The U.S. Supreme Court says so in its ruling in the notorious case of Dr. Humberto Alvarez-Machain, a Mexican obstetrician implicated in the kidnapping, torture and murder of Enrique "Kiki" Camarenas, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agent. Although Mexico has an extradition treaty with the United States providing that Mexico decides whether sufficient evidence justifies forcibly sending someone in Mexico's sovereign jurisdiction to another state, the United States griped that extradition took too long.

So the DEA hired thugs to break into the obstetrician's house, clobber him, boink him on the head, inject him with drugs, and then tie him up and bundle him onto a plane flying to Texas, where he was arrested at the airport.

The federal court where the Mexican obstetrician was eventually tried was so horrified by the DEA's acts that they acquitted him.

Safely back in Mexico (where he likely won't be answering his own door anytime soon), Alvarez-Machain sued to recover damages from the government for his kidnapping. However, America's highest court said it really didn't care how mere suspects were brought into U.S. jurisdiction.

But Bush now says Israel can respond to kidnappings with unrestrained military force! Luckily for us here in the mighty United States, Mexico isn't a highly militarized state like Israel, or we'd be in big trouble.

Kidnapping is always vile. But not only the U.S. Supreme Court, but America's closest ally, Israel, says it's okay. In fact, so legendary are the Mossad's kidnappings of those it arbitrarily decides are "enemies of Israel" that Le Carre, the British spymaster-author, wrote a fictionalized best-selling book, "Little Drummer Girl," about the Mossad's kidnapping and murder of Palestinians, and Hollywood flipped that into a blockbuster movie. Israel's most famous kidnapping, that of Nazi Germany's notorious Adolf Eichmann, is often used to justify kidnapping as a normal policy. Indeed, there was little sympathy when Israelis broke into Eichmann's house, clobbered him and boinked him on the head, injected him with drugs, then tied him up and bundled him onto a plane flying to Israel, where he was arrested at the airport.

Few shed a tear when Israeli hanged him. After all, no matter how banal and harmless Hitler's SS aide seemed, he was a monster from a nation of monsters, and served an army of monsters. And Israel, with Gideon's terrible, swift sword, slayed that monster.

But in doing so, Israel violated Argentina's territorial state sovereignty, just as the United States violated Mexico's in kidnapping Alvarez-Machado.

Both Israel and the United States routinely misuse, at their own convenience, international laws Europe established safeguarding state sovereignty to prevent the prolonged, violent wars that plagued Europe for centuries. Why have such laws? Think about the innocent. Think about Chile's General Rene Schneider, who died resisting a botched kidnapping reportedly instigated by General Pinochet's supporters pursuant to CIA directives preceding the Allende regime's collapse. Think about Ahmed Bouchiki, the hardworking Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, murdered by Mossad agents who mistook him for Ali Hassan Salameh, a Black September operative. When four years later the Mossad finally caught up with Salameh in Beirut, they allegedly murdered him with a remote-control car bomb, killing not only Salameh and the four bodyguards in his car, but also four utterly innocent people just strolling by, including an English student and a German nun, and injuring eighteen other bystanders.

And recent reports indicate that others murdered by the Mossad were not likely even involved in Munich. The message was vengeance. Author Aaron Klein claims to the Mossad, "one dead PLO operative was as good as another."

Shalit's family rightly fears for his life. For those who've kidnapped him, he's a monster from a nation of monsters who serves an army of monsters, and he's heir to a tradition that says kidnapping is a legal, justified, an act of state. But the kidnappers are heirs to a different tradition, and the time has come to prove Islam's infinite mercy. Let Shalit live. Please.

The United Nations will make an urgent appeal today after a warning by Jan Egeland, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, that Lebanon needed $100 million immediately to avoid "a humanitarian catastrophe".

Fuel and emergency stockpiles of medicine are running low across the country.

At Beirut harbour, frustrated aid workers watched a flotilla of warships and chartered ferries sail in empty to pick up more stranded foreigners, lamenting that these ships could have carried drugs, blankets, tents and generators.

An Italian warship, the San Giorgio, delivered two ambulances, water purifying kits, protein biscuits and other supplies, and a French-chartered ferry Nato ration packs, but both still had acres of unused space on board.

Alexandre Giraud, who works for the French charity Première Urgence, said: "It's a shame these huge ships come in so lightly loaded. Aid is very, very slow and the coordination on the ground here is a tremendous problem."

Yesterday Israel rejected an ambitious plan sponsored by the UN to move thousands of tonnes of aid using three sea routes to the ports of Sidon, Tripoli and Beirut, a safe road corridor stretching from Syria in the north to Lebanon's southern border with Israel, and an air bridge.

Charities are finding it hard to hire truck drivers to carry the aid as they are scared that their convoys will be targeted by Israeli aircraft. The first Red Cross convoy to head to stricken towns in southern Lebanon at the weekend said that it had been fired upon.

