Seymour Hersh: Iran and the I.A.E.A.

(Hotel Terminus says) Did Iran ever show an image like this, about how they can strike
the Holy Land's illegal 200 nuclear warheads? Imagine the headlines!

IRAN AND THE I.A.E.A.

link | By Seymour Hersh | 18.11.2011 | NEDERLANDS

The first question in last Saturday night’s Republican debate on foreign policy dealt with Iran, and a newly published report by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The report, which raised renewed concern about the “possible existence of undeclared nuclear facilities and material in Iran,” struck a darker tone than previous assessments. But it was carefully hedged. On the debate platform, however, any ambiguity was lost. One of the moderators said that the I.A.E.A. report had provided “additional credible evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon” and asked what various candidates, upon winning the Presidency, would do to stop Iran. Herman Cain said he would assist those who are trying to overthrow the government. Newt Gingrich said he would coördinate with the Israeli government and maximize covert operations to block the Iranian weapons program. Mitt Romney called the state of Iran’s nuclear program Obama’s “greatest failing, from a foreign-policy standpoint” and added, “Look, one thing you can know … and that is if we reëlect Barack Obama Iran will have a nuclear weapon.” The Iranian bomb was a sure thing Saturday night.

I’ve been reporting on Iran and the bomb for The New Yorker for the past decade, with a focus on the repeatedly inability of the best and the brightest of the Joint Special Operations Command to find definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons production program in Iran. The goal of the high-risk American covert operations was to find something physical—a “smoking calutron,” as a knowledgeable official once told me—to show the world that Iran was working on warheads at an undisclosed site, to make the evidence public, and then to attack and destroy the site.

The Times reported, in its lead story the day after the report came out, that I.A.E.A. investigators “have amassed a trove of new evidence that, they say, makes a ‘credible’ case” that Iran may be carrying out nuclear-weapons activities. The newspaper quoted a Western diplomat as declaring that “the level of detail is unbelievable…. The report describes virtually all the steps to make a nuclear warhead and the progress Iran has achieved in each of those steps. It reads likes a menu.” The Times set the tone for much of the coverage. (A second Times story that day on the I.A.E.A. report noted, more cautiously, that “it is true that the basic allegations in the report are not substantially new, and have been discussed by experts for years.”)

But how definitive, or transformative, were the findings? The I.A.E.A. said it had continued in recent years “to receive, collect and evaluate information relevant to possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program” and, as a result, it has been able “to refine its analysis.” The net effect has been to create “more concern.” But Robert Kelley, a retired I.A.E.A. director and nuclear engineer who previously spent more than thirty years with the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons program, told me that he could find very little new information in the I.A.E.A. report. He noted that hundreds of pages of material appears to come from a single source: a laptop computer, allegedly supplied to the I.A.E.A. by a Western intelligence agency, whose provenance could not be established. Those materials, and others, “were old news,” Kelley said, and known to many journalists. “I wonder why this same stuff is now considered ‘new information’ by the same reporters.”

A nuanced assessment of the I.A.E.A. report was published by the Arms Control Association (A.C.A.), a nonprofit whose mission is to encourage public support for effective arms control. The A.C.A. noted that the I.A.E.A. did “reinforce what the nonproliferation community has recognized for some times: that Iran engaged in various nuclear weapons development activities until 2003, then stopped many of them, but continued others.” (The American intelligence community reached the same conclusion in a still classified 2007 estimate.) The I.A.E.A.’s report “suggests,” the A.C.A. paper said, that Iran “is working to shorten the timeframe to build the bomb once and if it makes that decision. But it remains apparent that a nuclear-armed Iran is still not imminent nor is it inevitable.” Greg Thielmann, a former State Department and Senate Intelligence Committee analyst who was one of the authors of the A.C.A. assessment, told me, “There is troubling evidence suggesting that studies are still going on, but there is nothing that indicates that Iran is really building a bomb.” He added, “Those who want to drum up support for a bombing attack on Iran sort of aggressively misrepresented the report.”

Joseph Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshare Fund, a disarmament group, who serves on Hillary Clinton’s International Security Advisory Board, said, “I was briefed on most of this stuff several years ago at the I.A.E.A. headquarters in Vienna. There’s little new in the report. Most of this information is well known to experts who follow the issue.” Cirincione noted that “post-2003, the report only cites computer modelling and a few other experiments.” (A senior I.A.E.A. official similarly told me, “I was underwhelmed by the information.”)

The report did note that its on-site camera inspection process of Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment facilities—mandated under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory—“continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material.” In other words, all of the low enriched uranium now known to be produced inside Iran is accounted for; if highly enriched uranium is being used for the manufacture of a bomb, it would have to have another, unknown source.

The shift in tone at the I.A.E.A. seems linked to a change at the top. The I.A.E.A.’s report had extra weight because the Agency has had a reputation for years as a reliable arbiter on Iran. Mohammed ElBaradei, who retired as the I.A.E.A.’s Director General two years ago, was viewed internationally, although not always in Washington, as an honest broker—a view that lead to the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. ElBaradei’s replacement is Yukiya Amano of Japan. Late last year, a classified U.S. Embassy cable from Vienna, the site of the I.A.E.A. headquarters, described Amano as being “ready for prime time.” According to the cable, which was obtained by WikiLeaks, in a meeting in September, 2009, with Glyn Davies, the American permanent representative to the I.A.E.A., said, “Amano reminded Ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 [the group of developing countries], which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the U.S. court on every strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.” The cable added that Amano’s “willingness to speak candidly with U.S. interlocutors on his strategy … bodes well for our future relationship.”

It is possible, of course, that Iran has simply circumvented the reconnaissance efforts of America and the I.A.E.A., perhaps even building Dick Cheney’s nightmare: a hidden underground nuclear-weapons fabrication facility. Iran’s track record with the I.A.E.A. has been far from good: its leadership began construction of its initial uranium facilities in the nineteen-eighties without informing the Agency, in violation of the nonproliferation treaty. Over the next decade and a half, under prodding from ElBaradei and the West, the Iranians began acknowledging their deceit and opened their enrichment facilities, and their records, to I.A.E.A. inspectors.

The new report, therefore, leaves us where we’ve been since 2002, when George Bush declared Iran to be a member of the Axis of Evil—with lots of belligerent talk but no definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons program.

Seymour M. Hersh wrote his first piece for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been a regular contributor to the magazine since 1993. His journalism and publishing awards include a Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards, and more than a dozen other prizes for investigative reporting. As a staff writer, Hersh won a National Magazine Award for Public Interest for his 2003 articles “Lunch with the Chairman,” “Selective Intelligence,” and “The Stovepipe.” In 2004, Hersh exposed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in a series of pieces in the magazine; in 2005, he again received a National Magazine Award for Public Interest, an Overseas Press Club award, the National Press Foundation’s Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism award, and his fifth George Polk Award, making him that award’s most honored laureate.

Imprisoning a whole nation

John Pilger | New Statesman | 22.05.2007 | NEDERLANDS

In an article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how Gaza in Palestine has come to symbolise the imposition of great power on the powerless, in the Middle East and all over the world, and how a vocabulary of double standard is employed to justify this epic tragedy.

Israel is destroying any notion of a state of Palestine and is being allowed to imprison an entire nation. That is clear from the latest attacks on Gaza, whose suffering has become a metaphor for the tragedy imposed on the peoples of the Middle East and beyond. These attacks, reported on Britain's Channel 4 News, were “targeting key militants of Hamas” and the “Hamas infrastructure”. The BBC described a “clash” between the same militants and Israeli F-16 aircraft.

Consider one such clash. The militants’ car was blown to pieces by a missile from a fighter-bomber. Who were these militants? In my experience, all the people of Gaza are militant in their resistance to their jailer and tormentor. As for the “Hamas infrastructure”, this was the headquarters of the party that won last year’s democratic elections in Palestine. To report that would give the wrong impression. It would suggest that the people in the car and all the others over the years, the babies and the elderly who have also “clashed” with fighter-bombers, were victims of a monstrous injustice. It would suggest the truth.

“Some say,” said the Channel 4 reporter, that “Hamas has courted this [attack]...” Perhaps he was referring to the rockets fired at Israel from within the prison of Gaza which killed no one. Under international law an occupied people has the right to use arms against the occupier’s forces. This right is never reported. The Channel 4 reporter referred to an “endless war”, suggesting equivalents. There is no war. There is resistance among the poorest, most vulnerable people on earth to an enduring, illegal occupation imposed by the world’s fourth largest military power, whose weapons of mass destruction range from cluster bombs to thermonuclear devices, bankrolled by the superpower. In the past six years alone, wrote the historian Ilan Pappé, “Israeli forces have killed more than 4,000 Palestinians, half of them children”.

