They cry peace, peace, but there is no peace -- not when American missiles are around to derail any talks that might hamper the profitable operations of the Washington war machine.
On Wednesday, missiles from an American drone destroyed a house in the Pakistani village of Damadola, killing at least 15 people, with women and children reportedly among the dead. The ostensible target was a gathering of Taliban fighters, who control the surrounding area in this border region with Afghanistan.
But the real target of the attack, no doubt, was the peace process now underway between the local militants and the new Pakistani government. As AP notes:
The explosions came as Pakistani authorities and Taliban militants exchanged dozens of prisoners in the latest step in a peace process that is stirring growing alarm in the West. NATO claims [that] militant incursions into Afghanistan have increased.
This is a familiar pattern of the worldwide Terror War launched by the Bush Administration. We saw it a few weeks ago in Somalia, when national unity talks between the government and insurgents were disrupted at a delicate stage by the "targeted assassination" of a rebel leader (and the usual assorted civilians) by U.S. missiles.
In the American imperium, subject nations are not permitted to work out their internal conflicts on their own -- especially if this involves a cessation of hostilities that leaves any group or faction disfavored by Washington still standing. Obliteration of the disobedient is the ultimate goal, as Hillary Clinton put it so well the other day. But the Terror War policy of disrupting peace talks has some short-term objectives as well. These include the continuation of the war profiteering that now greases the entire American system; and, perhaps above all, the ape-like show of dominance that gives such deep psychological satisfaction to the pathetic, stunted, needy wretches who control our politics and our political discourse.
What's going on in Lebanon? Nothing you haven't seen before -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestine and other places where "the United States is basically instigating and funding civil wars."
So says Professor As’ad AbuKhalil -- better known perhaps as the "Angry Arab," for his indispensable website of the same name. AbuKhalil was born and raised in Lebanon and has an intimate knowledge of troubled land's warring factions there -- and their external backers. Needless to say, the American media's framing of the current flare-up of violence in Lebanon is the usual sinister caricature of reality, with "bad guys" attacking "our friends" out of pure, malevolent, world-gobbling evil.
In fact, "our friends" in Lebanon are actually in league with our allegedly erstwhile friends Al Qaeda. The Hariri faction backed by the Bush Administration is drawing upon the most extremist Sunni armed factions in an attempt to counteract the power of Shiite Hezbollah. This is of course just a continuation of current American strategy in the region, as Sy Hersh outlined last year: giving arms and money to extremist Sunni groups allied with al Qaeda in order to ward off Shiite factions making trouble in our client regimes.
This in turn is part of a broader, more long-standing strategy, going back to 2004, as we noted in a recent report: a global program of arming and funding militias and other violent "non-state actors" to foment trouble where Washington wants trouble, and pressure recalcitrant regimes to bend to the imperial will.
And no, Washington is not "behind" every twist and turn in Middle East politics. But American interventions, direct and covert, are responsible for exacerbating and intensifying conflicts, enflaming sectarian and ethnic divides (or literally building giant concrete walls between them, as in Baghdad today), bolstering tyrannical and/or ineffectual, illegitimate leaders whose misrule provoke more strife, suffering and conflict.
In an interview this week on Democracy Now, AbuKhalil cuts through the corporate media cartoons to give a truer picture of the outbreak in Lebanon:
I think that people may remember, back in the 1980s, the United States government, for two years in the administration of Ronald Reagan, deployed troops from ’82 to ’84. And there was a civil war, and the United States was supporting the rightwing militias of Israel in Lebanon, and they used the discourse of supporting the central government of Lebanon.
Something similar is taking place right now in Lebanon, and this is very much similar to what’s happening in Sudan, in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and Somalia. The United States is basically instigating, funding and arming civil wars in all those places. We hear a lot about this inability of the international community to tolerate armed militias. Of course, Hezbollah is an armed militia, but so are the pro-militias of the government. There’s a Los Angeles Times article today detailing the efforts by the United States and allies to create militias throughout the country. And the Washington Post indicated that this government of the United States spent $1.4 billion to prop up the administration of Siniora in Lebanon.
And basically, what happened in Lebanon in the last few days is a partial coup d’etat that was in response to a full coup d’etat that was engineered by the United States and Saudi Arabia and Israel from behind the scene back in 2005, capitalizing on the assassination of Rafik Hariri.
And things have gotten to this point because America basically is responsible, more than their clients in Lebanon. I mean, there were ideas of dialogue in Lebanon, and things were moving in that direction, and then, suddenly, lo and behold, the Assistant Secretary of State of the United States for the Near East, David Welch, shows up in Lebanon, and he basically wanted to stiffen the resolve of the clients and to basically prevent the possibility of dialogue. And then, Walid Jumblatt, one of the clients of the United States and Saudi Arabia and Lebanon today, escalated by deciding on taking the issue of disarming Hezbollah, which is supported at least by half of the Lebanese; and Lebanese parties, including clients of the United States, [had] agreed that the issues of disarming Hezbollah should be left for internal dialogue of the Lebanese themselves...
