Antiwar League is a new group, “designed to unite Left and Right against the War Party and its ‘perpetual war for perpetual peace.'”
The following commentary by Ha’aretz analyst Aluf Benn is relatively conservative, but offers us important insights. Of primary importance is the shipment of 100 bunker-buster bombs from the US to Israel. These are the same bombs that JPN reported that the US intended to sell to Israel last fall, an intention it has now confirmed.
The bombs are made for destroying underground facilities, such as the Iranian nuclear lab that is alleged to be a nuclear weapons facility is located. Analysts have disagreed for many months about US plans to attack Iran. Some, including Scott Ritter and other very smart and well-informed people, have predicted an attack in June. I and many others have stated doubts about this. This view has stated that the US is not prepared to attack a country which, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan is capable of defending itself. Instead, we have seen the greater likelihood being that the US would rattle its many sabers, hoping to create unrest in Iran, along with a general program of harassment through international agencies, annoying over-flights and low-scale operations. If a more overt attack were to materialize, it would be Israel that would carry it out, rather than the already over-taxed US military which is increasingly losing domestic credibility.
The delivery of the bunker-busters supports this view. The US is clearly using the shipment to threaten Iran with its attack dog, Israel. The carrot is Iranian cooperation with the UN and International Atomic Energy Agency to pull back on their nuclear enrichment program. Iran has a legitimate case in claiming that their own energy needs entitle them to use nuclear power as much as anyone (the question of whether anyone should be monkeying with nuclear power given its inherent dangers and our inability to deal with its by-products is another matter). The world has a stake, of course, in not seeing yet another country join the group of nuclear powers. Israel will want to tread carefully, lest too much attention be paid to their own nuclear arsenal. Activists should be on the lookout for every opportunity to call for Israeli nuclear disarmament. Such disarmament is likely to be a great way to help ensure that Iran does not develop its own nuclear weapons. — MP
In the role of the rottweiler
By Aluf Benn
Thirty years after hostilities ended between the US and Vietnam, relations remain strained by one of America’s most notorious actions, the use of the chemical Agent Orange.
The Vietnamese believe that the powerful weed killer – the use of which was intended to destroy crops and jungle providing cover for the Vietcong – is responsible for massively high instances of genetic defects in areas that were sprayed.
Nguyen Trong Nhan, from the Vietnam Association Of Victims Of Agent Orange and a former president of Vietnamese Red Cross, believes the use of Agent Orange was a “war crime”.
