Recently in Anti War Category

By Tom Segev

Mischa Shauli sat at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., completely beside himself. It had been years since the first time he heard about the existence of a document said to prove that Stalin, not Hitler, bore the main responsibility for World War II, and for years he had searched for it with all his skills as a professional detective. Shauli's last position was as Commander Shauli, Representative of the Israel Police in Russia. Previous to that he had been head of the police fraud investigation unit for the Southern District.

A few years ago Shauli read "Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War," by Bogdan Rozen. Rozen, who now lives in England, wrote it under the pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov. Shauli, impressed by the book, translated it into Hebrew and saw to its publication here.

From out of the sea of details, a coherent thesis emerges: Stalin dragged Hitler into war to force Europe into chaos and facilitate a communist revolution on the continent. According to Shauli, there is evidence to back up this theory, including a speech by Stalin himself as well as a report obtained by the U.S. Consulate in Prague. The report has been mentioned here and there over the years, but it has never been published, because no one knows where it is today. ... Full story

Author says British reprisals involved the killing of 10m, spread over 10 years By Randeep Ramesh in New Delhi, Friday August 24, 2007 The Guardian The battle of Cawnpore - the entire British garrison died at Cawnpore (now Kanpur), either in the battle or later massacred with women and children. Their deaths became a war cry for the British. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty

A controversial new history of the Indian Mutiny, which broke out 150 years ago and is acknowledged to have been the greatest challenge to any European power in the 19th century, claims that the British pursued a murderous decade-long campaign to wipe out millions of people who dared rise up against them.
In War of Civilisations: India AD 1857, Amaresh Misra, a writer and historian based in Mumbai, argues that there was an "untold holocaust" which caused the deaths of almost 10 million people over 10 years beginning in 1857. Britain was then the world's superpower but, says Misra, came perilously close to losing its most prized possession: India. ... Full Story

"Interviews with investment bankers, oil company executives and a thorough review of the major Petroleum Institute publications over the past seven years provide conclusive evidence that 'Big Oil' was deeply interested in negotiating oil agreements with Saddam Hussein and the Iranian Islamic government. 'Big Oil' perceives US Middle East wars as a threat to their long-standing profitable relations with all the conservative Arab oil states in the Gulf."

by James Petras / July 9th, 2007

You cannot win the peace unless you know the enemy at home and abroad. - US Marine Colonel from Tennessee.

Everywhere I visit from Copenhagen to Istanbul, Patagonia to Mexico City, journalists and academics, trade unionists and businesspeople, as well as ordinary citizens, inevitably ask me why the US public tolerates the killing of over a million Iraqis over the last two decades, and thousands of Afghans since 2001? Why, they ask, is a public, which opinion polls reveal as over sixty percent in favor of withdrawing US troops from Iraq, so politically impotent? A journalist from a leading business journal in India asked me what is preventing the US government from ending its aggression against Iran, if almost all of the world's major oil companies, including US multinationals are eager to strike oil deals with Tehran? Anti-war advocates in Europe, Asia and Latin America ask me at large public forums what has happened to the US peace movement in the face of the consensus between the Republican White House and the Democratic Party-dominated Congress to continue funding the slaughter of Iraqis, supporting Israeli starvation, killing and occupation of Palestine and destruction of Lebanon?

Absence of a Peace Movement?

Just prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 over one million US citizens demonstrated against the war. Since then there have been few and smaller protests even as the slaughter of Iraqis escalates, US casualties mount and a new war with Iran looms on the horizon. The demise of the peace movement is largely the result of the major peace organizations' decision to shift from independent social mobilizations to electoral politics, namely channeling activists into working for the election of Democratic candidates - most of whom have supported the war. The rationale offered by these 'peace leaders' was that, once elected, the Democrats would respond to the anti-war voters who put them in office. Of course practical experience and history should have taught the peace movement otherwise: The Democrats in Congress voted every military budget since the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. The total capitulation of the newly elected Democratic majority has had a major demoralizing effect on the disoriented peace activists and has discredited many of its leaders. - Full story

Analysis by Trita Parsi WASHINGTON (IPS) - The White House's decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organisation could deal a double blow to efforts to utilise diplomacy with Iran to stabilise Iraq. Not only does the designation risk undermining the important yet limited talks between the United States and Iran in Baghdad, but it may also negatively impact the next U.S. president's ability to seek diplomacy with Iran by further entrenching U.S.-Iran relations in a paradigm of enmity. The Washington Post and New York Times reported Tuesday that the George W. Bush administration is going to designate the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist" under Executive Order 13224, due to the organisation's alleged destabilising activities in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. The designation would authorise the United States to target the IRGC's business dealings, including blocking its assets.