This [the current violence] is something that experts have warned the United Nations about. If you push things to that point, the other side is going to lash out, and they did lash out, even if one, like me, does not like the scenes of these militias and armed thugs running into the streets of Beirut and so on. But basically, we have to say that this is the doing of US foreign policy, and this is the true face of the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East.....
We have to say that this level of intense tensions and conflict and animosity is the product of a deliberate American-Saudi policy of instigating a Sunni-Shiite conflict, the likes of which Lebanon has never seen. I mean, even somebody like myself who comes from a split background—my mother is Sunni, and my father is Shiite—I mean, we’ve never seen anything like this. Saudi media, with the full cooperation of the United States, have been for three years mobilizing the Lebanese opposition, because that’s the only thing they have....They have been [doing] serious propagandizing to [split] Sunnis from Shiites in order [to] create a militia that can stand up to Hezbollah.
Back at his website, AbuKhalil notes:
What is quite ironic is that Lebanese Forces' media (like LBC-TV) are gleefully airing calls for Jihad... by (Hariri- and Saudi-funded) Salafite groups in North Lebanon. Do they not know what those groups' views are of Christians? They even refer to Lebanese Christians as "crusaders". These are clones of Al-Qa`idah, but the Lebanese Forces seem to be embracing them.
And so in Lebanon -- as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia -- the policies of the Bush Administration have only produced more extremism, more terrorists, more violence.
Can we not discern a pattern here, a clear intention? The "War on Terror" produces terror; it's part of the "creative destruction" that the militarists used to boast about, when they dreamed that their crimes of aggression, torture and murder would lead future generations to "sing songs about us," in the immortal words of Michael Ledeen.
This quote is often attributed to Richard Perle, but it comes from Ledeen's call for "total war" in a speech at American Enterprise Institute on October 29, 2001. Ledeen followed this up with a piece on National Review Online in August 2002, when he mocked Brent Scowcroft's concern that an invasion of Iraq could turn the Middle East into a cauldron. Ledeen's response:
One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today.
Ledeen is no mere kibitzer on the rightwing gravy train. He is one of the architects and chief abettors of the cauldronization -- the slaughter and suffering -- we see across the Middle East today. As the Washington Post noted back in the glory days of 2003, when these bloodthirsty wretches were still strutting around beating their chests about their importance:
One [of Karl Rove's advisers] is Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, whose specialties include terrorism and the Middle East. His latest book, according to the official summary, asserts that "America must topple the regimes of the terror masters to eliminate the threat of terrorism."
The two met after Bush's election. "He said, 'Anytime you have a good idea, tell me,' " Ledeen said. Every month or six weeks, Ledeen will offer Rove "something you should be thinking about." More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas, faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric.
Nowadays, of course, Ledeen skulks around pretending he opposed the invasion of Iraq: the kind of astonishing lie one might have heard in a Nuremberg courtoom back in the day, and one easily refuted. (As is his current lie that he has always opposed an attack on Iran.) But he, Rove and all the other facilitators of the militarists bear a direct and substantial share of responsibility for the murder and chaos that continues to erupt across the tormented region.
UPDATE: And now Bush is proposing an even more direct U.S. military intervention in Lebanon. Speaking in Cairo -- on yet another one of his pointless trots* around the cauldron (maybe he wants another fancy sword -- or just some more good smoochin' -- from the Saudi king) -- Bush offered to help the Lebanese army "respond more effectively" to Hezbollah. He also took the opportunity to -- what else? -- blame Iran for everything happening in Lebanon, claiming that without the backing of the devilish Persians, Hezbollah -- which, as AbuKhalil noted, is supported by almost half of the Lebanese population -- would be "powerless."
So Bush will soon have yet another proxy war playground to while away his time before retiring to stick his snout in the same corporate trough that has so enriched his fellow war crminal, Tony Blair -- who has already made almost $20 million in corporate pork in less than a year after leaving office.
Who says crime -- especially war crime -- doesn't pay?
*Note. Some might think that Bush is touring the region to build support for an attack on Iran. But that kind of head-knocking and arm-twisting is left to Dick Cheney (who took an ominious swing through the cauldron not long ago). Junior is too witless for any hard-core dealing -- although no doubt he will bluster and bellow to his hosts about Iranian perfidy and "doin' God's will" and whatever else vomits up from his murder-rotted brain.
To divert from atrocity and anguish and political folly for a moment: over at the MySpace page, there are four new songs up, with more to come. These are demos, self-produced, rough-sketch possibilities for the second album, which, if all goes well, might be recorded this summer with Nick Kulukundis, the extraordinary producer, arranger and musician. There are also two songs from the first album with Nick, Wheel of Heaven (available through iTunes), still up on the page. Give 'em a listen if you take a notion.
Civilians are still streaming out of Baghdad's Sadr City, despite the announcement of a truce late last week designed to avert – or at least give the appearance of diverting – a major bloodbath from an all-out assault on the densely-populated area by U.S. forces and their local junior partners. Announced on Saturday, the deal was immediately eviscerated by U.S. forces, who bombed three neighborhoods in Sadr City that very afternoon, as dpa reports.