Consider how this power works. According to documents obtained by United Press International, the Israelis once secretly funded Hamas as “a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO [Palestine Liberation Organisation] by using a competing religious alternative”, in the words of a former CIA official.

Today, Israel and the US have reversed this ploy and openly back Hamas’s rival, Fatah, with bribes of millions of dollars. Israel recently secretly allowed 500 Fatah fighters to cross into Gaza from Egypt, where they had been trained by another American client, the Cairo dictatorship. The Israelis’ aim is to undermine the elected Palestinian government and ignite a civil war. They have not quite succeeded. In response, the Palestinians forged a government of national unity, of both Hamas and Fatah. The latest attacks are aimed at destroying this.

With Gaza secured in chaos and the West Bank walled in, the Israeli plan, wrote the Palestinian academic Karma Nabulsi, is “a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed, ruled by disparate militias, gangs, religious ideologues and extremists, broken up into ethnic and religious tribalism and co-opted collaborationists. Look to the Iraq of today...”

On 19 May, the Guardian received this letter from Omar Jabary al-Sarafeh, a Ramallah resident: “Land, water and air are under constant sight of a sophisticated military surveillance system that makes Gaza like The Truman Show,” he wrote. “In this film every Gazan actor has a predefined role and the [Israeli] army behaves as a director... The Gaza strip needs to be shown as what it is... an Israeli laboratory backed by the international community where human beings are used as rabbits to test the most dramatic and perverse practices of economic suffocation and starvation.”

The remarkable Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has described the starvation sweeping Gaza’s more than a million and a quarter inhabitants and the “thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people unable to receive any treatment... The shadows of human beings roam the ruins... They only know the [Israeli army] will return and they know what this will mean for them: more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction in monstrous proportions”.

Whenever I have been in Gaza, I have been consumed by this melancholia, as if I were a trespasser in a secret place of mourning. Skeins of smoke from wood fires hang over the same Mediterranean Sea that free peoples know, but not here. Along beaches that tourists would regard as picturesque trudge the incarcerated of Gaza; lines of sepia figures become silhouettes, marching at the water’s edge, through lapping sewage. The water and power are cut off, yet again, when the generators are bombed, yet again. Iconic murals on walls pockmarked by bullets commemorate the dead, such as the family of 18 men, women and children who “clashed” with a 500lb American/Israeli bomb, dropped on their block of flats as they slept. Presumably, they were militants.

More than 40 per cent of the population of Gaza are children under the age of 15. Reporting on a four-year field study in occupied Palestine for the British Medical Journal, Dr Derek Summerfield wrote that “two-thirds of the 621 children killed at checkpoints, in the street, on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half of cases to the head, neck and chest – the sniper’s wound”. A friend of mine with the United Nations calls them “children of the dust”. Their wonderful childishness, their rowdiness and giggles and charm, belie their nightmare.

I met Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist who heads one of several children’s community health projects in Gaza. He told me about his latest survey. “The statistic I personally find unbearable,” he said, “is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma. Once you look at the rates of exposure to trauma, you see why: 99.2 per cent of the study group’s homes were bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shootings; 95.8 per cent witnessed bombardment and funerals; almost a quarter saw family members injured or killed.”

He said children as young as three faced the dichotomy caused by having to cope with these conditions. They dreamt about becoming doctors and nurses, then this was overtaken by an apocalyptic vision of themselves as the next generation of suicide bombers. They experienced this invariably after an attack by the Israelis. For some boys, their heroes were no longer football players, but a confusion of Palestinian “martyrs” and even the enemy, “because Israeli soldiers are the strongest and have Apache gunships”.

Shortly before he died, Edward Said bitterly reproached foreign journalists for what he called their destructive role in “stripping the context of Palestinian violence, the response of a desperate and horribly oppressed people, and the terrible suffering from which it arises”. Just as the invasion of Iraq was a “war by media”, so the same can be said of the grotesquely one-sided “conflict” in Palestine. As the pioneering work of the Glasgow University Media Group shows, television viewers are rarely told that the Palestinians are victims of an illegal military occupation; the term “occupied territories” is seldom explained. Only 9 per cent of young people interviewed in the UK know that the Israelis are the occupying force and the illegal settlers are Jewish; many believe them to be Palestinian. The selective use of language by broadcasters is crucial in maintaining this confusion and ignorance. Words such as “terrorism”, “murder” and “savage, cold-blooded killing” describe the deaths of Israelis, almost never Palestinians.

There are honourable exceptions. The kidnapped BBC reporter Alan Johnston is one of them. Yet, amidst the avalanche of coverage of his abduction, no mention is made of the thousands of Palestinians abducted by Israel, many of whom will not see their families for years. There are no appeals for them. In Jerusalem, the Foreign Press Association documents the shooting and intimidation of its members by Israeli soldiers. In one eight-month period, as many journalists, including the CNN bureau chief in Jerusalem, were wounded by the Israelis, some of them seriously. In each case, the FPA complained. In each case, there was no satisfactory reply.

A censorship by omission runs deep in western journalism on Israel, especially in the US. Hamas is dismissed as a “terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction” and one that “refuses to recognise Israel and wants to fight not talk”. This theme suppresses the truth: that Israel is bent on Palestine’s destruction. Moreover, Hamas’s long-standing proposals for a ten-year ceasefire are ignored, along with a recent, hopeful ideological shift within Hamas itself that amounts to a historic acceptance of the sovereignty of Israel. “The [Hamas] charter is not the Quran,” said a senior Hamas official, Mohammed Ghazal. “Historically, we believe all Palestine belongs to Palestinians, but we’re talking now about reality, about political solutions... If Israel reached a stage where it was able to talk to Hamas, I don’t think there would be a problem of negotiating with the Israelis [for a solution].”

When I last saw Gaza, driving towards the Israeli checkpoint and the razor wire, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering from inside the walled compounds. Children were responsible for this, I was told. They make flagpoles out of sticks tied together and one or two will climb on to a wall and hold the flag between them, silently. They do it when there are foreigners around and they believe they can tell the world.

Police Brutality and Lies at UC Davis

If you don't come to democracy, democracy will come to you.

studentactivism.net | 19.11.2011 | NEDERLANDS

Yesterday afternoon, after UC Davis police dismantled an Occupy encampment on their campus, making several arrests, a group of students sat down.

That’s it. They sat down in a wide ring around the officers, and bowed their heads. Some linked arms. Many did not. Officers were positioned behind the line and in front of them, and — video shows — were able to move past them easily in either direction.

In order to clear the demonstrators police pepper-sprayed the line. Just sprayed the entire line of students with a casual sweeping motion. Video shows that within eight seconds of the first use of spray, the line was broken up and no longer restricted police action at all. (One student on the scene says that police sprayed the thickest section of the line and that there were gaps in it at other points. That it was always, in other words, a symbolic rather than actual barrier.)

Students. Sitting down. With bowed heads. On university property. Police freely moving around them, pepper spraying them, facing no resistance whatsoever. Within eight seconds the students represented no impediment to anyone. They were just students sitting on the ground.

Here’s how a Davis faculty member who was on the scene describes what happened next:

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

Not all of this account is corroborated by video, but much of it is. Cameras caught police kneeling on students’ backs and spraying them directly in the face. Local media reported that at least one female student was taken from the scene in an ambulance “for treatment of chemical burns.”

In Seattle, police penned protestors onto the sidewalk before pepper spraying–protestors who included 84 year-old Dorli Rainey and a pregnant woman.

The chief of the UC Davis police department told the local CBS news that officers began spraying, in the station’s paraphrase, “out of concern for their own safety,” a claim that video and photos of the incident demonstrates to be completely false. She told the Sacramento Bee that officers “officers were forced to use pepper spray when students surrounded them,” that — and this is a direct quote — “there was no way out of that circle.” But video shows, again, that officers were moving freely throughout the incident. The officer who sprayed first, in fact (identified online as Lt. John Pike) was standing inside the circle immediately before he began spraying, and stepped past the students, out of the circle, in order to spray them.

UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi released a statement last night in which she said she “deeply regret students’ actions yesterday, actions that “offer[ed] us no option but to ask the police to assist in their removal.” But of course you can’t regret something that someone else did, something you had no control over.

For the actions she did have control over, and will have control over in the future — the violence of her police — Katehi expressed no regret. She was, she said, “saddened.” She was “saddened to report that during this activity, 10 protestors were arrested and pepper spray was used,” and “saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal.” No regret. Not even an active voice.

Just sadness at what those awful students made her do.

The History of Palestine (video)

De Iraanse dreiging (2)

Vervolg op De Iraanse dreiging (1)

Inmiddels gonst het weer van de desinformatie uit het gelekte (sic) IAEA-rapport over de Iraanse nucleaire activiteiten, dat hoofdzakelijk gebruik maakt van veronderstellingen met de woorden "zou", "kan" en "mogelijk" e.d. Hoewel er in het rapport geen enkele 'smoking gun' te vinden is, wordt het rapport zélf als 'smoking gun' naar voren geschoven.

