Countdown to Midnight in Persia
By Leslie on September 1, 2007 at 6:13 PM in Current Affairs
I’m going to quote a post by Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque, in its entirety because it’s that good. I hope he won’t mind.
By Chris Floyd
Day after day, almost hour by hour, fresh confirmation comes of the impending American attack on Iran. Yet the same surreal malaise that hung over public affairs before the war of aggression against Iraq has descended again. Everyone knows the war is coming and nothing will stop it, but the strange, ludicrous shadow play of sham “debate” goes on, as if there were some kind of political or diplomatic maneuver out there that could deflect the Bush-Cheney junta from its long-chosen course. But nothing will stop them, just as nothing — not even 10 million people in the streets around the world, the largest protest in human history — stopped them from the rape of Iraq. It’s what they want to do — and they will do it.The latest confirmation arrives from Juan Cole’s new spin-off blog, “Global Affairs,” where Barnett Rubin writes:
Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:
They [the source’s institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this — they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”
Of course I cannot verify this report. But besides all the other pieces of information about this circulating, I heard last week from a former U.S. government contractor. According to this friend, someone in the Department of Defense called, asking for cost estimates for a model for reconstruction in Asia. The former contractor finally concluded that the model was intended for Iran. This anecdote is also inconclusive, but it is consistent with the depth of planning that went into the reconstruction effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I have no inside connections anywhere, but I do have a couple of friends who do. And one of them reported last week that one of his friends — with good sources among the Establishment, including the White House — also confirms that the attack on Iran is a done deal, “just a matter of time.” Awaiting, no doubt, that post-Labor Day “rollout of product.” Cole also points us to the story by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane, who reported on the study by two respected British academics on the likely course of the coming war. According to Dr. Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and Martin Butcher, former Director of the British American Security Information Council, the war preparations now being made by the Bush Administration bespeak something far beyond a quick punitive strike on Iranian Guards positions or lightning raid on Iran’s nuclear power facilities. Instead, what the Bush-Cheney junta envision is the complete destruction of the Iranian state in an aerial blitzkrieg aimed at up to 10,000 targets inside Iran. The goal, says Plesch and Butcher, is to:
“destroy Iran’s WMD [capabilities], nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George W. Bush giving the order…Any attack is likely to be on a massive multi-front scale but avoiding a ground invasion. Attacks focused on WMD facilities would leave Iran too many retaliatory options, leave President Bush open to the charge of using too little force and leave the regime intact. US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours. US ground, air and marine forces already in the Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan can devastate Iranian forces, the regime and the state at short notice. Some form of low level US and possibly UK military action as well as armed popular resistance appear underway inside the Iranian provinces or ethnic areas of the Azeri, Balujistan, Kurdistan and Khuzestan. Iran was unable to prevent sabotage of its offshore-to-shore crude oil pipelines in 2005.
The assault will most likely be made with conventional weapons, the authors say, as the political and environmental effects of a nuclear strike on Iran would not be worth the limited military value of such an attack. After all, the Bushists want to control Iran and milk it dry after they destroy the regime and slaughter a vast number of innocent people. Halliburton and Exxon wouldn’t be able to move right in and start gobbling up loot in a radiated land.This is what is coming. This is what the Bushists will be selling to us soon. (Glenn Greenwald has a useful roundup of the growing madness here.) One sees comments here and there to the effect that “the American people will never accept this,” that “Bush can’t get away with this kind of thing after Iraq,” or that “this isn’t 2002, with everyone still raw and dazed after 9/11,” etc., etc. But such declarations are pipe-dreams, foolish hopes. As we have pointed out here many times, Bush and Cheney are not interested in obtaining the “consent of the governed” for their militarist agenda — nor do they need it. Congress has already given its overwhelming approval to the specious reasons for war that Bush and his minions have advanced. The corporate media is doing its part again too; for example, the media’s flagship, the New York Times, has been “stovepiping” warmongering spin straight from the White House and Pentagon onto its front pages — exactly as it did in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and even using the same reporter,Michael Gordon, who with his co-writer Judith Miller was reponsible for the dissemination of so many useful lies. The same system that fed the engines of aggressive war in 2002-03 — reporter gets spin from Bushists, paper prints spin, Bushists then cite the report as “confirmation” of the lies they themselves concocted — is in operation now. Unless the Bushists insBut let us bear witness to the truth while we can still speak the truth: this is murder. And all those who do not speak out against it — and against all those in high places who do nothing to stop it — are fully complicit in this abomination. No excuses, no mitigation, not this time. Speak out — or be damned with the criminals who thrive on your silence.
