A great deal of material has been posted in various places about this issue - a special note of appreciation for Craig Rowley's efforts at another place. Despite this, the liars continue to lie and the ignorant and prejudiced continue to exhibit their ignorance and prejudice despite the evidence that has been presented. Such people should read more and type less.
One inhibiting factor in the plans to attack Iran has been the military. Perhaps it is a case of "We need a new general".
J Scott Carpenter, who was then deputy assistant secretary of state in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, recalled in an interview that senior Defense Department (DoD) officials and the Joint Chiefs used the escalation issue as the main argument against the Cheney proposal.
McClatchy newspapers reported last August that Cheney had proposal several weeks earlier "launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iran", citing two officials involved in Iran policy.
Has Cheney changed his mind?
WASHINGTON - Once again, notably in the wake of last week's annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and the visit to the capital of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there's a lot of chatter about a possible attack by Israel and/or the United States on Iran.
Olmert appears to have left the White House after meeting with President George W Bush and an earlier dinner with Vice President Dick Cheney quite satisfied on this score, while rumors - most recently voiced by neo-conservative Daniel Pipes - that the administration plans to carry out a "massive" attack in the window between the November elections and Bush's departure from office, particularly if Democratic Senator Barack Obama is his successor, continue to swirl around the capital.
When you're on a bad - and dangerous and criminal - idea, stick to it.
Note the usual suspects. A notable attendee at the AIPAC conference was Barack Obama. He does not fill one with confidence on matters related to the ME.
The failure by Barack Obama to chart another course in the Middle East, to defy the Israel lobby and to denounce the Bush administration’s inexorable march toward a conflict with Iran is a failure to challenge the collective insanity that has gripped the political leadership in the United States and Israel.
Obama, in a miscalculation that will have grave consequences, has given his blessing to the widening circle of violence and abuse of the Palestinians by Israel and, most dangerously, to those in the Bush White House and Jerusalem now plotting a war against Iran. He illustrates how the lust for power is morally corrosive. And while he may win the White House, by the time he takes power he will be trapped in George Bush’s alternative reality.
We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to stay the hand of Israel, which is building more settlements-including a new plan to put 800 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem-and imposing draconian measures to physically break the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. We need, most of all, to prevent a war with Iran.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, in a letter to President Bush on May 8, threatened to open impeachment proceedings if Bush attacked Iran. The letter is a signal that planning for strikes on Iran is under way and pronounced.
Might be a bit late.
A digression on the matter of investigations. McClellan to testify. So might Patrick Fitzgerald.
More on Obama - Chris Floyd and Arthur Silber.
On other ways of getting at Iran.
Of course, it's all the president of Iran's fault. Well, if you believe that ...
48 comments:
no matter who you vote for ...
.. you still get an élite ruler
-=*=-
The concept and practice of representative government is wrong (aka undemocratic) - as currently implemented; it would be better if replaced by an advocate/referendum model.
When the electorate splits 50/50 on some question (as it often does, IMHO uncannily so), then it can be a toss-up, as to which 'side' any representative should take. Given many 50/50 splits, it's virtually impossible that any single representative could consistently 'get it right' for any individual or grouping. Any 'good' representative would endeavour to consult the electorate - but in practice they seldom do. (The internet could help, but not all voters are internet-capable.)
As an illustration of how to 'get it totally wrong,' Howard's calling us a mob then ignoring us vis-à-vis the US (+UK, Aus) imperialist war on Iraq (illegal invasion now been morphed into brutal occupation) - Howard's ignoring us is unlikely ever to be exceeded - for callous idiocy, etc - not to mention undemocratic; the proportion of anti-wars well exceeded 50%. IMHO Howard is a war-criminal, and allowing him get an award amounts to treachery by Rudd.
-=*=-
But what if a representative has no intent of representing?
«Listen up, Obama, you cheap, lying fraud: the United States government launched a criminal war of aggression against a nation that never threatened us. It continues a bloody, murdering occupation which does nothing but worsen the agony of the Iraqi people. We have no right to be in Iraq at all. We never did. The actions of the United States government have led to a genocide of world historical proportions.
Genocidal murderers and those who support and enable them -- as you do, Obama, since you vote to fund this continuing crime -- do not get to "ask" one single goddamned fucking thing of their victims. Not. One. Single. Goddamned. Fucking. Thing.
Get it, you pathetic little asshole?
Ah, I must correct myself. Genocidal murderers and those who support and enable them do get to ask one thing: they can beg all the victims for their forgiveness. Otherwise, get out in a matter of months. Not just "combat troops," but every last American -- out. And, no: genocidal murderers and those who support and enable them do not get to decide how to "responsibly" leave the scene of their own crimes. What, exactly, do genocidal murderers and those who support and enable them know about behaving "responsibly"?»
[Arthur Silber/The Triumph of the White, Male Ruling Class (I)]
My thanks to Bob Wall (g'day) for the link.
I agree that the threatened attack on Iran is pretty-well topic number #1 - for the immediate future (greedastrophe®!), with topic numbers #1 & #2 for the past and current being USrael criminal aggression. All of a continuity actually, and you'll recognise me looping when I scream: "Gotta be stopped!" - "Where are the ethical, truth and justice seeking, law honouring types?"
A guest blogger or a new co-blogger, Phil?
"Anonymous" is asking about someone's identity. Do I detect irony in there?
Recently the mainstream media reporting on the USrael/Iran stand-off have once again decided to retail the 'map meme' in almost every article.
Even if what was said by khomeini so many years ago (for that's whom Ahmadinejad was merely quoting) actually did mean what the 'map meme' marketing team have misconstrued it to signify, is that alone a justifiable basis for launching a pre-emptive strike?
Of course not ... though the unthinking might well believe it does.
truth-seekers echoing warmongering 'pre-emptive strike' language ...
.. could be falling for a 'framing trap?'
-=*=-
G'day Craig,
if USrael were to attack Iran, wouldn't it be better to describe such an attack as what it really would be, namely an unprovoked act of naked aggression?
Also, any mention of 'map wiping' should carry a warning - i.e. that's not what Ahmadinejad said; the inference is wrong, and anyone deploying the 'map wiping' meme is echoing lying propaganda?
I mean, we truth-seekers understand all that, but any passers-by could get a wrong impression...
G'day Craig, good to see you here. Aside from questionable aspects of Bush's psyche, I hardly think rhetoric is a basis for aggressive military action. However, running a propaganda campaign based on what someone is alleged to have said can condition the public to accept the "necessity" of such attacks. As well as providing cover for other aspects of an agenda.
That the alleged threats have been repeated by many in the media despite being disputed is a reflection on either the lack of care or of complicity. It's not that we haven't seen many examples of the latter. Odd that there are people who haven't woken up to this and thus take extra care in what they believe. But there are none so blind ...
Phil, some passers-by have eyes, and minds, tightly closed. Thus the unscrupulous find them easy prey.
what really gets me ...
