Israel Matzav

Tehran Times' sudden concern for Americans; Israeli warplanes based in Turkey?

Wednesday's Tehran Times includes an op-ed piece that shows sudden concern for Americans. Specifically, the article claims that the United States spent $89 million in order to speed up delivery of x-band radar to Israel - so that Israel can better defend itself against Iranian nuclear weapons - and wonders whether that money might have been better spent on the streets of Chicago or New York.

If it were proposed that this fraction of the tax revenues should be allocated to reduce the pains in the hearts of one thousand owners of foreclosed properties in the working class neighborhoods of Chicago or to improve the educational quality of the pathetic school systems in the South Bronx, Bed Stuyvesant of Brooklyn or Spanish Harlem, to cite just a few examples, no doubt the same senators who enthusiastically and unanimously voted for the bill would have rejected it outright with no hesitation or mercy. The prevailing political climate in the United States shows the nature and quality of the so-called democratic principals, drilled daily into the heads of the masses by the media, and also the non-existent influence of the working class on the governing institutions of the land.

What was the rush that the U.S. military, amid the country’s financial and economic crisis, had to speed up the deployment of a most powerful and therefore expensive system, called AN/TPY-2 forward-based X-band, a year earlier than it was scheduled previously? The X-band system, deployed to Israel on September 26th, was originally scheduled for delivery in 2009 for joint training exercises, according to the U.S. European Command mission (EUCOM). For reasons not explained by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, the ownership of Army/Navy Transportable Radar Surveillance remains with Washington and the system will be installed and operated permanently by 120 U.S. military personnel drawn from U.S. units stationed in Germany and across the rest of Europe.

The well-concealed secret of this rush delivery of the X-band radar system lies in the fact that the U.S. has finally come to the realization that with two active wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at hand and an explosive situation in Pakistan, with a population of 170 million and a nuclear arsenal, not to mention the ever-deepening financial and economic stranglehold gripping not only the housing but also the banking and industrial sectors of the Western capitalist economies, it must, though unwillingly, resign itself to a situation where it has to take other options off the table and begin a dialogue with an ever-stronger and more confident Iran.

It is also common knowledge that the U.S. is quietly opening up to Iran, which has become a huge source of anxiety for the Zionist ringleaders in Tel Aviv, who, like egotistical servants, feel abandoned by their masters in Washington or cheaply sold for the benefit of the U.S. empire. The delivery of an important element of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense Shield to Israel a year earlier plays the role of relaxing and calming down the sense of anxiety and desperation with regard to the current U.S.-Iran dialogue and could be regarded as compensation for Israel’s loss of its junior role in shaping U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East region.

No, I am not aware of Jesse Jackson writing for the Tehran Times. But isn't the sudden concern for the citizenry of the Great Satan heartwarming? What the Times doesn't understand is that preventing a nuclear attack on Israel is an American interest - both because of the United States' alliance with Israel (which continues to be important to the US - much to Iran's chagrin) and because of America's understanding that any attack on Israel will draw an Israeli response, which could have catastrophic consequences for the World economy.

We really do live in a global village, don't we?

By the way, I found this little tidbit in the Times article to be quite interesting:

In July 1998 it was reported that Turkish warplanes are based at Nevatim on a regular basis as part of an agreement between Turkey and Israel. In return, Israeli jets are based in Turkey.

It was a part of three paragraphs that the op-ed writer lifted from here. (Go read it - it's word for word). Is it true? I don't know. But it would make it a heck of a lot easier to attack an Iranian nuclear weapons facility if we have planes based in Turkey, wouldn't it?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:00 PM