| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:20 am Post subject: |
| Forwarded:
February 4, 2007
U.S. hell-bent for Iran war
http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2007/02/04/pf-3522960.html
By ERIC MARGOLIS, TORONTO SUN
TORONTO -- The Bush-Cheney administration seems hell-bent on provoking war with Iran , and the U.S.-Iran confrontation is getting very dangerous. The heaviest concentration of U.S. naval strike forces since the 2003 war against Iraq is concentrating off Iran .
In a disturbing replay of that conflict, CIA drones and U.S. Air Force recon aircraft - along with U.S. and British Special Forces - are overflying Iran and probing its nuclear and military installations. The CIA and Britain 's MI6 are stirring unrest among Iran 's Kurds and Azerbaijanis, and arming Iranian Marxist and royalist exiles.
A belligerent U.S. President George Bush ordered U.S. forces in Iraq to "kill" Iranian agents or diplomats who appear threatening.
U.S. troops in northern Iraq broke into an Iranian liaison office and arrested its military staff. Bush unblushingly warns Iran , not to "meddle" in neighbouring Iraq
Pentagon sources accused Iran of smuggling weapons and explosives to "Iraqi insurgents" - though the "insurgents" are, in fact, Shia militiamen allied to the U.S.-installed Baghdad regime. Half of the 21,000 additional U.S. troops headed to Iraq are being positioned to cover the Iranian border and block an Iranian threat to the main U.S. Kuwait-Baghdad supply line.
New contingents of U.S. Air Force personnel and warplanes are arriving at key forward air bases in Bulgaria and Romania that link the U.S. to the Mideast and Central Asia . U.S. bases in Britain , Germany , Diego Garcia, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, and Pakistan are reported on heightened alert. Turkey is being pressed to allow U.S. and Israeli strike aircraft to use its air space to attack northern Iran
The Pentagon's latest strike plan against Iran includes over 2,300 "high value" targets such as its dispersed nuclear infrastructure and, worryingly, operating reactors, air and naval bases, ports, telecommunications, air defences, military factories, energy networks, and government buildings.
Iran's water and sewage systems, bridges, food storage, and bomb shelters could also be targeted, as Iraq 's were in 2001.
The U.S. Treasury has mounted a highly effective campaign to strangle Iran financially, seriously hurting its foreign banking connections, retarding industrial growth and energy production, and impeding foreign investment.
The Bush administration and close ally Israel have sharply intensified their war of words against Iran , claiming, implausibly, Iran poses a nuclear threat to the entire world.
Politicians in Israel are in dangerous emotional overdrive and are making open threats to attack Iran They claim Iran is a new Nazi Germany and Israel faces a second Holocaust - in spite of its powerful triad of nuclear forces that can survive any surprise attack.
Though UN inspectors find no evidence Iran is producing nuclear weapons, Tehran , like Saddam's Iraq , is being told to prove an impossible negative - that it has no nuclear weapons.
With disturbing deja vu, the U.S. Congress and media are swallowing the administration's torrent of unproven allegations against Iran precisely the way they lapped up its grotesque lies about Iraq
Intelligence analysts would conclude either: Washington is trying to bluff Tehran to abandon its entirely legal but worrisome civilian nuclear power program and thus claim a major victory after so many defeats; or the cornered Bush-Cheney administration is trying to provoke an air and naval war against Iran as a last desperate, ideologically driven assault against the Muslim world, and divert attention from its Iraq debacle.
Amid growing war fever, last week France 's President Jacques Chirac privately observed that even if Iran had a few nuclear weapons for self-defence, "it is not very dangerous."
Iran would be obliterated by U.S. and Israeli nuclear counterstrikes if it ever used its nukes against Israel , noted Chirac, and is unlikely to commit national suicide.
After his comments became public, Chirac retracted them when Washington 's French-haters went apoplectic. But, as he did before Bush's 2003 war against Iraq , Chirac spoke with logic and good sense.
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Margolis is a friend of the USS Liberty cause for justice as well:
© 2007 Eric Margolis
Archives > April 29, 2001
'THE USS LIBERTY:' AMERICA 'S MOST SHAMEFUL SECRET
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2001/04/the_uss_liberty.php
NEW YORK - On the fourth day of the 1967 Arab Israeli War, the intelligence ship ‘USS Liberty’ was steaming slowly in international waters, 14 miles off the Sinai Peninsula . Israeli armored forces were racing deep into Sinai in hot pursuit of the retreating Egyptian army.