UPDATE: From Rawstory, “A national security expert revealed to The London Times that the Pentagon has ‘drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days.’ “
The OUTRAGE — ….the O U T R A G E — is that Bush/Cheney do not give one damn about those kids now in Iraq who will become the instant targets of the Iranians. So proud of their j$*^% “surge” — a surge of young kids ….ready to be killed.
Makes me physically sick.
Worst of all, we must sit here and just watch it happen.
I know…watching it happen and feeling helpless to prevent it is the most sickening part. It’s like watching a train crash in slow motion.
If after the air power display, there is some desire to take and hold Iran, where will the boots come from? Is the USA going to remove its troops from the Korean border, Okinawa and Germany and move them to Iran? Even though the major Iranian oil fields are close to the eastern borders of Iraq, they are dispersed as this map shows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Iran_oil_map.png
It will be an interesting war, it will not be short, and there will have to be a draft if the USA intends to steal Iran’s oil as they have so far not be able to steal Iraq’s.
I’m scared shitless.
(to put it simply)
Whereas the ‘wingers’ reptile brains get off on this stuff, my reptile brain is seized by foreboding, fear, and the sure prospect of devastating blowback.
Yeah, ditto! Plus, the devastation Bush will wreak on innocent people—again.
Sandy, yeah, it really is disgusting that Bush and Cheney et al. don’t care about the “kids” they sent to Iraq to kill the Iraqis they care even less about, but that is not what makes ME physically sick. I care far less about the “kids” who are in Iraq to kill Iraqis than I do about the truly innocent victims of the plan - the men, women, and children of Iran.
“air power display”?! “interesting”?!
CK, do you think you could sanitize it just a bit more, please?
I prefer understatement when dealing with congential idiocy. The Air Power prophets did not accomplish much with shock and awe in Iraq, I expect less from them in Iran; but the videos will be gripping. The reason the USA has waited so long before attacking is to give the spec ops and delta boys enough time to rehearse the capture of the Iranian oil platforms and other central infrastructure objectives. Rather like the kickoff in Iraq was held up for days waiting for the delta boys to be ready to grab the main Iraqi refinery and avoid a massive repeat of the Kuwait oil field debacle at the end of Iraq 1.
Unlike Iraq, Iran is expecting and has probably game planned the coming attack and responses. They do have General Paul van Riper’s example to go by.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
History is supposedly relived first as tragedy then as farce, I wonder what the proper term for the third go round is.
“The Air Power prophets did not accomplish much with shock and awe in Iraq”
Really? Perhaps you ought to consider talking to the Iraqis who were subjected to it before saying anything. Of course, I have a slight advantage. I did not watch it all on CNN, or ABC, or CBS. I watched it on Al Jazeera*, and I saw with my own eyes what it did on the ground. And I talked to actual Iraqis who described it to me. And I was in daily touch with a couple of Iraqis in Baghdad at the time, and communicating with them during actual attacks.
I get your point, and the irony of it all, but sorry, but I just can’t think of it or speak of it with any kind of detachment. It’s too close and too real to me.
*I know of a few Americans who subscribed to Al Jazeera to see what the fuss was about, and found that even though they could not understand what was being said, the coverage looked far more balanced, and appeared far less propagandistic than anything they could find in the U.S. mainstream media. At the very least, they could see that the “war” was not even a little bit all about the American troops.