Oddly enough, when Iraqi government forces tried to enter disputed Sadr City quadrants the next day, they were attacked, the New York Times reports. The Times' intrepid correspondents, including the ever-reliable spin-funnel Michael Gordon, professed to be shocked – shocked! – at such rude behavior, which they presented as clear and unprovoked violations of the nascent truce. Naturally, they omitted any unseemly and unnecessary mention of the American bombing of the day before.
The fighting is Sadr City is concentrated along a demarcation line, Al Quds Street (Jerusalem Street), between areas loyal to nationalist cleric Motqada al-Sadr and areas now under the control of the violent sectarian factions backed by both the United States and Iran; i.e., the Iraqi "government." In addition to bombing residential areas and leading Iraqi government troops in attacks, American forces are also erecting a massive concrete wall, 12 feet high, along three miles of Al Quds street, in attempt to seal off the recalcitrant neighborhoods. Of course, it was considered poor form – or rather, an international outrage – when the Soviets did this kind of thing in Berlin; but in our brave new world, it is now an accepted, even celebrated policy. (Just like torture, concentration camps, aggressive war, warrantless surveilance, etc.) During the past 17 months, throughout the vaunted "surge," U.S. forces have been building ghettos all over Baghdad and elsewhere in the country, often turning over these enclaves to the tender mercies of "former" insurgents and terrorists who, now in the pay of Washington, rule them as private fiefdoms. This, you understand, is what is now known as "liberation."
Civilians still living in the slowly closing concrete trap say they are almost as fearful of a genuine truce as continued warfare. That's because a real truce would allow the violent sectarians empowered by Bush to operate with murderous impunity in their neighborhoods, replacing al-Sadr's draconian militia with something even worse, as McClatchy Papers reports:
Inside Abdul Hassan's home, furnished with colorful rugs and flimsy mattresses, Sakran and his wife hoped for calm after weeks of bombardment and gun battles, but they feared the worst is yet to come. "We just want peace," Sakran's wife, Suham Bresam, said, her eyes heavy from sleepless nights. "This agreement happened and I was up all night from the gunshots and strikes."
Her home was in the middle of the fight on the edge of the district where U.S. forces are holed up in abandoned buildings and the Iraqi Army has set up checkpoints, and she hadn't left it in weeks. A nearly completed wall built by the U.S. military isolates the area, and her modest dwelling is scarred by bullets and shrapnel…
Nowhere in Sadr City is safe from an air strike, Bresam said, but Abdul Hassan's home was safer than her own. At home, the Iraqi Army shoots erratically after a roadside bomb blast hit civilians, and when the Mahdi Army shoots rockets at U.S. aircraft, missiles rain on people's homes.
"It's just the civilians who get hurt," she said....
Before the battle began in late March, the area was peaceful…but they lived in an atmosphere of intimidation. When women were beaten by the Mahdi Army in her neighborhood or Sunnis killed, they objected quietly and never challenged the militia....
But they also fear the Iraqi Army. Videos captured on cell phones are being sent as messages from person to person. Abdul Hassan pulled out his phone to show a public hanging of three men. They stood on police trucks with nooses around their necks as a crowd of people looked on and then the trucks were driven away and the men were hung. Another showed men shot by the Iraqi Security Forces and then burned. In the background Iraqi soldiers spoke.
"Don't say in the name of God the most compassionate the most merciful. They are animals," one soldier said....
Abdul Hassan said the videos were shot in the southern cities of Karbala and Nassiriyah, and he worried that the same would happen in Sadr City if the Iraqi Army had free reign.
"We haven't seen a solution that will give us peace," he said. "We don't want it to be like Karbala or Nassiriyah. We don't want people executed in the streets."
But there will be no peace in Sadr City. The "surge" will continue along the Al Quds line. Bombs will keep falling from American planes, missiles from drone-craft operated by button-pushers bunkered in Nevada will continue to rain death on houses and apartment blocks, and the extremists embraced by George Bush will keep hanging and shooting people in the streets.
II. Meanwhile, civilians in Mosul are likewise fleeing or hunkering down in the face of a major assault by U.S. and Iraqi forces. Patrick Cockburn of the Independent reports that one of Iraq's largest cities has been turned into a "ghost town," as likewise fleeing or hunkering down in the face of an attack by U.S. and Iraqi forces. The latter have launched the attack because, they say, the city has been under the control of "al Qaeda in Iraq" for many months.
That's right; as Juan Cole notes, one of Iraq's largest cities has been in the hands of what is supposed to be America's deadliest enemies in Iraq – even while Americans has been bombarded with propaganda about the "success" of the surge. This is the same city, by the way, that is routinely trumpted as a "success story" in the glittering career of General David Petraeus, architect of the "successful" surge. Petraeus was in control of Mosul during the first months of the war, when he was regularly touted – by Michael Gordon of the NYT, among others – for his remarkable "counterinsurgency techniques" and peerless "nation-building skills." So "successful" were Petraeus' efforts that the current assault to dislodge "al Qaeda in Iraq" is a carbon-copy of a similar operation launched earlier this year, as Cole reports:
Reading news about Iraq is like watching Bill Murray's 'Groundhog Day' in which you have to live through the same day over and over again. So the US and Iraqi governments have announced a new campaign against Sunni radicals in Ninevah province, especially Mosul. Take a look at this article, published late last January: "Thousands of Iraqi army soldiers reached the northern city of Mosul on Sunday in preparation for what the government said would be a major offensive there against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, along with other Sunni militants."
