The War in Lebanon: Why?

(Picture By Sebastian Scheiner)

One aspect that all wars have in common, is the imposibility to understand certain lines of action. But this past (past?) war on Lebanon has left one unusual question unanswered. An essential piece of information is missing, thus we are unable to understand what's happened. The question is no other than, WHY WERE ISRAEL AND HEZBOLLAH IN WAR?

We, western world, are used to hear about those far away middle-easters killing each other, and seem to be comfortable with the situation. But when some of us go out to find out more, to listen what the political parts have to say, what newspapers have published, we end up with lots of contradicting information. Its normal. War is also fought in the media. But is tiring.

"According to some this is a ‘war on Israel’ by Islamofascist forces supported by Iran and Syria. Others claim it is a ‘war of resistance’ by Hezbollah, which is now apparently part of an ‘arc of resistance’ in the Middle East standing up to Western-backed Israeli aggression. Others still say that Israel’s incursions in Lebanon are the latest stage in an American grand plan to topple hostile regimes across the Middle East and replace them with US-friendly puppets. Or, if you listen to Israel itself, then this is a ‘war against terrorism’ to force Hezbollah 13 miles north of the Israeli border; if you prefer to believe Hezbollah then it is a ‘brave war’ by the guerrilla group to secure the release of their comrades from Israeli jails. Take your pick." Full Article from Brendan O'neill.

I have tried to simplify the situation to myself, to try to get to a reasonable conclusion. In any given war there is an attacker and a defender, (at least at the very begining of the war, later on the roles might change). The defender is obviously defending himself. Therefore, the reason why the war started, why the attacker attacked, must be something the attacker wants.

Going back to the war in Lebanon and adding the above conclusion, plus the fact that Hezbollah is military very inferior to Israel, so inferior that makes it unthinkable that they were looking for war, we obtain that we have to look at Israel and/or its allies for the reason of the war.
We were told during the first days of the crisis, that Israel's attack was in response for the capture of two soldiers by Hezbollah. Of course, the whole world protested for the completely out of proportion sionist response.
Israel's answer was, Wait a second. We are not only fighting for the two soldiers, we are also helping the world fighting terrorism, and helping Lebanon itself to get rid of the terrorist militia." There was less disregard this time (because nowadays, just saying that you are doing war on terror, you can do what you please) but still many people was asking how is it fu***ng possible to continuosly bomb civilians little kids included, saying that your aim is to defend them.
The third time they tried, they finally got to an answer that quieted most of the public. Ok, ok. Yeah, we didn't express ourselves correctly. What we want is to push Hezbollah, 30km into Lebanon, so they can't reach us with their rockets.

We cannot take any of these reasons as the real one because they don't make sense. Well, the last one might be half way right. Might it be that what they really wanted was something situates on those 30 Km? Certainly the reason is not only for the rockets not to get to them, because the rockets would have never been launched, had Israel not initiated the war.

So here we face, the first possible reason of being of this war (Sorry for getting here so slowly, but I find it necessary to show you how I arrive to my conclusions.): WATER.

While the US tries to capture the energetic resources in Africa, Eurasia and South America, Israel is looking for the control of river Litany in south Lebanon, as Terrell E. Arnold points out. But why? One of the main lacks of the hebrew state is water, and the reward for their incursion in Lebanon and the "cleaning out" of the 30 km in the south, is the water of the strategic river Litani. According to Arnold, from Israel'e perspective, there is no other potential source of drinkable water or for irrigation in the region. Since the 30's Ben Gurion, one of the founding fathers of modern Israel, ceived the borders of Israel reaching the Litany river, and others have designed pipelines and tunnels to transport its water to israel. If we have in mind that water equals life, that might explain Israel predisposition to kill and destroy to get those 30km.

What they where not expecting is that at last and international force will occupy that piece of land. Now they have to start worrying about how they'll manage to get water from the river. Stephen Farrell and James Bone from The Times announce the sterilization of the south of Lebanon. Israel has called thousands of soldiers to its north frontier to stablish a cushion zone against Hezbollah. As the Libanese refugees are pushed north of the Litani river no civilians are allowed back in the "cleaned" area. House would also be destroyed so nobody could leave there. Is this not an ETHNIC CLEANSING? But that is out of subject. Let's look at another possible reason.

As you'll notice, the reasons I'm posting are not exclusive one with the others. The next reason I take as real is US's PLANS FOR THE MIDLE EAST. Although there countless interest in the area that might "justify" the attack, we are only going to look at the most direct one. Israel's attack on Hezbollah, rather than defending itself from the shiite party, its eliminating the elemts that disuade George Bush from attacking Iran.