Shirin:
The shock and awe that started the Iraq war was a dud from the military pov. The performance of shock and awe versus the promise was strikingly poor. That civilians suffered hugely is proof of its failure to deliver. The israeli shock and awe in northern lebanon last summer was also a bust militarily.
I have no words to ease the immediacy or the pain of what was done, and no words to stop this bunch of loons from trying to do it again to another country for no damn reason at all. So yes I understate and I watch with a bit of detachment. I am 60, I have had my time in the barrel. I expect that what goes around comes back around. Iraq had no reach, no external assets, no allies to speak of; none of those is true for Iran. One of the ironies to me is that the American Air Force is the most thoroughly infilitrated by christian fundies of the American armed forces just as the Israeli AF is the most infilitrated by likudnik extremists.
So yes I have to stand my choice of words, it will be interesting.
How often has Chris Floyd been wrong in his predictions?
I have the impression his accuracy is high enough to completely disqualify him from ever becoming an corpsmedia pundit.
one thing that I’e learned is how powerful a force the president is. because HE thinks something, it beecomes a kind of reality, like that famous quote about us being in the “reality based community” or something.
I try endlessly to say to people hey the 9/11 hijackers were from pakistan egypt, saudi arabia aka our big allies. that’s where wahabi islam is centered. and people, on some level, KNOW this but there is a mental block with them. Because the president is a moron, THEY are morons. They figure the president is in charge so they should believe him over some random guy on the internet.
It doesn’t matter what i say. I could get a written statement from ahemedinejad that he will neveer help terrorists and will start free market reforms ASAP. it doesn’t matter.
why? becuase israel knows that no matter how backward or modern a muslim country is, they will never accept israels existence. so we are left essentially putting the entire middle east iunder US enforced martial law. and we aren’t any safer for it.
“History is supposedly relived first as tragedy then as farce, I wonder what the proper term for the third go round is”………..
the proper term is “send fucking bush and fucking cheney and all their goddamn fucking followers to fucking hell for all fucking eternity”
“israel knows that no matter how backward or modern a muslim country is, they will never accept israels existence.”
1. That is not what motivates Israel, that is merely the propaganda cover for Israel’s aggressive and land-grabbing policies.
2. It is not true that “muslim countries” will never accept Israel’s existence. That, again, is propaganda that has become “received truth”. What keeps “muslim countries” from accepting Israel’s existence is Israel’s own behaviour.
America is doomed. The reaction of the world community, the reaction of those in the Middle East, and the reaction of those in control of the US will combine to make another World War near unavoidable.
Congress has failed in it’s constitutional duties and helped the criminals in this White House. Both Democrats and Republicans in our government deserve to be tried for war crimes.
Is a military coup the only way to save American democracy? I doubt that protests will stop anything. It would have to be civil disobedience on a massive scale this country has never seen.
“Is a military coup the only way to save American democracy?”
Comment by GR3 | 2007-09-01 21:53:24
I have been saying this for months. I even sent a personal email to
James Galloway the military correspondent of the McClatchy newspapers as follows..
Dear Mr Galloway
Having just recently discovered you online I am very impressed with your analysis of the current status of the US Military especially the ground forces.
My question is simple…
When in the course of human events does the Military say enough is enough and start defying its civilian political leadership.?
This is his reply…
“the only event in recent history would be gen douglas macarthur’s open defiance of orders from President Harry Truman to keep his mouth shut on the matter of chinese intervention in korea. truman fired macarthur, quite correctly, for gross insubordination.
in a case such as we have now a military uprising or active defiance of civilian control would be a disaster for democracy. how much better it would be if, one by one, the generals at the top began resigning and THEN declaring the reasons why and identifying the problems with ignorant civilian control. keep it up till bush cheney holler UNCLE.”
jg
While he makes a good point overall his remark..”active defiance of civilian control would be a disaster for democracy..” is exactly opposite of what would be good for democracy.