Ninevah governor Duraid Kashmula admitted to Al-Hayat that Mosul "has come to dominated by the leaders of al-Qaeda as a result of the delay in the military operation in the city."
What??! Mosul is Iraq's second largest city at 1.7 million, and it is under the control of "al-Qaeda"? How long has this been the case? All this time? While the US press was reveling in the "calm" in the country?
Mosul was also taken over by insurgents in 2004 – while U.S. forces were destroying Fallujah. It has long been flashpoint for terrorist attacks, reprisals and strife throughout the war. And now, for the second time in less than a year, it is being subjected to a major attack to wrest it away from insurgents. This is the kind of "success" that has fuelled Petraeus' meteoric rise to his current perch in command of the entire "Central Command" of the Terror War.
But what is happening in Mosul today? Patrick Cockburn has the story:
Mosul looks like a city of the dead. American and Iraqi troops have launched an attack aimed at crushing the last bastion of al- Qa'ida in Iraq and in doing so have turned the country's northern capital into a ghost town.
Soldiers shoot at any civilian vehicle on the streets in defiance of a strict curfew. Two men, a woman and child in one car which failed to stop were shot dead yesterday by US troops, who issued a statement saying the men were armed and one made "threatening movements"....
I had been to Mosul down this road half a dozen times since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and on each occasion the military escort necessary to reach the city safely has grown bigger....
That's Petraeus' legacy of "success" in action!
There is no doubt that security in Mosul has been deteriorating over the last six months. Mr Goran, who in effect runs the city, said that 90 people were killed in Mosul last September compared to 213 dead this March, including 58 soldiers and policemen. The number of roadside bombs had risen from 175 to 269 over the same period.
The official theory for this is that al-Qa'ida in Iraq, which has only a limited connection with Osama bin Laden and is largely home grown, has been driven out of its bastions in Anbar and Diyala provinces and Sunni districts of Baghdad. It has retreated to Mosul, the largest Sunni Arab city and the third largest in Iraq.
This is probably over-simple. Attacks on US troops in Anbar province have restarted and in Sunni districts of west Baghdad al-Qa'ida appears to be lying low rather than being eliminated. In many cases in Baghdad al-Sahwa, the supposedly anti-al-Qa'ida awakening councils paid by the Americans, in practice have cosy arrangements with al-Qa'ida.
I was in Mosul on the day it was surrendered by Saddam Hussein's forces in 2003. Scenes of joy were succeeded within the space of a few hours by looting and gun battles between Arabs and Kurds. Five years later Mosul, one of the great cities of the world, looks ruinous and under siege. Every alley way is blocked by barricades and the only new building is in the form of concrete blast walls. The fact that the government has to empty the streets of Mosul of its people to establish peace for a few days shows how far the city is from genuine peace.
How far from peace…. There will be no peace in that tormented land now, because the ones who started the war, and keep it going, see no profit in peace – unless, as we've said before, it is the peace of the grave, with all resistance to their will, their interests, their agenda crushed utterly. There is no middle way for the war-and-dominion machine that bestrides our system. There is only the "obliteration" of resistance – or else, as in Vietnam, ignominous retreat after years of pointless death and ruin. But what do they care? In the words of Suham Bresam: "It's just the civilians who get hurt."
Arthur Silber needs your help. It's as simple as that. One of the most insightful, original, informed and meaningful voices in our political discourse today, Silber must scrape by from month to month on the jagged edge of circumstance, battling ill health with notable courage, surviving on nothing but what his blog can bring in. This is a shameful reflection of how our society regards wisdom and truth: as something to be cut off, unsupported, crushed if possible, and if not -- as in the case of Silber's indomitable spirit -- then marginalized, battered, made to suffer.
In recent weeks, Silber has roared back from a particularly vicious bout that laid him low to write a remarkable string of essays, full of the learning, passion, perception -- and wicked wit -- that is a trademark of his work. Some particularly choice example can be found here: Let the Victims Speak; Why America May Go to Hell; and Cultivate Your Sense of Wonder.
In the latter piece, Silber combines older and new material to speak eloquently about the vision that drives his work:
If I had to select just a single word to express my deepest feeling about the world, and about humankind, it would be that one: wonder. I consider it a measure of how unevolved we are that so many people appear to be capable of that feeling only when they contemplate an imaginary, supernatural plane. It is hardly surprising that our world holds so much unnecessary suffering, when so many people are willing and eager to condemn it to second-rate status in favor of one they've made up out of whole cloth...
I think it highly probable that our circumstances will continue to get significantly worse, although this deterioration may come quickly or comparatively slowly. You may live the rest of your life without seeing the worst of what will happen, or even anything close to the worst -- or you may not. There is no way to know, and the variables are close to infinite. But I say again: it does not have to be this way. Extraordinary events have transpired in history before, and they might again. We need a miracle, but not one delivered to us from a supernatural realm: we require a miracle that we create.
