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Le reportage du Sunday Times paru le 7 janvier et signé Uzi Mahnaimi, New York and Sarah Baxter, Washington
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2535310,00.html
révèlerait que les préparations militaires israéliennes sont très avancées. Après lancement de bombes perforantes guidées par laser, ouvrant des tunnels dans les cibles, des “mini-bombes nucléaires”  seraient immédiatement lancées dans l’usine à Natanz, explosant profondément sous la surface, ce qui réduirait le risque de retombées radioactives .
Comme l’affirme FF, les bombes perforantes comportent une “pointe” extrêmement dense (D = 19) d’uranium 238, non fissile. Mais l’article cite bien des bombes à fission qui emprunteraient les tunnels creusés par les précédentes. Même en 2007, cette incroyable précision me semble tenir du cauchemar plutôt que de la réalité, les Iraniens disposant d’une aviation qui devrait gêner le tir des Israéliens.
A moins que simultanément, les USA ne déclenchent une grande opération, ainsi que le prévoit un site américain,  ce 9 janvier 2007 ” La guerre avec l’Iran est imminente”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53669.
Les attaques israéliennes pourraient survenir après le “nettoyage” du ciel et des défenses anti-aériennes.

L’idée est vraiment troublante voir excitante… Je ne partage pas, en revanche, le choix de la cible nécessairement “internationale”... Car toutes ces organisations (Commission Européenne, et pourquoi pas l’ONU) ne sont que les portes-voix des états qui les composent (et de certains plus que d’autre). c’est comme assigner en justice une société écran alors qu’on connaît la société mère, ça me paraît peu judicieux… D’autant que certaines organisations sont justement très avancées sur les “alertes”. Le travail de recherche d’organisations ou de programmes rattachés au système onusien par exemple, est collocal et précurseur sur le sujet… Ils sont tout à fait légitime pour dire: “on a tiré la sonnette d’alarme, maintenant les détenteurs du pouvoir d’éxécution (qui n’ont pas assumé) sont les états!”
Bref, une “drôle” d’idée!

... Les passages les plus émouvants de ce livre, fruit d’une dizaine d’années de travail, concernent la conquête russe du Caucase, qui a abouti à la déportation de centaines de milliers de personnes, au dépeuplement de zones entières et à la disparition de multiples peuples et de leurs langues. Qui se souvient encore que les Tcherkesses habitaient un vaste territoire du sud de la Russie allant jusqu’à Krasnodar et comprenant des localités aujourd’hui bien russes comme Sotchi, la perle du tourisme de la mer Noire ?

... L’emprise russe sur cette région ne faiblira que pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, quand de nombreux peuples caucasiens, y compris les Cosaques, victimes de la terreur rouge et de la collectivisation, se rallieront à l’Allemagne de Hitler qui lance ses troupes en direction du pétrole de la Caspienne, de tout temps le véritable enjeu du «Grand Jeu».

... L’Union soviétique victorieuse leur fera payer très cher. La déportation des Tchétchènes, Ingouches et autres Balkars, déplacés dans les steppes du Kazakhstan, d’où ils reviendront en 1957, créera d’autres problèmes qui ressurgiront après l’éclatement de l’URSS et se perpétuent encore aujourd’hui.

La dissolution de l’ancien empire soviétique a remis en selle le «Grand Jeu». Réduit de fait à l’état de province enclavée pendant la période soviétique, l’Azerbaïdjan en est redevenu la pièce maîtresse, car il s’est toujours agi du même défi : transporter l’or noir de la Caspienne par une voie qui contourne la Russie. C’est chose faite depuis l’ouverture en 2006 de l’oléoduc Bakou-Ceyhan. ( Libération 2007-01-09, Le Caucase et le «Grand Jeu», L’histoire de nettoyages ethniques oubliés, par un spécialiste de la Russie, Hélène DESPIC-POPOVIC )

On nous sort que Israël veut utiliser des armes nucléaires contre l’Iran, plus exactement des armes à l’uranium appauvri. Mais, que je sache, les armes à l’uranium appauvri ne sont pas des armes nucléaires. Ce sont des armes “conventionnelles” (comme par exemple les obus anti-chars de type APFSDS). La bombe dont les journaux parlent est, je crois, une grosse bombe anti-bunker utilisant l’uranium appauvri.
L’uranium appauvri est utilisée parce qu’elle transperce plus facilement les blindages (et les murs) que les munitions qu’elle remplace…

“La culture, acteur central de la crise psychopolitique”

De grâce, envoyez cet excellent article à tous les intellectuels en vue et bien sûr aux hommes politiques.