Among those waiting on the dockside for the first trickle of aid to arrive was General Yahyeh Raad, the head of Lebanon's Relief High Commission. "I don't think the world has realised we need a lot of help and we need it now," he said. "We have bought what we could on the local market up to now, but supplies are running short."

Officials believe that fuel will run out in the next two weeks, medicine in the next three weeks and flour and wheat by September.

At an entertainment complex, built next to the city's docks, wealthy businessmen gathered with Lebanese ministers yesterday to try to speed up the relief operation. In the cavernous hall three in the Beirut Exhibition and Leisure Centre, a few dozen pallets of food and medical aid lay in one small corner, a testament to how little help Lebanon has received.

Yesterday Mr Egeland visited a makeshift refugee camp in Sanayeh Gardens, one of Beirut's biggest parks, and found that the conditions for the 1,200-plus people forced to sleep outside were squalid.

Many of the families complained that his 20-minute visit did little to ease their immediate suffering.

Hala Salloub, 21, sat on a pile of mattresses in the fierce sunshine shaking her head in despair as her two young children complained of feeling unwell in the scorching heat.

According to Adam, "certain units who will give us breathing space have been called up, including the commander of that unit." The unit's activation, however, would only take place following comprehensive consultations, he said.

Adam denied reports that there were plans to set up a large prison camp for captured Hizbullah fighters, saying the measure would not be needed.

Begin with the fundamentals. Hezbollah, once described as "the A-team of terrorists" by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, is a terrorist group with a record of killing hundreds of Americans and Israelis (from Beirut to Saudi Arabia to Argentina to inside Israel). Hezbollah is of global reach and extent. It began with the fundamental goals of creating an Islamist state in Lebanon and the total annihilation of Israel. It is armed and supported by Syria and Iran, and it has branches in some 20 countries. It occupies 20 percent of the Lebanese parliament but that percentage does not give it sufficient due. Here is Amir Taheri in the London Times:

Hezbollah is a state within the Lebanese state. It controls some 25% of the national territory. Almost 400,000 of Lebanon's estimated 4 million inhabitants live under its control. It collects its own taxes with a 20% levy, known as "khoms", on all incomes. It runs its own schools, where a syllabus produced in Iran is taught at all levels. It also runs clinics, hospitals, social welfare networks and centres for orphans and widows.

The party controls the elected municipal councils and appoints local officials, who in theory should be selected by the central government in Beirut. To complete its status as a virtual state, the party maintains a number of unofficial "embassies": the one in Tehran is bigger and has a larger number of staff than that of Lebanon itself.

Hezbollah also has its own media including a satellite television channel, Al-Manar (the lighthouse), which is watched all over the Arab world, four radio stations, newspapers and magazines plus a book publishing venture. The party has its own system of justice based on sharia and operates its own police force, courts and prisons. Hezbollah runs youth clubs, several football teams and a number of matrimonial agencies.

In sum, it may very well have the run of Lebanon more than non-Hezbollah factions and institutions. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, brags about this today.



As for Israel's disproportion, it is worth remembering that Israel is but one state - with a majority of Jews but a substantial Arab population.



The Arab states number 22. The land-mass comparison is some 10,000 square miles compared to over five million square miles. That does not include Iran. The Palestinian Authority, situated now in the southwest of Israel, is a Hamas entity - it is more lethal and Islamist than Arafat's PLO.



President Bush, in articulating the post-9/11 doctrine, stated: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

In some respects it is unnecessary to ask whether Lebanon "harbors" or "harbored" Hezbollah; but one definition of "harbor" is "to provide refuge" and there is no question that at the bare minimum, Lebanon allowed Hezbollah to operate in its country - gave it ministerial portfolios in the cabinet and allowed the seating of its elected officials in parliament. It may, as a fragile, burgeoning, democracy have had no choice but to do this. But the question remains: Was that fragile democracy slowly moving to eradicate Hezbollah from its midst or was Hezbollah growing stronger and stronger?

We know this about terrorists groups: As nature abhors a vacuum, terrorists thrive in them - that is where they grow and empower themselves.



And at least since Israel left Lebanon six years ago, Hezbollah has not gotten weaker. Further, if Hezbollah had believed Lebanon was constricting it rather than allowing it to thrive, it would not have launched an incursion into Israel.

Nonetheless, Israel has not deliberately targeted the Lebanese government. Still, the question arises, however, that if the U.S. sides alone with Israel, would that not be a terrible message to send to the broader Middle East democracy initiative. This is the question that is the most lopsided of them all.

We have long believed that, paraphrasing former CIA director Jim Woolsey, democracy is not one vote, one time. Israel is in the Middle East and is a democracy that passes the Woolsey test and has done so for almost 60 years.



Lebanon has had one election in recent times and it weaved Hezbollah into that democracy. The PA had an election and it put Hamas in charge. It seems to us that if one wants to further the Middle East democracy project - and not be cynical about it - the U.S. is doing precisely what it should: showing support for the established democracy, not the fragile and inept one that allows, tolerates or - at a minimum - turned a blind eye to Hezbollah in its midst.



