the world should be concerned about the erosion of popular support."

"Israelis might wake up in 10 years' time and find out that the level of understanding in the international community has suddenly changed, and that patience for continuing the status quo has reduced."

The shift was a result of the Israeli government policies, Gould said, suggesting that it could not be countered or obscured by hasbara. The Hebrew word for explanation refers to efforts by the Israeli government and its supporters to promote a pro-Israel agenda and challenge what it sees as negative media coverage.

Palestinian media reported on July 14 that the Tel Aviv regime has decided to build 100 new units in the illegal settlement of Modi’in Illit and another 130 units in the illegal settlement of Jabal Abu Ghuneim in the West Bank.

Earlier in June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the construction of 300 units in the illegal settlement of Beit El in the West Bank.

The international community regards all the Israeli settlements across the West Bank as illegal under international law.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The Israeli military also frequently attacks the Gaza Strip, saying the actions are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured.

In addition to air strikes and ground attacks, the Tel Aviv regime also denies about 1.7 million people in Gaza their basic rights, including the freedom of movement and the right to decent living, work, health and education.

Gaza has been blockaded since 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.

Swiss journalist censures Tel Aviv regime, angers Israeli diplomat

Israeli Ambassador to Switzerland Yigal Caspi

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/30/253451/swiss-journalist-angers-israeli-diplomat/

A Swiss journalist has angered the Israeli ambassador to Switzerland by censuring the Tel Aviv regime for its occupation of Palestine.

The journalist, Jon Mettler, with the Berner Zeitung daily, recently interviewed Yigal Caspi and asked him whether he admitted to the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the Israeli regime.

Caspi expressed extreme discontent with the question and quickly accused the journalist of ‘practicing anti-Semitism,’ to which the journalist responded by asking whether the accusation meant that no criticism of the Israeli regime was allowed.

The Israeli diplomat said he ‘had problems with criticism which sought to weaken the Tel Aviv regime.’

Caspi was also asked about a recent decision by Migros, one of Switzerland's largest retailing companies and the country’s largest supermarket chain and largest employer, to boycott products made by Israel. In response, he said such moves would be ‘counter-productive.’

The Swiss journalist also brought up the subject of Iran’s nuclear energy program during the interview. The Israeli envoy stated that the West would not tolerate a ‘situation in which Iran would have control over the Persian Gulf and consequently determine the oil prices.’
Caspi refused to answer a final question on the issue of Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons.
The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran refutes such allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
Unlike Iran, Israel is a non-signatory to the NPT and continues to defy international calls to join the treaty.
The Israeli regime, which is widely believed to possess between 200 to 400 nuclear warheads, maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity over its nuclear work

US: Turning war-fear into warfare

U.S. Military Academy cadets wave a flag in the stands prior to the 112th Army-Navy football game in Landover, Maryland. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/america-warfare-militarized-society-251/

Ever since its creation, the US has had a role to play in combat operations worldwide. Today the country’s public opinion is dominated by warfare, making American society all-too-easily manipulated and turned against practically any country.

The US has a strong record of persuading the public that war is the only way.

A military industrial complex worth billions of dollars is largely America’s driving force. Deeply rooted in the system, it would serve no purpose if there was no one to fight.

“If there were no more enemies left, there would be a loss of a sense of mission,” anti-war activist and journalist Don Bebar told RT.

Serving Americans are on permanent stand-by to deploy to battle zones on command.

“The US army flag has 183 campaign ribbons on it. Those 183 ribbons each represent wars,” Iraq war veteran Matthis Chiroux from New York shared with RT.

“When you compare that to the 236 years that we’ve actually been around as a country, you’re talking about a war on average of once every year and three months,” he calculated.

As a consequence of the American bellicosity in general, Matthis Chiroux is now soothing his nerves in company with 170,000 American soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

The US always has a bone to pick with one enemy after another. For nearly half a century it was the Soviet Union.

“The communist threat was the most useful enemy. Where legitimate, and where completely fantastical, it was always available as a global conspiracy against which to justify anything,” Roots Action campaigner David Swanson told RT.

