MIDEAST NEWS DIGEST
LaRouche: Iraq War Could Be 'Jammed Up' by European Opposition
On Oct. 12, in an interview with The LaRouche Show, a weekly Internet webcast on the EIR website, Lyndon LaRouche gave the following assessment (see this week's FLASH! for the full transcript):
"Now, on the question of the United Nations' role. My best estimate at this time, is that the Europeans will tend to stand firm, despite tremendous pressure from the United States ... the Russians are against this. They've firmly rejected Bush's pressure on this thing in the most recent developments....
"But the danger, of course, is that these people may go ahead with the war now, even though it won't work, it will be a disaster. But the people behind this don't care. They don't care if it's a disaster! That's why we talk about the craziness, about these so-called Christian Zionists being crazy.... They want the war. These are people who would rather die, and have everybody else die, than not have the war they desire to have happen. The danger of going ahead with the war, is that all civilization could go into the bucket....
"So if Europe holds firm; and if Blair backs down, as he might if Europe refuses to along with him; I think the thing is jammed up; and jammed up at least until after the election, and probably until February."
Is an Evangelical Fanatic Brainwashing Bush?
An Oct. 11 article in the Washington Post, called "For Bush's Speechwriter, Job Grows Beyond Words," by Mike Allen, makes clear that there has to be a "separation of the Church and mental state" of President George W. Bush. Allen reveals that Bush's leading speechwriter, Michael J. Gerson, who wrote the last two Iraq speeches, is an Evangelical Episcopalian zealot, with a degree in theology from the Darbyite Wheaton College in Illinois, who is seeding Bush's speeches with Biblical references designed to appeal to the Armageddon army that is supporting the racist ethnic-cleansing operations of Ariel Sharon, and pushing for a "Clash of Civilizations" war with Iraq.
According to a Washington-based contact, with wide knowledge of the Christian Zionists and Darbyites, the deployment of Gerson is extremely dangerous; allowing an insider in the Christian Zionist camp where terrorism against Palestinians and Islamic holy sites is openly supported this is extremely dangerous. The Darbyites use Biblical encoded phrases with "secret meanings" for each other.
The Washington Post exposé provides extremely important insight into how the President is mentally being worked over by the Evangelicals, through Gerson, with "end times constructs" being put into Bush's thinking and speeches, at the same time that intelligence on foreign policy is in the hands of the "X Committee" Chickenhawks working for the Likud/Anglo-American agenda.
For example, the following is how the Washington Post describes the power of this Elmer Gantry operative: "Scholars are calling Gerson the most influential presidential speechwriter since [Ted] Sorenson, confidant and muse of President John F. Kennedy ... 'Mike has become the arbiter of what Bush would want,' said a person who sat in ... with him. 'When he says "It's not going to happen," there's nobody in the room' " who's going to say anything different."
Gerson had his security clearance raised the day after Sept. 11, and has grown in power ever since, especially after longtime Bush adviser Karen P. Hughes left the White House under suspicious circumstances.
"The hallmark of Gerson's speeches is the invocation of the vocabulary ... of faith," says the Washington Post, about which Gerson, whom George W. calls "The Scribe," likes to boast. "The result is a President whose public words are laced with Biblical undertones."
For example, noted EIR's source, the Cincinnati speech had to be understood for such references. Indeed, Bush spoke in lingo frighteningly standard to the Christian Zionist war-mongers. In that speech, he emphasized that Saddam Hussein had built up "nuclear holy warriors," whose job it was to rain down nuclear weapons or otherwise deliver them "against Israel." It is the kind of "prophecy" scenario that is often pitched by Jerry Falwell, and others. The Post also notes that Gerson put in Bush's Sept. 11, 2001 address to the nation, a reference to "God's signs."
The Post also describes that Gerson sits in on the National Security Council's and Situation Room's highly classified meetings to get the "flavor" of the subject, especially the Iraq war. Gerson translates those briefings into speeches that contain the "end times" references of prophecy as practiced by these war-crazy religious fanatics. This creates a highly unstable, and dangerous security situation in Washington.
Putin Rebuffs Tony Blair's War Mission
As it seems from British and Russian media reports on British Prime Minister Tony Blair's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an economic deal with Russia in exchange for Putin's "yes" to the war, did not work. Putin told reporters that he viewed his talks with Blair as "serious political talks ... this is not an Oriental bazaar."
Putin discarded the value of Blair's own "dossier on Iraq," telling reporters, "Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data which would support the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we have not received from our partners such information as yet." The only way to find out about Iraq's potential, was to get the inspectors to begin their work there, Putin added, prompting Blair to hastily make similar noises, that inspections were "one certain way to find out."
The London Independent raises doubt that there was any serious discussion between Blair and Putin: "They walked the walk, but did they talk the talk?"
French, Russia, China for a Strong Two-Tier Resolution on Iraq
Support for the French proposal for two separate UN resolutions, without military threats until a later date, remains strong. After a two-hour meeting of the permanent five members of the Security Council on Oct. 8, Associated Press reported that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said any resolution must not provide for the automatic use of force, nor contain measures that Baghdad could not accept. Chinese PM Zhu Rongji has expressed continuing support for the French proposal. AP also reports that the ten non-permanent members of the Security Council haven't even been shown a draft of the "British-U.S. resolution" for military force, and have only learned of its contents from leaks to the press.
Jordan: No Basing for Iraq Attack; Warns of Israel's Plan To Drive Out Palestinians
Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher voiced concern on Oct. 10, that Israel could exploit a U.S. war on Iraq to deport Palestinians to Jordan, which also fears an influx of Iraqi refugees. "We do not want to see a situation where the Israeli government might make use of a war on Iraq in order to transfer Palestinians to Jordan," Moasher told foreign media representatives in Amman. "While the Israelis have privately assured us this is contrary to their policies, we have not yet seen one public statement by any Israeli official stating that the transfer policy is contrary to Israeli policies," he said. "We are not reassured by that at all."
Moasher said Jordan has adopted contingency plans to prevent an influx of Iraqi refugees in the event of a U.S.-led military strike on its large eastern neighbor, as well as plans to block the arrival of Palestinian deportees. The measures Jordan has taken on its borders with Iraq and the West Bank are aimed at allowing in only "those with legitimate reasons" such as people in transit or those coming to Amman for medical reasons, he said. "We have made it clear that we are not in a position to receive any large number of refugees" from Iraq, Moasher said. "This will be detrimental to the interests of Jordan," he said, recalling that the kingdom was swamped by 1.5 million people who transited through Jordan during the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis and war. "This time the preparations that we have undertaken will make sure that these refugees, if we are faced with a large refugee problem, are catered to but not in a way that would also have them get inside Jordan," he said.
Moasher reiterated that Jordan will not be used as a launchpad for any U.S. military strike on Baghdad and that the tiny kingdom could not afford conflicts on both its eastern and western borders. "Jordan is in a very delicate and difficult position. We are walking an extremely tight rope," he said. "We already have a war going on in the West Bank and we don't need another war going on to our east. It is easy for outsiders to try to solve the problem from the outside. They are not living here.
"We're living in the midst of Iraq and the Palestinian conflict, and our ability to handle two wars for a country like Jordan is extremely limited."
Moasher, who was Jordan's former Ambassador to Washington, stressed Amman does not want to jeopardize its ties with either the U.S. or Iraq, two key economic partners. He stressed that Washington was "well aware of our vulnerability and well aware of our delicate position, and therefore is not asking to do anything beyond our capability."
New York Times Reveals Another U.S. Plan To Occupy Iraq
Anyone who doubted the accuracy of LaRouche's demand, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney should have their heads examined, will see those doubts vanish, upon reading what some madmen in the Administration are apparently planning for Iraq.
According to David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, writing in the New York Times of Oct. 11, "The White House is developing a detailed plan, modelled on the postwar occupation of Japan, to install an American-led military government in Iraq if the United States topples Saddam Hussein, senior Administration officials said today." Also contemplated are "war-crime trials of Iraqi leaders and a transition to an elected civilian government that could take months or years."
There is dissent in the Pentagon, State Department, and White House on this. What they are studying as models, are the occupations of Germany and Japan, but want to avoid the division Germany underwent.
According to this master plan, the first phase would see Iraq governed "by an American military commander perhaps Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of United States forces in the Persian Gulf, or one of his subordinates who would assume the role that Gen. Douglas MacArthur served in Japan after its surrender in 1945."
