Bill Weinberg

IDF officer calls for strikes on Iran

We've argued repeatedly that strategic imperatives related to global control of oil are propelling the US towards intervention in Iran. But it is looking more and more like Israel could throw the first punch. Tragically, the bellicose Israelis seem to believe that this will be in Israel's national interest—seemingly blind to the inevitable global backlash and escalation of nightmarish chaos throughout the Middle East. Worse still, pro-war Israeli commentators seem to view airstrikes against Iran as an assertion of Israeli independence from Washington—again blind to how they will merely be doing US imperialism's dirty work. Brigadier General (Res.) Oded Tira, the former Israeli Defense Forces chief artillery officer writes in a Dec. 30 commentary for Israel's YNet (emphasis added):

Scott Ritter: Israel lobby pushes Iran attack

Scott Ritter is the latest to join the fast-growing chorus that would exculpate the petro-elites by blaming the Iraq adventure—and now the looming Iran intervention—on the Israel lobby. Supposed progressives like Democracy Now! are lapping it up. We will point out, even if nobody else does, that if Ritter's predictions were accurate, the US would have started bombing Iran in June 2005. A Dec. 29 book review by Nathan Guttman from New York's Jewish weekly The Forward:

Brzezinski: Iraq adventure is "colonial war"

In a Jan. 12 Washington Post opinion piece, the Trilateral Commission's ideological guru and Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski comments on Bush's speech pitching an escalation (oops, we mean "surge") in Iraq:

The speech reflects a profound misunderstanding of our era. America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating. That is the fatal flaw of Bush's policy.

Stalino-fascists go mainstream

Impeaching George Bush is a damn good idea. But the full page ad in the Jan. 12 New York Times by ImpeachBush.org appears to be a bid by the unrepentantly Stalinist Workers World Party to garner mainstream liberal support, probably to keep pace with the Maoist competition. The ad reads "Articles of impeachment drafted by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark." We have repeatedly noted that Ramsey Clark is a totalitarian pseudo-left huckster who supports fascism. The ad also plugs the March 17 anti-war march in Washington sponsored by WWP's front group International ANSWER. Significantly, it does not plug the Jan. 27 march on Washington sponsored by the rival United for Peace & Justice—which has the usual problems with elitism and timidity, but is, at least, not crypto-fascist.

NYC: family deported in specious terror case

As we have noted, this is the latest in a wave of dangerously specious terror cases which have produced an atmosphere of paranoia in New York City. Now it seems the convict's entire family is to be deported. From the Washington Post, Jan. 11:

NEW YORK - A day after a man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for conspiring to bomb Manhattan's Herald Square, his parents and sister were detained by federal immigration officials seeking to deport them.

Oaxaca: "autonomous municipality" declared; Ruiz wants federal police back

Francisco Lopez Barcenas writes for La Jornada, Jan. 10, via Chiapas95:

On January 1 of this year, Oaxaca woke up with one more municipality, that of San Juan Copala, created by Triqui communities who officially belong to the Mixtec municipalities of Juxtlahuaca, Putla y Constancia del Rosario, in the western part of the state; municipalities controlled by mestizos. But this isn't just one more municipality out of the 570 in the state. This one is autonomous, like those that indigenous peoples are constructing in different parts of the country as a way of defending their rights and building their own future.

DC: case opens against FARC commander

Its last effort having resulted in a mistrial, the Justice Department is again trying to get narco-terrorism charges to stick against a Colombian guerilla commander. From BBC News, Jan. 9, emphasis added (note to BBC fact-checker: learn how to spell "Ricardo"):

Israel to nuke Iran?

What's really depressing about this opinion piece is that the writer really appears to believe his absurd thesis that Israel must assert its independence from the US by nuking Iran—whereas we have argued again and again and again that Israel is playing US imperialism's fool in preparing aggression against Iran. From the LA Times, Jan. 12 (link added):

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