J’aimerais bien connaître l’auteur.

“Sadate” a été corrigé en “Saddam” comme l’avait bien vu notre lecteur AM, que nous remercions. Y avait-t-il lapsus et est-il révélateur? A vous de juger.

Etrange lapsus. Révélateur ? Vous avez écrit \“la pendaison de Sadate\”...

The Sunday Times January 07, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2535310_2,00.html
—————-

Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran
Uzi Mahnaimi, New York and Sarah Baxter, Washington

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.
The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.
Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.
“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.
The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.
Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.
Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.
Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.
Israel has identified three prime targets south of Tehran which are believed to be involved in Iran’s nuclear programme:
Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium enrichment
A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan where, according to a statement by an Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels
A heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future produce enough plutonium for a bomb
Israeli officials believe that destroying all three sites would delay Iran’s nuclear programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in fear of a “second Holocaust”.
The Israeli government has warned repeatedly that it will never allow nuclear weapons to be made in Iran, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared that “Israel must be wiped off the map”.
Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, has described military action against Iran as a “last resort”, leading Israeli officials to conclude that it will be left to them to strike.
Israeli pilots have flown to Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000-mile round trip to the Iranian targets. Three possible routes have been mapped out, including one over Turkey.
Air force squadrons based at Hatzerim in the Negev desert and Tel Nof, south of Tel Aviv, have trained to use Israel’s tactical nuclear weapons on the mission. The preparations have been overseen by Major General Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the Israeli air force.
Sources close to the Pentagon said the United States was highly unlikely to give approval for tactical nuclear weapons to be used. One source said Israel would have to seek approval “after the event”, as it did when it crippled Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak with airstrikes in 1981.
Scientists have calculated that although contamination from the bunker-busters could be limited, tons of radioactive uranium compounds would be released.
The Israelis believe that Iran’s retaliation would be constrained by fear of a second strike if it were to launch its Shehab-3 ballistic missiles at Israel.
However, American experts warned of repercussions, including widespread protests that could destabilise parts of the Islamic world friendly to the West.
Colonel Sam Gardiner, a Pentagon adviser, said Iran could try to close the Strait of Hormuz, the route for 20% of the world’s oil.
Some sources in Washington said they doubted if Israel would have the nerve to attack Iran. However, Dr Ephraim Sneh, the deputy Israeli defence minister, said last month: “The time is approaching when Israel and the international community will have to decide whether to take military action against Iran.”

  Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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... Quelque soit la véracité des faits conduisant à cette escalade, les marchés pétroliers risquent de réagir très fortement dès lundi matin, alors que le cours de pétrole a fortement chuté durant la semaine écoulée pour atteindre son niveau de juin 2005.

... ce qui pourrait tout de même bien arranger les très puissants lobbies pétroliers texans qui doivent actuellement faire grise mine devant la chute vertigineuse des cours du pétrole.

N’oublions pas tout de même qu’Israël et USA sont plus qu’alliés et qu’une telle escalade – certes uniquement verbale pour le moment – pourrait également satisfaire le Président Iranien, en augmentant le cours du pétrole, alors qu’il a du récemment demander une rallonge budgétaire, tandis que la rébellion menace à Téhéran.

( Elisabeth Studer, http://www.leblogfinance.com/ )

3 500 tonnes de CO2
600 000 litres de Jet A1 pour les avions
250 000 litres d’Avgas
500 000 litres de gazoil
140 000 litres pour les hélicos
qui n’ont jamais rien apporté à la recherche en terme de biocarburants et de moteurs hybrides.
Cet événement exalte la sur-consommation. En Afrique ... cette obscénité terrorise et humilie.

S’ils avaient la moindre capacité d’adaptation ce serait devenu une course à l’économie.

Pétition sur http://www.velorution.org/pasdak/index.php?petition=1&signe=oui.

