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Gulf of Tonkin Redux?
Gulf of Tonkin Redux?
by Stephen Lendman
Lyndon Johnson wanted war on Vietnam and got it.
The August 1964 false flag Gulf of Tonkin incident initiated full-scale conflict after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
War was authorized without declaring it.
It's an American tradition. Big lies launch wars. Manufactured pretexts initiate them. Mass killing and destruction follow.
One nation after another is ravaged. Syria's next, then Iran, followed by other states on Washington's hit list.
On June 22, Turkey provocatively flew two warplanes at low altitude over Syrian airspace. It wanted a response and got it.
On June 23, Syria's SANA state media headlined "Military Spokesman: Anti-Air Defenses Intercepted a Target That Violated Syrian Airspace Over Territorial Waters, Shot It Down West of Lattakia," saying:
<blockquote>"At 11:40 AM on 22/6/2012, an unidentified aerial target violated Syrian airspace, coming from the west at a very low altitude and at high speed over territorial waters, so the Syrian anti-air defenses counteracted with anti-aircraft artillery, hitting it directly as it was 1 kilometer away from land, causing it to crash into Syrian territorial waters west of Om al-Tuyour village in Lattakia province, 10 kilometers from the beach."</blockquote>
Syria's military spokesman also said naval forces from both countries were "searching for the two missing pilots."
Some media sources said both crew members were rescued. Others said they're still missing.
On June 23, Turkey's Today's Zaman headlined "Turkey says Syria down(ed) its air force jet," saying:
The incident will "likely....worsen already strained relations between" both countries.
After a two hour security meeting, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed Syrian forces for downing its aircraft. An official statement said:
<blockquote>"Following the evaluation of data provided by our related institutions and the findings of the joint search and rescue efforts with Syria, it is understood that our plane was downed by Syria."</blockquote>
Turkey "will determinedly take necessary steps" in response. No further details were given.
At the time of its report, Today's Zaman said both crew members were missing. It added that Ankara wouldn't "tolerate any action that it deemed violating its security."
Turkish TV reports said two military aircraft were on a reconnaissance mission.
In fact, Ankara acted provocatively. Perhaps it was at the behest of Washington. Turkey is a NATO member. A previous article explained it can invoke NATO Charter Articles 4 or 5.
Article 4 calls for members to "consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence, or security of any" is threatened.
Article 5 considers an armed attack (real or otherwise) against one or more members, an attack against all, and calls for collective self-defense.
On June 23, Reuters headlined "Turkey warns it would respond decisively to Syria downing it aircraft," saying:
<blockquote>Erdogan's "initial comments and subsequent statement (were) measured in tone. He said Turkish and Syrian forces were working together to search for the two missing crew of the aircraft."
Turkish media also said Syria apologized for the incident.
"Turkish state television interviewed witnesses on the country's Mediterranean coast, near the Syrian border, who said they saw two low-flying fighter jets pass overhead in the morning in the direction of Syrian waters but only one return."
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said:
"There was no aggression." Damascus confirmed "an unidentified target flying at very low range when it violated Syrian airspace." He added that both sides were searching for missing crew members.
The New York Times said an official Turkish statement hadn't "yet concluded that the Syrian action was provocative, and it acknowledged that Syrian rescue teams were cooperating in trying to locate the aircraft and crew."
"But the statement also left open the possibility that Turkey, a NATO member, would respond militarily, an outcome that could further complicate and widen the Syrian conflict."</blockquote>
Washington has longstanding regime change plans. In early 2011, it orchestrated Western-generated violence.
It wants Assad replaced by a subservient puppet leader. If events on the ground don't succeed, expect war to follow.
The Obama and Erdogan administrations may have staged Friday's incident. Whether it's a pretext for full-scale intervention remains to be seen.
Events on the ground keep escalating dangerously. Anything may erupt anytime. Provocations are easy to stage.
Friday's incident may indeed become a casus belli. If not, perhaps something greater is planned to give Obama another war he wants. What better way to silence his Republican critics who call him soft on Assad.