A military coup in the ONLY hope for saving this country. Nothing else in 6 years has even made a dent in Bushco’s ambitions so forget Congress forget impeachment, forget massive civil disobedience, NONE else is going to bring about a change.
CAN YOU IMAGINE A DOZEN ABRAMS TANKS ROLLING DOWN PENNSYLVANNIA AVENUE TOWARDS THE CAPITOL AND THE WH? AS DATA SAID RESISTANCE WOULD BE FUTILE AND ALL THE BULLSHITS WOULD RUN FOR BIG DICK’S BUNKER!!
WHAT WOULD ALL THE PEOPLE IN DC DO?? RUN FOR COVER?? MAYBE A FEW BUT MOST OF THEM WOULD GRAB A BUNCH OF FLOWERS AND STICK THEM DOWN THE MUZZLES OF THE TANKS AND WELCOME THEIR OCCUPANTS AS GUESS WHAT ???????
LIBERATORS!!!!!
TELL ME PEOPLE WHY THIS SHOULDN’T HAPPEN???
“CAN YOU IMAGINE A DOZEN ABRAMS TANKS ROLLING DOWN PENNSYLVANNIA AVENUE TOWARDS THE CAPITOL AND THE WH?”
Hah! That would really bring back the good old pre-Saddam days in Baghdad when the motto was “a coup a year or you’re not in Iraq”. It got so whenever the tanks and helicopters were spotted, kids would start celebrating (no school for a few days), and housewives would start checking the food supplies in case they had to make a quick shopping trip before the curfew started.
YES. A miltary coup is justified in order to save American democracy, because the President, VP, and top cabinet officials are obvious 9/11 traitors, and government-assigned media monoplies are collaborating.
If we all loudly and continuously demand action, some military officers will summon the courage to act.
Their oath is to the Constitution, not the President.
They haven’t acted before now because they don’t feel the people would be with them.
Restore democracy - Arrest the 9/11 traitors.
TELL ME PEOPLE WHY THIS SHOULDN’T HAPPEN???
it really is our only hope at this point as the cowardly dems are complicit by having no fucking balls.
bush/cheney are war criminals, no doubt about that at all. the only way for the armed services to redeem themselves is to take control away from the neocon fascist cabal.otherwise, the generals are complicit in the war crimes being committed.
as a student of history,there is no doubt in my mind, whatsofuckingever.
I e-mailed my Senitor, Russ Fiengold, over a year ago to say that I understood why congress hadn’t moved on impeachment.
“I realise that it’s not your fault. I’m sure that you in the Senate and House understand far better than the rest of us why impeachment simply can’t be done. And not because you don’t have the votes. Even if the articles were passed there is no way to make Bush & Co. comply.
What if they are impeached and they just ignor it the way they have so many other attemps to restrain them?
What if he disolves Congress by Executive Order and sends you all home?
What will you do then? Send someone to arrest him?
Who would you send?”
I have received replies from Russ to coments I made on other issues in the past, but never a word on this one.
misfiteye… great one!!! I think you should do a u-tube video and send it on… would make a good 30 sec soundbite… every one in congress should get a copy.
If any of this is true the economic damage that will take place in the Gulf will hurt us in the long run….
Madness…. plainly madness….
Any attack on Iran will roil the world oil markets.
BushCo is betting on the Strategic Oil Reserve to soften any short-term domestic oil supply crunch.
BushCo probably also has secret agreements in place with the Saudi royal family, who will increase oil exports to the West following any attack on Iran. However, this strategem depends wholly upon keeping the oil shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz open.
BushCo, therefore, over the past several years has been secretly building up the U.S. military presence in the oil emirates across the Persian Gulf from Iran, while also increasing our naval presence in the waters off Iran.