With the Cold War declared over, the list keeps expanding to smaller antagonists.

So it was with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1991, when then President George H. W. Bush Sr. announced that “Allied forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait.”

Or with the former Yugoslavia, to which former President Bill Clinton signed a sentence in 1999 by announcing that the American Air Force was conducting “Air strikes against Serbian forces.”

Then it was ex-President George W. Bush, who was let off the leash after 9/11 terror attacks and announced a global War on Terror symbolized by Al-Qaeda. He started by invading Afghanistan in 2001 and continued with the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In 2003, the US Air Force was “Striking selective targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war,” announced George W. Bush, meaning that waging wars is an exclusive privilege of the chosen mighty ones.

Ultimately, it has been current President Barack Obama, who was elected on promises to end wars, but now looks forward to military conflict with Iran after lending a hand in toppling the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. As in previous cases, last spring he made a characteristic “We hit Gaddafi’s air defenses” statement on the American TV.

With a defense budget that surpasses the military expenditure of all other countries combined, no other nation drums up war as consistently as America.

“While people are still responding and recovering from the violence that’s been committed in one place, or even in the same place, we’re launching new operations and more atrocities in different parts of the world,” acknowledged war correspondent Keith Harmon Snow.

So Fox News cannot but reiterate that Iran is the biggest threat, Syria is a minor threat, Russia is a traditional threat and China is an emerging threat.

That makes America's top brass state that a strike on Tehran is in the planning stages.

It also makes the US President Obama latest quest for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program look derisive in the face of a pending military confrontation.

Year in, year out, Americans are convinced that the US has to remain on the defensive.

“We’re petrified of death by terrorism. Shoot, I think a lot of Americans wish we’d spend more money on war,” veteran Matthis Chiroux confessed.

Finding the next target is never difficult.

Campaigner David Swanson says “We are inventing the nation of Iran as an enemy, as a threat to the United States, as a possessor of nuclear weapons it does not possess, a nation that has not attacked another in literally centuries, and has no capability or desire to attack ours.”

RT's Anastasia Churkina asked people on the streets of New York “Which country is the US going to be in a war with next?”

The most common answer she got was “Iran.”

The US has been picking and choosing which countries to intervene in for centuries. As the list of nations the US loves to hate expands, the concept that no war at all is also an option seems to have been forgotten.

US media cover up AIPAC’s global threat

US President Barack Obama delivering a speech at the AIPAC conference

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/230862.html

Journalist Alison Weir says that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a threat the world, Press TV reports.

“AIPAC is very dangerous because it is working on American foreign policy, and currently it is trying to push the United States into an outright attack on Iran or assisting an attack on Iran by Israel,” the executive director of the US website If Americans Knew said in an exclusive interview with Press TV.

Weir also believes that AIPAC is behind the United States’ decision to impose economic sanctions on Iran.

AIPAC is “a special interest lobby” in the United States, which is working on behalf of a foreign country -- Israel -- and not on behalf of Americans, or on behalf of peace or justice, she stated.

“The American media are extremely Israel-centric in their reports, leaving out a great deal of information that Americans need to know to have rational successful policies, which results in the ignorance of the American public about the Israeli lobby,” Weir said, adding that most US citizens do not even know what the Israeli lobby is.

AIPAC is the one of the most powerful lobbies in the United States. It works to influence US foreign and domestic policy for the interest of Israel.

Bahrainis hold mass anti-government rally in capital

Bahraini protesters march in an anti-government demonstration in the capital, Manama (File Photo).

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/230778.html

Bahrainis have held a mass anti-government demonstration outside the capital, Manama, to demand an end to the rule of Al Khalifa dynasty.

Tens of thousands of Bahrainis took the streets west of Manama on Friday in response to a call from the country’s top Shia cleric Sheikh Issa Qasim. Images coming from Bahrain show protesters filled up the main Budaiya highway in Diraz and Saar.

"We are here for the sake of our just demands that we cannot make concessions over and we stick with them because we have sacrificed for them," Sheikh Qasim said before the march in his weekly sermon in the village of Diraz.

