There is a certain irony in the current situation what with the empire (such as it is) decidedly on the defensive following its resounding defeat at the hands of a relatively small force in Lebanon (figures vary wildly depending on the source, running from a couple of thousand or so all the way up to 100,000).

An irony because in spite of the vast propaganda exercise, the 'terror’ alert, the demonisation of Hizballah and the almost total destruction of Lebanon, it has all come to nought. We see both the US and UK governments reeling from the defeat suffered by their proxy force, Israel and resorting to pulling out all the stops with their allegations of "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" an allegation they are now claiming is not what it seems as even in an age of engineered fear, failing as yet to bring a single charge against any of the 24 people detained under the 'anti-terrorism’ laws, it looks like the Blair regime has cried wolf once too often.

Meanwhile, back in what’s left of Lebanon, the Israelis are forced to retreat, after all what choice do they have? Either they re-invade (or stay put) and risk even more humbling treatment of their much vaunted military might.

Of course, 'off-the-shelf’ weapons systems have altered the nature of modern warfare considerably enabling a relatively small military force to take on much larger and in theory anyway, superior adversaries. Hand-held 'smart’ weapons can be purchased on the global arms market from any number of suppliers not only Syria and Iran. This new generation of weapons pack a punch wildly out of proportion to their size and complexity. 'Point, shoot and forget’ is no longer the exclusive property of the invader.

Consider the latest anti-tank weapons that took out perhaps two dozen of what are meant to be the most hardened of battle tanks, the Merkeva, flipping the 85-tonne monsters like so many toy cars. This must have come as real shock to the invaders, buoyed up as they were on their assumed superiority.

Delusions of the master race just like in Iraq, where it was (and still is) assumed that the technological superiority of the US can deal with an adversary armed with little more than home-made weapons.

One thing I think is pretty obvious, at least to me anyway, and that is that the Israelis knew exactly what they were up against in southern Lebanon hence the avoidance of a land battle for the first three weeks of the assault and the concentration on the destruction of Lebanon as a state.

Why do I say this? Because it is inconceivable that the Israelis and the US didn't know exactly what kind of weapons and defences the Lebanese had. They were after all, able to tell the world that Hezbollah possessed some 13,000 missiles of various kinds, and as events show, many thousands were fired at Israel over the one month period.

No doubt the theory was that such wanton destruction—read collective punishment of the Lebanese people—would turn them against Hezbollah. Another serious miscalculation on the part of the invader but self-delusion seems to be the norm for these would be empire-builders.

Thus the 'terror alert’; you can almost set your watch by these predictable events, so much so that even before a single person has been charged, it is already clear that the 'liquid bomber plot’ is a lie of enormous dimensions, relying as it does mainly on the testimony of a man held by the Pakistani government, not the most reliable of 'allies’ and as Craig Murray points out in his excellent piece, any information obtained by the Pakistani ISI is, in all likelyhood obtained through torture.

In fact there are so many holes in the 'plot’ that it verges on the farcical, not the least of which is that according to the usual 'un-named’ but one assumes security service leaks, the 'gang' has been under observation for more than a year, yet although we are told that they were no more than "days" away from blowing up a number of aircraft, the 'plotters’ possessed neither passports nor airline tickets. Look, I could go on but others have done the job of demolishing the 'plot’ very effectively and revealing how the media has been an accomplice in covering the reality of the situation, especially in Iraq.[1]

Suffice to say, the presumed explosive, TATP, that these would-be sky bombers we are told were going to use, is possibly the worst explosive to use under the circumstances (I won't bore you with the details, see 'Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible? Let’s whip up some TATP and find out By Thomas C Greene’ for an in-depth analysis of TATP).

Of course, the entire point of the exercise in creating mass fear and loathing of 'Islamo-fascists’ was to distract the populace from the horrendous war crimes being committed in 'our names’ and the unfolding disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And as I predicted, the EU states are not exactly rushing to supply a 'peace-keeping force’ for Lebanon. Even the French are now having second thoughts as not surprisingly, they don't want to be the only ones there and predictably, the Israelis/US object to having brown-skinned soldiers do the job (the only ones who appear to want to take on the task are troops from countries such as Indonesia). All in all, it’s a grand, imperial fuck-up that 'terror in the skies’ cannot hide no matter to what degree it has been hyped.

Assuming, as some analysts have stated, that the attack on Lebanon was some kind of 'dry run’ for an attack on Iran, the miserable job the Israelis have done on taking out a couple of thousand guerrilla fighters surely must have the 'global strategists’ in their bunkers in Washington DC, scratching their heads as to what to do next.

And at the risk of repeating myself, without the craven support of the mass media in selling the slaughter and the 'plot’, it is doubtful if this latest exercise in paranoia would have worked. As it is, it took the combined resources of the British, American and Pakistani governments to pull it off and even now, aside from threatening to destroy the airline industry with the ridiculous 'security’ measures, I venture to guess that all it has achieved is in delaying the inevitable.

And indeed, with every passing day, Bush and Blair get more desperate in their attempts to cover up their crimes. Amazingly, even the MSM is getting the message with the Independent’s front page declaring

 "Labour agrees: Bush is crap" though it should have read "Bush and Blair are crap", the reference being to near revolt in the Labour ranks (at last, though it’s unlikely to lead to anything of significance as even those left Labour MPs still don’t get it, they still seem to operate under the delusion that by some process known only to them, the Labour government can be turned left).

If nothing else, the events of the past three years have surely revealed so-called democratic society for what it is, a sham and a lie inflicted on generations of people. The challenge for us is how to get rid of this evil system once and for all.

Notes

1. See The UK Terror plot: what’s really going on? Craig Murray’ and,

'MEDIA ALERT: BURYING THE INSURGENCY IN IRAQ’