During the same time, Iran has had contacts with Hugo Chavez, the leader of Venezuela, who now controls CITGO, a major supplier of gasoline in the U.S. market. Chavez may just decide, in the event of a U.S. attack on Iran, to severely restrict any Venezuelan oil exports getting to the U.S..
BushCo may then decide to go after Chavez and replace him with a more BushCo-friendly dictator in Venezuela, thus expanding BushCo’s Oil Wars beyond the Middle East.
Anyway, I foresee any BushCo attack on Iran driving up oil prices, both domestically, no matter what short-term relief releasing oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve may provide, and on the world oil markets. The Fed and BushCo will not be able to stop this inflatiionary spiral as increased oil prices drive up prices for everything else, severely affecting the U.S. economy and other economies around the world.
Now, anyone not an oil company executive or shareholder in an oil company would view this as being insane. Unfortunately, BushCo always sides with the oil company executives and their making a buck, which leaves all the rest of us oil consumers screwed, criminally screwed.
The Floyd article is quite something, particularly that report from the British academics. The British general’s comments today were interesting also.
If we do this, it will be without Britain. One of Gordon Brown’s first acts after taking office was to relinquish unilateral war making powers for a PM. “Brown gives up the power to declare war” 03/07/2007
http://tinyurl.com/2m46hn
So who is our partner?
Also, if we do this, it will indicate that the corporate elite and mega wealthy of this country have completely lost their will and their minds. If I’m reading this, so are they and they have a great deal to lose. Attacking Iran means little to them in terms of benefit, but a great deal in terms of losses.
I defer to greater experience here. But I simply can’t believe that people who have completely lost any touch with reality, i.e., Cheney & Bush, will be able to do this without major push back. 10 million people in the streets may not do it, according to Floyd, but Warren Buffett and a few other can if they chose to do so.
We’ll see if they really “have the pictures,” so to speak.
I think that BushCo expects to get the boots on the ground to continue in Iraq and to expand the war to Iran from a restored military draft.
I think that they will require a state of national emergency to justify restoring the draft.
I think that the required state of emergency can best be contrived if there is another successful terrorist attack on the US.
Therefore I expect a successful terrorist attack on the US before November 2008. This will have the added effect of justifying the “postponement” of the 2008 elections — just for a while, you understand, until we win the War on Terror –
Seven years ago I would have regarded anyone with the opinions I have just claimed as seriously paranoid, so out of contact with reality as to belong to the tinfoil-hat brigade.
[…] Countdown to Midnight in Persia : NO QUARTER By Chris Floyd […]
Nancy pelosi caved in to AIPAC and took the provision against attacking iran out of the last iraq budget. there’s your culprit right there.
An attack on Iran will destroy Israel. Is this what the Freedom Watch group wants?
What will happen, if Iran is attacked?
An attack on Iran might kill millions of Iranians, but it also will kill tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Israelis.
Cheney, the Neocons and the Israeli government might be willing to sacrifice so many Israelis. The Jewish Israelis, however, would not want to sacrifice themselves.
Israeli Jews are not used to live in sqalor and need either. They are not used to live like citizens of a developing country. During a total war a lot of infrastructure would be destroyed and the economy would no longer be able to provide Israeli Jews with the living-standard of an industrial country. They would leave Israel en masse. A majority of Israelis have either been born in another country or have lived there for years. These people have viable options.
And since a war against Iran would last probably for many years, and if it spreads through the entire Islamic world, it would last for decades, those refugees would not return for all this time.
By the time the war is over the Zionist state would indeed have collapsed for lack of Jewish citizens who are willing to keep it running, just as the Iranian President has predicted.
While neither the Iranian leadership, nor the leadership of another Islamic country are insane enough to attack a nuclear armed Israel, allied with a nuclear super-power, the repercussion of an all out war against a big well-armed non-nuclear Islamic country would destroy Israel.
For people who care so much for Israel as the Neocons such a counter-productive move would indeed be insane.
But are they really insane or is this just another Macchiavellian ploy, an “insane game”?
