"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." ~ 
Any world is an illusion, but within illusion, another world, a better world, seems possible. In the material world, the one we think is real, the divide between the 'left' and 'right' is an artificial one. This divide serves to keep us separate from each other and prevents us from seeing clearly that we in fact have shared interests and a common enemy. A better way to approach economy, politics, culture and society would be to take note of the ways in which our societies are divided horizontally: the interests of the few (the elite) and the many (ordinary people). The elite wants to oppress and exploit the rest of us. In a material sense, they are our enemy. They are working to establish a One World Company, aka a totalitarian New World Order. World government is the last thing ordinary people need. We need free and open communities with equal rights for everyone and a profound respect for the many differences between us. We want freedom rather than security. We want peace, not war. Above all else, we want truth, dignity and justice. ~ The Editor
XML FeedsEconomic, military pressures on Iran escalate global tensions
The march towards an oil embargo against Iran and continuing military threats against the country from both the US and Israel are escalating global tensions.
Having recently doubled the number of US aircraft carrier battle groups within striking distance of the Persian Gulf, the Obama administration reportedly used back channels last weekend to deliver a threatening ultimatum to the Iranian government. It identified “red lines”, which, if Iran crosses them, would trigger a US attack.
Chief among these is Tehran making good on a threat made last month to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which at least a fifth of the world’s oil must pass, in retaliation for what amounts to a looming US-European sanctions blockade designed to strangle the Iranian economy and permit “regime change” in this country of 70 million people.
Washington and its European allies claim that such economic warfare is necessary to halt Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. Tehran insists that its nuclear program complies with international treaties, that it has taken no steps to weaponize uranium at its nuclear plants, and that it is developing its nuclear capacity solely as a source of power.
Direct US threats have grown in tandem with Israel’s increasingly provocative actions. The Sunday Times published a detailed investigative piece on January 15, citing multiple Israeli sources as confirming that the January 11 car bomb assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan in Tehran was the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, which had prepared the murder through extensive surveillance by multiple agents working in the Iranian capital.
US officials formally distanced themselves from the killing. “We were not involved in any way with regards to the assassination that took place there,” claimed US Defense Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who did allow that he had “some idea” of who was behind it.
In reality, the line of demarcation between the covert operations against Iran carried out by Mossad and those conducted by the CIA is decidedly murky. This was made clear in an article in Foreign Policy magazine last week entitled “False Flag,” in which military analyst Mark Perry cites US intelligence officials as saying that Mossad agents have posed as CIA agents while recruiting members of the Sunni Islamist group Jundallah for terrorist operations inside Iran.