De propaganda die verspreid wordt kunt u onverbloemd lezen in de christen-zionistische koerier het Friesch Dagblad, dat niet alleen heilig gelooft in God, de Heere Jezus en de Bijbel, maar ook in Israël's regerings- en legerpropaganda. Net als de meeste journalisten van de commerciële massamedia, heb ik de indruk.
Ik noem het Friesch Dagblad omdat het in wezen dezelfde boodschap verspreidt als onze "kwaliteitspers", alleen de laatste manipuleert haar berichten door vaak anonieme "deskundigen" of anonieme "officials" op te voeren die spreken over geheime rapporten, documenten en andere bronloze geruchten. De "kwaliteitspers" spant zich namelijk meer in om het nieuws geloofwaardig te laten lijken dan dat het boude en zelf gevaarlijke beweringen op waarheid onderzoekt. Zoals de aanjager deze keer de Washington Post:

Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings. (Washington Post, 07.11.2011)

Overschrijven

U hoeft echter de Washington Post niet te lezen, omdat onze Nederlandse kranten en persbureau's de teksten uit de VS (en in deze uit Israël/USraël) meestal alleen maar vertalen en daarna opdienen. Onze nieuwsmedia lijken de vuistregel te hanteren: hoe machtiger het land, hoe betrouwbaarder de informatie. De werkelijkheid zit natuurlijk andersom in elkaar, maar het kritiekloos overnemen van die informatie overnemen is nu eenmaal 'veilig': het betreft immers de officiële werkelijkheid, en het scheelt enorm in de personeelskosten. Afgezien daarvan zijn onze journalisten aartslui, want in de regel trekken zij de informatie die ze, soms overnemen en soms aangereikt krijgen, niet na op waarheid.

Illustratie van het Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). Denk u eens in hoe de wereld zou reageren wanneer Iran zo'n kaart zou publiceren met raketten richting Israël...

Terug naar de Iraanse dreiging. Het persbureau IPS (Inter Press Service) is zo'n beetje nog het enige persbureau dat wél bronnen onderzoekt, en komt vandaag met de onthullende mededeling dat de "atoomgeleerde uit de voormalige Sovjet-Unie", aldus het ANP , die volgens het IAEA-rapport Iran aan een ontstekingsmechanisme voor een atoombom geholpen zou hebben, helemaal geen atoomgeleerde is, maar een onderzoeker van nanodiamanten, die ontstaan na een explosie van een mix van TNT en RDX in een afgesloten ruimte. En ontdekte het meer tegenstrijdigheden. Het IPS-artikel staat onderaan dit log.

Anti-Iran propaganda in Nederland

Welke Nederlandse nieuwsmedia verspreiden de nu al gedeeltelijk aangetoond leugenachtige propaganda, zeer waarschijnlijk afkomstig uit Israël? Voor u misschien een eye-opener:

Trouw (redactie)

Iran is bijna in staat een atoombom te bouwen. Met buitenlandse hulp heeft de islamitische republiek de belangrijkste en moeilijkste stappen daarvoor onder de knie gekregen.
(...)
Iran zou onder meer hebben geleerd een nucleaire kettingreactie in een atoombom op gang te brengen. Die reactie maakt een kernexplosie allesverwoestend. De techniek zou ze zijn bijgebracht door een atoomgeleerde uit de voormalige Sovjet-Unie.

NRC (Jules Segers)

Volgens het Internationaal Atoomenergieagentschap (IAEA) heeft Iran de laatste stappen gezet om een nucleair wapen te kunnen bouwen. Wetenschappers van over de grens zouden het land geholpen hebben bij het nemen van “cruciale technische horden”. (...) “Ze zijn er nooit mee opgehouden”, zegt David Albright, ex-IEAE, die de geheime informatie bestudeerde.

Volkskrant (redactie)

Het IAEA stelde vandaag aanwijzingen te hebben dat Iran minstens tot vorig jaar aan een atoomwapen heeft gewerkt. Een deel van het werk zou mogelijk momenteel worden voortgezet.

Het rapport bevat de duidelijkste aanwijzingen tot dusver dat Iran aan een atoomwapen werkt. De onderzoekers spreken over 'algemeen betrouwbare' informatie uit rapporten van buitenlandse geheime diensten en uit eigen onderzoek.

ANP (diverse nieuwsmedia)

Gegevens in handen van functionarissen van het Internationaal Atoomagentschap (IAEA) tonen aan dat Iran cruciale technieken beheerst die nodig zijn om een nucleair wapen te bouwen.
(...)
Zo zouden buitenlandse experts Iraanse wetenschappers hebben geïnstrueerd bij de bouw van ontstekers die een nucleaire kettingreactie in gang kunnen zetten.

NOS
Bij uitzondering blijft de NOS deze keer vrij beschaafd door steeds weer duidelijk aan te geven dat het om de (vermeende) mening van het IAEA gaat, en heeft naar het lijkt zowaar het rapport gelezen. Maar ook dit staatsapparaat heeft geen moeite gedaan om wat er beweerd wordt op waarheid te toetsen. Haar laatste zin spreekt ook weer boekdelen: "Iran zelf heeft altijd beweerd dat het atoomprogramma alleen is bedoeld voor het opwekken van energie." Manipulatief taalgebruik dat suggereert dat Iran kernwapens aan het maken is en dat het daarover liegt.

Natuurlijk doen de derderangs hysterie- en pulpnieuwsmedia als Elsevier, Sp!ts en PowNed het nog veel slechter dan onze zelfgekroonde "kwaliteitspers".

Leestip: De volgende oorlog - De aanval op Iran: een voorbeschouwing, van onafhankelijk publicist Daan de Wit.

This cake was served at a Washington party November 5, 1946 to celebrate the success of the atomic testing program and the disbanding of the Joint Army-Navy Task Force Number One which organized and oversaw the first postwar atomic test in the Pacific.

---

IAEA's "Soviet Nuclear Scientist" Never Worked on Weapons

IPS | By Gareth Porter | 09.11.2011 | NEDERLANDS

WASHINGTON, Nov 9, 2011 (IPS) - The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published by a Washington think tank Tuesday repeated the sensational claim previously reported by news media all over the world that a former Soviet nuclear weapons scientist had helped Iran construct a detonation system that could be used for a nuclear weapon.

But it turns out that the foreign expert, who is not named in the IAEA report but was identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko, is not a nuclear weapons scientist but one of the top specialists in the world in the production of nanodiamonds by explosives.

In fact, Danilenko, a Ukrainian, has worked solely on nanodiamonds from the beginning of his research career and is considered one of the pioneers in the development of nanodiamond technology, as published scientific papers confirm.

It now appears that the IAEA and David Albright, the director of the International Institute for Science and Security in Washington, who was the source of the news reports about Danilenko, never bothered to check the accuracy of the original claim by an unnamed "Member State" on which the IAEA based its assertion about his nuclear weapons background.

Albright gave a "private briefing" for "intelligence professionals" last week, in which he named Danilenko as the foreign expert who had been contracted by Iran's Physics Research Centre in the mid-1990s and identified him as a "former Soviet nuclear scientist", according to a story by Joby Warrick of the Washington Post on Nov. 5.

The Danilenko story then went worldwide.

The IAEA report says the agency has "strong indications" that Iran's development of a "high explosions initiation system", which it has described as an "implosion system" for a nuclear weapon, was "assisted by the work of a foreign expert who was not only knowledgeable on these technologies, but who, a Member State has informed the Agency, worked for much of his career in the nuclear weapon program of the country of his origin."

The report offers no other evidence of Danilenko's involvement in the development of an initiation system.

The member state obviously learned that Danilenko had worked during the Soviet period at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics in Snezhinsk, Russia, which was well known for its work on development of nuclear warheads and simply assumed that he had been involved in that work.

However, further research would have revealed that Danilenko worked from the beginning of his career in a part of the Institute that specialised in the synthesis of diamonds. Danilenko wrote in an account of the early work in the field published in 2006 that he was among the scientists in the "gas dynamics group" at the Institute who were "the first to start studies on diamond synthesis in 1960".

Danilenko's recollections of the early period of his career are in a chapter of the book, "Ultrananocrystalline Diamond: Synthesis, Properties and Applications" edited by Olga A. Shenderova and Dieter M. Gruen, published in 2006.

Another chapter in the book covering the history of Russian patents related to nanodiamonds documents the fact that Danilenko's centre at the Institute developed key processes as early as 1963-66 that were later used at major "detonaton nanodiamond" production centres.

