How then, do we move backwards? How does a society, with most of the people having no clue of future events, move from being dependent on a vast and intertwined network of goods and services produced by the indigenous people of whereever, to a local resource and renewable energy based society, and do so in the timeframe available (20-30 years using the most liberal extimates, 10-20 with resonable estimates, 5-10 with worst case scenarios), all the while prices on everything increasing, world politics getting more militaristic, governments continuously reducing civil liberties, shortages of goods on the market and weather patterns resembling bad Hollywood movies?
Cook's newest book, just published, is called "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East." It's the subject of this review in the wake of advance praise. Noted author John Pilger calls it "One of the most cogent understandings of the modern Middle East I have read. It is superb, because the author himself is a unique witness" to events and powerfully documents them. This review covers them in-depth along with some of this writer's reflections on the region from America.
Introducing his topic, Cook begins with Iraq and states upfront that "civil war and partition were the intended outcomes of invasion." Separation and conflict were planned, they serve America's interests, they're not haphazard post-invasion events, and they originated far from Washington.
From the early 1980s, it was Israeli policy to subdue the Palestinians, fragment Arab rivals, and foster ethnic and religious discord to maintain unchallengeable regional dominance. Bush administration neocons chose the same strategy. Like Israel, they want to neutralize the region through division and separation and make it work even though prior to invading Iraq, Sunni and Shia neighborhoods were indistinguishable, and the country had the highest intermarriage rate in the region.
The scheme is "Ottomanisation," and it worked for Ottoman Turkey against a more dominant Islam. Israel sees four advantages to it:
-- divided minorities are easier to exploit, and Sunni - Shia conflict can achieve a greater aim - subverting Israel's main threat - secular Arab nationalism united against the Jewish State;
-- greater military dominance lets Israel maintain its favored status as a valued Washington ally;
-- regional instability may lead to the breakup of Saudi-dominated OPEC, weaken the kingdom's influence in Washington, and diminish its ability to finance Islamic extremists and Palestinian resistance; and
-- Israel becomes freerer to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Washington supported the scheme post-9/11, the "war on terror" was born, a clash of civilizations ensued, and the idea was that "Control of oil could be secured on the same terms as Israeli regional hegemony: by spreading instability across the Middle East" and Central Asia through a new-type divide and conquer strategy. For Israel, it weakens regional rivals and dampens Palestinian nationalism and their hopes for "meaningful statehood."
Quote:
Regime Overthrow in Iraq
Removing Saddam Hussein was justified to disarm a dangerous dictator threatening the region. It was untrue and based on "False Pretenses" according to a study by two nonprofit journalism organizations. On January 22, it was posted on the Center for Public Integrity web site. It's "an exhaustive examination of the record" that shows the President and his seven top officials "waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat" Iraq posed to galvanize public opinion and go to war "under decidedly false pretenses."
At least 532 separate speeches, briefings, interviews, testimonies and more provide the evidence. They show a concerted web of lies became the administration's case for war even though it's clear Iraq had no WMDs or any ties to Al-Queda. Numerous bipartisan investigations drew the same conclusion, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2004 and 2006, the multinational Iraq Survey Group's "Duelfer Report," and even the dubious 9/11 Commission.
The study cites 232 false Bush statements alone about WMDs and 28 others about links to Al-Queda. Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others put out the same lies that increased after August 2002 and spiked much higher in the weeks preceding invasion. In all, the study documented 935 false statements, the dominant media spread them, their deception is now revealed, and yet the administration avoided any responsibility for its actions and the media is unapologetic. In addition, there are no congressional investigations, and the war is still misportrayed as a liberating one when its clear intent was to erase a nation, divide and rule it, turn it into a free market paradise, use it as a launching platform to dominate the region, and control its oil.
Saddam was never a credible threat. In addition, he'd been effectively disarmed in the early 1990s, but US officials suppressed what UN weapons inspectors' learned - the Gulf War neutralized Iraq and "there were no unresolved disarmament issues." Further, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, ran the country's WMD program in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1995, he defected to the West, was thoroughly debriefed, and confirmed that there was no nuclear program, and "Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them."
Jonathan Cook is a British-born independent journalist based (since September 2001) in the predominantly Arab city of Nazareth, Israel and is the "first foreign correspondent (living) in the Israeli Arab city...." He's a former reporter and editor of regional newspapers, a freelance sub-editor with national newspapers, and a staff journalist for the London-based Guardian and Observer newspapers. He's also written for The Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly and Aljazeera.net. In February 2004, he founded the Nazareth Press Agency.
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