It can happen. Hold on to your sense of wonder; if you do not have a sufficiently strong one, then develop it. For me, it is the most precious resource in the world....
Live in the sense of wonder, and in the world of joy. Take it, feel it and pass it on. That's sometimes all you can do -- for someone, somewhere, one day. It's everything.
I now add that, when you engage in this process, you yourself live ecstatically -- today.
Can we afford to let such a voice fall silent? If you have anything at all to spare, get on over to Silber's site and give what support you can.
Willing Executioners: America's Bipartisan Atrocity Deepens in Somalia Mr. Abdi, what about the bbc article you posted above? It is irrelevant to the subject. Why are you trying so hard to portray Somali conflict just internal clanish war! I am Somali myself, and I don't belong to either clan you mentioned, but I despis...
Outside Agitators: Another Missile Attack Aimed at Peace Talks Thomas married into the multi-billionaire Bucksbaum clan, owners of about 60 million square feet of shopping malls. Thomas lives better than the average reporter, in Bethesda, in "a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, currently valued at $9.3 million...
Serving the System: Disillusion, Deception and the Obama Campaign Honestly, why even bother with pwogwessives like fd? He's obviously carved a comfy niche for himself in the corporate DNC and can manage to maintain the delusion that Obama is some kind of pwoggie savior. Nice work if you can get it...
There's no ...
Falling Cedars: Fomenting War in Lebanon -- and Beyond mistah Charlie: check the podcasts; I did an interview with Howard Zinn a few weeks back to discuss 'A peopel's History of American Empire'
Jimmythem: youa make-a me laugh: like you, i like bikes and weed, and liberals make me feel weird and uncomfo...
Falling Cedars: Fomenting War in Lebanon -- and Beyond The U.S. has had a remarkably consistent policy in the Middle East for nearly 40 years, selling arms to as many factions as possible, and pitting them against each other whenever it can. The "war on terror" just makes this foreign policy more obvious...
Falling Cedars: Fomenting War in Lebanon -- and Beyond Um. Chris?
You should check your permit.
In most counties, shootin' trolls in a barrel is not exactly above boards...
HA!
oh, that was made to order.
Love,
Scott
Fire Alarm: Feeding the Flames at Traitor's Gate I am in the militia in my state, and the militia is not what the mainstream media make us out to be. However this thing plays out, you and your loved ones will stand a better chance of coming out the other end by getting plugged in to the militia ne...
Falling Cedars: Fomenting War in Lebanon -- and Beyond I'm glad I stopped by here today, because I need diagnosis: I'm a motorcyclist who smokes wacky weed and likes shiny black boots. Creepy liberal hippies are people who smoke wacky weed, but evil Nazi faggots like shiny black boots. Both hippies AND N...
Worried Yet? Saudis Prepare for "Sudden Nuclear Hazards" After Cheney Visit
Sunday, 23 March 2008
(NOTE: Apologies for the server problem that blocked access to this link for several hours on Monday.)
I. One Tick Closer to Midnight Last Friday, Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia for high-level meetings with the Saudi king and his ministers. On Saturday, it was revealed that the Saudi Shura Council -- the elite group that implements the decisions of the autocratic inner circle -- is preparing "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors," one of the kingdom's leading newspapers, Okaz, reports. The German-based dpa news service relayed the paper's story.
Simple prudence -- or ominous timing? We noted here last week that an American attack on Iran was far more likely -- and more imminent -- than most people suspect. We pointed to the mountain of evidence for this case gathered by scholar William R. Polk, one of the top aides to John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to other indicators of impending war. The story by Okaz -- which would not have appeared in the tightly controlled dictatorship without approval from the top -- is yet another, very weighty piece of evidence laid in the scales toward a new, horrendous conflict.
We don't know what the Saudis told Cheney in private -- or even more to the point, what he told them. But the release of this story now, just after his departure, would seem to be a clear indication that the Saudis have good reason to fear a looming attack on Iran's nuclear sites and are actively preparing for it.
II. A Nuclear Epiphany in Iran? And they certainly should be bracing themselves. A U.S. attack on Iran will come suddenly, and if it is indeed aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities -- a "threat" being talked up again with new urgency by both Cheney and Bush lately -- it has the potential for unimaginable consequences. As we noted here in a previous piece:
Twelve hours. One
circuit of the sun from horizon to horizon, one course of the moon from
dusk to dawn. What was once a natural measurement for the daily round
of human life is now a doom-laden interval between the voicing of an
autocrat's brutal whim and the infliction of mass annihilation halfway
around the world.
Twelve
hours is the maximum time necessary for American bombers to gear up and
launch an unprovoked sneak attack – a Pearl Harbor in reverse – against
Iran, the Washington Post reports.
The plan for this "global strike," which includes a very viable
"nuclear option," was approved months ago, and is now in operation. The
planes are already on continuous alert, making "nuclear delivery"
practice runs along the Iranian border, as Sy Hersh reports
in the New Yorker, and waiting only for the signal from President
George W. Bush to drop their payloads of conventional and nuclear
weapons on some 400 targets spread throughout the condemned land.
