WHO is the REAL ENEMY?

I found this excellent article at Signs of the Times today which has a really great explanation of what is the root-cause of war and what is actually going on right now in the Middle East.

It seems the lust for wealth and power is generally always behind just about all the wars we have ever seen throughout history, but there is an even more insidious and horrifying reason why this is always so - the Psychopaths who rise to positions of power and influence!

Without further ado, here is the article.

At present, many writers in the alternative media are feeling extremely

angry, depressed and frustrated at what is happening in Palestine and Lebanon.

Despite hundreds of editorials and essays eloquently decrying Israeli aggression

and provocation and spelling out the very obvious reason for the long-standing

violence in the Middle East, Israel continues its murderous rampage,

killing almost 70 Lebanese civilians yesterday. Yesterday's attacks involved

Israeli bombing of entire Lebanese villages, such as Srifa in the south west

of Lebanon where Israeli F-16 jets, supplied free of charge by the US government,

destroyed 15 houses, killed at least 20, and wounded at least 30, men women,

young and old alike. The truly horrifying thing however is that the inhabitants

of the villages were fleeing on the orders of the Israeli government itself,

yet as the villagers attempted to leave in their cars and vans, they were targeted

by Israeli jets and blown to pieces...

At the beginning of the current crisis

in Palestine, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated

clearly that the lives of Israeli civilians were more important

than the lives of Palestinian civilians and that the bombing of the Gaza strip

and Lebanon is designed to wipe out the threat to Israeli citizens from Hamas

and Hezbollah. In the past 5 years, 5 Israeli civilians have been

killed in one town as a result of Hamas rockets, and none have been killed

as a result of Hizbollah attacks. Yet in the past week and as a result of

Israeli attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah, 14 Israeli citizens of Haifa have

been killed. Clearly, and despite his words, Olmert cares little more for the

lives of Israeli Jews than he does for the lives of Arabs.

Is It Really About Defence?

As an explanation for the murder of 300 Lebanese civilians over the past

7 days and the murder of over 3,000 Palestinian civilians and 800 Israeli civilians

over the past five years, Bush and Olmert repeatedly state that "Israel

has a right to defend itself". When the facts are analysed, this claim

is nonsensical and an outright lie. The Israeli military has been occupying

Palestinian, Lebanese (the Chebaa Farms area) and Syrian (Golan heights) for

almost 40 years. In the Palestinian land that it occupies, the Israeli government

had reduced the Palestinian population therein to little more than slaves.

Israel holds these lands in defiance of international law. This is the

major source of

Palestinian and Hezbollah resentment towards and attacks on Israel. The

continuation of an enforced occupation of the sovereign territory of another

people and nation simply cannot be described as "defence".

If a person comes and throws you out of your home and occupies it by force

of arms, he may claim that he is "defending" it, but it is a defence

of something acquired through illegal means and is therefore an unlawful

and aggressive act. It is not defence.

The history of Israeli tactics in the occupied Palestinian territories over

the past 50 years make it very clear that the ultimate goal of the Israeli

power brokers has always been the removal, in one way or another,

of all Palestinians from their land.

Consider the below image

of illegal Israeli settlements in the West.

Now remember, other than the miniscule

Gaza strip, this is all of the land available for a Palestinian

state! The Israeli government began building the illegal settlements in 1967,

they same year that it annexed Lebanese and Syrian land. Today, Israeli settlers

live in plush comfortable houses with all amenities on 40% of Palestinian land

in the West Bank, while Palestinians regularly have their meager houses destroyed

by Israeli bulldozers. All crossings out of Gaza and the West Bank are strictly

controlled by Israeli troops, with most Palestinians being denied the right

to leave. Poverty in Gaza and the West Bank is rife with 65% of the population

living below the poverty line i.e. on less than $2 per day.

What is very clear

to Palestinians, and has been for a very long time, is that the Israeli government never intended

to allow the Palestinians to have a state of their own. Palestinians are painfully

aware of the fact that, since 1967, the Israeli government has been preparing

what was left of Palestinian land for a final annexation into Israel, with

the only impediment to the fulfillment of this plan being the Palestinians

living there. With the recent staged crisis, Israel hopes to find the opportunity

to deal with this last 'obstacle' to Greater Israel, once and for all. Clearly

then, it is the Palestinians, and now the Lebanese, who are, and have always

been engaged in defence against a long-term and ongoing Israeli plot to dispossess

them of their land and homes forever.

How do you feel about this?

When you look at the bodies of Lebanese babies, their little bodies lying

mangled, scattered around the ground beside the burnt-out van they were travelling

in only minutes before, what do you feel? Is this a just end

to this child's life?! Did he deserve it?!

When you realise

that these children were ordered to leave their homes by the Israeli military

in a deliberate ploy to "flush them out" in order to blow them to

pieces with their bombs, what do you feel?

When you see the once beautiful brown curls of a 5 year old Lebanese girl,

now matted with her own blood, her clothes torn, her head hanging lifeless,

what do you feel?