For years, a network of fake citizens’ groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade.

But who funded them? Exxon’s involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco ...

The website http://www.Exxonsecrets.org, using data found in the company’s official documents, lists 124 organisations that have taken money from the company or work closely with those that have.

These organisations take a consistent line on climate change: that the science is contradictory, the scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics, and if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering the global economy for no good reason. The findings these organisations dislike are labelled “junk science”. The findings they welcome are labelled “sound science”.

Among the organisations that have been funded by Exxon are such well-known websites and lobby groups as TechCentralStation, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Some of those on the list have names that make them look like grassroots citizens’ organisations or academic bodies: the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, for example ...

( The Guardian Sept.19, 2006 The denial industry. George Monbiot, http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1875762,00.html )

The past year has redefined the landscape of exchanges around the world ...

... The euro-bourses have failed to create a pan-European market capable of competing with the LSE and, more importantly, the US markets. Two transatlantic takeovers by US exchanges are now in motion. Why does the initiative come from the US? After all, the LSE’s profits are double those of Nasdaq, Euronext’s profits are two times the NYSE’s and Deutsche Börse is three times more profitable than the NYSE. The reason is that stock exchange price/earnings ratios in the US are about 50 times, while the European p/e ratios are in the 20s. The contemplated transactions produce a substantial transfer of European earnings to US shareholders. Europe finances its own takeover.

It is extraordinary that neither the European Commission nor Ecofin, the committee of European finance ministers, have encouraged the European exchanges to get together. Is it no matter to Europe that two of its largest equity markets will be owned by US stock exchanges? Would this not affect the internal market? Does the CME-CBOT merger not threaten the European derivatives market? etc.

( Financial Times, Exchange battles mask Europe’s silence, Georges Ugeux, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e4f90344-9a8a-11db-bbd2-0000779e2340.html )

On October 19 I debated Bob Novak at Emory University. The topic was “Civil Liberties in a Time of War.” I kicked his ass, but that’s not why I mention it. In the debate I predicted that, after the Democrats captured the Congress, Pres. Bush would provoke a Constitutional crisis by refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Pres. Bush, I predicted, will effectively tell Speaker Pelosi, “You send the Capitol Police to enforce your subpoena. I’ll send the 82d Airborne to resist them. Let’s meet on the Mall and see who wins.”

Novak said I was crazy. It’s beginning to look like I was right.

The only reason George W. Bush would turn loose of White House Counsel Harriett Miers - who gazes upon our president with an adoration and veneration bordering on idolatry - is because he wants a war-time consigliere.

In a way that might make Harry F. Byrd proud, our president is about to embark on a policy of massive resistance. He will instruct his lawyers to delay, deny and refuse to comply with any effort by Congress to get to the bottom of official corruption - especially as the billions squandered or stolen in Mr. Bush’s war. He’ll try to run out the clock, then take his chances with his hand-picked right-wing judiciary. (Keep in mind the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, through which this dispute would flow, includes such Bush appointees as Brett Kavanaugh, a Ken Starr protégé whose work in the Bush White House was described by Henry Waxman as promoting “an imperial presidency.” And the Supreme Court has such presidential suck-ups as John Roberts and Sam Alito.)

Thank God the American people - and Nancy Pelosi—have given the responsibility of oversight we have constitutional heroes like Waxman and John Dingell. They are fair and tough. But even in their combined 83 years experience in Congress they have not seen a crowd that has more contempt for the Constitution than the Bush-Cheney team. I would not be surprised to learn that, in anticipation of receiving congressional subpoenas, the Bushies were having shredding parties that would make Ollie North and Fawn Hall blush.

Let’s all watch to see who Bush appoints to replace Ms. Miers. If he chooses someone like David Addington, Vice President Cheney’s chief counsel, we’ll know Mr. Bush intends to shred yet another Article of the Constitution. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/bushs-strategy-of-massiv_b_37946.html )

Je suis heureux de voir que je ne suis pas le seul à y penser. Merci pour votre article… “historique”.

Je pense aussi qu’il reste, comme seule issue à la crise irakienne, qu’une fuite en avant. En espérant que tout s’arrange pour le pire : les crises sont parfois salutaires.