OUR HOME IS YOUR HOME FOR THE TAKING (OF OIL)

US may deploy missile radar in Israel
Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:29:49

The US officials have revealed plans to deploy new generation of missile systems in Israel to raise the regime's military capability.

The US officials agreed to upgrade Israel's missile capability with new ballistic missile systems that include early warning launch data, a forward based X-Band radar system, and advanced versions of Phalanx automated cannons, AFP quoted a senior US defense official as saying on Tuesday.

The source added that the US also agreed to give Israel a permanent access to its Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites for reconnaissance purposes.

"The agreements aim at helping Israel to create a missile capability to protect it from all sorts of threats in the region," Gates told reporters after holding talks with the visiting Israeli war minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday.

Barak arrived in Washington on Monday as part of an attempt to improve the regime's military capability and to oblige the US officials not to drop the option of a military strike on Iran for its nuclear program.

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From www.truthdig.com

Scott Ritter's Columns

Acts of War

July 29, 2008

This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and economic supremacy. The specter of nuclear enrichment is simply a vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen, and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more puzzling and contemptible.

A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.

One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.

Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!