And
when this attack comes – either as a stand-alone "knock-out blow" or
else as the precusor to a full-scale, regime-changing invasion, like
the earlier aggression in Iraq – there will be no warning, no
declaration of war, no hearings, no public debate. The already issued
orders governing the operation put the decision solely in the hands of
the president: he picks up the phone, he says, "Go" – and in twelve
hours' time, up to a million Iranians could be dead.
This potential death toll is not pacificist hyperbole; it comes from a National Academy of Sciences study sponsored by the Pentagon itself, as The Progressive reports. (Although Bush's military brass like to peddle the public lie that "we don't do body
counts" of the enemy, in reality, like all good businessmen they keep
precise accounts of their production outputs: i.e., corpses.) The
Pentagon's NAS study calibrated the kill-rate from
"bunker-busting" tactical nukes used to take out underground facilities
– such as those which house much of Iran's nuclear power program.
Another
simulation by scientists, using Pentagon-devised software, was even
more specific, measuring the aftermath of a "limited" nuclear attack on
the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan, the magazine reports.
This small expansion of the Pentagon franchise would result in stellar
production figures: three million people killed by radiation in just
two weeks, and 35 million people exposed to dangerous levels of
cancer-causing radiation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Bush has
about 50 nuclear "earth-penetrating weapons" at his disposal, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Nor is the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran mere "liberal paranoia." Bush himself pointedly refused to take the nuclear option "off the table" this week. But what's more, Bush has made the use of nuclear weapons a centerpiece of his "National Security Strategy of the United States,"
issued last month, The Progressive notes. While reaffirming the
criminal principle of "pre-emptive" attacks on perceived enemies which
may or may not be threatening America with weapons they may or may not
possess, Bush declared that "safe, credible and reliable nuclear forces
continue to play a critical role" in the "offensive strike systems"
that are now a key part of America's "deterrence."
In
the depraved jargon of atomic warmongering, a "credible" nuclear force
is one that can and will be used in the course of ordinary military
operations. It is no longer to be regarded as a sacred taboo. This has
long been the dream of the Pentagon's "nuclear priesthood" and its
acolytes, going back to the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For
decades, a strong faction within the American power structure has been
afflicted with a perverted craving to unleash these weapons once more.
An almost sexual frustration can be discerned in their laments as time
and again, in crisis after crisis, their counsels for "going nuclear"
were rejected – often at the very last moment. To justify their
abberant desire, they have relentlessly demonized an ever-changing
array of "enemies," painting each one as an imminent, overwhelming
threat, led by "madmen" in thrall to pure evil, impervious to reason,
fit only for destruction. Evidence for the "threat" is invariably
exaggerated, manipulated, even manufactured; this ritual cycle has been
enacted over and over, leading to many wars – but never to that
ultimate, orgasmic release.
Now this paranoid sect has at last seized the commanding heights of American power...they have found a
most eager disciple in the peevish dullard strutting in the Oval
Office. Under their sinister tutelage, Bush has eviscerated 40 years'
worth of arms control treaties; officially "normalized" the use of
nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear states; rewarded outlaw
proliferators like India, Israel and Pakistan; and is now destroying
the last and most effective restraint on the spread of nuclear weapons:
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The treaty
guarantees its signatories – such as Iran – the right to establish
nuclear power programs in exchange for rigorous international
inspections. But Bush has arbitrarily decided that Iran – whose nuclear
program undergone perhaps the most extensive inspection process in history
– must end its lawful activities. Why? Because the country is led by
"madmen" in thrall to pure evil, impervious to reason, who one day may
or may not threaten America with weapons they may or may not have....
So the NPT is dead.
As with the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution, it now means
only what Bush says it means. Force of arms, not rule of law, is the
new world order. The attack on Iran is coming...The obvious,
murderous insanity of such a move in no way precludes its
implementation by this gang – as their invasion of Iraq clearly shows.
The
nuclear sectarians have waited decades for this moment. Such a chance
may never come again. Will they let it pass, when with just a word, in
just twelve hours, they can see their god rising in a pillar of fire
over Persia?
Bush and Cheney should be impeached within an hour of news that they have made any sort of military action against Iran or any other country and the Senate should promptly convict them and remove them from office. THey should then be arrested for their many violations of US law and International Treaties which, the Constitution says, have the force of law of the land.
Meanwhile, Congress should make it clear than no military action can be taken by Bush/Cheney without prior Congressional authorization. Acting without prior Congressional authorization is an impeachable offense.
I also hope you are wrong but I just read that one of our nuclear subs just passed through the Suez Canal on its way to Iran. This made more nervous and now your article, I believe we will hit Iran soon, it will have to be when there is no moon let us all hope it doesn't happen but what frightens me even more is the possibility of no Elections in this Country since the President has sign in Executive Order 51 which deems him "dictator" and is able to shut the country down under martial law.
If a false flag operation against US troops were to occur, say a faked missile attack or incursion over the Iraqi border, than Bush would legally claim merely to be retaliating, and THAT is perfectly legal to do without congressional approval. Best case scenario- oil instantly hits two hundred a barrel. worst case scenario- permanent loss of mid eastern oil to the US, administration is all hung for treason and war crimes, and a quick but savage war with Russia, India and China spanking our asses. They warned us that such attacks would be met with retaliation with equal weapons. Good luck everyone.
