Jei; Once again, every single statement you've written below is based on
pure teary eyed emotion and personal opinion.
The basic fact is that until the Islamic terrorists recognize Isreal's right
to exist,
the war will not end. So long as their stated goal is the total destruction
of Isreal,
the war will not end.
Try working your emotion around that simple, acknowleged fact, and come up
with a solution.
All the alleged "crimes" we committed over the 20th century simply show
you've been brainwashed in our dumbed down schools.
"Jei" <jei@horus.hut.fi> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.58.0402191356140.5196@horus.hut.fi...
The Forgotten Bomb in the Basement
Linda S. Heard
Arab News
CAIRO, 17 February 2004 - America surely deserves our unending thanks for
making our world a safer place. It dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki to contain Japan, napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam in its fight
against 'Communism' and ousted Afghanistan's Taleban with the help of
daisy
cutters, bunker busters and cluster bombs. In Iraq it used
cancer-engendering depleted uranium and non-precision cluster bombs
leaving
a trail of limbless children in their wake... but all in a good cause.
Iraq
had to be prevented from developing weapons of mass destruction and needed
ridding of a dictator. After all, hadn't Saddam - like the British before
him in Iraq - used chemical weapons?
How churlish of us not to appreciate the Bush administration's efforts in
combating terror when we see Libya willingly discontinue its WMD programs
and fall over itself to finger the Pakistani nuclear scientist who helped
it
with its nuclear aims.
It goes without saying, we should all be delighted Iran is opening up its
nuclear facilities to inspections while Pakistan is being closely
monitored
by US intelligence agents scurrying around that country, not to mention
the
US troops on its soil. The Islamic world's sole nuclear power is now
cleverly contained.
So now we can all sleep well at nights secure in the knowledge our futures
lie in the capable hands of Uncle Sam... or can we? Hang on! Haven't we
forgotten something? What about that tiny country, run by that peaceful
chap
Ariel Sharon who once said: "The Arabs may have the oil, but we have the
matches".
How right he was. Israel is now the only country in the region, which has
nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But as far as the US
administration goes, that's OK because Israel is the only democracy in the
Mideast and shares American values. Never mind that Sharon was held
indirectly responsible by an Israeli commission for the massacres at Sabra
and Shatilla; that he is currently penning the Palestinians into an
open-air
prison and let's ignore the fact he's being investigated for corruption
over
"the Greek Island" affair. Here is a man who can be trusted not to press
the
lethal button.
On the other hand, the US and Britain accused Saddam Hussein of being
deceitful over his weapons programs and ignoring UN resolutions but never
does Israel's duplicity come under the spotlight or the flouting by Israel
of international norms and treaties. Israel doesn't officially admit it
has
WMD and, thus, would never contemplate allowing the IAEA, the nuclear
watchdog, through its Dimona doors. Isn't there something wrong with this
scenario?
Israel's nuclear ambitions began with a lie in which France was heavily
implicated. Indeed, French engineers constructed the Dimona reactor and
plutonium-separation plants in the 1950s. Later on France supplied Israel
with uranium from its African colonies. In official Israeli parlance the
complex was "a manganese plant". When aerial photos indicated otherwise
then
Israeli Prime Minister Ben-Gurion announced in December 1960 that a
24-megawatt reactor had been built for peaceful purposes. The US accepted
this at face value and persuaded Israel to agree to inspections, which too
k
place at various intervals until 1969. The problem was inspectors only got
to see the upper floors as lifts going down to the hidden underground
plutonium plant were sealed and camouflaged.
After 1967 France was no longer able or willing to supply Israel with
uranium yellowcake, so South Africa stepped in to the breach. A Center for
Non-proliferation Studies' report sets out four "clandestine nuclear
deals"
between Israel and South Africa related to yellowcake and tritium.
But that bastion of democratic principles and human rights, Israel would
never actually use nuclear weapons, would it?
According to numerous reports Israel came close to using its nukes in the
'73 war. Time magazine reported the then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan as
saying: "This is the end of the third temple" with "temple" being code for
nuclear weapons. A story put out by the Israelis - probably as a
deterrent -
talks of nuclear missiles being pointed at Damascus and Cairo. Israel was
also on nuclear alert during the 1991 Gulf War.
At some point the Americans chose to turn a blind eye to Israeli WMD, even
though it received a wealth of information that Israel and South Africa
were
jointly carrying out nuclear tests in the ocean.
In 1986, Israel's nuclear capabilities were outed by whistle-blower
Mordechai Vanunu, a technician who worked at Dimona. A man of conscience,
while out of the country, Vanunu maintained the Israelis were producing
some
40 kilograms of weapons grade plutonium each year. Israel's response was
to
kidnap him, take him back to Israel and slap him in jail where he remains
mostly incommunicado until now. Although he is due for release in April
this
year, he is to be prevented from traveling, publishing articles or giving
interviews.
According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Israel today holds the
world's fifth largest stockpile of nuclear warheads, while a 1997 Jane's
Intelligence Review report suggests it has over 400 thermonuclear and
nuclear weapons. On the chemical and biological weapons front, the Israeli
Institute for Biological Research at Nes Ziona - replaced by orange groves
on aerial survey photographs and maps - is where these lethal weapons are
concocted - the ones the Americans were certain of stumbling across in
Iraq.
In 1994, Le Nouvelle Observateur reported the Nes Ziona facility deals
with
the production of 43 non-conventional chemical and biological weapons.
As for delivery systems, Israel has Jericho missiles with ranges up to
1,500
km, while the Shavit satellite launch vehicle is capable of conversion
into
an intercontinental ballistic missile with a 7,800 km range.
And there we all were worried about Saddam Hussein!! While the Arabs are
busy giving up any deterrents they may have had or dreamt of having and
the
US and Britain are patting them on the back for being good little boys,
Israel must be laughing up its sleeve. The Arabs should wake up and smell
the danger before it's too late.
- Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs and can be
contacted at
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2004%20opinions/Feb/17%20o/T
he%20Forgotten%20Bomb%20in%20the%20Basement,%20Linda%20S%20Heard.htm
.