Danilenko left the Institute in 1989 and joined the Institute of Materials Science Problems in Ukraine, according to the authors of that chapter.

Danilenko's major accomplishment, according to the authors, has been the development of a large-scale technology for producing ultradispersed diamonds, a particular application of nanodiamonds. The technology, which was later implemented by the "ALIT" company in Zhitomir, Ukraine, is based on an explosion chamber 100 sq metres in volume, which Danilenko designed.

Beginning in 1993, Danilenko was a principal in a company called "Nanogroup" which was established initially in the Ukraine but is now based in Prague. The company's website boasts that it has "the strongest team of scientists" which had been involved in the "introduction of nanodiamonds in 1960 and the first commercial applications of nanodiamonds in 2000".

The declared aim of the company is to supply worldwide demand for nanodiamonds.

Iran has an aggressive programme to develop its nanotechnology sector, and it includes as one major focus nanodiamonds, as blogger Moon of Alabama has pointed out. That blog was the first source to call attention to Danilenko's nanodiamond background.

Danilenko clearly explained that the purpose of his work in Iran was to help the development of a nanodiamond industry in the country.

The report states that the "foreign expert" was in Iran from 1996 to about 2002, "ostensibly to assist in the development of a facility and techniques for making ultra dispersed diamonds (UDDs) or nanodiamonds…" That wording suggests that nanodiamonds were merely a cover for his real purpose in Iran.

The report says the expert "also lectured on explosive physics and its applications", without providing any further detail about what applications were involved.

The fact that the IAEA and Albright were made aware of Danilenko's nanodiamond work in Iran before embracing the "former Soviet nuclear weapons specialist" story makes their failure to make any independent inquiry into his background even more revealing.

The tale of a Russian nuclear weapons scientist helping construct an "implosion system" for a nuclear weapon is the most recent iteration of a theme that the IAEA introduced in its May 2008 report, which mentioned a five-page document describing experimentation with a "complex multipoint initiation system to detonate a substantial amount of high explosives in hemispherical geometry" and to monitor the detonation.

Iran acknowledged using "exploding bridge wire" detonators such as those mentioned in that document for conventional military and civilian applications. But it denounced the document, along with the others in the "alleged studies" collection purporting to be from an Iranian nuclear weapons research programme, as fakes.

Careful examination of the "alleged studies" documents has revealed inconsistencies and other anomalies that give evidence of fraud. But the IAEA, the United States and its allies in the IAEA continue to treat the documents as though there were no question about their authenticity.

The unnamed member state that informed the agency about Danilenko's alleged experience as a Soviet nuclear weapons scientist is almost certainly Israel, which has been the source of virtually all the purported intelligence on Iranian work on nuclear weapons over the past decade.

Israel has made no secret of its determination to influence world opinion on the Iranian nuclear programme by disseminating information to governments and news media, including purported Iran government documents. Israeli foreign ministry and intelligence officials told journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins about the special unit of Mossad dedicated to that task at the very time the fraudulent documents were being produced.

In an interview in September 2008, Albright said Olli Heinonen, then deputy director for safeguards at the IAEA, had told him that a document from a member state had convinced him that the "alleged studies" documents were genuine. Albright said the state was "probably Israel".

The Jerusalem Post's Yaakov Katz reported Wednesday that Israeli intelligence agencies had "provided critical information used in the report", the purpose of which was to "push through a new regime of sanctions against Tehran…."

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

Waarom de Volkskrant het artikel 'Alleen commissie-De Wit is tevreden' heeft verwijderd

"De Volkskrant is een kwaliteitskrant die elke dag verrast en bovenop het nieuws zit. De krant is gezaghebbend en kritisch, maar voor lezers makkelijk toegankelijk. Zij leidt de lezers door Nederland en de wereld, en heeft oog voor de vrolijke kanten van het leven."
(De Persgroep - vette tekst integraal overgenomen)

Op 5 februari 2010 publiceerde de Volkskrant een "analyse" van haar verslaggevers Douwe Douwes en Robert Giebels over de eerste vragenronde van de commissie-De Wit, die momenteel begonnen is met haar tweede ronde in de vorm van een parlementaire enquete om de oorzaken van de financiële crisis te onderzoeken - en wederom níet om de verantwoordelijke banksters aan te wijzen. De link naar het artikel was http://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/article1345797.ece. Gisterenavond kon ik het artikel nog ophalen in de Wayback Machine van Internet Archive, vandaag merkwaardig genoeg niet meer (robots.text is verwijderd). Hier is het nog wel te lezen [UPDATE: ook verwijderd], en onderaan dit log. Vanwaar deze zelfcensuur?

"De lezers van de Volkskrant zijn koopkrachtige consumenten, hoogopgeleid en actief in een baan of studie. Veel managers en directieleden lezen de Volkskrant."
(De Persgroep - vette tekst integraal overgenomen)

Dan moet u weten dat de Volkskrant in werkelijkheid geen "kwaliteitskrant" is, zoals het zichzelf heeft gekroond, maar een gewoon mainstream commercieel dagblad, dat lezers en adverteerders moet genereren. En om die "koopkrachtige consumenten" en "managers en directieleden" tevreden te houden moet je ze geven wat ze willen, en dat houdt kort samengevat in dat de macht niet bekritiseerd of bevraagd zal worden - tenzij het absoluut veilig is om dat te doen. Het grote nieuws meestal in navolging van de grote Amerikaanse (het machtigste land ter wereld) persbureau's en kranten. Wat de meeste mensen "het nieuws" en "informatie" noemen, kan worden samengevat met wat 'de officiele werkelijkheid' heet. Een voorbeeld is de officiële werkelijkheid over de noodzaak van een oorlog tegen Irak: dat het Irakese volk bevrijd moest worden van een wrede dictator (na de massavernietigingswapen-hoax). De echte werkelijkheid is dat de VS Irak wilde bezetten om haar financiële belangen veilig te stellen.

De officiële werkelijkheid over de huidige (parlementaire enquete) en de vorige (parlementair onderzoek) commissie-De Wit is niet dat geen van de leden de kennis in huis heeft om de financiële sector aan de tand te voelen. En waarom dat is, dat vragen onze journalisten zich ook niet af. De officiële werkelijkheid is dat de commissie-De Wit serieus de oorzaken van de kredietcrisis onderzoekt om te voorkomen dat de 'fouten' die daarbij zijn gemaakt in de toekomst niet meer zullen voorkomen. In werkelijkheid betreft het een amateuristische opvoering waarin géén verantwoordelijen worden aangewezen en er voor géén van de banksters consequenties volgen. Rationeel bekeken zullen op deze manier in de toekomst gegarandeerd weer dezelfde 'fouten' worden gaan gemaakt. Fouten tussen aanhalingstekens, omdat het gewoon om het dagelijkse reilen en zeilen van de financiële instituten ging waarvan iedereen al heel lang op de hoogte is.

De commissie-De Wit fungeert slechts als cosmetica, om de illusie van burgers in stand te houden dat Nederland op democratische wijze wordt bestuurd. Het grootst bewaarde geheim in deze is wel dat Wouter Bos (onze) miljarden in failliete windhandel heeft gepompt, in een buitenparlementaire actie - dus op ondemocratische wijze. En dat alle partijen, van links tot rechts, dat buitenparlementair hebben geakkoordeerd. En zij zodoende allemaal medeschuldig zijn aan de bezuinigingen die nu worden doorgevoerd, en bovenal het in stand houden van een in alle omstandigheden parasitair financieel systeem. In dat licht zijn de bezwaren tegen de bezuinigingen die de zogeheten oppositie momenteel laat horen ronduit leugenachtig - want zij wisten immers van tevoren dat de burger ervoor ging opdraaien.

In februari vorig jaar analyseerde de Volkskrant dus dat alleen de commissie-De Wit "intens tevreden" was, en onthulde het zelfs dat de "bedoeling" van die commissie was om de "welverdiende rust" te laten "neerdalen over de samenleving". Ook lezen we dat de commissie "niet-gespecialiseerd" is, en dat de commissie te kennen gaf dat het horen van de hoofdrolspelers onder ede "niet nodig" was: "Alles wat ze wilden horen, hebben ze gehoord, zeggen ze. De vragenlijst is geheel afgewerkt."

Maar het gedeelte officiële werkelijkheid is in dit artikel nog steeds aanwezig. Dat de commissie zo gefaald had was toch "niet meteen hun schuld", want de "duizelingwekkende hoeveelheid informatie en meningen" waren moeilijk te analyseren. Dat betreft een bevestiging van wat we eerder regelmatig in de "kwaliteitskranten" lazen: dat de problematiek van de windhandel zó "complex" en "ingewikkeld" was dat politici, bankiers en zelfs "de allerslimste economen" niet konden begrijpen hoe de kredietcrisis in Nederland had kunnen toeslaan.