On June 22, Foreign Policy's associate editor Uri Friedman headlined "How would NATO respond to Syria shooting down a Turkish plane?" saying:
<blockquote>"Could this incident -- or an incident like it -- trigger more aggressive action against Syria by the international community? After all, Turkey is a member of NATO...."</blockquote>
Its Charter affirms its all-for-one-and-one-for-all policy. Attacking one member is considered acting against all 28. Collective self-defense is called for.
On September 12, 2001, NATO invoked Article V for the first time. Will Syria be number two? If Turkey claims Damascus acted aggressively, will war follow?
"It is not an entirely unreasonable" possibility, said Friedman.
In April, Erdogan suggested he might invoke Article V. Whether he plans it now remains to be seen.
According to former UN Permanent Representative to NATO Kurt Volker, Article V gives NATO countries a chance to consult with one another on possible responses. It doesn't automatically suggest a military one.
<blockquote>"A response could be anything from a statement reiterating the inviolability of security guarantees to members coordinating activities so that they can respond to further attacks on Turkish interests."</blockquote>
Volker doesn't think Friday's incident justifies war. At the same time, the ball advanced closer to initiating it without Security Council authorization.
One way would be by creating Syrian "safe zones," providing greater opposition support, and conducting air strikes against strategic military sites.
<blockquote>"I do get the feeling," he added, "that the patience of the international community is growing thinner."
"I think we may be approaching a point at which this kind of coalition intervention is more thinkable than it was a couple of months ago."
Atlantic Council managing editor James Joyner also doesn't believe Friday's incident justifies war.
"It would be one thing if Syria sent ground troops into Turkey and started shooting," he said.
In contrast, "shooting down a plane that might have been surveilling Syrian air space is just a different animal than that."
"This is more of a harsh words and sanctions kind of thing, and frankly there's not much more of that that we can do in terms of Syria."</blockquote>
On June 23, UK government controlled BBC headlined "Turkish warplane downed by Syria 'may have crossed border,' " saying:
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said its aircraft may have violated Syrian airspace. Doing so isn't unusual for short distances at high speed, he added.
<blockquote>"It is routine for jet fighters to sometimes fly in and out over (other) borders....when you consider their speed over the sea," he claimed.
"These are not ill-intentioned things but happen beyond control due to the jets' speed."</blockquote>
Unexplained was that it's one thing for peaceful neighbors occasionally to violate each other's airspace without authorization.
No harm, no foul.
It's quite another given months of intense violence in Syria and Turkey's direct role.
Damascus has every right to consider unauthorized airspace violations hostile acts. Turkey would react the same way. So would Washington, key NATO partners and Israel.
A virtual state of war exists in Syria short of officially declaring it. These type incidents can easily be used as pretexts for full-blown conflict. It remains to be seen if Washington has that in mind.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War"
http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
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These Western Nazis, provocateurs, regime change thugs, death squad thugs, extra judicial assassins, through drone murders around the world have become A GLOBAL FASCIST MATRIX THROUGH NATO. The world and its social classes must DEMAND THE END OF NATO FASCIST ALLIANCES, FASCIST PROVOCATIONS, FASCIST REGIME CHANGERS, and kick their NAZI arses, all class politicians, all empire thugs, out of political control for social parties that reflect social peace, social wealth, not FASCIST CAPITALISM, WESTERN FASCISM. Democrats, all class parties around the world have linked themselves to this GLOBAL FASCIST ALLIANCE, GLOBAL FASCIST MATRIX, therefore must reject the FASCIST OBAMA, FASCIST DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS and prosecute all War criminals, from Truman to Obama.
