Signs of Terror
Crumbling infrastructures are one of the most evident signs that a terror attack took place. Nowhere was that as evident as in the 9/11 attacks. The rubble and the dust left behind by the twin towers on what used to be the world’s largest financial center were an undeniable and large testimony of the perpetrators’ violence. The USA government was fast, incredibly fast, in the destruction of the evidence, thus sabotaging any credible investigation of the event. Too bad for the Afghani and Iraqi people.
Crumbling infrastructures are one of the most evident signs that a terror attack took place; however, sometimes they appear far away from the attack site, and do so in an unpredictable way.
Crumbling Societies
 Petronas Twin Towers, Malaysia | Good Engineering
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A water main burst underneath Shaul Hamelech Street and Derech Namir blocking the north-bound lanes of the latter, which is the main road out of the city. It connects downtown Tel Aviv with Glilot Junction, where the Mossad’s Headquarters is located. The result was a traffic jam that probably will be remembered for the rest of this young century.
A few months before that, a bus had almost disappeared into the hole created by another water line crumbling to pieces on the busy intersection of Derech Namir and Arlosoroff, just next to the event of January 1. The bus can be seen in the picture on the top of this page.
Why are these apparently innocent events of interest to the readers of this website? After all, I openly favor coffee prepared with mineral water. That becomes clear if reading the reaction of Yiftach Naor, chief executive of the Tel Aviv water utility company Mei Avivim (“Springs’ Water” in Hebrew, a hilarious name if considering the water supplied contains so much calcium that it’s a health hazard), who gave an interview to Haaretz. “I get pipelines bursting twice a week. But usually you don’t hear about it because it happens on side streets.”
Mei Avivim is the biggest such municipal water corporation, serving 215,000 households. It supplies 41 million cubic meters of water a year. During 2011 Mei Avivim reported 101 jobs to replace pipelines, costing NIS 90 million. Its budget for this activity alone is NIS 100 million for 2012. However, Tel Aviv’s water and sewage infrastructure dates from 1930 to the 1950s, mostly, and has been neglected ever since.
Out of 950 kilometers of sewage lines in Tel Aviv, 100 are considered hazardous. Out of 35 kilometers of main lines, 30% are considered at risk of failure. Replacing all the bad pipelines will take 18 years, Naor estimates, and an investment of NIS 280 million. The point is that there is no money for this investment. This is when the apparently innocent malfunctions described above turns out to be closely related to the violent activities of the State of Israel.
In 2008, Israel spent $16.2 billion on its armed forces, making it the country with the biggest ratio of defense spending to GDP and as a percentage of the budget of all developed countries ($2,300 per person). On September 30, 2009 Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed an additional NIS 1.5 billion for the defense budget to help Israel address problems regarding Iran.
The budget changes came two months after Israel had approved its current two-year budget. The defense budget for 2009 stands at NIS 48.6 billion and NIS 53.2 billion for 2010 – the highest amount in Israel’s history. The figure constitutes 6.3% of expected gross domestic product and 15.1% of the overall budget, even before the NIS 1.5 billion addition.
In comparison, for Fiscal Year 2010, the US Department of Defense spending amounts to 4.7% of the country’s GDP. The 2009 U.S. military budget accounts for approximately 40% of global arms spending and is over six times larger than the military budget of China (compared at the nominal US dollar/Yuan rate). France spends around 2.5% of its GDP, while Germany and Canada spend less than 1.5%. Israel tops them.
Thus, it is not surprising that there is no money left for proper water pipelines! Everything goes to the Israeli business of war
. The latter having been defined as a terrorist activity by the UN, results in these pipelines malfunctions being an indirect testimony to terror acts. Subtle, but true.
This is just a mild warning about what’s going to happen to the West. During the same interview, Naor said: “My colleagues from Washington DC told me that their water pipelines are 75 years old. Sometimes even the White House gets cut off; it’s a common problem in the West because it’s difficult to replace pipelines in bustling metropolises and in old cities.”
Mr. Naor, please, don’t offend us by assuming we are shtoopid! The East has no fewer bustling metropolises and old cities than the West. In fact, it has many more and much older. The West is young and has no memory. Yet, despite its richness, seldom do you see this type of problems in the East.
Do you know why, Mr. Naor? That’s because instead of spending money on military budgets, they are building humanity’s future. The USA suffers from the same inflation of its security services that Israel does.
Thus, pipelines burst in both places. London, Paris and Berlin are not far behind these two; the results can be seen in the crumbling euro. Rome would like to renew its water pipelines, but its economy is already on the verge of failure. Athens? They’ll soon be drinking sea water!
In February 2009, The Nation reported that Congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., called for a reduction in the defense budget: “The math is compelling: if we do not make reductions approximating 25 percent of the military budget starting fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity even with a repeal of Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy.
I am working with a variety of thoughtful analysts to show how we can make very substantial cuts in the military budget without in any way diminishing the security we need…[American] well-being is far more endangered by a proposal for substantial reductions in Medicare, Social Security or other important domestic areas than it would be by canceling weapons systems that have no justification from any threat we are likely to face.”
Even American legislators have recognized the signs. America – like Israel – is sinking under the weight of its business of war. Sometimes, the early signs appear in such trivial places as burst pipelines. Would Netanyahu and Obama put their fingers in the pipelines’ holes and prevent the collapse of their respective countries?
That’s where people in the West get often confused. There is no such question as “America deciding this or that,” or “Israel declaring war on…” Bottom line is that groups of people make decisions. The people making decisions in both countries benefit from war. For them, what happens to their societies is secondary; after all there would be no vacuum if they succumb to the perils of violence.
If Israel or the USA collapse a different entity would take their places. The replacing entity would need security services, and that’s where we will find these old friends profiting again from the same old, dirty business. Mr. Naor, please make showers to clean up your bosses, the indefatigable Masters of War.
See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. Ecclesiastes 1:10.