“The World is at dangerous crossroads”
“The holding of mass demonstrations and antiwar protests is not enough”
by Michel Chossudovsky
The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the World simultaneously.
Militarization at the global level is instrumented through the US military’s Unified Command structure: the entire planet is divided up into geographic Combatant Commands under the control of the Pentagon. According to (former) NATO Commander General Wesley Clark, the Pentagon’s military road-map consists of a sequence of war theaters: “[The] five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.”
The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest.
A War on Iran has been on the drawing board of The Pentagon since 2004.
Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme is the pretext and the justification. Tehran is also identified as a “State sponsor of terrorism”, for allegedly supporting the Al Qaeda network.
In recent development, what is unfolding is an integrated attack plan on Iran led by the US, with the participation of the United Kingdom and Israel.
While the media has presented Israeli and British military planning pertaining to Iran as separate initiatives, what we are dealing with is an integrated and coordinated US led military endeavor.
In early November, Israel confirmed that it is preparing to launch air attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities, without however acknowledging that this would be carried out as part of a US led initative:
Reportedly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently sought to drum up cabinet support for a military strike against the nuclear sites of the Islamic republic of Iran. In joint efforts with the defense minister Ehud Barak, Netanyahu has succeeded in wringing support for such a reckless act from the skeptics who were already opposed to launching an attack on Iran. Among those he managed to convince was Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
There are still those in the Israeli cabinet who are against such a move including Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor, Strategic Affairs Minister and Netanyahu confidant Moshe Yaalon, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, army chief Benny Gantz, the head of Israel’s intelligence agency Tamir Pardo, the chief of military intelligence Aviv Kochavi and the head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Yoram Cohen.
However, the support voiced by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is considered an ace in the hole for Netanyahu who also enjoys the full-throated support of Washington.
In a show of military prowess and obvious brinkmanship, Israel test-fired a nuke capable missile on Wednesday which cannot be taken as a coincidence considering the threat made by Netanyahu. ( Ismail Salami. An Israel Attack on Iran: Military Suicide , Global Research, November 3, 2011)
Meanwhile, the British government has also signified that it will participate in a US led attack on Iran:
The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.
In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles over the coming months as part of what would be an air and sea campaign.
They also believe the US would ask permission to launch attacks from Diego Garcia, the British Indian ocean territory, which the Americans have used previously for conflicts in the Middle East. (The Guardian, November 2, 2011 http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27439)
The War on Syria
There is a military roadmap characterised by a sequence of US-NATO war theaters.
In the wake of the war on Libya, there are also war plans directed against under NATO’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P). These plans are integrated with those pertaining to Iran. The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. A US-NATO sponsored war on Iran would involve, as a first step, a destabilization campaign (“regime change”) including covert intelligence operations in support of rebel forces directed against the Syrian government
The World is at dangerous crossroads.
Were a US-NATO military operation to be launched against either Syria or Iran, the broader Middle East Central Asian region extending from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with China would be engulfed in the turmoil of an extended regional war.
There are at present four distinct war theaters: Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine and Libya.
An attack on Syria would lead to the integration of these separate war theaters, eventually leading towards a broader Middle East-Central Asian war.
In turn, a war on Syria would evolve towards a US-NATO military campaign directed against Iran, in which Turkey and Israel would be directly involved. It would also contribute to the ongoing destabilization of Lebanon.
Central to an understanding of war, is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. A good versus evil dichotomy prevails. The perpetrators of war are presented as the victims. Public opinion is misled: “We must fight against evil in all its forms as a means to preserving the Western way of life.” Breaking the “big lie” which upholds war as a humanitarian undertaking, means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force. This profit-driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies.
The holding of mass demonstrations and antiwar protests is not enough. What is required is the development of a broad and well organized grassroots antiwar network, across the land, nationally and internationally, which challenges the structures of power and authority. People must mobilize not only against the military agenda, the authority of the state and its officials must also be challenged.
This war can be prevented if people forcefully confront their governments, pressure their elected representatives, organize at the local level in towns, villages and municipalities, spread the word, inform their fellow citizens as to the implications of a nuclear war, initiate debate and discussion within the armed forces.
The objective is to forcefully reverse the tide of war, challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which support them.
Break the American Inquisition.
Undermine the US-NATO-Israel military crusade.
Close down the weapons factories and the military bases.
Members of the armed forces should disobey orders and refuse to participate in a criminal war.
Bring home the troops.
Break the chain of shameful obedience
“The death squads and concentration camps of history were never staffed by rebels and dissidents. They were were run by those who followed the rules.”
Sit back and behold, in the following video, how we subscribe to doomsday through our shameful acquiescence and willing ignorance.
Sources: global research.ca & StormClouds Gathering
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pyramidion’s editorial policy.