Demonstrators also called for the immediate release of political prisoners and denounced the Bahraini dictatorship in.

"No to dictatorship and no to sectarianism. We want an elected government that represents all Bahraini citizens without any discrimination," main opposition bloc al-Wefaq said in its statement.

"Time has come for real implementation of the principle of ' people are sources of all powers' as stipulated in the National Action Charter, the constitution, and international conventions on civil and political rights," al-Wefaq stated.

Similar protest rallies were also held across the country. Activists say over 50 percent of the Bahraini population took part in the protests.

World considers US, Israel threat not Iran: Chomsky

American scholar Noam Chomsky

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229912.html

American scholar Noam Chomsky says the world does not accept the US portrayal of Iran as an “imminent threat” to global peace, and that Washington and Tel Aviv are instead seen as greater evils.

“There is little credible discussion of just what constitutes the Iranian threat, though we do have an authoritative answer, provided by US military and intelligence. Their presentations to Congress make it clear that Iran doesn’t pose a military threat,” Chomsky wrote in his latest article titled “What Are Iran’s Intensions?” published Friday.

Chomsky added that even "the majority of Americans" recognized Iran’s right to its nuclear energy program before Washington officials and media launched a “massive propaganda onslaught” against the Islamic Republic over the past two years.

He added that presently powerful countries like Russia, China, India, and 120 member nations of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) oppose the US policy on Iran.

“Western commentary has made much of how the Arab dictators allegedly support the US position on Iran, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the population opposes it-a stance too revealing to require comment,” he said.

Instead, Chomsky said, “Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace,” and in the Arab world he added, “Israel and the US are regarded as the pre-eminent threat.”

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Iran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear energy program and have used this pretext to impose international and unilateral sanctions on the Islamic Republic and to call for a military strike against Tehran.

Iran has repeatedly refuted the Western allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is entitled to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Israel, which is widely believed to be the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East with over 200 undeclared nuclear warheads, pursues the policy of "deliberate ambiguity" on its nuclear program.

Tel Aviv has rejected global demands to join the NPT and does not allow IAEA inspectors to observe its controversial nuclear program.

Iran has always pursued the policy of nuclear transparency and has granted IAEA inspectors access to its nuclear facilities to conduct snap inspections.

No US-Israel space on Iran nuclear issue: Peres

Israeli President Shimon Peres

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229957.html

Israeli President Shimon Peres has expressed complete faith in relations between Israel and the United States, stressing that the pair are on the same page regarding steps being taken against Iran.

Speaking at the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington on Sunday, Peres said that there is no space between the United States and the Jewish entity on Iran policy, Ha’aretz reported.

“The United States and Israel share the same goal, to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon,” Peres said.

He also praised Obama for his policies that have included the imposition of economic sanctions on Iran.

“President Obama made it clear that the US will not permit Iran to become nuclear,” the Israeli president said, emphasizing that Obama has also made it clear that “all options are on the table.”

The White House said on February 6 that President Obama has signed an executive order blocking all Iranian government assets in the US, including that of the Central Bank.

"I have determined that additional sanctions are warranted," Obama said in a letter to the Congress.

The measures block all property and interests belonging to the Iranian government, the Central Bank and all Iranian financial institutions that fall within US jurisdiction.

Previously, US institutions were required to reject, rather than block, such Iranian transactions.

The new executive order gives the American institutions new power to seize the assets they encounter instead of just turning them back.

The Senate Banking Committee on February 2 adopted a sweeping package of tough new sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to freeze its nuclear energy program.

The measure targets Iran's national oil and tanker firms, authorizing the US government to sanction foreign companies that buy oil from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) or have oil shipped by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC).

The law would also for the first time extend sanctions on Iran's energy sector to any joint initiative anywhere in the world where the Islamic Republic is a major partner or investor.

On New Year's Eve, the US president signed into law economic sanctions against Iran's Central Bank in an apparent bid to punish foreign companies and banks that do business with Iranian financial institutions.

The bill requires foreign financial firms to make a choice between doing business with Iran's Central Bank and oil sector or with the US financial sector.