At the end of the day, if Middle Eastern democracies are desired, and they are, does one not want models to point to? What model should the U.S. be pointing to to the Iranian dissidents, the Egyptian dissidents, the Saudi dissidents? Would we be right to say, "Vote and behave like they did in Lebanon, and erect a government like that (where 400,000 people live under Hezbollah control)," or "Look at Israel: It comes to the aid of others around the world, it has a minority population with full democratic rights that even serve in government, and its economy, free of oil, works."

It may be wishful thinking to assume Arab peoples will fully want Israel as their model, indeed it is probably naive. Nonetheless, if the U.S. is to be held accountable for initiating and supporting democracies, the one that is one year old and hosts Hezbollah is not the model we should be propagating. So the next time the question is asked about the Middle East democracy project in light of Israel, Lebanon, and the Middle East - the reminder needs to be made: Israel is a democracy and it is in the Middle East. And one final point: If Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran were to be victorious in their military actions and ideology, two things would not exist: 1) Israel and 2) Lebanese democracy of any kind.

- William Bennett is the Washington fellow of the Claremont Institute, the author of America: The Last Best Hope, and the host of Bill Bennett's Morning in America. Seth Leibsohn is a fellow of the Claremont Institute and the producer of Bill Bennett's Morning in America.

Nine days ago, the Israeli army ordered the inhabitants of a neighbouring village, Marwaheen, to leave their homes and then fired rockets into one of their evacuation trucks, blasting the women and children inside to their deaths. And this is the same Israeli air force which was praised last week by one of Israel's greatest defenders - Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz - because it "takes extraordinary steps to minimise civilian casualties".

Nor have the Israelis spared Sidon. A heap of rubble and pancaked walls is all that is left of the Fatima Zahra mosque, a Hizbollah institution in the centre of the city, its minaret crumbled and its dome now sitting on the concrete, a black flag still flying from its top. When Israeli warplanes came early yesterday morning, the 75-year-old caretaker had no time to run from the building; he died of his wounds hours later. His overturned white plastic chair still lies by the gate. The mosque is unlikely to have been used for military purposes; a school belonging to the Hariris, Sidon's all-powerful Sunni family, stands next door; they would never have allowed weapons into the building.

Not that Hizbollah - which killed two more Israeli civilians with their rockets in Haifa yesterday - have respected Sidon, whose population is 95 per cent Sunni. They tried to fire Iranian-made missiles at Israel from the seafront Corniche and from beside the city slaughterhouse last week. On both occasions, residents physically prevented them from opening fire.

The multimillion-dollar Hariri Foundation - created by the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated last year - has helped 24,000 Shia refugees out of the south and on to Beirut but its generosity has not always been happily received. One group of refugees sheltering in a technical school in Meheniyeh punched and taunted Hariri workers. Elsewhere, the foundation's staff have been cursed by fleeing families. "They are telling us that we are working for the Americans and that this is why we are taking them out," said Ghena Hariri - Rafik's niece and a Georgetown graduate. "It is something that drains our energy. We are working 24 hours a day and at the end of the day they curse us. But I feel so sorry for them. Now they are being told by the Israelis to leave their villages on foot and they have to walk dozens of kilometres in this heat."

It's not difficult to see how this war can damage the delicate sectarian framework that exists in Lebanon. One group of Shia families - housed in a school in the Druze mountains of the Chouf - tried to put Hizbollah's yellow banners on the roof and members of Walid Jumblatt's Druze Popular Socialist Party had to tear them down. Their act may have saved the refugees' lives.

Yet many of the Shia in this beautiful Crusader port have learnt how kind their Sunni neighbours can be. "We are here - where else can we go?" Nazek Kadnah asked as she sat in the corner of a mosque which Rafik Hariri built and dedicated to his father, Haj Baha'udin Hariri. "But they look after us here as their brothers and sisters and now we are safe."

These sentiments provoke some dark questions. Why, for example, can't these poor people be shown the same compassion from Tony Blair as he supposedly felt for the Muslims of Kosovo when they were being driven from their homes by the Serbs? These thousands are as terrified and homeless as the Kosovo Albanians who fled to Macedonia in 1998 and for whom Mr Blair claimed he was waging a moral war. But for the Shia Muslims sleeping homeless in Sidon there is to be no such moral posturing - and no ceasefire suggestions from Mr Blair, who has aligned himself with the Israelis and the Americans.

And what exactly is the purpose of driving more than half a million people from their homes? Many of these poor people sit clutching their front-door keys, just as the Palestinians of Galilee did when they arrived in Lebanon 58 years ago to spend the rest of their lives as refugees. Yes, the Shia Muslims of Lebanon probably will go home. But to what? A war between the Hizbollah and a Western intervention force? Or further bombardment by the Israelis?

