One of the world's top spies has warned major world cities are at risk of a fresh September 11-style terrorist attack within the next decade.

And he feared a scenario in which a nuclear device was triggered.

Efraim Halevy, former head of Israel's top-secret national intelligence group Mossad, also warned Western societies like Australia were fighting international terrorism "with one arm tied behind their backs".

Mr Halevy said complacency was not an option, despite some recent setbacks for terror organisations.

"I believe the terrorist threat internationally is still a very omnipresent one," he said.

"Despite setbacks al-Qaeda and its proxies have suffered, especially in the allied operations in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, the threat is very present."

This left open prospects of mass-scale terror.

The "War on Terror" does not exist. It never has. We only perceive the West's current conflict, against Islamic Fundamentalism, as a "war on terror" because it has been framed as such. The very language we use to discuss this conflict - the terms, the definitions - was chosen by U.S. political leaders. The language was then adopted by every media outlet in America. And it has therefore structured every imaginable discourse since - from debates on the nightly news, to coffee shop arguments between co-eds. It has also informed, shaped, and driven almost every US domestic and foreign policy since 9/11. And as such, this horrifically false vocabulary has completely distorted reality for the entire population of the United States. Our politicians and citizens, thus, have been debating an illusion. But this illusion was necessary, from one perspective. To name "Islamic fundamentalism" as the enemy was not only seen as implying a US Holy War - but, also, to do so could potentially force American society into social collapse. And this may still happen.

The False Language

Let us start with the terminology. The very concept of a "war on terror" is nonsensical and self-contradictory. War, itself, is terrorism. Remember the minimal definition of "terrorism" is this: the use of fear and intimidation to psychologically paralyze an enemy into submission, in order to achieve strategic and political ends. This phenomenon has been implemented by the US, through one means or another, in every war the United States has ever fought. Terrorism is a tactic used in any war. And it need not even cause deaths - as long as it achieves "fear and intimidation" in the enemy. Thus, the American military's own "Shock and Awe" strategy, in the 2003 Iraq War, is a perfect example of terrorism. In the end, to declare "war on terrorism" is as absurd as declaring a "war on air power".

So, this global conflict is not a war "on terror". And history shows the anomaly in using such a phrase. In past global conflicts, The United States always named the specific ideology of the enemy. For instance, in WWII the nemesis was fascism; in the Cold War the nemesis was soviet communism. This made political sense. It focused on the belief system of the enemy, which ideologically distinguished the enemy's philosophy from that of United States'. It made the conflict's division clear and understandable. But we do not get that kind of clarity with "war on terror".

Let us clarify the issue further. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are currently the focal targets for the US War on Terror - along with other ideologically linked organizations. And the ideology that links them is "Islamic Fundamentalism". Thus, we arrive at an accurate term for this conflict: "War on Islamic Fundamentalism", like war on "fascism" or "communism".

But the Bush Administration was cleaver in this respect. It knew the potential public relations disaster it could have if it adopted this clear language. Hence it chose the flawed "Terror" verbiage. After all, political rhetoric, containing both "Islamic" and "War on", could give the impression that the Christian US was waging a Holy War. Incidentally - as Noam Chomsky has pointed out - this logic also led the Administration to toss North Korea into the "Axis of Evil", to avoid having only Islamic Middle Eastern nations under this label.

I am Israel. I came to a land without a people for a people without a land. Those people who happened to be here, had no right to be here and my people showed them they had to leave or die, razing 480 Palestinian villages to the ground, erasing their history.

I am Israel. Some of my people committed massacres and later became prime ministers to represent me. In 1948, Menachem Begin was in charge of the unit that slaughtered the inhabitants of Deir Yassin, including 100 men, wome, and children. In 1953, Ariel Sharon led the slaughter of the inhabitants of Qibya, and in 1982 arranged for our allies to butcher around 2,000 in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla.

War Is A Racket

War is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

Israeli photos depicting shipping documents pointing to an alleged Iranian arms delivery to Hezbollah are forgeries, Iranian media claims.

The Israeli army in early November said it unloaded 36 containers of weapons at the Israeli port of Ashdod from the Antigua-flagged vessel Francop.

Thirty tons of weapons, rockets, missiles, hand grenades and ammunition were hidden behind thousands of plastic polyethylene bags, the army said.

Israel claimed the Iranian- and Russian-made arms were due to be unloaded in the Syrian port of Latakia and from there transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon.