NEWS,01.AND 02.03.2013

Senators Push Promise to Support Israeli Strikes on Iran

 

New legislation introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) calls for the U.S. to provide military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israel should its government decide to launch military strikes on Iran. The measure would effectively signal that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can decide not just whether to enter Israel into war with Iran, but whether the United States enters such a war. It comes as tentative diplomatic progress was reported from negotiations involving the U.S. and Iran.The unprecedented measure is being unveiled as part of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference this weekend in Washington, DC, that will bring thousands of the group's supporters to push the measure on Capitol Hill. The group will also support a new sanctions bill in the House that could authorize the U.S. to sanction companies, including in Europe and Asia, for any commercial dealings with Iran. That measure has raised concerns about further exacerbating medicine shortages impacting the people of Iran.The Graham resolution is framed as a non-binding measure aimed at encouraging the President to implement and escalate sanctions on Iran. But the final clause "urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence."Senator Graham has made clear that "self defense" can be defined as preventive war based on redlines that Netanayahu has established that contradict President Obama's stated policy.Graham initially announced the resolution during the 2012 Election campaign as a challenge to President Obama's comments that he "has Israel's back" and said his resolution would clarify that "in the event Israel had to take preventive action, we would have their back" in terms of military, financial, and diplomatic support.In discussing his planned resolution, he made clear that Israel has a different set of military capabilities than the U.S., but that his measure would compel the U.S. to take action based on Tel Aviv's window instead of Washington's. "There are two different clocks here, the Washington clock and the Tel Aviv clock...The Israelis are not going to let the window close on their ability to slow down this program. They're going to act... They're going to control their own destiny."The measure may raise a red flag for the Pentagon, which has been concerned that Israel could draw the U.S. into a war against the authority of the President and his military leadership. Joint Chiefs Chairman Dempsey explicitly warned last year that he does not want the U.S. to be "complicit" in an Israeli strike. The Pentagon also conducted a simulation last March that determined and Israeli strike on Iran would draw in the U.S. and leave hundreds of Americans dead in the immediate aftermath. The Pentagon leaked the report to the press, in a move widely viewed as seeking to stop Netanyahu from pushing the U.S. into war.Military leaders from both Israel and the United States have warned in dire terms that strikes on Iran would only delay the nuclear program and make it more likely that Iran would build a weapon. Former Joint Chiefs Chairman James Cartwright recently stated that such action would require "tens of years" of military occupation by the U.S. Others have noted that such action would require as many as one million troops. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said "such an attack would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable."The Graham-Menendez resolution also "reiterates that the policy of the United States is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon capability and to take such action as may be necessary to implement this policy." However, this is not the policy of the United States. AIPAC last year pushed measures in Congress to attempt to change that, and managed to pass them in both chambers. But the measure never was sent to the White House and did not become policy. The President pointedly stated at AIPAC's convention last year that preventing nuclear weapon acquisition, not capability, was his policy. That message has apparently been ignored.

Hugo Chavez Chemotherapy: Venezuela Says President Receiving Treatment For Cancer Again

 

President Hugo Chavez has been receiving chemotherapy since recovering from a severe respiratory infection in mid-January and "continues his battle for life," his vice president said late Friday.Vice President Nicolas Maduro suggested the chemotherapy was continuing in the government's first mention of it as among treatments that Venezuela's cancer-stricken president has received since his Dec. 11 cancer surgery in Cuba. Maduro made the disclosure after a Mass for Chavez in a new chapel outside the military hospital where authorities say the socialist leader has been since being flown back to Caracas on Feb. 18.The vice president quoted Chavez as saying he decided to return to Venezuela because he was entering "a new phase" of "more intense and tough" treatments and wanted to be in Caracas for them.Maduro's offering of the most detailed rundown to date of Chavez's post-operative struggle came hours after an accusation by opposition leader Henrique Capriles that the government has repeatedly lied about Chavez's condition."We'll see how they explain to the country in the (coming) days all the lies they've been telling about the president's situation," Capriles, whom Chavez defeated in Oct. 7 elections, said in a tweet.Chavez has not been seen nor heard from since going to Cuba for his fourth cancer surgery, except for a set of "proof of life" photos released Feb. 15 while he was still in Havana.Chavez first revealed an unspecified cancer in the pelvic region in June 2011, and reported undergoing radiation treatment and chemotherapy after earlier operations.The government has sent mixed signals on Chavez's condition, although Maduro has said several times that Chavez was battling for his life. He repeated that Friday, and also accused opponents of spreading rumors about Chavez's health to destabilize the nation.Maduro, Chavez's chosen successor, said his boss' condition was extremely delicate over New Year's as he battled a respiratory infection that required a tracheal tube."In mid-January he was improving, the infection could be controlled, but he continued with problems of respiratory insufficiency. Afterward, there was a general improvement, and the doctors along with President Chavez decided to initiate complementary treatments," Maduro said."You know what the complementary treatments are, right? They are chemotherapy that is applied to patients after operations."Cancer specialists couldn't be reached immediately for comment on Maduro's announcement. But oncologists have said that chemotherapy is sometimes given to slow a cancer's progression, ease symptoms and extend a patient's life.The opposition says Chavez should either be sworn in for the new term he won in the election or declare himself incapable and call a new election. The constitution says he should have been sworn in on Jan. 10, but Venezuela's Supreme Court said it was OK to wait.Earlier Friday, Maduro accused the Spanish newspaper ABC and Colombia's Caracol network of spreading lies about Chavez's condition.ABC said without specifying its source that Chavez's cancer had spread to a lung. It said he had been moved to an island compound in the Caribbean.Chavez's son-in-law, Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, said on state TV that Chavez continues "to fight hard and is in the military hospital, as peaceful as he could be, with his doctors, with his family."