Ashraf Ezzat 
maryclyde, that’s a good idea! I don’t think there is any doubt that the “anarchists” causing all the destruction in the demonstrations are full of police agents. It’s standard Cointelpro practice, as you point out. But there may be other reasons the cops are targeting vets. One reason might be because their leaders and the conservative talking heads have told or suggested to them that the “Occupy” movement is a “Communist plot.” There is a great deal of truth in that, because the origins of the movement do lead to people like George Soros and the Lucis Trust, which have funded and promoted leftist “revolutions” all over the world for decades. So, to the simple-minded cops, the vets are traitors betraying their country to the “Commies.” The people who are actually in the movement, of course, come from all over the political spectrum, and are mostly not Communists or Socialists, and there is a lot of evidence that although the movement was probably started as an elite strategy to bring about more tyranny, probably Socialist tyranny, the people are using it as a vehicle to produce constructive, much needed change. They may yet succeed. The more people that join the movement, the broader its ideological base will become, and the harder it will become for the elite to manage it. Perhaps that is what the FEMA camps are for! If the movement becomes unmanageable for the elite, Obama will declare Martial Law, round up all the protesters (that’s why the cops have been taking pictures of them), put them in the FEMA camps, execute their leaders and those that can’t be “rehabilitated,” and then farm the rest out to the privatized prison industry, where they will work for the rest of their lives. Martial Law, however, will remain in effect. It will be PERMANENT, as it was in the Soviet Union. (Actually, I think the country has been under de-facto Martial Law since 2001. Nobody informed the people about it, though. They might have become upset! They might have stopped obeying their leaders, or going to work. Can’t have that!
The leadership of the police, though, probably have different ideas. They see the vets as a means to provoke violent reactions among the protesters, which will enable the police to REALLY start cracking down! Every time a vet is attacked, it’s all over the media, and the reactions of those sympathetic to the movement get more verbally violent. It’s exactly what the elite want. The 1% aren’t really “harmed” by this, because those who are NOT sympathetic to the movement (still the majority) automatically assume that the vets “did something to provoke the police, and the police were only doing their job.” The lying U.S. propaganda media never show the cops attacking peaceful protesters, anyway. They always show the protesters shouting angrily at the police, pushing against barricades, and acting unruly. Unruliness is the cardinal sin among staid, conservative Americans. For them obedience is next to godliness.
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Occupy success depends on whether a Revolt of the Guard grows: the way the cops are wounding and maiming non-violent US war veterans they actually are harming the 1%.
The collective brain of the vets in the Occupy ranks would be smart to direct their anger into neutralizing the violent and destructive Black Bloc anarchists in the Occupy ranks, aka Cointelpro type undercover cops/agents provocateur, by acting to seize and unmask them. I’m sure they’ll find the odd badge, firearm, handcuffs, etc., after they have stripped them naked and tied them hands and feet to a pole and paraded them ala Captain Jack Sparrow.
If I can figure this out, then so can the Occupy vets.
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Chossudovsky compiles in his essay many of the things I, and probably many of those reading this, have been reading and thinking about for years now. The question is, what can we DO about it? The facade, and I think it has always been a facade, of popular democracy has been virtually abolished throughout the “Western” world. Our “freedom” was always a facade, because it never extended to those outside the boundaries of societal acceptance: people of color, Native Americans, and especially the nationals of the nations we targeted for rape and pillage. But now the mask which has been carefully held in place in the “West” has been allowed to slip, and underneath it we have beheld the face of the monster that was always there. Now the realization is inescapable that we live under tyranny: naked, brutal, ruthless tyranny. To pretend otherwise, as many still try to do, is to close one’s eyes to the truth.
But how can we prevent what seems to be bearing down on us? How can we prevent the gathering, ever accelerating maelstrom that threatens to be gathering all humanity to its doom? Chossudovsky seems to argue for an increased non-violent activism throughout the West to close down the machinery of war and its economic support. He seems to advocate a huge increase in civil disobedience aimed at breaking the chain of “shameful obedience” that has always enabled history’s worse crimes. Laudable goals, but are these strategies up to the task? I don’t think so. The machinery of tyranny now in place worldwide is too powerful. “Civil disobedience” under these circumstances is inadequate. What, then, would be effective? I have my own ideas, but I dare not write them, because the machinery of state security would then be activated against me, and I would probably disappear. (I fully expect to disappear, eventually, in any case!) If you use your imagination, you will discover what they are.
It could be, however, that as black as things appear to be, they might not result in the conflagration that appears to threaten us because such a conflagration would be bad for business! I am of the opinion that the “Cold War” was a massive hoax perpetrated on the people of the U.S., Europe and the Soviet Union mainly so that the governments involved could maintain economic and political control of their people. There never was a real intention on the part of any of the “combatants” of the Cold War to transform the conflict into a hot war. That was only part of the public facade meant to enforce obedience on the population and their acquiescence to harsh economic and political conditions. The massive hoax of 9-11 and the “War on Terror” should tell us that we are dealing with “people” (if they can be called such) who never tell the truth when a lie will suffice, who are masters of deception, and the bigger the lie or deception, the better they like it (and, according to the adage, the more likely it is to be believed)! In other words, could all of this posturing and sabre rattling be intended more for public consumption and consequent control than for an indication of real intention? It’s worth thinking about, anyway.
I mean, consider the Chinese. They don’t want to fight us. They want us to continue making them rich! Likewise, the Russian economy is starting to boom. Why ruin it with a war against the West? If I were a Russian or Chinese leader, I would think: “Let them come. Let them conquer Iran and Syria. They will never be able to make them pay for the effort they will expend in doing it, they will never overcome the resulting insurgencies (we will make sure of that!), they will exhaust their already teetering economies and chew up their military forces in their fatuous attempts at world domination. If, after all that, they still want to fight, we will fight them, but we will have the upper hand from the outset. They will go down to certain defeat. In all likelihood, they will suffer revolutions – perhaps a series of them (We can take a hand in that, too!) – and we will be able to simply drive our military vehicles into their former countries and take possession of them.”
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