But social classes are beginning to fight back against military fascism, corporate fascism, Fascist Zionism unlike the FASCIST DEMOCRATS which like Obama, do not think Zionism is racism, apartheid, justifying their war crimes while demanding in a letter that they want war with Iran, based on lies. Some pension funds with social conscience are beginning to SMACK WESTERN FASCISM, FASCIST CONGRESS, FASCIST DEMOCRATS/REPUBLICANS, FASCIST NATO, AND FASCIST ZIONISM:
Pension Giant Dumps $73 Million Caterpillar Stock Over Israel Ties
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/23-1
excerpt:
"Since 2010, We Divest has been urging TIAA-CREF to drop Caterpillar and other companies profiting from and facilitating Israel’s 45-year-old military occupation and colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.
“By selling weaponized bulldozers to Israel, Caterpillar is complicit in Israel’s systematic violations of Palestinian human rights,” said Rabbi Wise. “We’re glad to see that the socially responsible investment community appears to be recognizing this and is starting to take appropriate action.”
Caterpillar has come under increasing criticism from human rights organizations in recent years for continuing to supply bulldozers to Israel, which uses them to demolish Palestinian civilian homes and destroy crops and agricultural land in the occupied territories, and to build illegal, Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land.
In the coming weeks, many will be watching the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly taking place in Pittsburgh, where church commissioners will vote on a motion to divest from Caterpillar and two other companies, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett-Packard, that remain in TIAA-CREF’s Social Choice Funds.
Last month, Friends Fiduciary, a Quaker institution, divested $900,000 worth of shares in Caterpillar stating: “We are uncomfortable defending our position on this stock.”
* * *
Caterpillar D9 model tractors used by the Israeli Defense Forces. (Limor Edri)......."
Glenn Greenwald posted a segment from Bill Moyer's show, with Yves Smith and Matt Taibbi discussing the parallel connection between the MAFIA and the class state serving corrupt, criminal, "sociopathic", (anti social) corporations, while the Congress and corporate media, ideological thugs, acts as pyschotic, (mentally ill) warmongers and fascist cheerleaders. So we now have so many totalitarian forms described through class deformed terminologies, but it all boils down to totalitarian class systems which degenerated through class cycles into today's FASCISM, Western Fascism, (second round/axis under U.S./NATO/Israeli fascist alliance) and the degeneration of all class parties, democrats included, where Obama, colludes with GLOBAL CORPORATE FASCISM through trade treaties, while the Fascist Congress, both class parties, demand War with Iran, blaming their anti Assad, Syrian funded death squads, and their massacres, falsely on Assad, and even worse, on Iran.
Such multi, corrupt, co opted, inverted totaltiarianism from all class systems, including LATE CAPITALISM AND ITS FASCISM, produces fascist media thugs, fascist Congress, fascist President, and fascist class parties. NATO has become a fascist tool for global Fascism just like our fascist alliances with Israel and military juntas, which slaughter their own people and turn whistleblowers like Assange and Manning into criminals, for exposing their War crimes, WHEN THEY ALL SHOULD HAVE BEEN PROSECUTED BY INTERNATIONAL LAWS, were it not for the wholesale co option, corruption, inverted, substituted NATO FASCISTS, and U.N. security council which routinely lies about Iran's nuclear program, while ignoring their own nuclear weapons stockpiles. Say Sieg HEIL to GLOBAL WESTERN FASCISM......FASCIST DEMOCRATS, FASCIST WESTERN CLASS ELITES who never represented social classes, but betrayed them for class power and fascist militarism. It should be obvious by now that the mafia Congress acts as the Fascist agent, class agent, class state for corporate Fascism, disproving the FASCIST LIBERTARIAN lie that the class state, "big government" is at war with "job creation", when in fact real job creation means ending PARASITICAL, CLASS THUGGERY of the class state for social control of wealth, labor and means of production, an end of failed class states and failed class history:
Various matters
Ongoing banker-government corruption; media hostility and Assange; our friendly Iranian Terrorists
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/23/various_items_27/singleton/
excerpt:
"......2) One of the hallmarks of the establishment media is how it reverses its ostensible function: it is servile and reverent when reporting on or questioning the nation’s most powerful actors, yet becomes aggressively adversarial only toward those who challenge establishment factions and who are loathed within them. In sum, these media outlets are orthodoxy enforcers, little high school clique monitors venerating the popular and scorning the outcasts. The vitriolic media discussions this week of the widely-loathed-in-D.C.-and-London Julian Assange provided a perfect example (watch this incredibly hostile CNN interview with an Assange supporter and ask whether any upstanding, respected figure of D.C. power would ever be treated that way in a CNN interview).