The next new moon is 07 April, if they're gonna do it this lunar cycle it will be 07 APR /- 24h when night vision and stealth tech advantages are maximized by the new moon. My advice to any/everyone in the Gulf on or about 07 April, 'DUCK' !
SteveG -- The U.S. has something like 20,000 nuclear weapons and is led by an egomaniacal, militant, fascist religious fanatic and mass murderer who has his finger on the button 24/7. Iran MIGHT have a nuclear weapon at some point in the future. Who did you say you think I should worry about?
"Any discussion of global security must take poverty into account. The widening gap between those who have more than enough and those who have less than they need must be central to any discussion on global security and making the world a safer place for everyone".
This is an excerpt from a globalresearch.ca article on NATO's policy of preemptive use of nuclear weapons.
steveg- only one country of the two we're talking about has actually used nukes, and one has been most aggressive militarily in the last 8 years- now which one should i worry about being in possession of nukes?? hm...
Bush is all of a piece. If a great president is a war president, then he will be a war president, any way he can.
If the greatest president is the one who can nuke at will, then he will want to be the Greatest President of All.
Bush is not harder to figure out than that.
As I recall, a nuclear attack against Iran was attempted in late August last year (the North Dakota to Louisiana transport event). If that was not an overt attempt to nuke somebody, then the event was otherwise inexplicable. Bush & Cheney learned from it. Did we?
From President Cheney's point of view, he's just serving the fat assholes who are pursuing the American Dream of having more than plenty of everything.
They can't do that without plenty of petroleum, so Cheney's been after the petroleum for four decades now, serving the fat ass American pubic.
He, and his Boy Wonder, will be genuinely astonished if the American public reacts to their midnight smiting of the Persians with anything less than patriotic pride and fervor.
Why shouldn't Iran have nuclear power? Israel has it. The USA has it. Many other nations have it.
Oh, I forgot. According to people like Steve G, the brown-skinned towel-headed camel jockey heathen are inhumane and terroristic.
Right.
One detached look at the USA's conduct in Iraq makes me think that if ANYONE should not have nuclear power or weaponry, it is the USA.
But Steve G's turgid patriotism and self-imposed ignorance won't allow him to reach that perspective, apparently.
How incredibly sad, and how frustrating.
"Yeah Right" talks about "libtards." I guess when you can reduce a whole group of people to a derogatory term, and never have to talk to those people in any sort of sensible dialogue (like Steve G also refuses to do re. Iran), then what will become of your perspective? It will become hate-fueled, ignorance-based, and ready to lie on a whim.
It's funny, you know? I despise the use of the term "liberal" because most who hold him- or herself out these days as a "liberal" seem to ignore liberty. Most seem to be fonts of political correctness and other forms of hypocrisy. Look at the support given Barack Obama -- a man who doubtless will continue the tactics of Bush-Cheney, albeit under a different rhetoric with changed buzz-words. Likewise Hillary Clinton.
The modern "liberal" is about symbolism, appearance, and appeasement.
So I can understand why "Yeah Right" would be inclined to talk about "libtards."
But I don't understand why telling the truth, sharing relevant facts, is "spreading fear."
Obviously "Yeah Right" feels fear when he reads Mr Floyd's essay.
If "Yeah Right" were open-minded and intellectually vigorous, he/she would see that his/her fear is a signal that perhaps something is wrong with this drive toward the use of nuclear weaponry against a totally harmless nation -- Iran.
But then, I don't expect "Yeah Right" has spent much time being intellectually vigorous.
I believe you are relying upon a mistaken assumption -- namely that the Congress is independent, and that impeachment only just now is warranted.
The Congress are a rubber stamp. So that does away with the independence angle. My proof? The constant caving-in to every legislative and budgetary request sent to them from Bush-Cheney.
As to impeachment, we have had sufficient ground to impeach Bush and Cheney since 9/13/2001, when those two characters began blaming Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for the events of 9/11/2001. Reality check: the individuals involved in pretending to be the "masterminds" and participating "terrorists" of 9/11/2001 were Saudi Arabian citizens. Reality check: Saddam Hussein never posed any threat to the USA that wasn't pre-approved by the US Government. Reality check: Saddam Hussein rose to power courtesy of the US Government. Reality check: Osama bin Laden is a friend of the Bush family. Reality check: "al Qaeda" is a CIA-created fiction.
So let's not talk about finally reaching the grounds for impeachment. And let's not talk about the Congress acting independently.
It's time to jettison the whole danged federal government.
Disarming all nations with nuclear weapons, including the U.S., would be of greatest benefit to everyone on the planet. The only way for that to take place would be for the U.S. to take on a leadership role in nuclear disarmament; instead, its rulers have chosen the path of increasing its nuclear arsenal.
Since neither the leaders of the U.S. nor Israel are interested in nuclear disarmament, a nuclear armed Iran would actually help restore some balance of power in the Middle East, as opposed to Israel's lopsided nuclear blackmail in the region, and increase the chances that Israel and the U.S. would negotiate in good faith in Middle East affairs, rather than continue the U.S.A.'s "owner of the world" mentality, as Chomsky so eloquently explains it.