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/3296
Cee,
I think you’re right! If the Bushies attack Iran it will probably boost the current government’s hold on power, not lessen it. Our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq will be more vulnerable. The violence we visit on Iran would likely to spread, as the violence in Iraq has. We will boost al Qaeda recruiting by giving them another casus belli.
Further, if we strike Iran, Iran is very likely to strike Israel. Israel’s existence will be threatened. [Something Rapture enthusiasts would welcome!] Finally, war with Iran will only forestall their nuclear program, not destroy it. Meanwhile, an attack on Iran will be viewed as a clear act of aggression by the world. If the world views the Bush administration and the US as the biggest threat to world peace now…we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Leslie, I doubt very much that Iran would attack Israel. They are not crazy or stupid despite what the propagandists would have us believe.
As many Israelis have acknowledged, the only real threat to Israel’s existence is Israel’s policies and actions.
Leslie, I agree that attacking Iran will not bring an end to its nuclear program. Quite the contrary, it will make them very determined to obtain nuclear weapons - something for which there is no evidence whatsoever at this time.
I am not so sure attacking Iran will be viewed as “a clear act of aggression”, unfortunately. The UN and the EU have, after all, gone right along with the Bush regime’s manufactured Iran crisis much more than they did with the manufactured Iraq crisis.
And make no mistake. THIS IS A MANUFACTURED CRISIS just as surely as the “Iraq crisis” was manufactured to provide a pretext for an act of pure, naked aggression. There was no more need to “deal with Iraq” in 2002-2003 than there was in 2000-2002. There is no more need to “deal with Iran” now than there has been previously.
Iran has no history of aggression. The “terrorist groups” Iran supposedly supports all have very specific, limited local goals, and their designation as “terrorist” groups is, in some cases, highly questionable. The complaints about Iran “interfering” in Iraq’s affairs is simply laughable.
The only crisis here is not related to Iran’s actions, but those of the Bush regime.
I have to add that Zionists have been manufacturing the crisis for some time now. The late Prof. Shahak wrote about Israel trying to scare others with “Iran threat” as early as in 1993!
Shirin,
Sorry, but I don’t agree with your analysis. Iran may not have a history of aggression [ignoring the history of the Persian empire and the current threat the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc. all see], as you say, but right now Iran is bombing Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. Iran is also supporting the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in case Karzai falls, possibly inadvertently helping the Taliban [in order to maintain stability] and definitely to the detriment of US and Nato forces there. If the US attacks Iran, the situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. will change and probably tip in favor of Iran.
Iran is also likely to use groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas to launch attacks on US/Israeli interests. Because Israel is viewed as a proxy for the US, and Iran can attack Israel far more easily.
Pat Lang has written a lot about the threat Iran poses to the region. I believe that threat is very real, made more so by the lunatic policies of the Bush administration.
Really…why is war with Iran necessary? Why now? What about diplomacy? What about reaching a non-proliferation agreement? None of it makes any sense. But if the US attacks Iran, we will be empowering Iran in the region and creating a disastrous mess.
Leslie, we ARE in agreement that the consequences of attacking Iran will be widespread and potentially very, very bad.
Everything you mentioned - bombing Kurdish villages (as by the way Turkey is also doing), supporting the Northern Alliance warlords (wait - weren’t those guys Bush’s allies not all that long ago?), etc. is a direct result of Bush regime actions. But I believe you are aware of that.
As for the history of the Persian empire, come on! That was over centuries ago, and has no connection to what we are talking about now, which is the history of the modern-day nation state of Iran.
According to my sources, by the way, the Gulf states, and the Saudis in particular, do not actually see a threat from Iran, though the Bushies are working overtime to convince them that there is one - kind of like Poppy Bush in 1991 using fake satellite photos to convince the Saudis that the Iraqis were about to invade so they’d allow the U.S. to set up bases.