In particular, this sneering, threatening, blindly jingoistic Washington Post Editorial is a classic illustration of this prevailing media attitude: the democratically elected Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa, is “a small-time South American autocrat” because he defies the U.S.; Assange and Correa’s criticisms of American foreign policy are “anti-American slanders and paranoia”; granting Assange asylum would make Correa “a hero with the global anti-American left”; Congress should punish Ecuador if it grants asylum by withdrawing its “special trade preferences that allow it to export many goods duty-free”, etc. etc. As always in American media discourse: Our Side is the Embodiment of Freedom and Justice and anyone who criticizes Us are anti-freedom haters (as President Correa said in an interview yesterday: “if we had done a hundredth of what they did to Assange, we would be called dictators and oppressors”). The Post Editorial also contains this amazing passage:
So fears that the U.S. seeks to prosecute and extradite Assange are mere “fantasy,” say the Post Editors. Apparently, they don’t read their own newspaper (and, really, who can blame them?):
There’s also this:
And this:
Can you believe what a paranoid loser Julian Assange is for indulging the obviously deranged “fantasy” that the U.S. would seek to prosecute and extradite him? Note, too, how Hiatt — without apparently realizing the contradiction — simultaneously mocks Assange for fearing U.S. prosecution, while demanding that Congress severely punish Ecuador if it grants Assange asylum: if the U.S. has no interest in punishing Assange, why would it be angered by the granting of asylum?....."
THE FASCIST CONGRESS, FASCIST CORPORATE MEDIA, FASCIST BI PARTISAN PARTIES, FASCIST PRESIDENT CAN ALL GO TO HELL HAVING SEEN THE EMPIRE, CLASS SHILLS ON CNN, PAID TO CHEERLEAD FASCIST EMPIRE AND ITS LIES, I HOPE CNN AND ITS MERCENARIES GO DOWN IN FLAMING HYPOCRISY. HARD TO BELIEVE THESE FAKE JOURNALISTS WHO HELP COVER UP WAR CRIMES HAVE THE NERVE , TEMERITY TO GO AFTER ASSANGE AND MANNING WHO ARE BETTER JOURNALISTS THEN THEM. NO WONDER THE ALTERNATIVE NEWS OUTLETS, LIKE GLENN GREENWALD, OPED NEWS, COMMON DREAMS, COUNTERPUNCH, ALTERNET, DEMOCRACY NOW, REAL NEWS, ZNET, READER SUPPORTED NEWS, WSWS, EXIST......THEY EXPOSE THE FASCIST ROT IN THE CORPORATE MEDIA AND CNN.
The outrageous letter from democrats and republicans, outlined by Glenn Greenwald, showed that Congress, both class parties have degenerated beyond typical class corruption, into totalitarian, Fascists. Their demand for sanctions, provocations, outright aggression against Iran, based on Western fascist propaganda and lies regarding Iran's nuclear program, even though their own security agencies have told them that no nuclear weapon program exists, IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE FASCIST DEGENERATION OF WESTERN ELITES who threaten Humanity with regional war and nuclear war. FASCIST DEMANDS FROM CONGRESS, FROM FASCIST ISRAEL must be seen as the new NAZIS, global fascists, and reveals how class systems over time have shifted from ordinary totalitarian class corruption into war mongers, psychopaths.