.. is two:
-=*=-
1. That the AusBC and SBS *dare* to propagandise us, we the sheople® (aka voters and pay-masters both), and
2. That OK, the sheople are - let's say, not fully tuned in to the full ramifications, but the leaders - not the directly 'involved,' so-called leaders B, B & H + O - but that the leaders of largely dissociated 3rd party countries appear to tolerate the naked aggression of USrael.
By *not* effectively objecting, such 3rd party leaders make themselves (and therefore their own countries & countrymen) complicit - in murder.
G'day Phil, when I questioned the ABC on its use of the map meme the response was that other reputable news organisations and used it:
"The only questions about these quotes appear to come not from
credible sources but from bloggers, and we have been unable to find anything to substantiate that the
comments were not made as reported."
I, of course, sent them some credible sources that did question the version they used.
Back to Obama and AIPAC, finally got a working link for this Uri Avnery piece on why Obama and the US, in general, find an affinity with Israel. An interesting read.
G'day Bob, who was it at the ABC who said a blogger can't also be a credible source?
G'day Craig, the Audience and Consumer Affairs person - Denise Musto.
G'day Phil and Craig, another article about Obama and the lobby.
On the subject of Obama, what state is he really interested in? Chris Floyd on the matter and about those who would provide justification - let's call them the Rand Corporation.
And now, from the people who brought you the Vietnam War, a brand-new, slam-bang extravaganza is on its way: “Good Morning, Pakistan!”
Yes, those old show-biz troupers at the RAND Corporation are it again, laying the groundwork for yet another intractable, interminable slaughterfest in Asia. This week, RAND (the original “think tank,” conceived in the very bowels of the military-industrial complex) announced that the “good war” in Afghanistan will surely be lost…unless Pakistan is scoured clean of its terrorist sanctuaries – and of its terrorist sympathizers in high places.
In a study funded by the institution that has always been the oh-so-independent research group’s most munificent patron – the Pentagon – RAND says that Pakistan officials are helping Taliban fighters kill Americans in Afghanistan: the same casus belli that the Bush Administration is now brandishing against Iran for its alleged support of Iraqi insurgents. As AP reports:
Pakistani intelligence agents and paramilitary forces have helped train Taliban insurgents and have given them information about American troop movements in Afghanistan, said a report published Monday by a U.S. think tank. The study by the RAND Corp. also warned that the U.S. will face "crippling, long-term consequences" in Afghanistan if Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan are not eliminated.
It echoes recent statements by American generals, who have increased their warnings that militant safe havens in Pakistan are threatening efforts in Afghanistan. The study was funded by the U.S. Defense Department.
"Every successful insurgency in Afghanistan since 1979 enjoyed safe haven in neighboring countries, and the current insurgency is no different," said the report's author, Seth Jones. "Right now, the Taliban and other groups are getting help from individuals within Pakistan's government, and until that ends, the region's long-term security is in jeopardy."
The irony – intended or unintended – of the AP report is exquisite: The RAND report funded by the U.S. military “echoes recent statements” of…the U.S. military. My, isn’t that surprising? One of RAND’s primary roles has always been to provide “expert analysis” justifying whatever measures our masters of war decide is necessary to keep them and their war-profiteering pals in clover.
Tomorrow Iran? The day after ...
Thanks, Bob.
Methinks it's time to contact the ABC's Denise Musto to point out a dangerous bit of inaccuracy in ABC reporting and explain what thoughtless participation in the demonisation is doing to decrease the prospects of peaceful resolution of the issue.
G'day Phil and Craig, as a follow up to the piece on Obama's thoughts on Pakistan, we have this news report.
ISLAMABAD, June 11 (Reuters) - Pakistan said on Wednesday an "unprovoked and cowardly" air strike by U.S. forces had killed 11 Pakistani soldiers on its border with Afghanistan and undermined the basis of security cooperation.
"Friendly fire", again. How to win friends and ...
From Justin Raimondo an article on the usual suspects trying to drum up some action re Iran.
In 2001, as the wheels that would eventually drive us to war with Iraq began to turn, the groundwork was being laid for the inevitable denouement of that historic error: the present looming conflict with Iran.
Leafing through the story of the secret Rome meetings conducted by Michael Ledeen and Manucher Ghorbanifar – set up by a "foreign intelligence service," as the report avers – this section of the Senate report reads like a spy thriller set in the future, a future in which we are about to go to war with Iran.
Neocon warlord Ledeen isn't just one of the War Party's most tireless polemicists. The fun part about being a foreign agent disguised as a "commentator" is that you get to rail away at the Bushies for not being enthusiastic enough about the Grand Plan of "liberating" the Middle East, demanding "faster, please!" Yet Ledeen isn't just one of those armchair types who merely pontificates from his pundit's perch: this student of Italian fascism is a man-of-action, too.
Indeed, that's a considerable understatement. He and Ghorbanifar are longtime partners in crime, having been the two biggest spiders at the center of the Iran-Contra web, in which Ledeen and Ghorbanifar deployed their contacts in Israel – and within the Iranian government – to broker the mid-1980s arms-for-hostages deal.
As the Senate report reveals, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar, together with a group centered around the Office of Special Plans – and including a former Pentagon official convicted of engaging in espionage on behalf of Israel – met with a group of Iranians and officials of a certain "foreign intelligence service" that is never named. The purpose of the meeting: regime change in Iran.
And Trita Parsi on a more considered approach to the Iran issue.
I know which I prefer, but others have other and bloodier ideas.
G'day Phil and Craig, just found this article by Philip Giraldi on the espionage activities in the US by a certain ME state - "The Spy Who Loves Us".
After Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1986, the U.S. negotiated an understanding with Israel—a “gentlemen’s agreement” —stipulating that neither nation would thenceforth conduct espionage operations in the other’s territory without consent. But the agreement was a sham from the beginning. The Israeli government didn’t even honor its commitments in the aftermath of the Pollard case, failing to return the estimated 360 cubic feet of stolen information to enable the U.S. to conduct a damage assessment. The United States, for its part, continued to recruit and run agents inside Israel throughout the 1980s and 1990s. And it was known within the intelligence and counterintelligence communities that Israel did the same in the United States. David Szady, the FBI’s assistant director for counterintelligence, was so dismayed by the level of Israeli spying in the late ’90s that he called in the head of the Israeli Embassy’s Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Activities (Mossad) office and told him, “Knock it off.”
Pollard’s name was in the news again on April 22, when former U.S. Army weapons engineer Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested for passing secrets to Israel. Kadish had been an agent run by Yosef Yagur, who directed Pollard. Yagur, under cover as a science attaché at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, fled the U.S. in 1985 after Pollard was arrested, but remained in touch with Kadish.