When you look at the image below of another Lebanese "terrorist" girl

'taken out' by Israeli war planes, do you think of your own children? Do you

imagine how you would feel if this were your child?

When you see the burning bodies of two lebanese civilians, the victims of

Israeli and American 'defence', is it pride you feel?

Imagine for a moment that you are the President of America, or a member of

his administration, or the Israeli Prime Minister, or a member of his administration.

Having seen these pictures, would you, as "Commander in Chief", continue

to order more air strikes on civilian targets? If you retained even an ounce

of your own humanity - your ability to empathise with the suffering of another

- you most definitely would not. You could not. Bush and Olmert

see these pictures and they remained unmoved, supremely detached from any

emotion at the sight of a dead child, and they give the order to continue the

bombing.

Apparently, they want to see more dead children.

Am I being inflammatory when I say this? Am I exaggerating? Can it really

be possible that our leaders are so inhuman, so different from you and I?

No

one wants to consider such a concept, but what else are we to conclude when

the bombing continues? When 270 of 300 Lebanese killed in the past week were

innocent civilians, are you going to tell me that Israeli (and therefore American)

war technology is so crude that it repeatedly hits the wrong target? In which

case, why do they keep using such devices? Are you trying to tell me that missiles

that hit the fleeing civilians were not deliberate? How far

can your credibility be stretched?

The Real Enemy Of Mankind

The 'crisis' in Palestine and Lebanon comes at a bad time for the alternative

media. Up until a few weeks ago, we could still entertain the idea that

we were making a difference. The dogged blogging and posting of articles and

editorials on web sites seemed to be having an effect. We felt we had a voice

and that it was being listened to by an ever increasing number of people. We

thought the pressure we were bringing to bear would surely stay the hand of

the war mongers, that they would 'see the light', that we could 'bring them

to their senses'. But we were wrong it seems.

If there is one glaring problem with the alternative media today it is that

they do not know the true nature of the enemy. In fact, no one seems to realise

that we are fighting an enemy at all. Most still believe that we are dealing

with a few misguided political leaders who just seem to have a really hard

time realising that their actions are causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands

of innocent people. If they could only be made aware of this, the world would

turn the corner towards peace and prosperity for all, right?

Unfortunately, there is a serious problem with this assumption.

If we, the information-deprived masses, are able to get a glimpse of the carnage

that our political leaders are causing, is it not a certainty that these same

political leaders are significantly

more aware of the results of their actions? After all, they are in possession

of detailed intelligence reports on demographics, details of targets selected

and the nature and destructive power of the weapons they employ against those

targets. When we hear of an Israeli or American bomb scoring a direct

hit on a residential house that kills dozens of innocent men women and children,

our lack of knowledge of military affairs and planning allows us to believe

that maybe it was a mistake, that they didn't really mean to kill

civilians. Indeed, we need to believe this, because to believe

otherwise is to face ourselves into a very frightening scenario indeed - that

our political leaders, the men and women who sit in almost absolute power over

us, are fully conscious of their actions and therefore lack the one characteristic

that defines a person as truly human: empathy for the suffering of another

human being.

So we force ourselves to believe that the men and women with the power to

kill millions would never take delight in exercising that power. We think that

because we recoil in horror and grief at the sight of the lifeless

body of a small child lying beside the burnt out shell of the car she was travelling

in before it was hit by an Israeli or American missile, that the men who fired

the missile, or those who ordered them to fire it, are also deeply moved by

such a tragic scene. Yet we run into a problem the very moment that a second

missile, then a third and then a fourth, extinguishes more innocent lives.

How many more bodies of dead children, how many more weeks of Israeli military

bombing campaigns on civilian targets are needed before we come to the conclusion

that the members of the Israeli, American and British governments who, in full

knowledge of their actions continue to sanction or order such attacks, simply

do not, cannot, feel the same way about the massacring of innocent children

as you and I?

Understandably, this is a hard one for many people to accept. To accept it

heralds the end of our cozy world-view where basically good and decent leaders,

people just like you and I, are at least striving to

do what is best for the world and its people. In its place, we find ourselves

in a world where the global power brokers, the people who control every aspect

of our material lives, appear not to care about human life at all, save

their own.

How long might an impala on the serengeti expect to survive if, despite all

evidence to contrary, it continues to believe in the innate benevolence of

a lion towards its species?

This is an appropriate analogy. Scientific studies have shown that when normal

human beings are presented with a disturbing image of human suffering, an area

of the brain associated with emotion and empathy "lights up". Similar

studies carried out on known psychopaths show that they appear to lack the

normal range of human emotion. When a psychopath is shown a picture of a car,

followed by a picture of a dead child and a grieving mother, there is no difference

in brain response. There is no feeling it seems.

Psychopathy

Dr Hervey Cleckly spent years studying psychopaths up close and personal.

His book, The Mask of Sanity, shows that, outwardly, the

average intelligent psychopath bears no resemblance, neither in appearance

nor actions, to Hannibal Lecter or Ted Bundy. Neither is he in jail. On the

contrary, the average psychopath appears to be conscious of the fact that he

lacks the basic human ability to feel deep emotion and empathy

for another. Early on in his life, the psychopath learns that displays of complete

indifference to the suffering of others are reacted to with concern and sometimes

anger by his family and peers. So he learns to conceal it. At the same time,

he recognises and gravitates towards others who share his deficiency.