Iran is already at war with WESTERN FASCISTS, who assasinate its engineers, scientists, who fund terrorist groups like the MEK, against them and have had cyber war directed at them, ALL ACTS OF WAR. Should Israel attack Iran with U.S. MADE WEAPONS, and is supported by the FASCIST CONGRESS, defending TWO FASCIST STATES, U.S. EMPIRE AND ISRAELI FASCIST ZIONISM, defending Israel's NAZI AGGRESSION, the U.N. CHARTER clearly obligates, calls for the right of all nations to defend themselves against outside aggression. This fascist alliance with Nato could lead to China and Russia to support Syria or IRAN, based on the fascist, criminal foreign policies by the U.S., both before 9/11 and after. These Western fascist elites are elected as class parties, Empire parties because humanity has not yet understood that ALL CLASS SYSTEMS betray social demands, enslave humanity, by their own hands, their own throw away vote to fascist elites who promote fascist austerty, fascist Capitalism, and DO NOT REPRESENT SOCIAL CLASSES, instead represent parasitical and totaltitarian class/empire thugs. Expecting "mainstream parties", class and fascist appeasing parties, empire parties to reflect a social agenda is like expecting an Elephant to birth kittens. However, these cats, social classes can birth social justice, kittents, by taking on their WESTERN FASCIST LEADERS, and their fascist judicial systems, corrupted, co opted, by CLASS THUGS:
Grant Asylum to Assange
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/12060-focus-moore-greenwald-hedges-and-wolf-grant-asylum-to-assange
Excerpt:
"Dear President Correa,
We are writing to urge you to grant political asylum to Julian Assange.
As you know, British courts recently struck down Mr. Assange’s appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he is not wanted on criminal charges, but merely for questioning. Mr. Assange has repeatedly made clear he is willing to answer questions relating to accusations against him, but in the United Kingdom. But the Swedish government insists that he be brought to Sweden for questioning. This by itself, as Swedish legal expert and former Chief District Prosecutor for Stockholm Sven-Erik Alhem testified, is “unreasonable and unprofessional, as well as unfair and disproportionate.”
We believe Mr. Assange has good reason to fear extradition to Sweden, as there is a strong likelihood that once in Sweden, he would be imprisoned, and then likely extradited to the United States..."
We also call on you to grant Mr. Assange political asylum because the “crime” that he has committed is that of practicing journalism. He has revealed important crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. government, most notably in releasing video footage from an Apache helicopter of a 2007 incident in which the U.S. military appears to have deliberately killed civilians, including two Reuters employees. Wikileaks’ release of thousands of U.S. State Department cables revealed important cases of U.S. officials acting to undermine democracy and human rights around the world.
Because this is a clear case of an attack on press freedom and on the public's right to know important truths about U.S. foreign policy, and because the threat to his health and well-being is serious, we urge you to grant Mr. Assange political asylum.
Thank you for your consideration of our request.
Michael Moore, Film Director
Danny Glover, Film Director
Oliver Stone, Film Director
Naomi Wolf, Author
Glenn Greenwald, Constitutional lawyer and columnist, Salon.com
Chris Hedges, Journalist
Coleen Rowley, retired FBI agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel, one of three “whistleblowers” named Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002
Ann Wright, US Army Colonel (Retired) and former US diplomat
Ray McGovern, Former U.S. Army officer and longtime senior CIA analyst (ret.)