The Sidon refugees now have 36 schools in which they can shelter - but they are the lucky ones. Across southern Lebanon, the innocent continued to die. One was an eight-year-old boy who was killed in an Israeli air raid on a village close to Tyre. Eight more civilians were wounded when an Israeli missile hit a vehicle outside the Najem hospital in Tyre. And during the morning, one of Lebanon's journalists, Layal Nejib, a photographer for the magazine Al-Jaras whose pictures were also transmitted by Agence France Press, was killed in her taxi by an Israeli air strike near Qana, the same village in which 106 civilians were massacred in a UN base by Israeli artillery shells in 1996. She was only 23.

In her marble-walled home above Sidon, Bahia Hariri - Ghena's mother, the sister of the murdered former prime minister and a local member of parliament - sat grim-faced, scarcely controlling her fury. "We are in this terrible situation but we haven't any window to resolve this situation," she said. "Rafik Hariri is no longer with us. The international community is not with us. Who is with us? God. And the old Lebanese. And the Arab world, we hope, will help us. The only resistance we can show is to be a united Lebanon. But we have only a small margin in which to dream."

The mad fanatics, belonging to the Iranian Martyrs of Islam World Movement, have been training for months to wreak maximum havoc on military and soft civilian targets. Their aim is to spark terror which will detonate all-out war and suck Western nations into a final bloody showdown.

A spokesman for the martyrs group said yesterday: "Two teams of 18 and nine have gone to Syria separately.

"They have been deployed on a voluntary basis in order to get to the areas of conflict in any way they can."

The man, named only as Mohammadi, claimed the 27 were picked from 55,000 who registered in Iran. They were briefed and have completed the "relevant courses" so that they could perform both military services and helping the wounded.

Mohammadi added: "If Israel would decide to occupy Lebanon again, they will carry out martyrdom-seeking operations."

The would-be bombers are also trained to recruit local volunteers and create new cells of suicide attackers.

All of them are fluent in Persian and Arabic, and some speak English.

Mohammadi insisted that the MIWM group has no links with Lebanon's Hezbollah. Another Iranian source close to the group, named as Mohammad Ali Samadi declared: "The first two groups of esteshhadioun (volunteers of martyrdom) have already reached Lebanon.

"They have received adequate training to fight beside their Lebanese brothers. They will identify Zionist targets and attack them with actions of martyrdom."

The fanatics also aim to avenge deaths and injuries to people like those caught in the Israeli air strikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre.

The deployment of suicide squads will strengthen US claims that Iran is the power behind the current turmoil in Lebanon.

Security has been stepped up amid fears of suicide attacks on soft targets in Beirut and areas close to the Israeli border where fighting is raging. A Lebanese security official said: "It is the nightmare we've been dreading."

Israeli troops yesterday seized two Hezbollah guerrillas during fighting in Maroun al-Ras.

The death toll in the conflict continues to mount. At least three people died when Israeli warplanes struck a minibus carrying 16 villagers fleeing from Tairi in Lebanon.

Hezbollah continued rocket attacks across northern Israel. Two people died as more than a dozen missiles hit Haifa. One was killed in a factory - on the day residents returned to work after a week of sheltering from the bombing.

A total of 17 Israelis have been killed by Hezbollah rockets and 19 Israeli troops have died. And 381 Lebanese have been killed.

A UN observer was injured in the crossfire. Italian Capt Roberto Punzo was hit in the stomach by shrapnel. He was last night undergoing surgery.

The administration's recent statements that it is now willing to negotiate with Iran might appear as a change or modification of its plans to launch a military strike against that country. But a closer reading of those statements indicates otherwise: such pronouncements are premised on the condition that, as President Bush recently put it, "the Iranian regime fully and verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment." In light of the fact that suspension of uranium enrichment, which is nothing beyond Iran's legitimate rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), is supposed to be the main point of negotiation, Iran is asked, in effect, "to concede the main point of the negotiations before they started." [2]

Military professionals question the administration's plans of a bombing campaign against Iran on a number of grounds. For one thing, they doubt that, beyond a lot of death and destruction, the projected bombing raids can accomplish much, i.e., destroy Iran's nuclear program. For another, they caution that the bombing campaign could be very costly in terms of military, economic, and geopolitical interests of the United States in the region and beyond. More importantly, however, the professionals' opposition to the administration's bombing plans stems from the fact that, points out the renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, "American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine [nuclear] activities or hidden facilities" in Iran. Hersh further writes, "A former senior intelligence official told me that people in the Pentagon were asking, 'What's the evidence? We've got a million tentacles out there, overt and covert, and these guys'-the Iranians-'have been working on this for eighteen years, and we have nothing? We're coming up with jack shit.'" [3]

So far, the jingoistic civilian leaders do not seem to have been swayed by the expert advice of their military experts. And the discord over Iran policy continues.