According to Edward Luttwak, after meeting with several US's government members the attack on Iran's nuclear installations was discarted fearing that Hezbollah's response would be bombing Israel. Ephraim Kam, expert in Iranian affairs from the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies in Israel in 2004 also wrote that the threat by Hezbollah to the north of Israel, was one of the main reasons US had to avoid attacking Iran. With this preventive attack, Israel has made Hezbollah "waste" their rockets being this launched without preparation, doing only a fraction of the damage they could have provoked with appropriate preparation and planning. Gerald M. Steinberg from Bar Illon University, said that "Israel pretends a US stand in which launching an attack on Iran is the only option."

Bush knows that confrontating Iran while Hamas and Hezbollah are strong in the area would have a high cost in every sense. In order to negotiate with Iran, they will be in a better position now that Hezbollah has been weakened. Matthew Kalman from the San Francisco Chronicle sent a report from Jerusalem according to which the campaing against Hezbollah has been months in preparation, even when the casus belli has been the capture of the two soldiers. "More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified." Read it all here.

If we have this in mind while recalling the declarations from the Bush administration that never opposed Israel's attack, we might be facing one of the true reasons for the war.

I will probably come back to this issue, but this is all for now. As I always tell you, there are many more facts out there. In my opinion, after searching and searching these are, simplified, the real reasons for the war. But you can too build your own opinion searching on your own.

Some interesting readings:

A Just War?

War on Lebanon

Autopsy of the War

Towards a Biparty State

Have you ever felt that you don't have a real political choice? Have you ever had the feeling, that no matter who you vote for, the effect would be the same? Many, many people from the first world have that feeling. Would you like to stop feeling that way? If you are a risponsible citizen of your country and the world, I bet the answer is "Yes".

The first thing you need to know is that, that feeling of not having a real choice because of the little difference among the parties is a weapon against you. Making people think that there is no real difference in voting one party over another, makes people loose interest in politics. Why should they worry, or care, or even go to vote, if what ever happens will make no difference? The result: people end up voting by simpathies, tradition or just not voting at all. But this is the situation today. Let's travel some decades back, and seewhy is this happening.

Every first world country has passed by hard political and/or economical and/or social domestic difficulties. In the US the civil war, fight for civil rights, etc, in France the revolution, in Italy and Germany dictatorships, as well as in my country, Spain, and of course the World Wars. During and after the hard times, historically, people become very interested in politics. Usually become more active, more eager for information and watching over their parties and government. In most nations, the begginings of democracy has been the only real democratic time they have lived; with clearly differentiated parties; several mayor parties not only two; high rate of activism and electoral participation, and a serious and risponsible checking on governments action with little tolerance to lies and manipulations. What has happened since then?

Simplyfing the answer, we have become accomodated, lazy and have lost all trace of social risponsibility. But most of all, we have become too selfish and individualistic. We live in the culture of the individual. "Get the most you can get, the fastest you can get it, and don't look around you." We have lost solidarity, and any sense of team spirit, neither as a region, nor a nation, nor as humanity. May be some feel patriotic, and feel they are in the same team, but still push each other to become the star of the team. As I was saying before, in almost every first world country we have come to an almost total biparty state. This has happened for two main reasons

1. First, the lost of interest I mentioned. Loosing interest in politics, means not wanting to "loose" your time learning about the political choice represented by each party. That drives people into not seeing the differences between APPARENTLY alike parties. This caused that people with a left ideology ended up voting the same left party, probably the one with more resources to make it self more heard and seen. Same with the right.
2. Second, the influence of the economical powers. It has been easy for economical powers such as corporations to influence parties, by making big contributions to them. Obviously it is much easier for them, if they only need to influence two parties; the two parties that alternate in a nation's government. This influence, makes the two main parties have a huge advantage over the rest, having an overwhelming difference of power even when they are not running the government. There is literally no space left for the rest of the parties to breath.

What are the consequences? The loss of political ideology. In the biparty situation, both parties know that sooner or later, they are going to be in the government. They don't need to make a great effort. One mistake in the opposition is enough. The party itself, becomes more important that its ideology. It makes no sense. A party that has been founded to defend an ideology, has become more important than the ideology itself. So the main two parties look after the same objective, to keep as much time in power as possible.

Who do they get the benefits from? The president of the US's salary is $400,000, paid by the citizens. What is that compared to, for example, the millions that Rumsfeld made with the bird flu (Look at the "Good Old Bird Flu" post in this same blog), or the Bush family´s profits? Pocket change. So, who you think they are going to be most eager to please, the citizens, or the corporations, individuals and associations that provide them all that money? But the opposition will do the same once in power, because in a biparty state, ideology is no longer important. Presence in media, publicity, image is what is important. Have you not noticed that in the last years the only thing politicians talk about, are the dirty affairs of the opposition, and how thay mess up in this or that? Of the two parties, the one with a better image will win the elections (Unless somebody plays around with Florida's votes.)