The Administration is said to be "coalescing around" the concept. "In contemplating an occupation, the Administration is scaling back the initial role for Iraqi opposition forces in a post-Hussein government. Until now it had been assumed that Iraqi dissidents both inside and outside the country would form a government, but it was never clear when they would take full control."
This is the first time U.S. officials have discussed the occupation idea. "Officials say they want to avoid the chaos and in-fighting that have plagued Afghanistan since the defeat of the Taliban. Mr. Bush's aides say they also want full control over Iraq while American-led forces carry out their principal mission: finding and destroying weapons of mass destruction...."
Elsewhere the article reports that the plan "would put an American officer in charge of Iraq for a year or more while the United States and its allies searched for weapons and maintained Iraq's oil fields.
"Asked what would happen if American pressure prompted a coup against Mr. Hussein, a senior official said, 'That would be nice.' But the official suggested that the American military might enter and secure the country anyway, not only to eliminate weapons of mass destruction but also to ensure against anarchy."
As for getting UN approval for a military move, the Times reports that the Administration is rather blasé, and would interpret any resolution passed giving them military authority, even if it doesn't explicitly do so. "Everyone would read this resolution their own way," is the way one officer put it.
The idea of the occupation is that the country's oil reserves would be fully taken over. "For as long as the coalition partners administered Iraq, they would essentially control the second largest proven reserves of oil in the world, nearly 11% of the total. A senior Administration official said the United Nations oil-for-food program would be expanded to help finance stabilization and reconstruction."
Apparently central to this plan, is Bush's special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who, in a speech last week, said: "The coalition will assume and the preferred option responsibility for the territorial defense and security of Iraq after liberation. Our intent is not conquest and occupation of Iraq," Khalilzad said. "But we do what needs to be done to achieve the disarmament mission and to get Iraq ready for a democratic transition and then through democracy over time." The Times says the Iraqis would be given power, only after the American-led transition. Both Iraq's military and the Baath Party would be "downsized," and party officials would be ousted from ministries.
This is one of many competing so-called plans. Richard Perle still wants Ahmed Chalabi of the INC, to be declared a sort of democratic dictator of Iraq, before an invasion is even launched. The State Department thinks the opposition groups are worthless, as does the CIA, and it is said that State would like a rival Iraqi general to take over from Saddam. Paul Wolfowitz told an interviewer recently, that he wants a 15-year military occupation of Iraq, which would re-educate the Iraqis to stop considering themselves Arabs he called it "de-Arabization." They will class themselves as Kurds or Shiites or whatever, but not Arabs. Wolfowitz's final solution to the Arab problem, perhaps?
U.S. Warmongers Helping Iranian Hardliners
Hardliners in Iran are having a field day, in the wake of the U.S. Congress vote for war and for Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, currently head of the Expediency Council, addressed Friday prayers on Oct. 11, focussing on the Iraq war plans of the United States. He said it was not possible to predict what would happen, in the UN or otherwise: "The situation for an attack on Iraq is hard and there is no coalition similar to the one over Afghanistan. Meanwhile, it is not known where the war may lead and what may happen." He said Iran also wanted to see Iraq disarmed, "But any measure for Iraq's disarmament must be carried out under the UN aegis. Otherwise, America's unilateral move to unleash a war is to strike a match on a barrel of gunpowder."
Rafsanjani also denounced the Congress's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital; it "means that it [the U.S. government] does not pay attention to 1.5 billion Muslims and other world people who are interested in these [Palestinian] people. This is an insult." Finally, he blasted Jerry Falwell for his remarks on the Prophet Muhammed.
Major General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), called for a mobilization of the world's Muslims against the Zionists. Speaking at a gathering of the basijis (the hard-line volunteer forces), currently engaged in war games, he called for a "massive global basij" to be formed, with participation of all Muslims. He reckoned, if only 10% of the world's Muslims took part, it would create a force of 100 million; this force, he said, is the only means to assist the Palestinians and to liberate Jerusalem.
He also denounced the anti-Iraq war plans, saying that Iraq, after Afghanistan, was just a step in the process of establishing U.S. imperial control, and eliminating anti-American and Islamic governments.
|