Some observers have attributed the conflict to Rumsfeld's uneasy relationship with the military hierarchy, arguing that his cavalier attitude and unwillingness to accept responsibility are the main reasons for the ongoing friction between the military and civilian leadership. While there are clear elements of truth to this explanation, it leaves out some more fundamental reasons for the discord. There is a deeper and more general historical pattern-often shaped by the economics of war-to the recurring disagreements between the military and militaristic civilian leaders over issues of war and peace. Let me elaborate on this point.

Evidence shows that business or economic beneficiaries of war, who do not have to face direct combat and death, tend to be more jingoistic than professional military personnel who will have to face the horrors of warfare. Furthermore, military professionals tend to care more about the outcome of a war and "military honor" than civilian leaders who often represent some powerful economic interests that benefit from the business of war. Calling such business and/or ideologically-driven war mongers "civilian militarists," military historian Alfred Vagts points to a number of historical instances of how civilian militarists' eagerness to use military force for their nefarious interests often led "to an intensification of the horrors of warfare." For example, he points out how in World War II "civilians not only anticipated war more eagerly than the professionals, but played a principal part in making combat . . . more terrible than was the current military wont or habit." [4]

The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq serves as another blatant example of civilian militarists' instigation of war in pursuit of economic and geopolitical gains. A number of belatedly surfaced documents reveal that not only were the civilian militarists, representing powerful business and geopolitical interests, behind the invasion of Iraq, but that they also advocated a prolonged occupation of that country in order to avail their legal and economic "experts" the time needed to overhaul that country's economy according to a restructuring plan that they had drawn up long before the invasion. One such document, titled "Moving the Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Growth," was obtained from the State Department by the well-known investigative reporter Greg Palast. The document, also called the "Economy Plan," was part of a largely secret program called "The Iraq Strategy."

Here is how Palast describes the plan: "The Economy Plan goes boldly where no invasion plan has gone before: the complete rewrite, it says, of a conquered state's 'policies, laws and regulations.' Here's what you'll find in the Plan: a highly detailed program . . . for imposing a new regime of low taxes on big business, and quick sales of Iraq's banks and bridges-in fact, 'ALL state enterprises'-to foreign operators. . . . Beginning on page 73, the secret drafters emphasized that Iraq would have to 'privatize' (i.e., sell off) its 'oil and supporting industries.'" [5]

After a detailed account and analysis of the plan, Palast concludes, "If the Economy Plan reads like a Christmas wish-list drafted by U.S. corporate lobbyists, that's because it was. From slashing taxes to wiping away Iraq's tariffs (taxes on imports of U.S. and other foreign goods), the package carries the unmistakable fingerprints of the small, soft hands of Grover Norquist."

Grover Norquist, once registered as a lobbyist for Microsoft and American Express, is one of many corporate lobbyists who helped shape the Economy Plan for the "new" Iraq. In an interview with Palast, Norquist boasted of moving freely at the Treasury, Defense and State Departments, and in the White House, "shaping the post-conquest economic plans...."

The Economy Plan's "Annex D" laid out "a strict 360-day schedule for the free-market makeover of Iraq." But General Jay Garner, the initially-designated ruler of Iraq, had promised Iraqis they would have free and fair elections as soon as Saddam was toppled, preferably within 90 days. In the face of this conflict, civilian militarists of the Bush administration overruled General Garner: elections were postponed-as usual, on grounds that the local population and/or conditions were not yet ripe for elections. The real reason for the postponement, however, was that, as Palast points out, "It was simply inconceivable that any popularly elected government would let America write its laws and auction off the nation's crown jewel, its petroleum industry."

When Palast asked lobbyist Norquist about the postponement of the elections, he responded matter of factly: "The right to trade, property rights, these things are not to be determined by some democratic election." The troops would simply have to wait longer.

General Garner's resistance to the plan to postpone the elections was a major factor for his sudden replacement with Paul Bremmer who, having served as managing director of Kissinger Associates, better understood the corporate culture. Soon after assuming power in Saddam Hussein's old palace, Bremmer cancelled Garner's scheduled meeting of Iraq's tribal leaders that was called to plan national elections. Instead, he appointed the entire "government" himself. National elections, Bremmer pronounced, would have to wait until 2005. "The delay would, incidentally, provide," Palast notes, "time needed to lock in the laws, regulations and irreversible sales of assets in accordance with the Economy Plan. . . . Altogether, the leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority issued exactly 100 orders that remade Iraq in the image of the Economy Plan."

Palast's report is by no means an isolated or exceptional story. It is part of a historical pattern of how or why civilian militarists, often representing powerful interests of the beneficiaries of war, tend to be more belligerent than the professional military. The report also shows that, contrary to popular perceptions, the jingoistic neoconservative forces in and around the Bush administration are not simply a bunch of starry-eyed ideologues bent on "spreading U.S. values." More importantly, they represent influential economic and geopolitical interests that are camouflaged behind the façade of the neoconservatives' rhetoric and their alleged ideals of democracy.

