War on Iran very likely, says Mahathir

Ng Eng Kiat
Jun 24, 06 4:51pm




"nuclear iran"--The possibility of war against Iran is very real, although it may not happen, but Dr Mahathir Mohamad thinks it is very likely to happen.

“The use of nuclear material is already ongoing, when they talked about the use of depleted uranium, I thought it was some kind of paste painted on the bullets and the shells, but now I am told that there are actually solid material weighing ten-pounds per shell!” the former premier said during a press conference after the Perdana Global Peace Forum in Kuala Lumpur this week.

He said although a bomb the size of the one dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki may not be deployed, the fact that nuclear materials have been used meant a nuclear war is already on.

Another invasion, he claimed, is not going to happen but the likelihood is that aircraft carriers with their bombers and others stationed in nearby countries will be used to rocket specific targets in Iran.

“The bunkers are spread all over Iran, so they have to bomb the whole of Iran to get all the bunkers, because according to their intelligence Iran has got a lot of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) hidden in lots of bunkers,” he said.

Guest speaker Michel Chossudovsky said there are 480 tactical nuclear stationed in five non-nuclear states - Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, and Turkey - and Iran has no capabilities to produce nuclear weapons for at least 10 years.

“Turkey has 90 nuclear weapons pointed at Iran and it (Iran) is a non-nuclear state!” said the anti-war activist who has written extensively on the war in Yugoslavia.

Nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, which recently docked at Port Klang, is said to be on its way to join the US force to participate in outright aggression against Iran, Iraq, or both.

International law professor Francis Boyle said Malaysia should have nothing to do with this ship and that welcoming it made Malaysia an accomplice in war crimes.

“This is a very serious matter, the US is just trying to bring Malaysia in, that’s their object, they are trying to suck you in to what they are doing in the gulf, they didn’t have to stop here,” he said, adding that if New Zealand said no, Malaysia should have done the same.

Activists should protest

On how people can participate in showing support for global peace, Mahathir said activists and NGOs should spread the word that we should reject war as a way to solve disputes between nations.

“We have to teach children that war is bad,[...] even cartoons by Wald Disney is all about violence, our society has become very violent because of the way we bring up our children, so we have to do something about this, and I expect activists to help us,”

Asked whether he is asking activists to come out to demonstrate now when in the past, demonstrators faced resistance from the police, Mahathir said demonstrations are not the only way to show protest.

“There are a lot of ways like writing, networking, have a website, digital publication, database of information, it’s not only demonstrating in front of the US embassy,” he said.

Another guest speaker, Dr Helen Caldicott, then questioned Mahathir on why demonstrators were arrested and got a innocent shrug from the former premier.

“Well, I don’t know, that I cannot speak because I am no longer the prime minister,” he said.
source:http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/52966
posted by ali ghannadi-irannuk