So, who is to blame for this disaster? OURSELVES. It is true that it is inmoral and low and outraging that political parties are acting this way. But we are letting them. Democracy is the people's sovereignity, the people's power, but it is useless and pointless if we don't exercise that power. And to exercise that power in a risponsible way, we need to inform ourselves of the options we have, and ultimately, if we don't like any, to found, or promote, or help in some way the creation of another party. One of our greatest enemies is to think that voting a minor party is wasting our vote. It is not. It is an error to think that if you are not voting a winner you are wasting a vote. First of all, because that way, it will never become a winner. And second, even if that party is not a winner, it will achieve a little more representation in the political scenario. Also, we seem to think that if we don't belong to one of the two leading parties we are outcasts, marginals, weirdos. Remember that that is a weapon used against you to keep the power among the same people. Don't you think it is senseless, untruthfull, irresponsible and even dumb, to not vote who you really think deserves your vote?

What can we do now? We need to make the two main parties feel unsafe. Make them now that they are not the only choice. Find a smaller party that fits your believes and vote for it. Make them really worry again for the voters. Let them now that they need real thought through programs fitted to the needs of the nation if they want to govern you. Like that, it will be more difficult for the corporations to execute their influence. If they have to diverge their contributions among more parties, they wont have enough. And if they happen to have enough money to do it, they wont anyway. What kind of company supports every party? What would that say of their loyalty and what image would it give out?

And if you don't find any party that really represents your principles, vote blank. Your vote is an extremely valuable good. Don't give it out to just anyone. If no party convinces you, let them know by voting blank. Can you imagine what would happen if a high percentage of the populaiton voted blank? That would definetely bring a change. About that, I suggest you read the novel "Essay on Lucidity" by José Saramago.

The only thing I think is a pity, is that probably most of the people who read this, already care about democracy and politics. The rest probaly stopped reading after the second sentence. I still have hope, and will continue to write, hoping to inspire somebody who does not participate, to do it.

Hope to see you around again.

Defend Yourself

“Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask: by whom has it been elected, and to whom is it responsible?” Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

If you are an american citizen, you can help to avoid the unification of the information you get by just filling out this form.

I Want Different Points of View

Read THIS, if you are not sure why would you need to defend your self from unification of the media and, of course, do your own research.

You can also help to stop senator DeWine's spying proposal.

I Want My Own Inviolable Space

Read THIS if you are not sure why would you need to defend your self from the government spying on you and, of course, do your own research.

Good Old Bird Flu

Looking for information about the mistery of the sudden dissappearance of the danger of the avian flu pandemia, I casually bumped into a very interesting and add-on information on why it appeared in the first place.

I´ll leave a couple of links, because it would be pointless to just rewrite. You can find many more pages talking about that. These I leave are not the best detailed ones, but easier and faster to read and to get a notion of who has been making profits from our fear. If your brain itches, look for more facts, there are plenty.

http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/donald-rumsfeld-and-the-tamiflu-scam
http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/jun/24guest1.htm
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_bird_flu.htm

Of course, one could argue that as well as some say that the avian flu threat was false information, this data about Rumsfeld might be as well false. Of course, we cannot get inside people's minds and check who is right, so one must take the verificable facts, put them together and draw his own opinion about what is trully going on. Now let's collect the verifiable information we've gathered. (Watch out! I don't say that the avian flu doesn't exist, or that there is no risk at all, what a part of the scientific comunity says, is that there is no more threat than with so many other viruses.)

• Last year, we received a bombarment of media, for several moths, warning that there was a possibility that 1.2 billion could die from the bird flu pandemia.
  
• Bombardment from the media stopped. With time, nobody mentions the bird flu again.
  
• No vacune or effective cure has been found.
• Since it was identyfied as a threat, (not discovered) 9 years ago, only around a 100-160 people have died.

From this facts, I draw my conclusions. Yours, of course, might differ. If we know the threat of the virus for nine years; and if that virus is not specially lethal; and suddenly last year the whole world exploded with fear that the pandemia was around the corner, then I must assume one of two things: Either they have discovered relevant information last year worsening the situation, or there must be some other reason for the bombardment of the new. If that relevant information existed, it would have been shared, therefore I can only think there must be a hidden interest. Let´s continue.

Bombardment from the media stopped, but no cure or solution has been found. This means that either the danger has vanished by itself, or that there was no danger. The first conclusion doesn't seem appropriate, I stick to the second.