There is clear evidence that the leading neoconservative figures have been long-time political activists who have worked through a network of war-mongering think tanks that are set up to serve either as the armaments lobby or the Israeli lobby or both. These corporate-backed militaristic think tanks include Project for the New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, Center for Security Policy, Middle East Media Research Institute, Middle East Forum, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and National Institute for Public Policy. Major components of the Bush administration's foreign policy, including the war on Iraq, have been designed largely at the drawing boards of these think thanks, often in collaboration, directly or indirectly, with the Pentagon and the arms lobby. [6]

Even a cursory look at the records of these militaristic think tanks-their membership, their financial sources, their institutional structures, and the like-shows that they are set up to essentially serve as institutional fronts to camouflage the dubious relationship between the Pentagon, its major contractors, and the Israeli lobby, on the one hand, and the war-mongering neoconservative politicians, on the other. More critically, this unsavory relationship also shows that powerful interests that benefit from war are also essentially the same powers that can-and indeed do-make war. Additionally, it explains why civilian militarists are so eager to foment war and international tensions.

By the same token, the incestuous relationship between war beneficiaries and war makers goes some way to explain the increasing tensions between the military and civilian militarists in and around the Bush administration, especially in the context of the administration's plans to bomb Iran. When contemplating war plans, military commanders make some critically important decisions that seem to be of no or very little significance to civilian leaders. Not only the military will have to face direct combat, death, and destruction, but perhaps more importantly, the commanders will have to think very carefully about the outcome of the war and the chances of victory, that is, the of honor and pride of the military.

By contrast, the primary concern and the measure of success for civilian militarists lie in the mere act or continuation of war, as this would ensure increased military spending and higher dividends for military industries and war-induced businesses. In other words, the standard of success for corporate beneficiaries of war, which operate from behind the façade of neoconservative forces in and around the Bush administration, is based more on business profitability than on the conventional military success on the battle field. This is a clear indication of the fact that, for example, while from a military point of view the war on Iraq has been a fiasco, from the standpoint of the powerful beneficiaries of the Pentagon budget it has been a boon and a huge success. This explains, perhaps more than anything ales, the ongoing tensions between the military and militaristic civilian leaders, or chicken hawks.
_________________________________________

References:

1. Seymour M. Hersh, "The military's problem with the President's Iran policy," The New Yorker (July 10, 2006): http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060710fa_fact
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism: Civilian and Military (London: Hollis & Carter, 1959), P. 463.
5. Greg Palast, "Adventure Capitalism," TomPaine.com (October 26, 2004): http://www.tompaine.com/articles/adventure_capitalism.php
6. William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, "The Military-Industrial-Think Tank Complex," International Monitor (January-February 2003): http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03jan-feb/jan-feb03corp2.html#name

http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein-zadeh

Ismael Hossein-zadeh is a professor of economics at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He is the author of the newly published book, "The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism." His Web page is, http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein-zadeh

As we now know from similar reporting prior to the invasion of Iraq, it's quite possible that the war planning may indeed change repeatedly, and the war may again be postponed. In any case, it's worth noting that the information from a former Labour Minister corroborates expert analyses suggesting that Israel, with US and British support, is deliberately escalating the cycle of retaliation to legitimize the imminent targeting of Iran before year's end. Let us remind ourselves, for instance, of US Vice President Cheney's assertions recorded on MSNBC over a year ago. He described Iran as being "right at the top of the list" of "rogue states". He continued: "One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked... Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."

But the emphasis on Israel's pre-eminent role in a prospective assault on Iran is not accurate. Israel would rather play the role of a regional proxy force in a US-led campaign. "Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East..." reports Seymour Hersh. He quotes a former high-level US intelligence official as follows:

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah-we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."

Are these just the fanatical pipedreams of the neoconservative faction currently occupying (literally) the White House?

Unfortunately, no. The Iraq War was one such fanatical pipedream in the late 1990s, one that Bush administration officials were eagerly ruminating over when they were actively and directly involved in the Project for a New American Century. But that particular pipedream is now a terrible, gruelling reality for the Iraqi people. Despite the glaring failures of US efforts in that country, there appears to be a serious inability to recognize the futility of attempting the same in Iran.

The Monterey Institute for International Studies already showed nearly two years ago in a detailed analysis that the likely consequences of a strike on Iran by the US, Israel, or both, would be a regional conflagaration that could quickly turn nuclear, and spiral out of control. US and Israeli planners are no doubt aware of what could happen. Such a catastrophe would have irreversible ramifications for the global political economy. Energy security would be in tatters, precipitating the activation of long-standing contingency plans to invade and occupy all the major resource-rich areas of the Middle East and elsewhere (see my book published by Clairview, Behind the War on Terror for references and discussion). Such action could itself trigger responses from other major powers with fundamental interests in maintaining their own access to regional energy supplies, such as Russia and particularly China, which has huge interests in Iran. Simultaneously, the dollar-economy would be seriously undermined, most likely facing imminent collapse in the context of such crises.