As for Hezbullah and Hamas, I know it is becoming very popular to blame Iran for their actions, but they are not instruments of Iran, but are using Iran to achieve their goals more than Iran is using them. They are home-grown, local national liberation groups, and will act in what they see as their own interest. Whether Hezbullah is even a terrorist group is debatable. Of course, every move either group makes will now be directed by and for Iran.
We also agree that whatever threat Iran may or may not pose now, if Bush attacks one likely result is that Iran will be strengthened, as it already has been by Bush’s aggression against Iraq, and by the attack on and occupation of Afghanistan.
I have a real fear that Bush is about to start WW III. And I don’t see what I can do about it. Ray McGovern exhorts us to “roll up our sleeves” today, and once again I ask, and then what? Do precisely what? where? with whom? I feel utterly helpless. I feel paralyzed.
If our armed services are already stretched too thin..
Why is Bush going to do this? Does he think Iran will just sit there and allow us to bomb it?
a three front war..great just frigg’n great….
I deeply worry that an attack on Iran will result in sufficient uprising in Pakistan as to topple Musharraf, with all the predictable Taliban-with-nukes consequences. Hard to imagine that if Musharraf fell we could avoid having to intervene there militarily as well.
As I mentioned on another thread, my daughter just left for graduate school in Canada. The visa application asks Americans whether they have committed war crimes or been involved in torture. We’ve already become the civilized world’s pariahs. If this new war becomes reality, we’ll become what the Germans were in the 30s and 40s. And there will be less excuse for us. Because all the information is out there. Anybody can know it if they only open their eyes. We just can’t seem to do anything about it.
I remember back before the Iraq war began. It must have been after Afghanistan started, though. I was watching some speech by Bush. He was declaiming something to the effect that: “Nothing can stop us. Because we are the greatest and most powerful nation in the world!” And I thought, “Oh, God, I hope I’m not standing near him when retribution hits him for that hubris.” But of course, we’re all standing near him. That’s the problem.
Yes, Delia, I remember thinking nearly the same thing. I followed king georgie since he announced his candidacy, and thought then as I think today, that he is evil to the core. Green slime comes from his mouth with everything he says. I sometimes think he may be the anti christ as some have proposed. It is almost like just about anything he says is the opposite of what he will actually do. Unfortunately, his word means nothing. We know he is and always will be a liar. And his eyes, those beady eyes that sends a chill to my bones. I can no longer listen to him even talk. I have avoided watching him even in short segments of video, for some time. I hate making myself sick when I know it would happen…
Preacher Lady, did you see the picture of Bush in his Kicker truck? Now, that’s enough to make an American citizen REALLY sick.
Bomb Baghdad, Bomb Teheran, Bomb Hanoi, Bomb Mogadishu, Nicaragua, Colombia, El Salvador, etc. etc. yetch.
It’s all part of the ongoing Third World war (not WW3). The blue eyes against all the other people.
They got the guns but we got the numbers. Jim Morrison
[…] No Quarter. […]
Nobody mentioned “PEAK OIL”
As of this year, world oil demand surpasses world oil production and this equation will get worse in the next decade[s]. This means that oil prices will keep rising and our oil-driven “exponential growth” economy will collapse. Everything in our economy is oil/energy based… think of food & agriculture, transportation, cars & freeways, electricity, the military machine [the greatest consumer of oil], heating/cooling, computers & information processing, chemicals & pharmaceuticals, etc… With higher oil prices and lower oil production, we’ll have to get by with less in all these categories and the economy will be affected negatively…
The world population follows the same curve as oil production i.e. went from 2B to 6B in the last century and as oil production declines, the population will follow…
“PEAK OIL” has already happened and is irreversible… Bush and the neo-cons want to control as much of the oil in the world as they can because they’re afraid of the increasing competition from China & India and they want to hoard as much wealth as possible before the collapse of the world [western] economy…
If you look at a world map, you will see that the US military is positioned everywhere in the world where there is oil and/or drugs [coca & opium].