Niet toevallig is dan ook dat momenteel weer precies hetzelfde wordt verkondigd over de "eurocrisis", anders genaamd dan de kredietcrisis om de illusie te wekken dat het een heel ander probleem betreft. Maar in de big picture van het kapitalistische systeem is het dat zeker niet. Dus officiële werkelijkheid houdt niet van big pictures, zoals historische context.

"Dat is één van de grote problemen van deze eurocrisis. De materie is zo ingewikkeld en zo complex dat vrijwel niemand de implicaties echt doorziet van alle besluiten die genomen moeten worden.

Dus kun je het de heren en dames politici moeilijk kwalijk nemen dat ook zij maar amper uit deze crisis komen. Ze zijn als simultaanschakers die blind moeten schaken terwijl de borden steeds verwisseld worden. Naast de immense problemen op de Europese financiële markten moet namelijk ook het thuisland tevreden worden gesteld."
(politiek redacteur van de Volkskrant Sebastiaan Timmermans, 26 oktober 2011)

Maar nu worden door de commissie-De Wit enkele hoofdrolspelers wél onder ede gehoord, gedwongen door het parlement, terwijl de "welverdiende rust" in de samenleving met de dag verder erodeert. Dat laatste is waar de macht het meest bang voor is - dat de burgers de banken niet meer willen betalen. Zaak is dus dat elke kritische noot over de commissie voorkomen moet worden, en toegespitst op de Volkskrant: dat het haar adverteerders (de macht) te vriend houdt. Dat is de reden voor het verwijderen van het artikel.

De noodzakelijke illusies

Noam Chomsky heeft dit lakeiensysteem, dat politiek en media de macht dienen, ons zogeheten poldermodel, uitstekend samengevat en in historische context geplaatst in het laatste hoofdstuk van zijn boek Deterring Democracy, genaamd 'Force and Opinion' (in het Nederlands vertaald door Extra!: Macht en Mening). In wat voor een democratie door moet gaan is het niet meer mogelijk om "de verwarde kudde" en het "domme gepeupel" met geweld in het gareel te houden. Daarvoor is in de loop der eeuwen in het Westen een public relations systeem ontwikkeld met als doel het parasitaire kapitalisme in stand te houden, door o.a. de burgers "de noodzakelijke illusies" voor te houden, en hen te beschermen tegen critici van het systeem met hun "opruiende smaad".

Controle over investeringen, productie, handel, financiën, werkomstandigheden, en andere cruciale aspecten van sociaal beleid zijn in particuliere handen. Wie niet bereid is zich neer te leggen bij deze machtsstructuren, betaalt een hoge prijs, die kan variëren van staatsgeweld tot armoede; zelfs een onafhankelijk denkend individu zal het niet moeilijk vinden om dit af te wegen de voordelen, hoe gering ook, van onderwerping. Wezenlijke keuzes worden aldus flink ingeperkt. Vergelijkbare factoren beperken het spectrum aan ideeën en meningen. De heersende opinies worden gevormd door dezelfde krachten die de economie beheersen. De media zijn het eigendom van grote bedrijven die het publiek verkopen aan andere grote bedrijven in de vorm van adverteerders, het is logisch dat hun belangen overheersen. De mogelijkheid om eigen meningen, zorgen en belangen te verwoorden en over te brengen - of ze zelfs maar te ontdekken - is dus eveneens zeer beperkt.

Het ontkennen van deze gemeenplaatsen over wie de werkelijke macht bezit is de essentie van het bedrog. In plaats daarvan krijgen we de 'noodzakelijke illusies' voorgeschoteld.

Wilt u weten hoe de Westerse 'vrijheid en democratie' tegenwoordig in elkaar steekt, dan is 'Macht en Mening' van Chomsky verplichte kost. En weet u ook meteen dat onze "kwaliteitskranten" met haar broodschrijvers in werkelijkheid reguliere commerciële bedrijven zijn die illusies en propaganda verspreiden die de macht dienen, in plaats van de burgers te informeren over de wereld.

De laatste berichten over de parlementaire enquete bevestigen alles wat ik hierboven beschreven heb: het zwarte schaap/kop van Jut is momenteel Wouter Bos. Een voor de hand liggende keuze, omdat die inmiddels ondergedoken zit bij de KPMG, waar hij partner werd gemaakt als dank voor bewezen diensten. Hij verdient daar momenteel ongeveer 400.000 euro per jaar voor een vierdaagse werkweek.
We lezen dat de politiek weinig te verwijten valt omdat het "buitenspel werd gezet" en Bos de "risico's te rooskleurig" voorstelde. Terwijl de politiek in werkelijkheid de buitenparlementaire ingrepen van Bos gewoon had geakkoordeerd, zonder voorwaarden te stellen. Inclusief de oppositie. En ook naderhand.

De "kwaliteitskranten", maar ook de "links" georienteerde media publiceren dat het "begrijpelijk" was dat de regering in 2008 het parlement niet vooraf had geïnformeerd over de overname van ABN Amro Nederland en delen van Fortis. Want de banken "dreigden om te vallen" en "er was niet genoeg tijd". Natuurlijk vermeldt men daar niet bij dat vele gerenommeerde economen al jarenlang voor deze situatie hebben gewaarschuwd, en dat er nadat de crisis in de VS losbarstte nog zeker een jaar de tijd is geweest om maatregelen te nemen te nemen voor Nederland. Want die feiten zouden afdoen aan de geloofwaardigheid van de officiële werkelijkheid.

---

Alleen commissie-De Wit is tevreden

ANALYSE, Van onze verslaggevers Douwe Douwes, Robert Giebels op 05 februari ‘10, 07:49, bijgewerkt 05 februari ‘10, 08:07

DEN HAAG - De opbrengst van de openbare gesprekken van de commissie-De Wit had groter kunnen zijn.

De commissie-De Wit is klaar met zijn openbare gesprekken en nu moet welverdiende rust neerdalen over de samenleving. Dat was de bedoeling van de acht Tweede Kamerleden die oorzaak en gevolg van de kredietcrisis wilden achterhalen. Maar na het 50 uur horen van 42 betrokkenen kan de parlementaire onderzoekscommissie het boek niet sluiten.

Dat is niet meteen hun schuld. Deze crisis heeft een duizelingwekkende hoeveelheid informatie en meningen opgeleverd. Voeg daar maar eens wat aan toe – vooral als niet-gespecialiseerd Kamerlid.

Pikants

Maar de opbrengst had wel groter kunnen zijn. De ene na de andere genodigde had zich voorgenomen om wat pikants te zeggen. Maar alleen als de commissie het er een beetje uit zou trekken. Centralebankpresident Nout Wellink, die bijna vijf uur werd verhoord, grossierde in zulke voorzetjes.

‘Maar ik zeg u wel dat we ons moesten baseren op de informatie van onze Belgische collega’s’, zei hij bijvoorbeeld over de overname door Fortis van ABN Amro. Een reeks van vragen had de commissie daarop moeten laten volgen, temeer omdat de Belgische toezichthouder geweigerd had te verschijnen. Maar ingaan op zulke suggesties zou betekenen dat de vragenlijst misschien niet helemaal kon worden afgewerkt.

Oneliner

Sommige gesprekken leverden toch wat op, doordat een betrokkene thuis voor de spiegel een fraaie oneliner had voorbereid. Zoals ex-topman van ABN Amro Rijkman Groenink, die plechtig verklaarde dat hij beter had kunnen aftreden voordat zijn bank in drie stukken werd gescheurd.

Op die rampzalige overname van ABN Amro ging de commissie uitvoerig in, hoewel die weinig met de kredietcrisis te maken heeft. Maar wat gaf dat? Spectaculair was het.

Kok

Net als het verpolitiekte verhoor van oud-premier Kok. Die was nét ING-commissaris of hij moest al meestemmen over torenhoge bonussen. Vele andere oud-ING-commissarissen hadden daar veel meer over kunnen vertellen, maar de commissie koos ervoor om de PvdA-prominent af laten gaan. ‘Is dat dan geen exhibitionistische zelfverrijking meneer Kok’, vroeg SP’er De Wit.

De commissie is intens tevreden. Hoofdrolspelers nog eens horen, maar dan onder ede, vinden de commissieleden niet nodig. Alles wat ze wilden horen, hebben ze gehoord, zeggen ze. De vragenlijst is geheel afgewerkt.

Freedom Waves en de propaganda in onze "kwaliteitspers"

De officiële werkelijkheid over de misdaden van Israël wordt in Nederland nog steeds door Israël gedicteerd. Onze zogenaamd onafhankelijke commerciële massamedia, die zichzelf tot kwaliteitspers hebben gekroond, nemen die propaganda (hasbara) kritiekloos over. Met nieuws, informatie of journalistiek heeft het geen relatie.