Which raises pertinent questions about why Britain, the US and Israel are contemplating such a scenario as a viable way of securing their interests.

A glimpse of an answer lies in the fact that the post-9/11 military geostrategy of the "War on Terror" does not spring from a position of power, but rather from entirely the opposite. The global system has been crumbling under the weight of its own unsustainability for many years now, and we are fast approaching the convergence of multiple crises that are already interacting fatally as I write. The peak of world oil production, of which the Bush administration is well aware, either has already just happened, or is very close to happening. It is a pivotal event that signals the end of the Oil Age, for all intents and purposes, with escalating demand placing increasing pressure on dwindling supplies. Half the world's oil reserves are, more or less, depleted, which means that it will be technologically, geophysically, increasingly difficult to extract conventional oil. I had a chat last week with some scientists from the Omega Institute in Brighton, directed by my colleague and friend Graham Ennis, who told me eloquently and powerfully what I already knew, that while a number of climate "tipping-points" may or may not have yet been passed, we have about 10-15 years before the "tipping-point" is breached certainly and irreversibly. Breaching that point means plunging head-first into full-scale "climate catastrophe". Amidst this looming Armageddon of Nature, the dollar-denominated economy itself has been teetering on the edge of spiralling collapse for the last seven years or more. This is not idle speculation. A financial analyst as senior as Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan's immediate predecessor as chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently confessed "that he thought there was a 75% chance of a currency crisis in the United States within five years."

There appears to have been a cold calculation made at senior levels within the Anglo-American policymaking establishment: that the system is dying, but the last remaining viable means of sustaining it remains a fundamentally military solution designed to reconfigure and rehabilitate the system to continue to meet the requirements of the interlocking circuits of military-corporate power and profit.

The highly respected US whistleblower, former RAND strategic analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who was Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam conflict and became famous after leaking the Pentagon Papers, has already warned of his fears that in the event of "another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners and their quote 'sympathizers', critics of the President's policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."

So is that what all the "emergency preparedness" legislation, here in the UK as well as in the USA and in Europea, is all about? The US plans are bad enough, as Ellsberg notes, but the plans UK scene is hardly better, prompting The Guardian to describe the Civil Contingencies Bill (passed as an Act in 2004) as "the greatest threat to civil liberty that any parliament is ever likely to consider."

As global crises converge over the next few years, we the people are faced with an unprecedented opportunity to use the growing awareness of the inherent inhumanity and comprehensive destructiveness of the global imperial system to establish new, viable, sustainable and humane ways of living.



www.independentinquiry.co.uk

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (London: Duckworth, 2006). He teaches courses in International Relations at the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, where he is doing his PhD studying imperialism and genocide. Since 9/11, he has authored three other books revealing the realpolitik behind the rhetoric of the "War on Terror", The War on Freedom, Behind the War on Terror and The War on Truth. In summer 2005, he testified as an expert witness in US Congress about his research on international terrorism

As recently as July 12, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered a veiled warning to Tehran on enrichment and its refusal to respond to an international offer to negotiate its nuclear program, saying the Security Council "will consider steps appropriate to the situation" if the Islamic republic does not comply.

The council has the power to impose political or economic sanctions.

Lavrov and his counterparts from the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany agreed that day to resume Security Council deliberations after Tehran refused requests to respond by that date to an international package of rewards in exchange for an enrichment freeze and other nuclear concessions.

Work on a resolution was suspended May 3 so the six powers could draw up a plan of perks for Iran to freeze enrichment and start talks meant to secure its agreement to a long-term moratorium on the activity, which can produce material for atomic weapons as well as fuel for reactors.

The incentives include advanced technology and the easing of U.S. sanctions on the sale of aircraft and aircraft parts.

While Iran argues it has a right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to use the technology to generate power, there is increasing international concern that Tehran wants to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels for use in the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

The United States, Britain and France are insisting on a freeze.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the dispute, told The Associated Press there was no indication what was dictating the apparent change in Russian tactics.

But it could be as simple as Moscow's belief that Tehran would not give up its right to enrichment. If so, any resolution demanding it do so and threatening penalties if it does not would escalate the confrontation - something the Russians fear could lead to military action.

A draft resolution drawn up by Britain and France and circulated last week among most members of the 15-nation council demands that Tehran "suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities ... and suspend the construction" of its heavy water reactor, which can produce plutonium.

One of the diplomats said that demand reflected the agreement among Russia and the five other nations at the July 12 meeting in the French capital but Moscow now was "trying to distance itself from the Paris declaration."

"They now want to water down the text," the diplomat said.

When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travels to the Middle East she should present, not dictate, a diplomatic package to all, not selective, Middle East parties involved directly and indirectly. In doing so she addresses the US-diplomatic crisis in the region. If the US selectively addresses the underlying causes of the violence and ignores the multifaceted, Anglo-involvement in Middle East history; and if the US does not acknowledge all Middle East peoples, there will not be peace in the Middle East.

There is a Middle East war on many fronts and no country or state is safe.


Media Coverage Absent from US Media Coverage

There are media reports claiming Israel has been allegedly interfering with Palestinian airwaves and that the world is apparently not receiving the complete story of what happened in Nazareth earlier this week. In Gaza, Palestinian photographer Mohammad Az Zanoun, was shot by Israeli forces in Gaza. Of course Americans do not see the gruesome images of the war in Lebanon. I have seen a few dozen images. Scorched pieces of torsos, with remnants of organs, legs, limbs. Here is an IMEMC link to a graphic, AP photo of a dead child. The mass destruction of high-level apartment buildings is unbelievable.

And yet the US media does not cover the devastated, civilian infrastructure for Palestinians, especially in Gaza, and the ramifications Israeli occupation has on the Palestinians and potentially the Palestinian Authority. Moreover the humanitarian crisis affects the medical situation within Palestinian hospitals, especially in Gaza.

Although Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has called for humanitarian assistance and an immediate cease-fire, I am not sure what humanitarian corridor Israel will provide considering the damage Israeli F16 warplanes have done to roads and bridges leading to Syria. Naval ships in Beirut ports are evacuating internationals, how that will help Lebanese citizens and Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon is another matter.
Washington has chosen to delay travel to the Middle East to prevent the appearance of "shuttling." Yet calls for an immediate cease-fire by political leaders, have gone unanswered.

Of course, Hezbollah's attacks on Northern Israel with Katyusha rockets continued throughout the week also.

Both Israel and Hezbollah may face war crimes-charges by the UN. Here is a link to a recent BBC interview with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.

Several US media sources have reported that Hezbollah used Iranian-made missiles in their attacks in Northern Israel, and that Syria enabled transport access to Lebanon. Stateside the Muslim American Society is pursuing potential legal action with respect to the United States Arms Export Control Act and Israel for "...using American weapons to attack Lebanon and Gaza's civilians and civilian infrastructure."

International media sources Aljazeera, Maan News Agency and the Palestine News Network, along with US media source the Wayne Madsen Report, which contains an interesting photo and detailed diagram, have reported that Israeli forces have allegedly used poison gas and depleted uranium in Southern Lebanon, and they have allegedly used chemical ammunition in Gaza.


US Congress and the American Public Minority

On Thursday, Congress passed H. Res. 921 and S. Res. 534. The bill's title, "Condemning the recent attacks against the State of Israel, holding terrorists and their state-sponsors accountable for such attacks, supporting Israel's right to defend itself, and for other purposes," passed with a staggering 410 yeas in the House and a unanimous voice vote in the Senate. Here is a link to H. Res. 921.

An ADC press release responded to Congress' vote by explaining, "These resolutions give unconditional American support to Israel's military siege on civilian populations in Lebanon and Gaza."

For the past, two weeks several demonstrations have taken place across major cities in the US, as reported by workers.org. Protesters called for the end of Israel's attacks in Gaza and Lebanon. In Chicago, the demonstration was met with a counterdemonstration.

More demonstrations in the US and worldwide are scheduled today and in the weeks ahead.


The World's Future

War brings social, economic and psychological devastation, as well as disintegrates society. It kills people and turns the world against its own humanity. Since power, greed and control is the master whatever gains the superpowers think they will have are short-term, including their potential plans for the region, but the destruction of civilization is the long-term consequence.

Iraq is the cradle of civilization and on its way to becoming the grave. What is happening to Iraqi women is heartbreaking. When Iraqi women toured the US in March 2005, they gave their first-hand accounts. Even though all Iraqis face grave danger on a daily basis and thousands of Iraqis have sought refuge in neighboring countries, the plight of the Assyrians has been for the most part, ignored by Western media. Media coverage of Iraqi suffering and devastation is absent from Western media.

One of the many challenges the public faces in relation to the Middle East crisis is the one-sided media coverage. Moreover, a lack of historical context exists, as war journalist Robert Fisk explained in his 2005 book tour in the US.

After listening to US media reports of the Middle East crisis there is a sidestepping of the non-Israeli narratives, as if the Middle East's indigenous people existed in a vacuum. When some Arab, Middle East experts are interviewed the line of questioning places interviewees in the defense position. At best, they are free to talk more during controversial discussions with pro-Israel, Middle East experts.

At the end of the day, everyone who inhabits the Middle East is equal. The fact that inequality exists and it has not been resolved will always breed conflict and violence. In the multiple equations that explain the Middle East, which show the effects of occupation, oppression, power, greed, the prospects for a diplomatic solution are grim.

Instead of destroying bridges we should be building them.

Sonia Nettnin writes about social, political, economic, and cultural issues. Her focus is the Middle East.