Italy's Democratic Triumph

Italy's most recent election is further proof that democracy works.The election in which Italian citizens ignored the 'sensible' center parties, gave a large mass of votes to a political coalition recently organized by a comedian. The election which created a divided government that has virtually no chance of forming a stable coalition. The election which has been roundly panned by pundits from The Atlantic to The Economist, from the Brookings Institution to The Daily Show. The election which caused a nose-dive in international markets. Yes, that election. As bad as it sounds on the surface, it was, in fact, a great triumph of democracy.You see, there is a reason that so many Italians voted for a protest party. They are in the midst of a terrible economic recession. For years, they have been told by European Union economic planners that the way out of this recession is to implement a series of austerity measures and as the recession gets worse each year, so must the austerity measures. These austerity measures, including tax increases and cuts to social services, are extremely unpopular. And just as importantly, the Italians feel that these measures are being imposed upon them from the outside; that the EU has successfully bullied the two major political parties in Italy to continue along the austerity path, despite the unpopularity of the austerity agenda.The political equation in Italy at the time of the election was: high unemployment  widespread belief that government is ignoring the needs of the citizenry public perception that things are only getting worse. In many countries that adds up to rioting, perhaps even a constitutional crisis or revolution, maybe some crackdowns by a government that gets nervous to hold onto its power and starts to fear that its citizenry will get too far out of hand. But instead, the Italians took their frustration, they went to the ballot box, and they voted. That's a triumph of democracy if there ever was one.Many pundits are criticizing the Italians for voting for the 'wrong' people. The pundits seem to think that the Italians ought to have voted in a way that has the least impact on international markets. But that's absurd. The Italian people don't answer to Wall Street. Instead, the Italian government answers to the Italian people a people who are angry, increasingly unemployed, and feeling ignored by the powers that control their fate. In the real world, the alternative to this "chaotic" election isn't a business-friendly utopia; it's weeks of rioting shutting down Rome, or even worse, the Arab Spring. So who cares if the Italian people voted for the 'wrong' parties? Yeah, maybe this election leaves the markets a little unstable, and maybe it means that Italy might need another election in six months. Those are pretty small complaints in the grand scheme of things. Or to put it another way, as poorly as the markets reacted to the Italian election, think about how poorly the markets would have reacted to rioters looting and pillaging their way through Rome. There is basically no other way that the Italian people could have vented their anger which would have led to a better market reaction and plenty of things they could have done to cause much more harm. Not only would most ways of expressing anger stall the economy and leave investors jittery, they would also cause damage to infrastructure and create costs for the already over-stressed Italian budget (e.g. cleaning up debris, rebuilding burned buildings, etc.). How do we know that democracy works? Because when faced with a situation that leads many countries dissolve into chaos, Italy's citizens were able to let off steam in a way that let the powers that be know the displeasure of the people, but which didn't shut the country down. Compared to the alternative, voting in a protest party is a credit to both the Italian people and to their democratic institutions.

An Unhealthy Nexus: Iran and Argentina

 

This week the Congress of Argentina is debating the approval of an agreement signed by Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, which aims to create a "Truth Commission" into the 1994 terrorist bombing attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires.By voting to approve the agreement majorities in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Congress have joined with President Kirchner in failing to act in the interest of the Argentine people and all those affected by this heinous terrorist attack; the deadliest terror attack in the Americas prior to 9/11. Argentina now seems set on a path of colluding with the those who stand accused as the perpetrators to replace the Argentine criminal justice process with a vague arrangement that will, at best, further delay justice and, at worst, result in a gross miscarriage of justice. How did we get to this point in which the Argentine government is party to a sham agreement with the Iranian regime? How did Argentina agree to allow Iran to injure the victims and their families again this time by disrespecting the memory of those citizens of Argentina who lost their lives and were injured.According to Argentinean and Iranian news reports, it seems the conversations began about two years ago. Foreign Minister Hector Timerman had been on record, several times condemning such allegations. His declarations now prove to be untrustworthy because reality proves different.It is hard to believe that Argentina will now play into the hands of the Iranians and collaborate with the world's most notorious state sponsor of terrorism. This agreement only serves the interests of the Iranian perpetrators in their nearly 20 year efforts to evade the consequences of their culpability in the attack and bypass the Argentine justice system. What troubles me more is that Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in her interest to defend this agreement goes to the point to intimidate the Jewish community through social media and challenges its leaders. Moreover, she implicitly exonerates the Iranian regime from any responsibility in case of a future terror attack. How can President Kirchner be so blind about who she is talking about?Iranian President Ahmadinejad's repeated anti-Semitic rants, outright Holocaust denial and statements calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" are a venomous expression of the contempt that the Iranian president has for the Jewish people.The extremism of the Iranian government is well understood by its citizens, its neighbors and the international community and goes far beyond rhetoric. We need to remind Argentina's government that in the aftermath of its 2009 elections, Iran showed its true colors. A regime that so blatantly denies the voice of its people by rigging an election and violently suppressing public outrage cannot be trusted on the international scene.At a time when the international community is sanctioning Iran over its nuclear aspirations, countries like Argentina, who have been direct targets of Iranian terror, should be at the forefront of isolating rather than engaging in a sham negotiation with its rogue regime.For more than 18 years the international community supported the Argentine government's efforts to investigate the AMIA bombing. We cannot support President Kirchner's intentions to turn away from pursuing justice for the victims.In the interest of the 85 innocent Argentinians killed, the hundreds more who were injured, Jews and non-Jews alike, and their families, justice needs to be served and it won't be through this agreement as Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and President Fernandez de Kirchner want us to believe.