The arrest revived suspicions that Israeli agents might still be operating inside the U.S., most particularly “Mega,” whose cover name was revealed in an NSA-intercepted conversation between two Israeli intelligence officers. “Mega” was clearly at the policymaker level, as Kadish and Pollard frequently sought files by name or number. Someone more senior in Washington appeared to be directing the Israeli handlers toward sensitive information. Whoever “Mega” was, he is still at large.
"Gentlemen's agreements" require the participation of gentlemen to work.
G'day Phil, Chris Floyd introduces more from Arthur Silber on why people don't stand up against the warmongers.
Tomdispatch has a piece by Michael T Klare on the militarisation of US energy policy. Not only the ME, but elsewhere. But is it working?
And to digress further on the oil issue - and on the all to common matter of lies - a whopper to try to justify more off-shore drilling.
The lies never stop.
G'day Phil, some more reading matter ... on the Iran issue - Jeremy R. Hammond and Kaveh L Afrasiabi.
On a central issue - Gilad Atzmon "The Jewish Experience".
G'day Phil and Craig, more from Chris Floyd on Obama and the 'Stans. Features an article by Tariq Ali on Afghanistan.
This week's border incident -- in which a U.S. attack killed at least 10 Pakistani soldiers -- has refocused attention on Barack Obama's long-standing promise to take the War on Terror to Pakistan; or as he puts it, getting "on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan." In other words, Obama wants to expand the "good war" in Afghanistan by withdrawing "all combat troops" from Iraq (while leaving behind an unspecified number there to "fight al Qaeda" -- how non-combat troops are supposed to fight anybody is not clear; perhaps the gay-bashing, right-wing preachers Obama is now courting can explain this metaphysical mystery) and moving them to Afghanistan...and Pakistan. You would think this latter strategy might provoke at least a ripple of concern among progressives, but everyone seems to think it's hunky-dory -- as long as it's not Bush who is suggesting it.
But to be fair, one nationally recognized progressive leader has condemned such a move in forthright terms, describing it as:
a misguided invasion of a Muslim country that sparks new insurgencies, ties down our military, busts our budgets, increases the pool of terrorist recruits, alienates America, gives democracy a bad name, and prompts the American people to question our engagement in the world.
Yes, that junior senator from Illinois certainly knows a thing or two about --- oh, sorry. That was Obama's analysis of the stupidity of Bush's invasion of Iraq -- from the very same speech in which he calls for taking the Terror War to the "battlefield in Pakistan." Yet every accurate insight he offered about Iraq applies to Pakistan -- except for one key element: a move against Pakistan would be "a misguided invasion of a Muslim country" with a nuclear arsenal. It's not just some two-bit punching bag like the toothless, broken-backed regimes of Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega, where the two George Bushes tried to prove their non-existent machismo by shooting ducks in a barrel -- or rather, slaughtering civilians by proxy. And it would be just about the worst place imaginable (outside of Iran, perhaps) for Obama to prove how rough and tough he is, how worthy to wear the imperial laurels of the "commander-in-chief."
Yes, well, has he thought it through?
To be evenhanded, an article about McCain ... and Vietnam.
"You don't have to be crazy ...", or perhaps you do.
Or you can be emperor - an article by Justin Raimondo.
On Iraq, and Chris Floyd again, - "Written on the Body: The Reality of War".
The war in Iraq is of course a political issue, both domestically and internationally, and so it is natural that much of the discussion about the war centers on its various political ramifications. But in these heated debates on policy, strategy, funding, etc., there is always a danger of losing sight of the most overwhelmingly important aspect of the conflict: its effects on actual human beings, the suffering it imposes on our fellow creatures. The reality of war is written on the bodies – and seared into the anguished psyches – of the individuals who experience it. That is what war is, that is where it actually exists – in blood, in bone, in the synapses that carry the electric fire of human consciousness.
A new report from Fallujah – the Guernica of the Iraq War – brings this home most forcefully. Two of the great witnesses of this war – Dahr Jamail and his collaborator, Ali al-Fadhily – present disturbing evidence of how the use of chemical weapons against the people of Fallujah during the brutal decimation the city in 2004 continues to bear horrific fruit today:
Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say. The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after "special weaponry" was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.
After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah. In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tons of DU in Iraq thus far.
Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among US veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.
"We saw all the colors of the rainbow coming out of the exploding American shells and missiles," Ali Sarhan, a 50-year-old teacher who lived through the two US sieges of 2004 told IPS. "I saw bodies that turned into bones and coal right after they were exposed to bombs that we learned later to be phosphorus. The most worrying is that many of our women have suffered loss of their babies, and some had babies born with deformations."
"I had two children who had brain damage from birth," 28-year-old Hayfa' Shukur told IPS. "My husband has been detained by the Americans since November 2004 and so I had to take the children around by myself to hospitals and private clinics. They died. I spent all our savings and borrowed a considerable amount of money."
Shukur said doctors told her that it was use of the restricted weapons that caused her children's brain damage and subsequent deaths, "but none of them had the courage to give me a written report."
"Many babies were born with major congenital malformations," a pediatric doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "These infants include many with heart defects, cleft lip or palate, Down's syndrome, and limb defects."
…The Fallujah General Hospital administration was unwilling to give any statistics on deformed babies, but one doctor volunteered to speak on condition of anonymity -- for fear of reprisals if seen to be critical of the administration.
"Maternal exposure to toxins and radioactive material can lead to miscarriage and frequent abortions, still birth, and congenital malformation," the doctor told IPS. There have been many such cases, and the government "did not move to contain the damage, or present any assistance to the hospital whatsoever. These cases need intensive international efforts that provide the highest and most recent technologies that we will not have here in a hundred years," he added.
Such suffering and some want to cause more. Pepe Escobar on Gaza and how it fits the scheme of things.
The scheme seems to involve a lot of lies and even more suffering. Way past time the liars suffered.
G'day Phil and Craig, a piece by Elliot Cohen John McCain's ties with PNAC and possible consequences should he become president.
John McCain’s connection to PNAC can be traced back to before its formation in 1997. In fact, he was president of the New Citizenship Project, founded by Kristol in 1994. This organization was parent to PNAC, and served as its chief fundraising organ.
McCain also worked cooperatively with PNAC and Wolfowitz in attempting to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. In 1998, he co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act—drafted by PNAC—which decreed “regime change” in Iraq to be U.S. policy, and which appropriated $97 million in U.S. military aid to the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The INC was a group of anti-Hussein Iraqi militants whose purpose was to instigate a national uprising against Hussein. It was led by Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi informant whose subsequent faulty intelligence—claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida—was used to sell the Iraq war to the American public. In 2004, in response to accusations that he deliberately misled U.S. intelligence agencies, Chalabi glibly stated, “We are heroes in error.”
McCain also was co-chair (with Sen. Joseph Lieberman) of The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI). Established by PNAC in late 2002, this committee continued to finance Chalabi’s INC with millions of taxpayer dollars, until shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, when it was discontinued. In 2004, McCain became a signatory of PNAC, ironically signing on to a PNAC letter condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy for its return to the “rhetoric of militarism and empire.”