Nice to see so many people here aware of the U.S.'s tactic of attacking during a new moon.
The implications of Saudi attention to prospective radioactive hazard is perhaps better understood in the context of the Doctrine for joint Nuclear Operations published by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This includes the chilling phrase: “Friendly forces must receive advance warning of friendly nuclear strikes.” This continued with the statement, in the 2003 draft “Consideration should also be given for dissemination of STRIKWARN information to allies.” Nuclear Proliferation Treaties have been dead for some years as far as the US Government is concerned. The Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations was published in Draft form in September 2003. An updated version is dated 15th March 2005. Extracts follow. Compare and contrast the earlier draft with the later version.
2005 Version: Page 28 "Friendly Nuclear Strike Warning. Friendly forces must receive advanced warning of friendly nuclear strikes. This allows them to take actions to protect themselves from the effects of the attack. In theater operations, the commander ordering the strike issues the initial warning to subordinate headquarters whose units are likely to be affected by the strike. Geographic combatant commands must develop procedures to ensure multinational forces receive warning if they are likely to be affected by the effects of US nuclear strikes. Commanders must ensure that warning is given in enough time for friendly units to take act."
2003 Draft: Page 22 "STRIKEWARN). Friendly forces receive advanced warning of friendly nuclear strikes to ensure they mitigate unnecessary risk can take actions to protect themselves from the effects of the attack. In theater operations, the commander executing the strike issues the initial warning to subordinate headquarters (HQ) whose units will are likely to be affected by the strike. Commanders must ensure that STRIKWARN messages are disseminated in a sufficient amount of time for subordinate units to take actions to mitigate the possible consequences of US use of nuclear weapons. Consideration should also be given for dissemination of STRIKWARN information to allies. The commander also ensures coordination with adjacent commands and elements of other commands in the vicinity, giving them sufficient time to provide warning and take protective measures. Theater Joint forces potentially affected by the effects of US nuclear strikes are informed of nuclear strikes through a STRIKEWARN message. Geographic combatant commands must develop procedures to ensure that multinationalcoalition/allied forces receive STRIKEWARN information if they will be potentially are likely to be affected by the effects of US nuclear strikes. Disseminate nuclear STRIKEWARN messages as rapidly as possible and, when instructions contain authentication procedures and encoding instructions for disseminating STRIKEWARN messages. STRIKWARN messages may be sent in the clear if the issuing commander determines that safety warnings override security requirements."
The 2003 Draft and 2005 Publication can still be accessed on the Web. The 2003 Draft has been withdrawn from most sources, while the 2005 version was withdrawn from US Govt websites in September 2005. A broader list of related sources, including references to both these documents, can be found at www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/lib...index.html
The President can order a nuclear strike and whether he physically has his hand on any button is IRRELEVANT. The Military must follow the President's orders.
Everything else Steve G says is irrelevant, and is some kind of proud patriot speech that falls on deaf ears. Steve G seems to think that Mr Floyd's audience are lovers of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter -- foolish people who have more patriotic pride than they do intelligence or wisdom.
Steve G doesn't know anything about Islamic or other non-American, non-Christian, non-Judaic cultures -- and he demonstrates that by lumping them all under one banner of evil behavior, of irrational angry terrorism.
Steve G tries to say that our Presidents have "a better track record".
Regarding what? Use of force?
Hmmmm. Grenada, Bosnia, Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, VietNam, Korea.
And that's not even discussing Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- where millions were annihilated and millions more poisoned with radiation, just so a few morons could claim "revenge" for "Pearl Harbor" -- an event that Truman knew was going to happen, and did NOTHING to stop.
So then let's see... we murdered innocents in each of those countries, at the request of the then-sitting US Presidents. That's a great track record worthy of admiration?
Only if you are blindly patriotic and totally brain-dead.
Sent to both Army and Naval War Colleges: Heed General Lenoid Ivashov’s warning.
Post Lebanon I have discounted all the Internet hype concerning possible US attack on Iran until now. Lebanon was complete surprise and the only person I know who predicted level of resistance was former Swiss Army officer, Michael St. Clair. Sure, it was part of the ‘plan’. But the neocon ‘plan’ has gone to poof ten ways to the middle and they continue to continue it. For first time I have serious reason for concern we are building for near, very near, attack. Reader should read these links first. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1888.shtml and, http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Mahan-Al.html General Lenoid Ivashov also had an article in an American Foreign police magazine not too long ego. It concerned our coming election and was at time that it was thought sure to be McCain vs. Hillary. As therein he could not be too outspoken he used Admiral Mahan as a code above most heads but ‘above’ stating that the US will keep same policy no matter which next president and that we have overestimated our sea power. He was not talking modern navy vs. modern navy or any navy but that technology has made all naval vessels vulnerable in littorals. (Google “General Van Riper”) In ‘Millennium 2000’ Van Riper played Iraq in the most expensive war game ever and sunk most of the US fleet in the Persian Gulf. For a time kept very quiet but story broke first in Army Times. All stops were taken out to counter. Woods Hole Oceanographic ‘hydroids’
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