Vragen hierover aan de betreffende redacties worden in de meeste gevallen niet beantwoord. Of na herhaaldelijk de vraag gestuurd te hebben, kun je na drie maanden wel eens de zeldzame kans hebben om een zeer geïrriteerde reactie te krijgen met "wij doen ons werk goed", "onze bronnen zijn betrouwbaar" en heel af en toe "want dat schrijven alle andere gerenommeerde kranten en persbureau's ook". Alsof Nederland een dictatoriaal regime is met een bevolking die gehersenspoeld moet worden, en blijven.

Schreef ik 'alsof'?

Naast dat de kaping van de boten Saoirse en Tahrir van de 'Freedom Waves' actie in (de verzwegen) internationale wateren momenteel een "onderschepping" wordt genoemd, is de algemeen gehanteerde verhaallijn dat dat de eigen eigen schuld was. Men deed immers niet wat het Israëlische leger (IDF) hen opdroeg: "Ze weigerden mee te werken." U begrijpt dat er over dezelfde handelingen van piraten in Afrikaanse wateren heel anders geschreven wordt.
Als reden voor de kaping wordt braaf uit de Iraëlische persberichten overgeschreven dat de zeeblokkade van Gaza is ingesteld "om te voorkomen dat Hamas over zee van wapens wordt voorzien door onder meer de Libanese Hezbollah-beweging." Terwijl al lang en breed bekend is, via het Israëlische leger nota bene, dat de blokkade van Gaza is ingesteld als "economische oorlogsvoering" tegen Hamas, "putting the people of Gaza on a diet". Het verzwijgen van dit feit vormt een van de vele bewijzen dat dat onze kwaliteitspers ¨waar het om de misdaden van Israël gaat simpelweg fuctioneert als de vooruitgeschoven post van de Israëlische regering/leger.

De precieze redenen van de actie van de twee boten van 'Freedom Waves' blijft in onze kranten nagenoeg onvermeld, omdat alleen het Israëlische leger/regering aan het woord komt. Genoegelijk wordt op die manier elke Israël-kritische noot, o.a. over de misdadige en illegale blokkade van Gaza, vermeden.

Gebruikte hasbara-terminologie kort:

• Gekaapt en naar Israël gesleept -> "onderschept", "gekeerd", "gestopt" of "tegengehouden"
• Internationale wateren -> "ongeveer 100 kilometer van de Gazastrook"
• Bedreigd met geweld -> "aangeraden"
• Geënterd -> "aan boord gegaan" (vorige keer sprak men nog van enteren)
• Gaza -> "het Arabische gebied"
• Liquidatie -> "vielen doden"

NRC: Israëlische marine onderschept Gaza-flotilla – 'geen gewonden'

• Verzwegen wordt dat de aanval van Israëlische commando's plaatvond internationale wateren.
• Getoond worden twee video's van het propagandabureau van het Israëlische leger (IDF), en een van een Press TV reporter aan boot van een "Freedom Waves" boot.
• Alleen een Israëlische militair mag zijn zegje doen.
• Elke context over de situatie in Gaza ontbreekt.
• Vermeld wordt de Ïsraëlische 'reden' voor de "zeeblokkade" van Gaza, maar niet de reden voor de 'Freedom Waves' actie.
• De kaping wordt ook een "onderscheppingsactie" van Israël genoemd. Net zoals het elke aanval op Palestijnen een "vergeldingsactie" noemt.

Novum/AP: Israël onderschept activistenboten Gaza

• Uitsluitend 'informatie' van de bezetter.

Volkskrant (redactie): Israëlische troepen aan boord pro-Palestijnse flotilla

• Alleen het IDF en Israëlische regering zijn bronnen.
• De term 'internationale wateren' wordt ook hier vermeden. Wel wordt genoemd "al ver voor de kust van de Gazastrook" en "Ze waren nog ongeveer 100 kilometer van de Gazastrook verwijderd."
• Vorig jaar vond er een spontane natuurramp plaats: er "vielen vorig jaar negen Turkse doden". Zomaar.
• Opmerkelijk detail: de blokkade betreft niet Gaza, maar "het Arabische gebied". Ook het Parool schrijft een 'redactioneel' bericht waarin dezelfde term wordt gehanteerd. Sterker nog, de redactie van de Volkskrant en de redactie van het Parool blijken tegelijkertijd 'toevallig' precies hetzelfde bericht te hebben geschreven! Eens te meer een duidelijk bewijs dat er doodleuk een persbericht van het Israëlische leger of de ambassade wordt overgeschreven onder de noemer van een bericht van de redactie.

Persbureau ANP: Marine Israël keert boten met activisten

• In plaats van het feitelijke kapen (of desgewenst: kidnappen) van de boten wordt ons met de titel wijsgemaakt dat ze 'gekeerd' werden, en in het bericht "tegengehouden".
• Net als in alle andere berichten werd het de "pro-Palestijnse activisten" (vredes- en mensenrechtenactivisten) door Israëlische commando's "aangeraden" om te doen wat er van hen geëist werd. Een bijna buitenaards taalgebruik voor een situatie waarin mensen in de loop van een geweer kijken.

TRANSLATE

De Iraanse dreiging

Israël is begonnen met haar bedreigingen om Iran aan te vallen in het begin van de jaren '90 met een uitgebreide propagandacampagne om de publieke opinie te beïnvloeden. De officiële reden van toen geldt vandaag de dag nog steeds: Iran zou binnen (zeer) korte tijd kernwapens bezitten. We mogen de propagandacampagne een groot succes noemen aangezien zelfs politici en de mainstream media in artikelen zonder blikken of blozen beweren dat Iran kernwapens bezit, en zodoende een ernstig gevaar oplevert voor Israël. Met haar ±200 atoombommen.

» NRC & Clingendael Instituut 2005: "Dat Iran kernwapens ontwikkelt, is nu wel duidelijk."
» ANP 2005: VS-ambassadeur: Iran ontwikkelt kernwapens
» Verhagen: Iran probeert kernwapens te verwerven (NOS & ANP 2010)
» Wim Kortenoeven (PVV, 2010): het Westen moet Iran aanvallen (vanwege "de gevaren van de islam")

Lees over de Nederlandse Bomb Iran lobby op dit weblog o.a.:

» Nederlandse vertaling lezing Noam Chomsky 13 maart 2011
» Reality Check: de Nederlandse Bomb Iran-lobby
» Israël's nucleaire dreiging
» 2007: Bot & Van Baalen pro illegaal kernwapenbezit
» CIDI-leugens en hypocrisie voor Rosenthal
» Dat was toen en dit is nu

We mogen ook niet vergeten:

• Dat Iran (nog steeds) geen kernwapens heeft, en Israël wel
• Dat Iran het Non-Proliferatieakkoord (NPT) heeft getekend, en Israël niet
• Dat Iran atoominspecteurs (IAEA) toelaat en Israël niet
• Dat Iran nog nooit een land heeft aangevallen, in tegenstelling tot Israël dat in constante staat van oorlog is met haar buren
• Dat 'USrael' het grootste en sterkste leger ter wereld heeft

“We hebben enkele honderden kernkoppen en raketten om ze overal op te gooien, misschien zelfs op Rome. Met vliegtuigen zijn de meeste Europese hoofdsteden zelfs een doelwit.” --Martin Levi van Creveld, Elsevier 2002 (nr. 17, blz. 52-53, 27-4-2002).

New York Daily News, omslag 2007

Het mag duidelijk zijn dat het Westen de waanzin van Israël nog steeds volmondig steunt. Ook nooit ter sprake komt dat het constante dreigen met aanvallen op zich al een misdaad is volgens het Handvest van de VN, en in het bijzonder volgens Resolutie 1887 van de Veiligheidsraad. Sterker nog, in het Neurenberg Tribunaal, later door de VN overgenomen, werd naar dit soort dreigementen verwezen als een "misdaad tegen de vrede" waarop enkele nazi-kopstukken werden veroordeeld:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

De Israëlische hoogleraar in de scheikunde (Hebrew University, Stanford University), mensenrechtenactivist en publicist Israel Shahak (1933-2001) schreef er een hoofdstuk over in zijn boek Open Secrets: Israeli Foreign and Nuclear Policies (1993). Volgens Shahak heeft zo'n aanval niets te maken met de ideologie die theocratisch Iran uitdraagt, aangezien Israël ook Nasser's seculiere Egypte aanviel. Israël's redenen voor een aanval op Iran zijn louter hegemonisch van aard. Weest u er zich bewust van dat dit boek al van 1993 is.