Full story: U.S./Iran: Terror Label for Guard Corp Entrenches US-Iran Enmity

Bloody Israeli military attack on U.S. naval ship recalled When Israel attacks, the Pentagon retreats

by Justin Raimondo

It was 40 years ago this June 8 that the USS Liberty - a large, armorless, refitted freighter that was gathering intelligence in the Mediterranean at the outset of the Six Day War - was attacked by Israeli fighter jets and torpedoes. Thirty-four U.S. sailors were killed, and 172 were wounded. The Liberty limped back to Malta. A U.S. Navy court of inquiry was on board investigating the damage, but - for some reason - the investigators were not allowed to proceed to Israel to find out what really went on. Orders from the top echelons of the Pentagon nixed the inquiry, and today, the families of the fallen still haven't gotten any answers as to why Israel was allowed to get away with it without even so much as a slap on the wrist - nor even any public acknowledgment that it was a deliberate attack.

Far from apologizing, the Israelis have to this day denied that they attacked the Liberty on purpose, and - incredibly - they stoutly maintain that the whole thing was an "accident." This in spite of the fact that the Liberty was proudly flying a U.S. flag and was easily identifiable as an American vessel. The Israel Lobby has even gone so far as to publish a book, The Liberty Incident, by Jay Cristol, that makes the case for the "accidental" scenario, but the survivors' families - and a number of credible commentators - aren't buying it. One of those commentators is a former captain in the Judge Advocate General Corps assigned to the Liberty investigation, Ward Boston, who has signed an affidavit stating unequivocally:

"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral [Isaac C.] Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack … was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew. It was our shared belief, based on the documentary evidence and testimony we received firsthand, that the Israeli attack was planned and deliberate."

Full story: http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11042. For more information, please see, http://www.ussliberty.org.

by Paul Craig Roberts

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, or more accurately, George W. Bush's lap dog, has resigned to England's relief.

Boris Johnson at the Daily Telegraph wrote that "Blair cannot escape the blame for a disaster in which at least 60,000 (and possibly 10 times as many) Iraqis have died, and which is causing 40,000 Iraqis to flee the country every month."

The Daily Mail's Piers Morgan wrote that Blair's complicity in the invasion of Iraq transformed England "into a more dangerous, paranoid, despised and ridiculed country. Blair's reign will be remembered for one disaster of epic proportions, one appalling legacy."

Full story: U.K.: One War Criminal Down, A Fistful to Go

Two American intellectuals discuss the role of the Israel lobby in causing the war on Iraq

What role does the pro-Israel lobby play in the shaping of American foreign policy? Although discussions of this issue date back decades, the debate has recently been brought into the mainstream by an article published in the London Review of Books in March 2006 by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, which charges that the influence of the Israel lobby result in policies that are in essence incompatible with American interests. Apart from the predictable chorus of Anti-Semitic accusations which the article gave rise to, it also gave rise to a serious debate within the progressive movement, in an attempt to accurately assess the power of the lobby and its influence both on policies and on public opinion.

HIROKO TABUCHI, Associated Press Writer

(AP) - TOKYO-Japan's Supreme Court rejected compensation claims by Chinese victims of atrocities committed by Japan in the 1930s and 40s, which included the use of biological weapons and a massacre in the city of Nanjing, defense lawyers said Thursday.

In two separate decisions made Wednesday, the top court upheld rulings by lower courts since 1999 that the current Japanese government was not liable for compensation demands from foreign citizens for wartime actions, according to defense lawyer Norio Minami.

Full story: Japan Rules Against War Claims