Thomas Drake, NSA Whistleblower, Bill of Rights Activist
Linda Lewis, Board Member, Whistleblower Support Fund
Kent Spriggs, Guantanamo habeas counsel
Jesselyn Radack, National Security & Human Rights Director, Government Accountability Project
Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Medea Benjamin, Cofounder, Global Exchange
Kathy Kelly, Co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Mark Johnson, Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Denis J. Halliday, UN Assistant Secretary-General 1994-98. National of Ireland
Leslie Cagan, co-founder, United for Peace and Justice
Russ Wellen, Foreign Policy in Focus
James Early, Board Member, Institute for Policy Studies
Jim Naureckas, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Sam Husseini, Director, Washington Office of the Institute for Public Accuracy
Robert Naiman, Policy Director, Just Foreign Policy
Jane Hirschmann Jews Say No! New York, organizer, U.S. Boat to Gaza
Richard Levy, lawyer, passenger, U.S. Boat to Gaza
Helaine Meisler, Orton-Gillingham Learning Specialist, Helaine Meisler Learning Center, Woodstock, New York
Laurie Arbeiter, Artist/Activist, WE WILL NOT BE SILENT
Mayo C. Toruño, Professor and Chair, Economics Department
California State University, San Bernardino
Julio Huato, Associate Professor of Economics, St. Francis College
Michael Brun, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Illinois State University
Dana Frank, Professor, Department of History, University of California, Santa Cruz
Adrienne Pine, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, American University
Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor, Latin American History, Pomona College
Steve Ellner, Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University/Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela
Marc Becker, Professor of Latin American History, Truman State University
Dr Francisco Dominguez, Head of Centre for Brazilian and Latin American Studies, Middlesex University, London, UK
Peter Hallward, Professor of Philosophy, Kingston University London
Doug Hertzler, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Eastern Mennonite University
Carolyn Eisenberg, Professor of US Foreign Policy, Hofstra University
Vijay Prashad, Professor of International Studies, Trinity College, USA
T.M. Scruggs, Professor Emeritus, University of Iowa
Ellen Schrecker, Professor of History, Yeshiva University
Antonia Darder, Leavey Endowed Chair of Ethics and Moral Leadership, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles
Demetra Evangelou, Professor, Purdue University
Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Irvine
Renate Bridenthal, Professor (retired), City University of New York
A. Belden Fields, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, University of Illinois
C. G. Estabrook, Visiting Professor (retired), University of Illinois
Carol Murry, Doctor of Public Health, Hawaii
Ellen Barfield, Veterans For Peace
Libor Von Schönau, OccupyWallStreet Legal, New York
Gar W. Lipow, journalist, member of Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, author of Solving the Climate Crisis through Social Change
Only social parties, with a social agenda of removing class parasites, class totatlitarians, Empire fascists from power, removing all class politicians will the WESTERN FASCIST ALLIANCE WITH NATO AND ISRAEL screech to a halt, without war, without Fascism, but ideologically defeating all class politicians who whore, shill, cheerlead for FASCIST CAPITALISM AND FASCIST ALLIANCES. BOYCOTT ALL CLASS POLITICIANS, ALL CLASS PARTIES TO SAVE HUMANITY FROM ENSLAVEMENT AND FASICST, TOTALITARIANISM AND WAR. SAVE YOURSELF AND HUMANITY FROM THE FASCIST CONGRESS, FASCIST CORPORATE PRESS, FASCIST JUDICIAL SYSTEMS WHICH PROSECUTE WHISTLEBLOWERS WHO EXPOSE THEIR WAR CRIMES, WHILE ALLOWING TORTURE, HABEUS CORPUS CASES TO NOT BE HEARD, AS THE RECENT FASCIST SUPREME COURT DID. REJECT CONGRESS CLASS POLITICIANS AND THEIR CLASS SYSTEM MORPHING INTO GLOBAL FASCISM. Like the defeat of the Fascist state of Capitalist Germany, the same defeat of Fascist Zionist state of Israel and Fascist Amerika is necessary, only not through militarism, nuclear destruction of humanity, but a rational, human, strategy to end all failed class states and its failed class history:
Iranian General: Military Strike Would Be the End of Israel
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/23-0
excerpt:
"......The deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces said on Saturday Israeli military action against Iran's nuclear program would lead to the collapse of the Jewish state, Iran's FARS news agency reported.
Last week's round of nuclear talks between Iran and world powers in Moscow failed to secure a breakthrough, heightening fears Israel might take unilateral military action to curb Iran's nuclear activities.
The two sides agreed to a follow-up meeting of technical experts on July 3, saving the process from outright failure...."
THE WEST MUST ALLOW PEACEFUL NUCLEAR PROGRAMS TO EXIST FOR IRAN, AS IN MANY OTHER COUNTRIES, WHERE IRAN HAS SIGNED THE NPT TREATY, WHILE ISRAEL WHICH HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS, HAS NOT AND LIKE THE U.S. HAS A LONG HISTORY OF FASCISM AND WARS OF AGGRESSION