The Second Battle of Marathon

 

The Second World War was the most destructive and bloody conflict of all times. Large and small countries fought bitterly to the end, killing millions of humans and causing immense devastation of both nature and societies. To some degree, WWII was also a holocaust of civilization.Germany and Italy started the war against other European countries in 1939 and 1940. Germany dealt with the countries of Western Europe and Italy started with Greece, which it attacked on October 28, 1940. The Greeks soundly defeated the invading Italians in the northern Greek province of Epirus and Albania. The Greek victory became the "first victory" of the Allies in WWII. This historical fact was so important in the evolution of WWII, indeed, largely determining the course of the war between Germany and Russia, and, therefore, the outcome of WWII, that it deserved its own history. It found its student in George Blytas, a Greek from Egypt who had an engineering career in America. Blytas' father was born in a village in Epirus, Sitaria, where fierce battles took place between Greeks and Italians. Blytas visited Sitaria in 1951. Eventually, he became a self-taught historian to record the events of the fateful 1940-1941 war between a large European country, Italy, successor to Rome and partner of Nazi Germany, and small Greece, successor of ancient Greece.Blytas spent 18 years in composing his story - a detailed narrative of war between Greeks and Italians and Germans in 16 chapters, and a record of the dreadful consequences of the occupation of Greece by Germans, Italians and Bulgarians in 8 chapters. The 24 chapters of the book represent the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.Blytas starts his account by quoting Hitler talking about WWII. Hitler acknowledged the Italian war against Greece was a bad idea. "The shameful defeats that the Italians suffered in their pointless campaign in Greece," Hitler said, "compelled us, contrary to our plans, to intervene in the Balkans primarily Greece, April 6, 1941, and that in turn led to a catastrophic delay in the launching of our attack on Russia."Blytas says Greece played a "crucial" and "defining" role in WWII. His book, "The First Victory" (Cosmos Publishing, 2009), backs him up. The Greek victory over the Italians was no small skirmish. Italy poured more than 500,000 soldiers supported by hundreds of tanks and warplanes. Then, starting on April 6, 1941, the Germans added even more troops, tanks and warplanes. All together, the Axis powers, Italy, Germany, Albania and Bulgaria, marshaled about 750,000 soldiers against Greece. The Greeks decimated the elite German paratroopers in Crete.WWII lasted for 72 months. The Allies failed in Europe where German troops captured Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark in less than 3 months. In the midst of this failure, Greece resisted the Axis powers for 7 months. This was, according to Blytas, an "astonishing achievement" hardly less important than the battle of Marathon. In 490 BCE, Athenians and Plataeans defeated a vastly larger invading Persian army, thus keeping Greece and Europe free from Persian occupation and slavery. The war and resistance of Greece to Italians and Germans in WWII also saved Europe from Nazi German occupation and slavery. "The battle of Greece," Says Blytas, "was the twentieth-century version of the battle of Marathon."The world watched Greek heroism against the armies of Mussolini with admiration. Blytas quotes President Roosevelt praising Greece. Speaking on October 28, 1943, the third anniversary of the Italian invasion of Greece, Roosevelt said Greece "set an example that every one of us must follow until the despoilers of freedom everywhere are brought to their just doom."The end of WWII brought partial doom to the despoilers of freedom. But the historians did not hear Roosevelt. They rushed defending the strong powers and ignored Greece. Indeed, they neglected the strategic role Greek resistance to Italy and Germany had in the delayed German attack on Russia, which led to the defeat of Germany. They also distorted the first victory of Greece, suggesting British troops made that possible. Not a single British soldier, Blytas says, was in continental Greece in the winter of 1940.For these reasons read "The First Victory." It is the first scholarly treatment of what Greece did and suffered in WWII. The story Blytas tells is gripping, thorough, thoughtful and backed by reliable evidence.The Axis powers dismembered Greece and killed 10 percent of her population and wiped out her infrastructure. When the occupiers left Greece, the country looked like a nuclear bomb had hit it. This is important because truth is important.s Euripides said, "Blessed is the man who has learned history."