McCain has accordingly been a foot soldier for PNAC from its inception, and, although this organization is no longer in existence, its ideology and its signatories (many of whom now serve as advisers to the McCain presidential campaign) are still very much active.
There is a list of notable people in the article.
In September 2000, prior to the presidential election that year, PNAC carefully formulated its chief tenets in a document called Rebuilding America’s Defenses (RAD). This document, which was intended to guide the incoming administration, had a substantial influence on the policies set by the Bush administration and is likely to do the same for a McCain administration if McCain becomes president. Here are some of the recommendations of the RAD report:
Fighting and winning multiple, simultaneous major wars
Among its core missions was the rebuilding of America’s defenses sufficient to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.” And it explicitly advocated sending troops into Iraq regardless of whether Saddam Hussein was in power. According to RAD, “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
The RAD report also admonished, “Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region.” Therefore, it had both Iraq and Iran in its sight as zones of multiple, simultaneous major wars for purposes of advancing “longstanding American interests in the region”—in particular, its oil.
McCain’s recent chanting of “bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran” to the beat of an old Beach Boys tune, his suggestion that the war with Iraq might last 100 years and his recent statement that the war in Afghanistan might also last 100 years—all of these pronouncements are clearly in concert with the PNAC mission to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.”
One more extract, and it is a humdinger:
The use of genocidal biological warfare for political expediency
Not only did RAD advocate the design and deployment of defensive weaponry, it also stressed the updating of conventional offensive weapons including cruise missiles along with stealthy strike aircraft and longer-range Air Force strike aircraft. But it went further in its offensive posture by envisioning and supporting the use of genotype-specific biological warfare. According to RAD, “… advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” In this chilling statement, a double standard is evident. In the hands of al-Qaida, such genocidal weapons would belong to “the realm of terror,” but in those of the U.S., they would be “politically useful tools.”
Charming people ...
good news ...
.. or just wishful thinking?
-=*=-
G'day Bob,
If we've heard once, we've heard it a 1000 times:
"All options!"
But is that now just 'snow from yesterday?'
«If people are lamenting over gas prices approaching five dollars, I guarantee you that they will top off $10.00 at the pump and more than $200 a barrel within hours of an attack. The US can't afford to attack Iran and Ahmadinejad knows this. That's why he has a grin on his face.»
[huffpo/Jamal Dajani]
G'day Phil, there is what they'd like to do as opposed to what would be sensible. However, the question then becomes: are they sensible?
Enclosed in this interview with Franklin Lamb about Lebanon is a similar view that they'd like to but won't. The material about Hezbollah is interesting.
G'day Phil, Chris Floyd has more on Obama - highlighting articles by Naomi Klein and John Pilger.
Robert Scheer - "Empire or Republic?"
And how to build an empire.
Some won't like the article immediately above, but all they have top do is prove the events referred to didn't happen or why they should not be discussed.
G'day Phil, people are saying worrying things ... such as "bomb Iran's oil infrastructure."
Why attack Iran's nuclear facilities when striking their oil infrastructure would be much more effective in the scope of a US-led preventive war? Sure, oil prices might skyrocket and the world economy might collapse. But, hey, that's the price you pay for security.
Such a scenario is not a nightmare or an outtake from a remake of Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove," but part of a serious recommendation made by two neoconservatives in case sanctions fail to persuade Iran to abandon its enrichment of uranium, a process that can be used to make nuclear weapons or fuel for peaceful energy production.
In a July report titled "The Last Resort: Consequences of Preventive Military Action Against Iran," and published by the neoconservative Washington Institute for Near East Studies, scholars Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt advocate military strategies that would ultimately discourage Tehran from pursuing any future non-civilian nuclear activities:
Because the ultimate goal of prevention is to influence Tehran to change course, effective strikes against Iran's nuclear infrastructure may play an important role in affecting Iran's decision calculus. Strikes that flatten its nuclear infrastructure could have a demoralizing effect, and could influence Tehran's assessment of the cost of rebuilding. But the most effective strikes may not necessarily be against nuclear facilities. Iran is extraordinarily vulnerable to attacks on its oil export infrastructure.... The political shock of losing the oil income could cause Iran to rethink its nuclear stance—in ways that attacks on its nuclear infrastructure might not.
And if an attack on the oil facilities of a country with some of the world's largest reserves leads to a huge spike in oil prices, sends gas prices up to 10 bucks a gallon and brings economic ruin in the rest of the world, the report continues, well, so be it:
To be sure, in a tight world oil market, attacking Iran's oil infrastructure carries an obvious risk of causing world oil prices to soar and hurting consumers in the United States and other oil-importing countries.... If the choice is between higher oil prices and a Middle East with several nuclear powers, higher oil prices and reduced economic growth are not clearly the greater evil.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is a famous Beltway think tank. It was founded in 1985 by Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.
The 45-page report reads like a manual on how to wage a successful preemptive war on Iran. It discusses "key political and contextual questions" pertaining to a preventive war outside the usual frame of strictly military-technical considerations.
And is it a MAD foreign policy?
Practicing?
A matter of time?
They'd have to be crazy ...
G'day Phil and Craig, here is an article by Kaveh l Afrasiabi that relates to several themes - Israel-Palestine quiz and misinformation, thus to the work of propagandists who push the "map meme" and, of course, to possible attacks against Iran.
Talk about the double standards at the United Nations. Whereas UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly condemned Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's rhetoric against Israel, expressing "shock and dismay", he has remained ominously, and inexcusably, silent about the blatant Israeli threats of military attacks on Iran, thus undermining the world's confidence in his ability to steer the global community clear of yet another major war in the Middle East caldron.
Having turned a blind eye to Iran's formal protest at the UN regarding Israel's explicit threats, Ban may need to revisit his own statement of June 7, 2007, "The secretary general points out that all members have undertaken to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."
Inconsistent treatment yet, whereas the propagandists have to rely on misinterpretations and questionable evidence (or none at all) in the case of Iran's alleged plans, the other side of the equation has been quite clear in declaring their intentions. As the article reminds us, they have had the assistance of the media in pushing its agenda. A not uncommon occurrence, unfortunately.
G'day Phil and Craig, a scenario of what could happen if the US attacked Iran.
How crazy are they?
G'day Phil and Craig, attention today is on House Resolution 362 which includes this interesting bit:
(3) demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program; and
Here is one response to that.
Imposing “stringent inspection requirements” would amount to a naval blockade, many believe, and thus constitute an act of war. At the very least, it would be perceived by Iranians of all political persuasions as a hostile act, further marginalizing moderate voices, unifying the country behind the most belligerent leaders, and bolstering the argument of those within Iran who are pushing for the rapid development of nuclear weapons as a defense against U.S. attack.
But why such a stern and risky,measure? Perhaps some (the usual suspects) are concerned about what the next administration will do to satisfy (or not, more importantly) their requirements and agenda.