More facts:

• Tamiflu was the only medicament against the virus.
• Rumsfeld is a major shareholder of Gilead Sciences Inc. a was its president years ago.
• Gilead Sciences bought the patent for Tamiflu from Roche.
• Tamiflu is crushed aniseed, and Roche controls 90% of the worlds production of aniseed.
• Rumsfeld is part of the american government, which told the world about Tamiflu.

Putting this together it becomes obvious that for Rumsfeld and friends, it would be profitable to have an avian flu threat. From $254 million in 2004 to more than $1,000 million in 2005, that is how much. Join this conclusions with the ones above, and you'll discover, like I did that we are ignorants. The truth might have been modified. And it might have been modified for ever. And we bough it.

These leaves us with the feeling that we are not much more than cattle. We are told were to walk by, where to eat, where to sleep, and we just do it. Is it really that easy to manipulate us? No if we don't cooperate. Inform yourselves. Get your own conlusions. And use the power that knowledge gives you to make changes. How? Spreading the world, choosing better next elections, founding your own party, letting them know that you know what they are doing. From my point of view, the most important action at this point, is spreading the word. Making more and more people aware that they are being lied to systematically. Hopefully, one day enough people will be aware.

And we will be able to make a change. Or may be not, but at least, you will know what is really happening.

More people has taken the chance and is making money off this. They are not to blame for the lie, but is shows to what degree a big lie is able to produce benefits:

Sanyo
Whoever this is
Of course, drug industry
Standard package anti-bird flu.
Gerson
And many more...

The News Business

Not so long ago, the whole world was in red alert because of the inminent threat of pandemia by the H5N1 virus, the bird flu. For several months the bird flu invaded our media every single day; newspapers, magazines, tv news, documentaries, virtually each and every piece of media was infected by the bird flu, even recipes magazines explained how it was or wasn´t a risk to eat chiken. Fear spreaded through the world, and many people was geting ready for the flu that was going to kill 1.2 billion human beings.

But time passed, and as we started to get used to live with one more fear in our lives, the number of entries in the media about the bird flu gradually diminish. It diminished in such subtle manner, that I hadn't even thought about it util a couple of weeks ago. I asked myself, How is it possible that a such an apocaliptic danger can be just forgotten? People don't talk about it anymore. No news come out anymore. Why? I couldn´t understand. I cannot believe that one day we were on the verge of loosing 1/5 of the worlds population and the next, nobody would remember. I and many more people, arrived to a conclusion.

Corporative mass media were probably having a lack of news at the time, or not even that, they just took a chance to boost their incomes. They made all the profit they could while they could keep the fear level high enough, selling us magazines, giving us documentaries and shows to watch, etc., and they simply moved on to other news. This leaves another question. Are we so short-memory, simple minded and manipulable? I don´t think we are so dumb to believe that such a threat can appear and dissapear in a second. What really happens is that they take good care to worry our minds, and occupy the space one new was taking with another. And we just don´t remember. We just don´t think about it again. They are just playing with our emotions. We have to become good players to be able to see their bluffs. How? Finding our own information.

But, could there be any more reasons for the avian flu media bombardment? Did anyone else make profit out of this? Absolutely yes. We´ll discuss this next.

Welcome to Docta Ignorantia

Welcome to Docta Ignorantia.

The name of this blog, wise ignorance, is a way of referring to the same philosophy that Socrates believed in, summarized by his historical statement "I only know that I don't know anything". It represents the socratic principle of accepting ones ignorance to begin to learn what´s real. We live in an ignorant world, among ignorant people, and ignorants we are.

There is no shame in it, it is just a fact. But is the one and only fact that a person must recognize, to start thinking by himself. It is no easy task though. We live in a world previewed, viewed and edited by corporative mass media and every piece of information that we get has been picked, bitten and chewed, and our only part is to swallow it and digest it. Constant choking and indigestion has caused me to write these lines.
Through this blog, I intend to encourage the search of your own personal interpretation and evaluation of the world around us. I will try my best to show you that there is a whole new world to discover and understand, different from the one you are used to perceive. In a few words, I will try to make you face your own ignorance, as well as my own. I will try to give you your own tabula rasa to start writting on it. Once this objective is achieved, if it is ever achieved, the responsability to create your own knowledge will be yours.

Of course, I am not in possession ot the truth. I will just offer other possibilities of truth available. Many times I will offer my point of view, some others it will be an alternative one, worth of only some attention, not our believing.
Most of the times I will not be able to provide you substantial proofs of the facts I will discuss. There are three possible reasons for this:

1- It is not true.
2- Every proof has being eliminated, undermined or I wasn't efficient enough finding it..
3- It is merely a theory.

Again, this is because I don't intend to give you the truth, but to show that the truth itself is not so clear. Hopefully, we will get closer to it together.

I hope you find this blog stimulating and brain itching.

I beg you pardon for any grammar mistakes, english is my second language.