"It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error".
-U.S. Supreme Court, in American Communication Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 442
IRAN FACTS & LINKS
News Item:
CBS Added: June 20, 2008
U.S. intelligence analysts say that nearly 100 Israeli warplanes staged a rehearsal air strike against nuclear facilities in Iran. David Martin reports from the Pentagon.
Israel Poised To Strike IRAN
Israel has made it clear it intends to end Iran's nuclear program with or without U.S. support ? and before President Bush leaves office. David Martin reports on mounting tensions in Mideast.
May 8, 2008
Big Oil Wants to Attack Iran
I believe that the real goal of the United States war against Iraq is to return to the "good old days" when the U.S. and some European countries totally plundered the resources of the Middle East. Five of the twelve largest corporations in the United States are oil monopolies. Before the rise of Arab nationalism and the anti-feudal revolutions that swept out colonialist regimes in Iraq and other Middle Eastem countries in the 1950s and 1960s, U.S., British, and Dutch oil companies owned Arab and Iranian oil fields outright. Between 1948 and 1960 U.S. oil companies received $13 billion in profit from their Persian Gulf holdings. That was half the return on all overseas investment by all U.S. companies in those years.
In recent decades U.S. companies no longer directly own the oil fields of the Middle East, but they still get rich from them. That is because the royal families of the oil-rich Arabian peninsula, who were put on their thrones by the British empire and are kept there by the U.S. military and the CIA, have loyally turned their kingdoms into cash cows for Wall Street banks and corporations.
This is one way it works. Money spent on Saudi Arabian oil, for example, once went into the accounts of Rockefeller-controlled oil corporations at the Rockefeller-controlled Chase Manhattan Bank. Now it is deposited in the Saudi king's huge account at Chase Manhattan which reinvests it at a hefty profit to the Rockefellers. Chase Manhattan also manages the Saudi Industrial Development Fund and the Saudi Investment Bank. Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, which is linked to Mobil and Texaco, has a representative on the Board of the Saudi Monetary Authority and controls another big chunk of the kingdom's income. Citicorp handles much of the Emir of Kuwait's $120 billion investment portfolio. The total amount that the Gulf's feudal lords have put at the disposal of the western bankers is conservatively estimated at $1 trillion. It is probably much more.
The New World Order that Obama has in mind is, in fact, not so new. It is an attempt to turn the clock back to the pre-World War II era of unchallenged colonial domination and plunder of the land, labor, and resources of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East by a handful of industrialized capitalist countries. Unlike the old world order of outright colonialism, the new world order will be imposed by Stealth aircraft, guided missiles, smart bombs, and tactical nuclear weapons - not l9th-century gunboats. This is based on grand geopolitical strategy that flows like water from Pentagon-sponsored think tanks in Washington. It leaves out the most important factor in the equation of the Middle East - the broad mass of the people whose hatred for foreign domination and capacity to struggle remains as powerful as ever.
May 15, 2008
Bombs Away
By William Blum
United States bombings of other countries
The bombing list
Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-1961
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenada 1983
Lebanon 1983, 1984
(both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Iran 1987
Panama 1989
Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1993
Bosnia 1994, 1995
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999
Yemen 2002
Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis)
Iraq 2003-05
Afghanistan 2001-05
Plus
Iran, April 2003 --
hit by US missiles during bombing of Iraq,
killing at least one persdon {2}
Pakistan, 2002-03 -- bombed by US planes several
times as part of combat against the Taliban and
other opponents of the US occupation of Afghanistan
{3}
China, 1999 -- its heavily bombed embassy in
Belgrade is legally Chinese territory, and it appears
rather certain that the bombing was no accident (see chapter 25)
France, 1986 -- After the French government refused
the use of its air space to US warplanes headed for a bombing raid on Libya, the planes were forced to
take another, longer route; when they reached Libya
they bombed so close to the French embassy that the building was damaged and all communication links
knocked out.{4}
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1985 -- A bomb dropped by a police helicopter burned down an entire block, some 60 homes destroyed, 11 dead, including several small children. The police, the mayor's office, and the FBI were all involved in this effort to evict a black organization called MOVE from the house they lived
in.
The Targets
It's become a commonplace to accuse the United States of choosing as its bombing targets only people of color, those of the Third World, or Muslims. But it must be remembered that one of the most sustained and ferocious American bombing campaigns was carried out against the people of the former Yugoslavia -- white, European, Christians. The United States is an equal-opportunity bomber. The only qualifications for a country to become a target are: (1) It poses a sufficient obstacle to the desires of the American Empire; (2) It is virtually defenseless against aerial attack.
The survivors
A study by the American Medical Association: "Psychiatric disorders among survivors of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing":
Nearly half the bombing survivors studied had an active postdisaster psychiatric disorder, and full criteria for PTSD [posttraumatic stress disorder] were met by one third of the survivors. PTSD symptoms were nearly universal, especially symptoms of intrusive reexperience and hyperarousal.{6}
Martin Kelly, publisher of a nonviolence website:
We never see the smoke and the fire, we never smell the blood, we
never see the terror in the eyes of the children, whose nightmares
will now feature screaming missiles from unseen terrorists, known
only as Americans.
NOTES
1. The Nation, September 26, 1994, p.304
2. RFE/RL Newsline, April 9, 2003 (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a "private" international communications service in Europe and Asia funded by the US government.)
3. Washington Post, January 1, 2003, Australian Broadcasting Company, January 1, 2003, Agence France Presse, September 19, 2003
4. Associated Press, "France Confirms It Denied U.S. Jets Air Space, Says Embassy Damaged", April 15, 1986
5. U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, "New World Coming" (Phase I Report), September 15, 1999, p.3
6. Journal of the American Medical Association, August 25, 1999, p.761
This is a chapter from the book Rogue State: A Guide to the
World's Only Superpower, by William Blum
Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way; wherein Man receives a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry.
Benjamin Franklin, Positions to be Examined, April 4, 1769