The legislation has not gone into effect yet in a bid to provide oil markets with time to adjust.

Despite the widely publicized claims by the US, Israel and some of their European allies that Iran's nuclear program may include a military aspect, Tehran argues that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence indicating that Tehran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted towards nuclear weapons production.

This is while the Israeli regime is widely known to possess between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads. Furthermore, Tel Aviv refuses to allow its nuclear facilities to come under international regulatory inspectors and rejects any international nuclear regulatory agreements.

Right activists slam Israel’s campaign of war on Iran

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper (R) and his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting in Harper's office in Canada’s capital Ottawa on March 2, 2012

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229997.html

Canadian human rights activists have held a demonstration in the capital Ottawa to condemn visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promotion of war on Iran.

The demonstration was held outside the US Consulate at the end of Netanyahu’s two-day-long visit to Canada on Sunday.

The activists also criticized Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, saying his government supported a potential war that would “result in untold death and the destabilization of the entire [Middle Eastern] region.”

They further protested Israel’s continued atrocities against the Palestinians.

A similar rally was held in Washington on Sunday. Hundreds of activists rallied outside the Washington Convention Center, where the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was holding its annual conference.

The protesters called on US President Barack Obama to reject Israel’s push for war on Iran.

However, while addressing the conference, Obama recalled a number of occasions, in which Washington had stood by Tel Aviv despite its actions, adding, “When the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.”

Netanyahu is now due to travel to the US to meet Obama on Monday. The Israeli premier is also expected to deliver a speech at the three-day-long AIPAC conference.

The US and Israel have each considered the other to be its most strategic ally.

Washington has invariably stonewalled the United Nations actions against Tel Aviv. It also provides Tel Aviv with nearly USD 3 billion in military aid each year.

The two and some of their allies have used the claim to impose sanctions against Iran.

Israeli officials have recently ramped up their war rhetoric, threatening Iran with military strikes in case the US-engineered sanctions against the country failed to force Tehran into abandoning its civilian nuclear energy program.

This is while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has never found any evidence indicating that Tehran's nuclear energy program has been diverted towards nuclear weapons production.

Iran argues that, as a signatory to the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Israel will decide on Iran war independent of US: Lieberman

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229911.html

The Israeli foreign minister says the decision to attack Iran is one that Israel will make regardless of what course of action the US decides to take.

Avigdor Lieberman’s remarks, made in an interview with Israeli public radio on Sunday, came shortly before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due in Washington to discuss Iranian nuclear activities with the US President Barack Obama.

"Clearly, the United States is the biggest world power and the biggest and most important country that is a friend of Israel, but we are independent," he added.

Lieberman said the ultimate decision on how to deal with Iran's nuclear activities would be made by Israel.

The Israeli foreign minister claimed such a decision should be made "calmly, weighing the pros and cons. All this chatter doesn't help anyone."

The US and Israel have been escalating war rhetoric against Iran during the past few months, claiming that Tehran seeks to produce nuclear weapons under the cover of its civilian nuclear energy program.

On March 2, Obama threatened Iran with a military strike over the country’s nuclear energy program, telling the Atlantic magazine that the US is “not taking any option off the table” in order to stop Iran's nuclear energy program.

Meanwhile, a poll conducted ahead of Netanyahu’s Washington visit showed that only 19 percent of Israelis support an Iran strike without US backing.

Iran has denied Western allegations about its nuclear energy program and has promised a crushing response to any military strike against the country. Tehran has also warned that any such measure could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.

Peer sacked for predicting Israel’s end

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229365.html

The veteran British peer, Baroness Tonge, has been forced to resign as a Liberal Democrat frontbencher in the House of Lords after saying she sees the Israeli regime’s end coming.

"It will not go on for ever, it will not go on for ever. Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown," Tonge was filmed as saying during a student panel address at Middlesex University last week.

"Beware Israel… One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70 billion a year to Israel to support what I call America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East - that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough," She added.

Following her remarks, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg apparently gave Tonge an ultimatum to apologize or step down, but the peer refused to make an apology and resigned.

