New threat to Middle East
U.S. to give giant bombs to Israel
'Bunker busters' seen as targeting Iran
By Deirdre Griswold
Israel is to receive 5,000 new bombs from the U.S.,
including 500 of the huge "bunker busters" the Pentagon has
used in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the authoritative
Israeli daily, Haaretz. The transfer is to take place right
after the U.S. elections in November.
News sources in all the imperialist capitals are
interpreting this arms deal as a direct threat to yet another
Middle Eastern country, Iran. They point out that "bunker
busters" can penetrate 15 feet of concrete, making them a
weapon of choice to destroy Iran's nuclear industry, now in
development.
The bomb transfer is being called a "sale" worth $319
million, but Washington is really giving the weapons to Israel,
since it makes readily available to its client state both the
money and the arms. Funding for the sale will come from U.S.
military aid to Israel, the largest recipient of such aid in
the world.
Israel has attacked its Muslim and Arab neighbors many times
before in military aggressions coordinated with the secret
services of its imperialist allies. In 1981, Israeli planes
bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor, showing no concern for the
possible nuclear contamination of the area. Israel is widely
acknowledge by Western military authorities to secretly possess
nuclear weapons itself, but has never been taken to task for
it.
The transfer of these bombs points to a major escalation in
the epic struggle between imperialism and the peoples of the
Middle East, who are trying to finally take control over their
own resources and wealth before the precious oil under their
ground has all been siphoned off to the benefit of foreign
capital. This struggle has been boiling in Iraq, where
resistance to imperialist occupation and control is taking on
both the old colonial power in London and the neocolonial
superpower in Washington.
While the mood among the people in the imperialist West is
against spilling "blood for oil," the capitalist-dominated
political process euphemistically named democracy is insuring
that the governments of the U.S. and Britain are ready to
defend the oil companies' profits to the last drop of their
young soldiers' blood.
These new bombs are also a direct threat to the continued
struggle of the Palestinian people to retain their national
identity and their land, which is being chipped away daily by
new Israeli settlements. In addition to the 500 one-ton bunker
busters, the deal includes 2,500 other one-ton bombs, 1,000
half-ton bombs and 500 quarter-ton bombs, Haaretz said.
This is just one more sign of things to come after the
capitalist election. New and more urgent challenges lie ahead
for the anti-war forces all over the world.
Reprinted from the Sept. 30, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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