Vervolg: De Iraanse dreiging (2)

TRANSLATE

---

Israel versus Iran

Israel Shahak | Open Secrets, Chapter 4 | 1993 | NEDERLANDS

Since the spring of 1992 public opinion in Israel is being prepared for the prospect of a war with Iran, to be fought to bring about Iran's total military and political defeat. In one version, Israel would attack Iran alone, in another it would "persuade" the West to do the job. The indoctrination campaign to this effect is gaining in intensity. It is accompanied by what could be called semi-official horror scenarios purporting to detail what Iran could do to Israel, the West and the entire world when it acquires nuclear weapons as it is expected to a few years hence. A manipulation of public opinion to this effect may well be considered too phantasmagoric to merit any detailed description. Still, the readers should take notice, especially since to all appearances the Israeli Security System does envisage the prospect seriously. In February 1993 minutely-detailed anticipations of Iran becoming a major target of Israeli policies became intense. I am going to confine myself to a sample of recent publications (in view of the monotony of their contents it will suffice), emphasizing how they envisage the possibility of "persuading" the West that Iran must be defeated. All Hebrew papers have shared in advocacy of this madness, with exception of Haaretz which has not dared to challenge it either. The Zionist "left" papers, Davar and Al Hamishmar have particularly distinguished themselves in bellicosity on the subject of Iran; more so than the right-wing Maariv. Below, I will concentrate on the recent writings of Al Hamishmar and Maariv about Iran, only occasionally mentioning what I found in other papers.

A major article by the political correspondent of Al Hamishmar, Yo'av Kaspi bears the title that summarizes its contents: "Iran needs to be treated just as Iraq had been" (February 19, 1993). The article contains an interview with Daniel Leshem, introduced as "a retired senior officer in the [Israeli] Military Intelligence, now member of the Centre for Strategic Research at the Tel Aviv University." Leshem is known to be involved in forming Israeli strategies. His account of how Iran is going to nuclearize is too dubious to merit coverage here as are his lamentations that "the world" has been ignoring the warnings of the Israeli experts who alone know all the truth about what the Muslim states are like. However, his proposals for the reversal of the progress of Iranian nuclearization are by all means worth of being reported. Leshem begins by opining that the Allied air raids had very little success in destroying Iraq's military and especially nuclear capabilities, but, owing to Allied victory on the ground, U.N. observers could succeed in finishing the job. Harping on this "analogy," Leshem concludes: "Israel alone can do very little to halt the Iranians. We could raid Iran from the air, but we cannot realistically expect that our aerial operations could destroy all their capabilities. At best, some Iranian nuclear installations could in this way be destroyed. But we couldn't reach their major centres of nuclear development, since that development has proceeded along three different lines in a fairly decentralized manner, with installations and factories scattered widely across the country. It is even reasonable to suppose that we will never know the locations of all their installations, just as we didn't know in Iraq's case."

Hence Leshem believes that Israel should make Iran fear Israeli nuclear weapons, but without hoping that it might deter it from developing their own; he proposes "to create the situation which would appear similar to that with Iraq before the Gulf crisis." He believes this could "stop the Ayatollahs, if this is what the world really wants." How to do it? "Iran claims sovereignty over three strategically located islands in the Gulf. Domination over those islands is capable of assuring domination not only over all the already active oilfields of the area, but also over all the natural gas sources not yet exploited. We should hope that, emulating Iraq, Iran would contest the Gulf Emirates and Saudi Arabia over these islands and, repeating Saddam Hussein's mistake in Kuwait, start a war. This may lead to an imposition of controls over Iranian nuclear developments the way it did in Iraq. This prospect is in my view quite likely, because patience plays no part in the Iranian mentality. But if they nevertheless refrain from starting a war, we should take advantage of their involvement in Islamic terrorism which already hurts the entire world. Israel has incontestable intelligence that the Iranians are terrorists. We should take advantage of this by persistently explaining to the world at large that by virtue of its involvement in terrorism, no other state is as dangerous to the entire world as Iran. I cannot comprehend why Libya has been hit by sanctions, to the point that sales of military equipment are barred to it because of its minor involvement in terrorism; while Iran, with its record of guiding terrorism against the entire world remains entirely free of even stricter sanctions." In true-blue Israeli style, Leshem attributes this lamentable state of affairs to Israel's neglect of its propaganda (called "Hasbara", that is, "Explanation"). He nevertheless hopes that Israel will soon be able "to explain to the world at large" how urgent is the need to provoke Iran to a war.

Provoking Iran into responding with war or measures just stopping short of war, is also elaborated by many other commentators. Let me just quote a story published by Telem Admon in Maariv(February 12) who reports that "a senior Israeli," that is, a senior Mossad agent, "about two weeks ago had a long conversation with the son of the late Shah, Prince Riza Sha'a Pahlevi' in order to appraise the man's possible usefulness for Israeli "Hasbara". In the "senior's" opinion, "Clinton's America is too absorbed in its domestic affairs," and as a result "the prince's chances of reigning in Iran are deplorably slim. The prince's face showed signs of distress after he heard a frank assessment to this effect from the mouth of an Israeli." Yet the "senior's" appraisal of the prince was distinctly negative, in spite of "the princely routine of handing to all visitors copies of articles by Ehud Ya'ari' (an Israeli television commentator suspected of being a front for Israeli Intelligence). Why? In the first place because "the prince shows how nervous he is. His knees jerked during the first half-hour of the conversation." Worse still, his chums "were dressed like hippies" while "he kept frequenting Manhattan's haunts in their company and addressing them as if they were his equals." The "senior" deplores it greatly that the prince has emancipated himself from the beneficial influence of his mother, "who had done a simply wonderful job travelling from capital to capital in order to impress everybody concerned with her hope to enthrone her son in Iran while she is still alive." Her valiant efforts look to me as connected, to some extent at least, to the no-less-valiant efforts of the Israeli "Hasbara" before it had written off her son.

But what might happen if both Israel and Iran have nuclear weapons? This question is being addressed by the Hebrew press at length, often in a manner intended to titillate the reader with anticipated horrors. Let me give a small sample. In At Hamishmar (19 February), Kaspi interviewed the notorious 'hawk', Professor Shlomo Aharonson, who begins his perorations by excoriating the Israeli left as a major obstacle to Israel's ability to resist Iranian evildoing. Without bothering about the left's current lack of political clout, says Aharonson: 'The left is full of prejudices and fears. It refuses to be rational on the nuclear issue. The left doesn't like nuclear weapons, full stop. The opposition of the Israeli left to nuclear weapons is reminiscent of the opposition to the invention of the wheel.' Profound insights, aren't they? After spelling them out, Aharonson proceeds to his 'scenarios'. Here is just one of them: 'If we established tomorrow a Palestinian state, we will really grant a sovereignty to an entity second to none in hostility toward us. This entity can be expected to reach a nuclear alliance with Iran at once. Suppose the Palestinians open hostilities against us and the Iranians deter us from retaliating against the Palestinians by threatening to retaliate in turn against us by nuclear means. What could we do then?' There is a lot more in the same vein before Aharonson concludes: 'We should see to it that no Palestinian state ever comes into being, even if Iranians threaten us with nuclear weapons. And we should also see to it that Iran lives in permanent fear of Israeli nuclear weapons being used against it."

Let me reiterate that the Israelis are also bombarded ceaselessly with official messages to the same effect. For example, General Ze'ev Livneh, the commander of recently established Rear General Command of the Israeli Army said (in Haaretz, February 15) that "it is not only Iran which already endangers every site in Israel," because, even if to a lesser extent, "Syria, Libya and Algeria do too." In order to protect Israel from this danger, General Livneh calls upon "the European Community to enforce jointly with Israel an embargo on any weaponry supplies to both Iran and those Arab states. The EC should also learn that military interventions can have salutary effects, as proven recently in Iraq's case."

Timid reminders by the Hebrew press that Israel continues to have the monopoly of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, were definitely unwelcome to Israeli authorities. In Hadashot of January 29 and February 5, Ran Edelist, careful to rely only on quotes from the U.S. press, raised the problem of nuclear waste disposal from the rather obsolete Dimona reactor and of other possible risks of that reactor to Israeli lives and limbs. He was "answered" by numerous interviews with named and unnamed experts, all of whom fiercely denied that any such risks existed. The experts didn't neglect to reassure their readers that the Israeli reactor was the best and the safest in the entire world. But speaking in the name of "the Intelligence Community" Immanuel Rosen (Maariv, February 12) went even further. He disclosed that the said "community" felt offended "by the self-confident publications of an Israeli researcher dealing with nuclear subjects. This researcher has recently been found by the Intelligence Community to pose 'a security risk,' to the point of observing that in some states such a researcher 'would have been made to disappear.'" Ran Edelist reacted in a brief note (in Hadashot, February 14), confining himself to quoting these revealing ideas of "the Intelligence Community," and drawing attention to threats voiced there. But apart from Edelist, the press of "the only democracy in the Middle East" either didn't dare comment, or was not allowed to.