It is not hard to imagine that psychopaths do very well in business and politics

where the promotion of self-interest and the accrual of personal and group

power is the name of the game. Where you or I, in possession of a conscience,

would surely balk at, for example deliberately getting a work colleague

fired for no reason other than facilitate our own ascent of the corporate ladder,

no such impediment to success exists for the psychopath who simply cannot put

himself in the place of another human being and therefore feel empathy. While

it has been estimated that approximately 6% of the global population falls

into the category of psychopath (about 360 million people), their extreme

self-interest and the fact that such "ambition" is a key ingredient

of success in the world of politics and business, we assume much more than

6% of top level corporate, government and military positions are held by people

who possess no ability to empathise with the needs or suffering of another

human being.

A perusal of the last few thousand years of the history of our world quickly

reveals to us that, more than anything else, war has defined our 'evolution'

(if it can be called that). Equally obvious is the fact that, in war,

soldiers and civilians die while the men and women responsible for waging

war (on both sides) generally neither fight in the war nor are punished

for their part in it encouraging it.

Does that tell you anything?

Throughout

history, small groups of people have risen to power over the masses, and by

the promotion of religious, ethnic or political divisions, they have set large

groups of ordinary human beings against each other in order to further their

personal goals. More often that not, ideologies such as 'freedom' are used

to rally the masses to fight.

But history testifies that the only real net result of war is the consolidation

of power into the hands of an 'elite' few. After the allies were victorious

in WWII, Stalin went on to murder 50 million Russians. World War II led to

the creation of the state of Israel and the ongoing persecution of Middle Eastern

Arabs. World War II also facilitated the USA's rise to a position of global

preeminence, a situation which has caused more death and suffering over the

past 60 years than at any other time in our recent history.

Now more than ever, there is an opportunity for each

of us to recognise who the true enemy is. Why should we or our sons and daughers

continue to fight and kill each other on the command of a small group of people

whose only contribution has been to enrich themselves at our expense, at the

expense of our very lives? Are we stupid? Or are we just misinformed? The reality

of our world has always been a very clear case of Us and Them, yet we have

failed to see it. We fail to see the predatory, unfeeling nature of these

people because we ourselves lack such a nature. We project on to them

our own human values of empathy and conscience when, time and again, they have

proven that they possess no such qualities. We have allowed

them to divide us, and set us at each others throats in the name of

freedom, a value that we hold

dear, not they (save for their usefulness in manipulating us).

Now more than ever, the very real yet hidden

phenomenon of psychopathy needs desperately to be uncovered. We need to avail

ourselves of the evidence that suggests that many of our political leaders

are clinical, yet very smart and careful psychopaths. There is no other plausible

explanation for their smug brutality, their deadly lies, their utter indifference

to the pitiful sight of the lifeless body of small child for whose death they

are responsible.

Lest anyone begin the process of rationalising what I have

said, realise that to do so is evidence that your own humanity is being robbed

from you by the propagation of our 'leaders' psychopathic values and ideologies.

"War is peace", "Black is White" "Muslims are Terrorists" "Our

government is protecting us". Before you fall for such paramoralisms,

know this; psychopaths feel no empathy for any other human being.

Race or creed does not figure into the equation. There is significant evidence

that the psychopaths in power in the US and Israel knowingly murdered 3,000

American citizens on September 11th 2001, few were Muslim. At present the Israeli

government is placing the lives of Israeli Jews in clear danger precisely because

they simply cannot care about the life of any other human being, Christian,

Muslim, Jew they are concerned for none but themselves.

'Armgaeddon' Approaches

As a conclusion, I would like here to present a theory for your consideration,

and while you may immediately reject it as implausible, I suggest

you watch events in the Middle East and notice the direction they take. My

suggestion is that the ultimate goal of the plan that is being currently implemented

in Lebanon and Palestine is the destruction of a majority of the population

of the modern-day Middle East.

Far from

attempting to rid the world of a previously more or less non-existent anti-Semitism,

the policies pursued by successive Israeli governments have gone a long way

to increasing ill-feeling towards Jews and Israel. By repeatedly condemning

anyone who speaks out against the increasingly brutal actions of the Israeli

government as anti-Semitic, Israeli leaders and lobbyists are coming close

to making the word anti-Semitism respectable.

When that happens, the demise of Israel, the Jews and the Arabs of the Middle

East will be all but assured. That day is closer than any of us realise.

We have but one hope to prevent what appears to be an approaching major

war in the Middle East that will not be limited to that region and which will

result in the deaths of millions of innocents: we must understand the truth

about the men and women that call themselves our 'leaders', yet who offer nothing

but war, suffering and death. We must realise the that they are not like you

and I, they do not feel as you and I feel, they do not love as you and I love.

They are psychopaths, and under their stewardship death and destruction is

100% assured.