The aforementioned article also has some rahter more sensible suggestions.
Also on the matter - Chris Floyd.
As Sam Gardiner notes, Bush and his minions are now pounding the "enrichment" theme as their chief drumbeat for war with Iran. And they have obviously succeeded in demonizing the entirely legal and carefully supervised process of enrichment, as demonstrated by the Congressional resolution and the press coverage, both of which also take up "enrichment" as an evil that must be stopped at all costs.
No doubt this is in response to the IAEA reports noted by Afrasiabi, which have found no credible information about "weaponization studies." (And those are just studies, mind you, not actual weaponization programs.) This is of course not the first time that the Bush Administration has moved the goalposts in its fearmongering campaign. As we noted here last December, just after the Administration's own intelligence agencies declared that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program, Bush announced that
Iran will not be "allowed" to acquire even the "scientific knowledge" required to build a nuclear weapon. Previous "red lines" which could trigger an attack had been based on Iran actually building a weapon; now even nibbling at the forbidden fruit of nuclear knowledge could serve as "justification" for a "pre-emptive strike" to quell the "danger." After all, as Bush rather illiterately told reporters, "What's to say they couldn't start another covert nuclear weapons program?" Better safe than sorry, right?
And at the very least, moving the goalposts in this manner will allow the Bush Regime to portray Iran as a dangerous, defiant menace for merely carrying on with its fully legal nuclear power program, as authorized by international treaty and monitored by the IAEA. Thus no matter what Iran actually does – or doesn't do – the Bushists will continue to use the "Persian menace" as fodder for the imperial war machine.
We see this playing out again today, in the scary talk – and Congressional resolutions – damning Iran's "enrichment activities." What was true then is true now: there is literally nothing that Iran can do – or not do – to divert the American elite's desire to strike at their land and bring it under domination. And apparently there is nothing that anyone in America with any power or a major platform will do to stop it either.
They just might be crazy enough.
G'day Phil and Craig, an article by Sy Hersh titled "Preparing the Battlefield":
L ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.
Lengthy piece ... and there is a video with Hersh discussing the issue here.
The Crawford Caligula seems determined to leave a legacy.
G'day Phil and Craig, here is another approach to attacking Iran - not because it's a threat, but because, well, it isn't, but let's do it because we can.
WASHINGTON - New arguments by analysts close to Israeli thinking in favor of United States strikes against Iran cite evidence of Iranian military weakness in relation to the US and Israel, and even raise doubts that Iran is rushing to obtain such weapons at all.
The new arguments contradict Israel's official argument that it faces an "existential threat" from an Islamic extremist Iranian regime determined to get nuclear weapons. They suggest that Israel, which already has as many as 200 nuclear weapons, views Iran from the position of the dominant power in the region rather than as the weaker state in the relationship.
And a reminder about the rhetoric.
This one can be cross-referenced to the quiz on another thread.
G'day Phil and Craig, there's commonsense to be found ...
Then there's this.
Not hard to discern that some don't want a peaceful solution.
So a propaganda campaign is run ... and the seeds were planted back when ... Robert Parry on the Iran-Contra scandal's "lost chapter". Includes link to 104pp .pdf document.
-As historians ponder George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, they may wonder how Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs.
To understand this extraordinary development, historians might want to look back at the 1980s and examine the Iran-Contra scandal’s “lost chapter,” a narrative describing how Ronald Reagan’s administration brought CIA tactics to bear domestically to reshape the way Americans perceived the world.
That chapter – which we are publishing here for the first time – was “lost” because Republicans on the congressional Iran-Contra investigation waged a rear-guard fight that traded elimination of the chapter’s key findings for the votes of three moderate GOP senators, giving the final report a patina of bipartisanship.
Under that compromise, a few segments of the draft chapter were inserted in the final report’s Executive Summary and in another section on White House private fundraising, but the chapter’s conclusions and its detailed account of how the “perception management” operation worked ended up on the editing room floor.
The American people thus were spared the chapter’s troubling finding: that the Reagan administration had built a domestic covert propaganda apparatus managed by a CIA propaganda and disinformation specialist working out of the National Security Council.
“One of the CIA’s most senior covert action operators was sent to the NSC in 1983 by CIA Director [William] Casey where he participated in the creation of an inter-agency public diplomacy mechanism that included the use of seasoned intelligence specialists,” the chapter’s conclusion stated.
“This public/private network set out to accomplish what a covert CIA operation in a foreign country might attempt – to sway the media, the Congress, and American public opinion in the direction of the Reagan administration’s policies.”
However, with the chapter’s key findings deleted, the right-wing domestic propaganda operation not only survived the Iran-Contra fallout but thrived.
So did some of the administration’s collaborators, such as South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon and Australian press mogul Rupert Murdoch, two far-right media barons who poured billions of dollars into pro-Republican news outlets that continue to influence Washington’s political debates to this day.
Before every presidential election, Moon’s Washington Times plants derogatory – and often false – stories about Democratic contenders, discrediting them and damaging their chances of winning the White House.
For instance, in 1988, the Times published a bogus account suggesting that the Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis had undergone psychiatric treatment. In 2000, Moon’s newspaper pushed the theme that Al Gore suffered from clinical delusions. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
As for Murdoch, his giant News Corp. expanded into American cable TV with the founding of Fox News in 1996. Since then, the right-wing network has proved highly effective in promoting attack lines against Democrats or anyone else who challenges the Republican power structure.
As President George W. Bush herded the nation toward war with Iraq in 2002-03, Fox News acted like his sheep dogs making sure public opinion didn’t stray too far off. The “Fox effect” was so powerful that it convinced other networks to load up with pro-war military analysts and to silence voices that questioned the invasion. [See Neck Deep.]
G'day Phil and Craig, Chris Floyd on US/Iran ... biggest danger and a bit of history.
But surely events in a restaurant are of greater import? Well ...
G'day Phil and Craig, on the matter of House and Senate resolutions, some suggested rewriting to better reflect reality.
More on HR 362.
And an account of the lies, misrepresentations, half-truths ... well, you get the drift.
I particularly commend the last para - a lesson there.
Trita Parsi on Iran looking head ...
But, perhaps the US will use other methods and other people ...
How determinedly crazy are they?
G'day Phil and Craig, a theme for today - reality v lunacy. Or have the crazies got enough influence to get their way? From Pepe Escobar.
Tom Engelhardt.
It could all get down to how much the Crawford Caligula likes Dick ... and if he listens to Dick ... if he does we could all be well and truly ...Dicked. Perhaps there is enough sanity left in DC to resist Dick.
weather report (propaganda) ...
.. snow visible to the west above 900m ...
.. subtitle: what they say is different from what they do
-=*=-
G'day Bob, thanks for your recent tip-top links. Ruminating upon same (like this one, say: "British Black Ops and the Terror Campaign in Basra" - a real bewdy), I recall reading somewhere the other day, that none of the CIA black-ops have succeeded. Think "Bay of Pigs," perhaps. But 'none' is too strong (so we could say 'most'), and we don't really know if the declared (or inferred) objectives were what they actually planned. We can't be certain of all of the details, although since (one assumes) most of the black-ops are criminal in intent (why else work in secret), about all that we really have to go on is what we can actually see. Like al-Qaeda, say (created/encouraged by the US, only to explode in spectacular blowback) or the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953[1].
Some of the things we can see are that Israel has grown steadily larger since its questionable establishment, and that the US led an illegal invasion into Iraq in '03, and that Israel invaded Lebanon in '06. The list of infamy is looong.
What we hear from carefully groomed Israeli spokespersons is that Israel must work 'to defend its people,' and US spokespersons shrieking "All options!" in the direction of Iran.
When we hear stories about Arabs or Muslims we may be shown pictures of badly groomed towel-heads, often carrying if not discharging firearms.
Stories about Iran or Iraq often carry a sub-text (casually mentioned) referring to oil - in a negative way, i.e. high prices or reducing availability, and stories about Iran carry sub-texts (not so casually mentioned) referring to nuclear power - also in a negative way, i.e. that they could be - or at least may have the intention - of building bombs. As speculation, these are awful things and such may be referred to as 'war-pimping.' (Boo! Hiss! War crime causing aggressors should be hanged.)
All of it none too subtle propaganda, and coming to us not just from the (venal!) corporate MSM but also via the publicly financed AusBC and/or SBS. Here are two recent examples[2,3].
One thing must be said here: Iran is correctly occupying the high moral ground; it is totally within its rights to develop (peaceful!) atomic energy and it is *certified* as doing so by the IAEA. It is both the US and Israel making almost all of the aggressive noise (mistranslated, misused, misleading 'map-wiping' allegations included), it is both the US and Israel who are threatening Iran with attack, *not* any vice-versa. Another thing that must be said is that the oil-price is heading ever skyward - directly because of the aggression coming mostly from the US and Israel. Yet the *impression* given by the (lying!) pushed-paradigm propaganda blames pretty-well all of the world's problems including high oil-prices on a) Al-Qaeda, b) Muslims, when not c) Arabs or d) Iran, etc..
Now propaganda[4] itself is not too well regarded, one could say that it's usually a pack of filthy lies.
Sooo, Q: Why do our public broadcasters propagate such lying propaganda?
-=*end*=-
PS Propaganda can't be too subtle; after all, the message actually has to reach the sheople®, whose overall level of intelligence must at all times be 'respected.' I leave it as an exercise for the reader to scan the items linked at [2] & [3] with the idea of identifying the lying propaganda bits.
-=*=-
Ref(s):
[1] 1953 Iranian coup d'état - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The project to overthrow Iran's government was codenamed Operation Ajax.
... The CIA operation centered around having the increasingly impotent Shah ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état - 102k
[2] Defiant Iran angers US with missile test
[3] Iran fires more missiles in war games
[4] propaganda n. 1 organized propagation of a doctrine by use of publicity, selected information, etc. 2 usu. derog. ideas etc. so propagated. propagandist n. & adj. propagandize v. (also -ise) (-zing or -sing). [Latin: related to *propagate]
G'day Phil, following the news posted elsewhere about Adm Mullen saying "No" to Israel, a story from Laura Rozen about Israelis heading to DC to speak with senior Administration officials.
The Crawford Caligula is reported to be prone to acting on the words of the last person who spoke to him. We can hope that someone sane gets in his ear after any Israeli officials or others acting on their behalf talk to him.
Some questions to experts. And a follow up.
G'day Phil and Craig, Joe Conason on Iran.
Gordon Prather on settling old scores .. 'Well, they're will finally going to get to nuke "Hitler".'
Sonme interesting reminders, such as:
Now, since 1991, thanks to the IAEA, the whole world has known that Saddam began his quest for nuclear weapons as a direct result of the Israeli raid on his IAEA Safeguarded research reactor.
G'day Phil and Craig, a few more views on will they/won't they? Scott Ritter on consequences.
Justin Raimondo on flights and whispers ...
Uri Avnery takes the commonsense approach. But with a but:
President Bush is about to end his career in disgrace. The same fate is waiting impatiently for Ehud Olmert. For politicians of this kind, it is easy to be tempted by a last adventure, a last chance for a decent place in history after all.
Still, he sticks with commonsense. But, from Ritter:
Only an irrational person or organization could continue to discuss as viable a military strike against Iran.
G'day Phil, some more news and views on the Will they, won't they? situation.
Jim Lobe on diplomacy.
Senate panel approves more sanctions. I wonder what they'd do if they had actual evidence of Iran doing something it wasn't legally entitled to do? Perhaps they see no need for such evidence.
Justin Raimondo is less optimistic about diplomatic efforts by the US than Jim Lobe.
Ray McGovern is giving possible timing.
So, will they or won't they? 50/50 still seems to be the best guestimate. Meanwhile, we keep watch on news and views and wait to see if .... or we could indulge in irrelevancies and inanities .. some prefer that ...
G'day Phil, talks break up ... but to preface accounts of those, here is Gordon Prather on what the US means by "diplomacy".
According to Bush-Cheney sycophantic "reporter" Glenn Kessler, Bush's alleged support for the diplomatic "solution" proposed by Secretary of State Condi Rice "suggests he increasingly is determined to put aside a possible military strike" to "end" Iran's nuclear programs – all currently verifiably "Safeguarded" against diversion to any military purpose by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
And what is Condi's diplomatic solution? Well, it amounts to the Iranian Mullahs "verifiably" committing suicide.
Shortly after Bush replaced Colin Powell with Condi, she had a munchkin inform the conferees at the 2005 Review Conference on the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, being held at United Nations Headquarters, that –
"Britain, France and Germany, with our support, are seeking to reach a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, a solution that given the history of clandestine nuclear weapons work in that country, must include permanent cessation of Iran's enrichment and reprocessing efforts, as well as dismantlement of equipment and facilities related to such activity."
The previous November, Britain, France and Germany (E3) – allegedly on behalf of the European Union – had began negotiations under the so-called Paris Accord, which begins with the E3/EU recognizing "Iran's rights under the NPT."
However, for the duration of the negotiations – which were initially expected to last six-months – Iran offered to continue voluntarily adhering to an Additional Protocol to its IAEA NPT Safeguards Agreement, in advance of its ratification.
Iran also offered to extend its voluntary suspension of all uranium-enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing related activities.
For its part, the E3/EU recognized that these suspensions were "voluntary confidence-building" measures and "not a legal obligation."
As we now know [.pdf], more than a month before Condi's ultimatum about what she would consider an acceptable outcome of their negotiations, the Iranians had made a confidential offer to the E3/EU which included:
* Restrictions on Iran's nascent uranium-enrichment program
(a) a verifiable ceiling on enrichment level,
(b) immediate conversion of all enriched-uranium to reactor-fuel
(c) a verifiable ceiling on reactor-fuel quantity,
* Iran's foregoing its NPT right to reprocess spent fuel
* Legislative and regulatory measures
(a) ratification by Iran's Parliament of the Additional Protocol,
(b) a prohibition against development or acquisition of nuclear weapons
* Continuous on-site presence of IAEA inspectors at uranium conversion and enrichment facilities above and beyond that required by the Additional Protocol
Condi essentially prevented the E3/EU from even acknowledging receipt of this magnanimous offer.
Now to a report on the meeting ....
Geneva - Iran was given a fortnight to agree to freeze its uranium enrichment program yesterday or face further international isolation.
After a day of inconclusive talks in Geneva, a six-nation negotiating team warned the Iranian delegation that it had run out of patience and demanded a 'yes or no' answer to a proposal it put forward five weeks ago.
Under that offer, sponsored jointly by the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, Iran would not expand its uranium enrichment programme, while the international community refrained from imposing further sanctions. This phase would last six weeks, possibly paving the way for suspension of enrichment and more comprehensive talks.
But:
Diplomatic sources have described the "freeze for freeze" as requiring that Iran would not add any more centrifuges and the six powers would not act to increase its sanctions during the six-week period.
According to an EU source with direct knowledge of Solana's meetings with Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki and nuclear negotiator Jalili, on Jun. 14, however, what Solana presented was different from the "freeze for freeze" proposal that had been discussed among the six powers.
The source was not authorized to explain the difference between the two proposals, but it now appears that Solana could not present the original freeze for freeze proposal on behalf of all six powers because the most important actor of all – the United States – had objected.
When State Department spokesman McCormack was first asked about an EU "freeze for freeze" proposal on Jul. 3 and whether it was acceptable to the United States, he twice avoided addressing it altogether. But when a reporter asked in regard to the proposed informal talks, "You do it then via the EU-3 [Britain, France and Germany], right, not the P5+1?" McCormack answered, "Via Mr. Solana".
When a reporter asked whether he could "flatly state" that it was Bush's policy to refuse to sit down with the Iranians unless they stopped the enrichment program completely, McCormack made no effort to nuance his answer. "That is our policy," he replied.
The United States was thus insisting that it would not participate in the six weeks of informal talks based on the "freeze for freeze" proposal. That position would defeat the main point of holding preliminary informal talks, which was to get around the existing barrier to substantive negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program – the demand for a complete suspension of enrichment by Iran.
The Iranian decision to accept the Solana formula for informal talks was conveyed to Solana by a letter from Mottaki and a phone call from Jalili on Jul. 4. But when Solana announced a meeting with Jalili in Geneva to take place on Jul. 19, he was carefully ambiguous about what other states would be involved, if any.
It is now clear that this ambiguity was necessary, because he was waiting for the results of Rice's efforts to get Bush to agree to Solana formula.
When Bush finally did agree to the participation of Burns in the Jul. 19 meeting, it was on terms that were very different from what Solana had proposed to Tehran. The limitation of the US commitment to a single meeting and the tight constraints imposed on Burns suggest that the decision was heavily influenced by Cheney, who has had overall control of Iran policy since 2005.
So more of the "Do what we say or else" form of "diplomacy", despite Iran having rights, which others are trying to deny it.
G'day Phil, more articles on the Usrael/Iran issue ...
William O. Beeman - "Playing Games with Iran."
By now the structure of the U.S. game with Iran is clear. In the first move, the United States and Iran make some small progress toward improved relations. In the counter move, hardliners in the United States and Israel launch attacks against Iran in order to sabotage these improving relations.
In the latest iteration of this game, the U.S. State Department has made an interesting gambit. It announced that Undersecretary of State William Burns would sit at the table on July 20 as members of the European Union entered into talks with Iran over its nuclear program. At the same time, the United States has been reported to be considering opening a formal American Interests Section in Tehran. These two actions will be the first serious public diplomatic activities between the two nations in nearly three decades. (Three earlier meetings in Baghdad between U.S. Iraqi Envoy Ryan Crocker and Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi-Qomi focused on security in Iraq).
The counter-moves came fast and furious. First, former UN ambassador and prominent neoconservative John Bolton launched a jeremiad against the U.S. government on July 15 in the Wall Street Journal. Criticizing the administration for failing to act militarily against Iran, Bolton placed his hopes on Israel to carry out the military attack that he fervently desires. “Instead of debating how much longer to continue five years of failed diplomacy, we should be intensively considering what cooperation the U.S. will extend to Israel before, during and after a strike on Iran,” he wrote.
Following closely on Bolton’s editorial, The New York Times printed another attack against Iran on Friday, July 18, just one day before the opening of the European talks, by Benny Morris, an historian at Ben-Gurion University. Like Bolton, Morris presents an Iranian nuclear weapons program as an established fact, implies that Iran would make a first-strike attack on Israel, and thus justifies pre-emptive military action on Israel’s part.
Both Bolton and Morris base their attacks on false premises. Diplomatic dealings with Iran have, in fact, succeeded on the few occasions they have been tried. There is no proof anywhere that Iran actually has a nuclear weapons program at present, a fact underscored by the National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007. In fact, Iran’s nuclear experiments are still at a primitive level, far from any possibility of manufacturing weapons. Iran has never directly threatened Israel and is not likely considering a first strike against Israel.
"false premises", what would they do without them?
Hannes Artens - "Iran Isolation Attempts Backfire."
Iran’s provocative missile tests ten days ago again fueled the debate on the likelihood of aerial strikes against Iran. Since last week’s thaw, however, an attack on Iran by the end of President Bush’s tenure no longer appears in the offing. Moreover, the narrow, exclusively military focus of the debate misses the broader picture. The overall U.S. strategy of containing Iran has failed in principle. And the attempt to impose a sanctions regime on Iran has led to an erosion of U.S. strategic influence in Asia and the Middle East. Over the long term, Washington’s shortsighted containment policy will only hurt Western business in the region. It will also play into the hands of China, drive crucial allies away, and render Iran untouchable.
When will an aide tell the CC; "Mr President, whart we have here is a FUBAR situation?
Kaveh L. Afrasiabi - "Small steps in Iran's nuclear talks."
Linda Heard - ""US Olive Branches" Aren't What They Seem."
Games people play.
G'day Phil, Frida Berrigan on the USrael/Iran issue.
A legal remedy?
Method in their madness?
Crazy as rabid foxes.
G'day Phil, some examples on the complexity of diplomacy - M K Bhadrakumar on a snub and an intermediary. Complicated enough without the usual suspects stirring the pot.
A chilling thought - could the CC understand such complexities? Or would a seemingly simpler approach be more appealing?
ta ra! ...