"I have been asked to apologize but refuse to do so and resign the whip of my party," she said in a statement.

The outspoken anti-Israeli peer, who once said she would consider becoming a suicide bomber if she were a Palestinian, also attacked the Lib Dem leadership over their decision saying they seem “always to abet the request of the pro-Israel lobby.”

"The comments I made were in protest at the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” she said in the statement.

“Israel is acting against international law, the Geneva conventions, and Human Rights. They do this with impunity and if our political parties will not take action then individuals must,” she added.

Tonge has been a Lib Dem MP between 1997 and 2005 when she was appointed to the House of Lords.

She has been a fierce critic of the Zionist regime of Israel and a thorn in the Lib Dems’ side over the past years.

Back in February 2010, Clegg removed Tonge as a Lib Dem health spokesman in the House of Lords after she called for an inquiry into reports that the Israeli soldiers were guilty of body parts trafficking in Haiti.

The reports showed that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) who were allegedly deployed to the Caribbean country for humanitarian purposes after the killer 2010 earthquake, were actually busy harvesting victims’ body parts.

Tonge was also removed as Lib Dems spokesman on children’s issues in 2004 after suggesting she could become a suicide bomber.

US congressional nominee: Holocaust ‘blackest lie’ in history

American Republican congressional hopeful Arthur Jones

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/229369.html

A US Republican congressional hopeful has emphasized that “Holocaust never happened” and that such an event amounts to “the blackest lie in history.”

Arthur Jones, who hopes to challenge Democrat Dan Lipinski in Illinois' 3rd Congressional District, noted that the claim of killing millions of Jews and other people by Nazis during the World War II “is nothing more than an international extortion racket by the Jews,” Hoffington Post reported.

“It’s the blackest lie in history. Millions of dollars are being made by Jews telling this tale of woe and misfortune in books, movies, plays and TV,” he said

"The more survivors, the more lies that are told," the 64-year-old candidate said.

Jones said he hopes to win the Republican primary nomination and move on to challenge Democrat Dan Lipinski next November.

He also questioned Lipinski’s strange affiliation with powerful pro-Israeli lobby group in the US-- American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Jones underlined that the pro-Israeli lobby “was bragging on their website” on how Lipinski is “spearheading an effort in the [US] House of Representatives with a Jewish Congressman from Virginia named Frank Wolf to get tough with Iran, including closing off any oil exports to China that could lead to World War III.”

Jones, a Vietnam War veteran, also compared current conditions in the US to the situation in Germany following the end of World War I and insisted that “our country is falling apart economically, politically, culturally, militarily.”

“We are going down,” he noted angrily.

“These war-mongering fools in congress like [Republican presidential candidates] Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney -- we can’t let Iran have one nuclear weapon but we let Israel have all the nuclear weapons they want,” Jones said. “This is ridiculous.”

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on a number of occasions for a historical examination of ‘the Holocaust’ in an effort to uncover realities of the much publicized World War I event. His remarks, however, have sparked outrage among pro-Israeli Western powers, labeling him as a “holocaust denier.”

More former Dimona employees with cancer sue for neglect

A view of Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/228936.html

The number of workers suffering from cancer who have filed lawsuits against the Dimona nuclear plant over the lack of proper safety measures is on the rise.

Victims say the high level of radioactive radiation that they were exposed to at Dimona is the main cause of the cancer that they are suffering from.

So far, over 60 people working at Dimona have filled lawsuit against the site's officials. The victims say officials had assured them that they were protected properly and that the level of harmful radiation was being monitored carefully, but now the opposite has been proven.

The victims are demanding 120,860,000 Shekel (about 32 million dollars) in compensation.

On Monday, 24 more people, diagnosed with cancer, filled lawsuits against the Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, accusing Dimona officials of deceiving them about their safety and protection.

Earlier this months, a lawsuit by 44 former Dimona workers told an Israeli court that they were sent to search for uranium ore across Israel without the necessary protection and that they were equipped only with goggles and masks that did not protect them from radiation.

The National Insurance, however, refused to recognize their cancer as work-related, claiming that the levels of radiation to which they were exposed were not the cause of their illness.