Bush has [illegally] invaded Iraq, is planning to [illegally] invade Iran shortly and has encircled Russia & China with bases to eventually attack Russia. In all cases the motive is oil. But somebody somewhere is bound to retaliate [sooner than later I hope] and then we would have WW3 or the rapture.
I’m NOT in any justifying what Bush & the neo-cons are doing, as a matter of fact I think it is utterly criminal. I’m just giving you a different POV…
Iran IS the biggest state sponsor of terrorism! Hezbollah and Hamas chant “death to America” all the time. Does that not register? Hezbollah killed hundreds of sleeping marines in Lebanon twenty years ago. Yes, they hate us.
Iran must NOT be permitted to have nuclear arms. This would be a disaster for everyone who cares about freedeom or human rights. YES they intend to make weapons, yes they intend to use them. Take Achmadinejad at his word, “we will bring down the great Satan, the world doesn’t need the US”
You are correct that Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. The issue, however, is whether or not a massive airstrike on Iran will serve US national security interests.
You are completely wrong with your unfounded claim that Iran intends to use nuclear weapons. You need to stop buying into the propaganda.
LOL! So now chanting “death to America” constitutes terrorism - brilliant!
Sorry to break THIS to you, but attacking Marines on your own soil is by definition NOT terrorism.
Unfortunately for you, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Iranians intend to make nuclear weapons, and even less evidence that they would be more likely to use them than any other small country surrounded by countries with nuclear weapons.
As for freedom and human rights, why don’t you take THAT bit of horse poop and spread it among the Iraqis you have “liberated”. They’ll find it tres amusant. And after that, you might tell that one to the thousands of human beings whose freedom and human rights were violated when they were hauled off to any of the secret prisons the U.S. have all over the world. Or tell it to Maher Arar, whose freedom and human rights were violated when he was sent off to Syria to be tortured.
More and more the greatest global threat to freedom and human rights is the so-called Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
Toward the end of July, my wife and I received word through the family grapevine that her cousin, an Air Force Officer (fighter pilot), was being sent to Turkey, not to fly, but to lead a force conducting missions in southern Turkey, northern Iraq and Iran. His mother said she was upset about it because “He doesn’t believe in the mission”.
The story passed through several relatives and crossed the country coast to coast and back before it came to us, so I was more than a little skeptical.
I told my wife that I found it hard to believe.
1. That whole area would be Kurdistan if the PKK had their way.
2. Turkey has it’s own army. Why would they want us mucking about in their back yard?
3. The Kurds are our best ally in northern Iraq. Why would we want to risk that?
4. He wouldn’t be going into Iran unless we’re deliberatly trying to provoke another war.
Besides, if any of this were true, he would never tell his mother. He was in the Pentagon on 11 Sep 2001. I’m sure he understands security better than that.
Two days later, I saw “Novak Leaking More Secrets” on No Quarter.
I’ve been sitting on this for over a month now and I just don’t know what to do. I have tried to tease more info out of the grapevine but it seems that each step along the way was told not to say anything to anyone else (you know how that goes) so they are a little embarassed to hear from me about it. I could try the dirrect approach but I’m affraid that would just dry up the source for good.
The one thing I was able to find out is that he has decided to take his wife and kids to Turkey with him and his parents are very upset about it.
Either he plans to be there a long time doing a mission he dosen’t believe in or he knows his family will be safer in Turkey than here.
A miltary coup is justified in order to save American democracy, because the President, VP, and top cabinet officials are obvious 9/11 traitors, and government-assigned media monoplies are collaborating.
If we all loudly and continuously demand action, some military officers will summon the courage to act.
Their oath is to the Constitution, not the President.
They haven’t acted before now because they don’t feel the people would be with them.
“Restore democracy - Arrest the 9/11 traitors.”
Say it loud. Say it often.
game show catchphrases
Great site - this info is great! Looking forward to reading the rest.