.. a reading list
-=*=-
G'day Bob,
you usually put up lots'a great links, this time please allow me:
1. July 25, 2008
State Department Realists vs. Cheney's Ultras
War With Iran?
By GARY LEUPP
[counterpunch/Gary Leupp]
2. July 28, 2008
The War Party's Credo: Power Before Profits
Why the left's analysis of imperialism is inadequate
by Justin Raimondo
[antiwar/Justin Raimondo]
3. July 29, 2008
A Response to Justin Raimondo
"Bewilderment and Confusion on the Left?"
By GARY LEUPP
[counterpunch/Gary Leupp]
G'day Phil, thanks ... news ... Olmert to resign.
Iran wants in ...
And an example of the spin - an historian turns to lies.
talking of spin ...
.. and the AusBC
-=*=-
G'day Bob,
before I read your new links, this:
Iran to continue nuclear path before deadline
July 31, 2008 10:00:00
«The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power program.
Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, denies the charge.
The freeze idea is aimed at getting preliminary talks started, although formal negotiations on the nuclear, trade and other incentives will not start before Iran suspends uranium enrichment, which has both civilian and military uses.»
[AusBC - Reuters]
1. By 'the West' they mean the US regime (as opposed to 'the US people,' say), the only country actually to have used A-bombs - and those in a war crime against overwhelmingly civilian 'targets,' plus Israel, also a 'nukular power,' then any governments foolish and/or weak enough to cave in to USraeli coercion.
2. This 'nuclear warheads under cover' must be fiendishly clever - or an outright lie (my tip); see IAEA etc. below.
3. Also 'both civilian and military' is simply not possible since any enrichment going on is to *low* levels for electricity production, absolutely not to the high levels needed for a bomb, also see IAEA etc. below.
The problem is, of course, that both the IAEA, and the US spies themselves (December 3, 2007 U.S. NIE), say that Iran is *not* indulging in any weapons-related A-business at all; just simply not.
The deployment of the phrases 'nuclear warheads under cover' and 'both civilian and military' are neither justified nor justifiable.
Then, there's this: 'the world's fourth largest oil producer,' as if to say that Iran doesn't *need* 'nukular electricity,' eh? (A fine bit of mind-manipulation...)
But there's often 'more of the same' such *rubbish* coming from the AusBC, essentially lies.
The AusBC is a publicly funded 'news' organization, and has *no business* retailing lying propaganda.
if Iran is nuked ...
.. it will not be Israel's fault (much)
-=*=-
"Don't you dare [do some action]!" is simultaneously a threat and a blackmail attempt.
It is a way for a perpetrator with a Personality Disorder to prepare for performing some malfeasance, by building in the justification beforehand. The psychologists[1] tell us, that even the most extreme psychopaths[2] feel (somehow) justified, while at the same time knowing that whatever they are doing (i.e. their current malfeasance) is deeply immoral when not outright criminal. (There is a difference; 'legal' is an (artificial) human construct, 'moral' is much more arbitrary, having to do with right vs. wrong. A standard 'cop-out' is to try saying that one cannot legislate morality, an obvious furphy.)
Reading through Bob's latest links (g'day again), one may see exactly this "Don't you dare ...!" sort of gambit coming from one Benny Morris, a Professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben Gurion University, via Philip Giraldi's "The Father of Lies" piece over at antiwar.
In this case the "Don't you dare ...!" has two targets, Iran for its putative A-bomb project, and "the rest of the world," for failing to deter Iran ("... despite the current talk of additional economic sanctions, everyone knows that such measures have so far led nowhere and are unlikely to be applied with sufficient scope to cause Iran real pain, given Russia’s and China’s continued recalcitrance and Western Europe’s (and America’s) ambivalence in behavior ...").
The problems are many, not the least of which is no evidence of any A-bomb project, but even if one were to be possessed by Iran, any "1st use" would bring instant retaliatory annihilation. Logic simply doesn't support the thesis, and despite attempts to assert otherwise, the Mullahs just aren't that mad.
What Benny is both predicting and pushing for is an Israeli conventional assault on Iran which, if it fails to stop the still putative A-bomb project, would be escalated to nuking Iran at the very latest on completion of such a bomb - but preferably before. Once more into the brink - errr, breach. (Pssst! War doesn't work, Benny! You'll find out one day - or Israel will, that's fur shure.)
On the way, Benny deploys another standard furphy: "Every intelligence agency in the world believes the Iranian program is geared toward making weapons, ..." which is contradicted at least by the U.S. NIE I mentioned earlier today. Giraldi goes further when he says "Morris makes numerous errors of fact" which is a polite way of saying Morris lied, and when such lies are recognised is the point when we dismiss the whole tract as the filthy propaganda that it is.
But before we finally dismiss Benny and his lying propaganda, note this bit: "serious injury to the West’s oil supply ..." Oh, do tell, Benny, we gotta stop Iran - before they stop our oil, eh? Haw! Another threat/blackmail, this one aimed at the sheople®. And don't they just sucker-up!
-=*=-
Getting back to the psychopathic aspects, we have to sadly admit that the madperson/criminals are in charge of the asylum. The question is Q: What can we do about it, and the answer is A: Invoke people-power to restore truth and justice.
-=*end*=-
Ref(s):
[1] psychology n. (pl. -ies) 1 the study of the human mind. 2 treatise on or theory of this. 3 a mental characteristics etc. of a person or group. b mental aspects of an activity, situation, etc. (psychology of crime). psychologist n. [POD]
[2] psychopath n. 1 mentally deranged person, esp. showing abnormal or violent social behaviour. 2 mentally or emotionally unstable person. psychopathic adj. [ibid.]
G'day Phil, to counter the lunacy here's a considered piece from Juan Cole.
But who's that in the shadows looking for ways to inflame the situation? Why it's Limp Dick. An interview with Sy Hersh. Video and transcript. Follow the internal links.
But for now:
There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives.
And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.
Odds are they are still looking.
G'day Phil, more from Gordon Prather on Israel's hypocrisy.
Why is it OK to joke about it?
A positive aspect - not all are insane:
But all is not lost. Like Iran, America has its surprises. While presidential hopefuls find it easy, even funny, to construct scenarios of mass killing, many ordinary Americans dedicate their lives to understanding situations of crisis and preventing wars.
On Tuesday, July 8, Andrew Wimmer, and fourteen other members of the Center for Theology and Social Analysis in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood of St. Louis, visited the office of William Lacy Clay, Jr. of Missouri's 1st District and spoke with him via teleconference. The purpose of the visit was to discuss with him the House Concurrent Resolution 362 "expressing the sense of Congress regarding the threat posed to international peace, stability in the Middle East, and the vital national security interests of the United States by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony.”
Four days later, in these very columns Andrew wrote: “House Concurrent Resolution 362 and its companion, Senate Resolution 580, pave the way for open war with Iran. It is that simple, and we must be equally clear and bold in our opposition.”
If only ... the crazies lose influence and power.
Post a Comment