Dramatic increases in cancer cases, sterility and abnormal births south of the West Bank is said to be linked to a uranium leak at the Dimona nuclear power plant.

The nuclear reactor has become very old after 48 years, with experts warning of that the leakage could reach Jordan, Syria, Egypt and even Libya.

New bill to allow 30,000 drones to fill American skies by 2020

The US congress has passed a bill which will see 30,000 spy drones to fill US airspace by 2020.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/226010.html

The US Congress has passed a bill which approves government’s deployment of up to 30,000 spy drones in the country’s airspace by 2020, raising serious concerns about the ensuing privacy infringement.

The bill, which facilitates the government use of unmanned spy planes in US airspace, requires the Federal Aviation Administration to rush a plan to get as many drones in the air as possible within nine months.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act, which US President Barack Obama is expected to sign, also orders the FAA to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015, The Washington Times reported.

Privacy advocates have protested that the measure will lead to the widespread use of drones for electronic surveillance by police agencies across the country and eventually by private companies as well.

“There are serious policy questions on the horizon about privacy and surveillance, by both government agencies and commercial entities,” said Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also is “concerned about the implications for surveillance by government agencies,” said attorney Jennifer Lynch.

The provision in the legislation is the fruit of “a huge push by lawmakers and the defense sector to expand the use of drones” in American airspace, she added.

According to some estimates, the commercial drone market in the United States could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars once the FAA clears their use.

The US has been using the unmanned vehicles for its spy operations and assassination missions worldwide and the strikes have intensified since Obama took office three years ago.

UK helps Israel steal Palestinian water

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/225961.html

Britain has decided to help the Israeli regime steal water from Palestinians, while even the Israeli press describe the act as a ‘water occupation.’

British Water, which represents the UK water industry supply chain, signed an agreement with Israel in December which received no media coverage. The agreement was not even published on British Water’s website. However, the Israeli regime’s embassy in London proudly reported the agreement.

This comes as Israel’s 400-mile apartheid wall illegally encloses key water supplies. The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled the apartheid wall is ‘contrary to international law’ and that “all States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction.”

Israel’s apartheid wall is not even built along the so-called Green Line which itself is not a legal and official border. It bites deep into the occupied Palestinian West Bank and its construction is aimed at stealing Palestinians’ water and selling them their own water at an inflated price.

Palestinians have no access to the Jordan River because of the Israeli regime’s closures. Moreover, during the Gaza Massacre in 2008, Israel destroyed more than 30 kilometers of water networks and 11 water wells in a ‘deliberate and systematic’ manner, as described by a UN Fact Finding Mission.

Despite the establishment of a Joint Water Committee, which was set up to secure water supply to Palestinians, Israel was given veto power.

This way, Palestinians are forced to buy their own water, which is extracted from wells within their own land.

Although between 100 and 150 liters of water per day are necessary to meet health needs, an individual in marginalized Palestinian communities in the Occupied West Bank live on less than 20 liters of water a day. This comes as an average Israeli consumes 280 liters of Palestinians’ water each day.

Britain’s complicity with Israel in robbing the Palestinians of their water comes as even the Israeli newspaper Haaretz admitted that “some 450,000 [illegal] Israeli settlers on the [Occupied] West Bank use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there.”

The newspaper even considered the situation as a ‘water occupation’ that the Israeli regime has launched against the Palestinian people.

Given the bigger picture of the establishment of the Zionist state which would not be possible without Arthur Balfour, Britain’s foreign secretary from 1916 to 1919, and the UK Trade and Investment Department's commitment to benefit Israel such acts on the part of Britain are not unexpected.

“In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now occupy that land,” said Balfour in his Balfour Declaration back in 1917.

Balfour’s comments were made as Britain had promised "the 700,000 Arabs" that had “occupied the land” independence in return for their assistance in defeating the Ottoman-German Alliance in World War I.

However, after “Turks were smitten,” as described by Stephen Ostrander, the British government gave no thought to its promise as it surrendered Palestine for the establishment of a Zionist state.