The press is allowed, and even encouraged, to discuss one issue related to Israeli nuclear policies: to say how clever Peres was in pretending to agree to negotiate nuclear disarmament and then raising unacceptable conditions for entering any such negotiations. An example of this is Akiva Eldar's coverage in Haaretz (February 19), of Rabin's excoriation of Egypt on television a few days earlier. Rabin scolded Egypt for suggesting that a Middle East regional nuclear disarmament agreement would be desirable. Eldar comments that "The Prime Minister is known to loathe anything that relates to Egypt. Aiming at Boutros Ghali, he said [in a public speech]: 'What can you expect of him? Isn't he an Egyptian?' Rabin is particularly averse to Egyptian insistence that the Middle East should be completely denuclearized. Peres, by contrast, favours using Egypt as an intermediary in various diplomatic pursuits, while recognizing that Cairo's reminders on the subject of Dimona obstruct his real mission, which is to mediate between Egypt and the grand man in Jerusalem." Therefore, after "Egypt recently invited Israel to a symposium that 'would deal with both conventional and non-conventional armed confrontations,' a high-level discussion was held in the Foreign Ministry on how to pretend to accept the invitation and then 'to decline it elegantly.' The solution was to communicate to Egypt the Israeli agreement in principle to attend the symposium on three conditions: that it be chaired by the U.S. and Russia; that its agenda be unanimously determined by the chairmen and all the participants; and, most interestingly, that nothing be discussed unless the presence of all other Arab states, not just of Syria and Lebanon, but also--hard to believe--of Libya and Iraq, be assured in advance. In this way, any conceivable discussion of nuclear affairs was effectively precluded." I find it superfluous to comment on Eldar's story.

But I do want to make some comments on the incitement of Israelis against Iran. I am well aware that a lot of expert opinions and predictions quoted here will sound to non-lsraeli readers like fantasy running amok. Yet I perceive those opinions and predictions, no matter how mendacious and deceitful they obviously are, as politically quite meaningful. Let me explain my reasons. In the first place, I have not quoted the opinions of raving extremists. I was careful to select only the writings of respected and influential Israeli experts or commentators on strategic affairs, who can be presumed to be well acquainted with the thinking of the Israeli Security System. Since militarily Israel is the strongest state in the Middle East and has the monopoly on nuclear weapons in the region, strategical doctrines of its Security System deserve to be disseminated world-wide, especially when they are forcefully pressed upon the Israeli public. Whether one likes it or not, Israel is a great power, not only in military but also in political terms, by virtue of its increasing influence upon U.S. policies. The opinions of the Israeli Security System may mean something different from what they say. But this doesn't detract from their importance.

But there is more to it. Fantasy and madness in the doctrines of the Israeli Security System are nothing new. At least since the early 1950s those qualities could already be noticed. Let us just recall that in 1956 Ben-Gurion wanted to annex Sinai to Israel on the ground that "it was not Egypt." The same doctrine was professed in 1967-73 with elaborations, such as the proposal of several generals to conquer Alexandria in order to hold the city hostage until Egypt would sign a peace treaty on Israeli terms. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon relied on fantastic assumptions, and so did the 1983 "peace treaty" signed with a "lawful Lebanese government" put in power by Sharon. All Israeli policies in the Territories are not just totally immoral, but also rely on assumptions steadily held and advocated without regard for their fanciful contents. It will suffice to recall how Rabin together with the entire Israeli Security System perceived the outbreak of the Intifada first as an Iranian manipulation and then as a fabrication of western television and press. They concluded that if the Arabs are denied opportunities to fake riots in order to be photographed, the unrest in the Territories could be suppressed with ease.

Relevant to this is the fact that Israeli policies bear the easily recognizable imprint of Orientalist "expertise" abounding in militarist and racist ideological prejudices. This 'expertise" is readily available in English, since its harbingers were the Jewish Orientalists living in English-speaking countries, like Bernard Lewis or the late Elie Kedourie who had visited Israel regularly for hobnobbing on the best of terms with the Israeli Security System. It was Kedourie who performed a particularly seminal role in fathering the assumptions on which Israeli policies rest and who consequently had in Israel a lot of influence. In Kedourie's view, the peoples of the Middle East, with the "self-evident" exception of Israel, would be best off if ruled by foreign imperial powers with a natural capacity to rule for a long time yet. Kedourie believed that the entire Middle East could be ruled by foreign powers with perfect ease, because their domination would hardly be opposed except by grouplets of intellectuals bent on rabble-rousing. Kedourie lived in Britain, and his primary concern was British politics. In his opinion the British refused to continue to rule the Middle East, with calamitous effects, only because of intellectual corruption of their own experts, especially those from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at Chatham House, who were misguided enough to dismiss the superior expertise of minority nationals, particularly Jewish, from the Arab world, who alone had known "the Arab nature" at first hand. For example, in his first book, Kedourie says that as early as 1932 (!) the British government was misguided enough to grant Iraq independence (it was faked, but never mind) against the advice of Jewish community in Baghdad. On many occasions during his recurrent visits to Israel, from the 1960s until his death, Kedourie would assure his Israeli audiences (one of which I was a member) that Iraq could "really" be still ruled by the British with ease, under whatever disguises it would be convenient to adopt, provided the grouplets of rabble-rousers would be dealt with by a modicum of salutary toughness. That, the opportunities for education would be restricted so as not to produce a superfluous number of intellectuals, prone to learn the western notions of national independence. True, Kedourie also opposed the idea of exclusive Jewish right to the Land of Israel as incompatible with his imperialistic outlook, but he favoured the retention of Israeli permanent rule over the Palestinians. The rather incongruous blend of Kedourie's ideas with the Land of Israel messianism is already an innovation of Israeli Security System vintage.

The implications of the Kedourie doctrine for Israeli policy-makers are obvious. First, Israel always seeks to persuade the West about what its "true" interests and "moral duties" in the Middle East are. It also tells the West that by intervening in the Middle East they would serve the authentic interests of Middle Eastern nations. But if the western powers refuse to listen, it is up to Israel to assume "the white man's burden."

Another implication of Kedourie's doctrine, acted upon by Israel since the early 1950s already, is that in the Middle East no other strong state is to be tolerated. Its power must be destroyed or at least diminished through a war. Iranian theocracy may have its utility for the Israeli Hasbara, but Nasser's Egypt was attacked while being emphatically secular. In both cases the real reason for the Israeli threat to start a war was the strength of the state concerned. Quite apart from the risks such a state may pose to Israeli hegemonic ambitions, Orientalist "expertise" requires that natives of the region always remain weak, to be ruled always by their traditional notables but not by persons with intellectual capacity, whether religious or secular. Before World War I, such principles were taken for granted in the West, professed openly and applied globally, from China to Mexico. Israeli Orientalism, on which Israeli policies are based, is no more than their belated replica. It continues to uphold dogmas which, say in 1903, were taken for granted as "scientific" truths. The subsequent "troubles" of the West are perceived by the Israeli "experts" as a well-deserved punishment for listening to intellectuals who had been casting doubt on such self-evident truths. Without such rotten intellectuals, everything would have remained stable.

Let us return to the special case of Iran, though. Anyone not converted to the Orientalistic creed will recognize that Iran is a country very difficult to conquer, because of its size, topography and especially because of fervent nationalism combined with the religious zeal of its populace. I happen to loathe the current Iranian regime, but it doesn't hinder me from immediately noticing how different it is from Saddam Hussein's. Popular support for Iran's rulers is much greater than for Iraq's. After Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran, his troops were resisted valiantly under extremely difficult conditions. All analogies between a possible attack on Iran and the Gulf War are therefore irresponsibly fanciful. Yet Sharon and the Israeli Army commanders did in 1979 propose to send a detachment of Israeli paratroopers to Tehran to quash the revolution and restore the monarchy. They really thought, until stopped by Begin, that a few Israeli paratroopers could determine the history of a country as immense and populous as Iran! According to a consensus of official Israeli experts on Iranian affairs, the fall of the Shah was due solely to his "softness" in refraining to order his army to slaughter thousands of demonstrators wholesale. Later, the Israeli experts on Iranian affairs were no less unanimous in predicting a speedy defeat of Iran by Saddam Hussein. No evidence indicates that they have changed their assumptions or discarded their underlying racism. Their ranks may include some relatively less-opinionated individuals, who have survived the negative selection process which usually occurs within groups sharing such ideologically-tight imageries. But such individuals can be assumed to prefer to keep their moderation to themselves, while hoping that Israel can reap some fringe benefits from any western provocation against Iran, even if it results in a protracted and inconclusive war.

Israel Shahak
February 24, 1993

[bold text by Hotel Terminus]