‘ Liberty ,’ a World War II freighter, had been converted into an intelligence vessel by the top-secret US National Security Agency, and packed with the latest signals and electronic interception equipment. The ship bristled with antennas and electronic ‘ears’ including TRSSCOMM, a system that delivered real-time intercepts to Washington by bouncing a stream of microwaves off the moon.
‘ Liberty ’ had been rushed to Sinai to monitor communications of the belligerents in the Third Arab Israeli War: Israel and her foes, Egypt , Syria , and Jordan .
At 0800 hrs, 8 June, 1967, eight Israeli recon flights flew over ‘ Liberty ,’ which was flying a large American flag. At 1400 hrs, waves of low-flying Israeli Mystere and Mirage-III fighter-bombers repeatedly attacked the American vessel with rockets, napalm, and cannon. The air attacks lasted 20 minutes, concentrating on the ship’s electronic antennas and dishes. The ‘ Liberty ’ was left afire, listing sharply. Eight of her crew lay dead, a hundred seriously wounded, including the captain, Commander William McGonagle.
At 1424 hrs, three Israeli torpedo boats attacked, raking the burning ‘ Liberty ’ with 20mm and 40mm shells. At 1431hrs an Israeli torpedo hit the ‘ Liberty ’ midship, precisely where the signals intelligence systems were located. Twenty-five more Americans died.
Israeli gunboats circled the wounded ‘ Liberty ,’ firing at crewmen trying to fight the fires. At 1515, the crew were ordered to abandon ship. The Israeli warships closed and poured machine gun fire into the crowded life rafts, sinking two. As American sailors were being massacred in cold blood, a rescue mission by US Sixth Fleet carrier aircraft was mysteriously aborted on orders from the White House.
An hour after the attack, Israeli warships and planes returned. Commander McGonagle gave the order. ‘prepare to repel borders.’ But the Israelis, probably fearful of intervention by the US Sixth Fleet, departed. ‘ Liberty ’ was left shattered but still defiant, her flag flying.
The Israeli attacks killed 34 US seamen and wounded 171 out of a crew of 297, the worst loss of American naval personnel from hostile action since World War II.
Less than an hour after the attack, Israel told Washington its forces had committed a ‘tragic error.’ Later, Israel claimed it had mistaken ‘ Liberty ’ for an ancient Egyptian horse transport. US Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Thomas Moorer, insisted the Israeli attack was deliberate and designed to sink ‘ Liberty .’ So did three CIA reports; one asserted Israel ’s Defense Minister, Gen. Moshe Dayan, had personally ordered the attack.
In contrast to American outrage over North Korea’s assault on the intelligence ship ‘Pueblo,’ Iraq’s mistaken missile strike on the USS ‘Stark,’ last fall’s bombing of the USS ‘Cole’ in Aden, and the recent US-China air incident, the savaging of ‘Liberty’ was quickly hushed up by President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.
The White House and Congress immediately accepted Israel ’s explanation and let the matter drop. Israel later paid a token reparation of US $6 million. There were reports two Israeli pilots who had refused to attack ‘ Liberty ’ were jailed for 18 years.
Surviving ‘ Liberty ’ crew members would not be silenced. They kept demanding an open inquiry and tried to tell their story of deliberate attack to the media. Israel’s government worked behind the scenes to thwart these efforts, going so far as having American pro-Israel groups accuse ‘Liberty’s’ survivors of being ‘anti-Semites’ and ‘Israel-haters.’ Major TV networks cancelled interviews with the crew. A book about the ‘ Liberty ’ by crewman James Ennes’ was dropped from distribution. The Israel lobby branded him ‘an Arab propagandist.’
The attack on ‘ Liberty ’ was fading into obscurity until last week, when intelligence expert James Bamford came out with ‘Body of Secrets,’ his latest book about the National Security Agency. In a stunning revelation, Bamford writes that unknown to Israel, a US Navy EC-121 intelligence aircraft was flying high overhead the ‘Liberty,’ electronically recorded the attack. The US aircraft crew provides evidence that the Israeli pilots knew full well that they were attacking a US Navy ship flying the American flag.
Why did Israel try to sink a naval vessel of its benefactor and ally? Most likely because ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts flatly contradicted Israel’s claim, made at the war’s beginning on 5 June, that Egypt had attacked Israel, and that Israel’s massive air assault on three Arab nations was in retaliation. In fact, Israel began the war by a devastating, Pearl-Harbor style surprise attack that caught the Arabs in bed and destroyed their entire air forces.
Israel was also preparing to attack Syria to seize its strategic Golan Heights . Washington warned Israel not to invade Syria , which had remained inactive while Israel fought Egypt . Bamford says Israel ’s offensive against Syria was abruptly postponed when ‘ Liberty ’ appeared off Sinai, then launched once it was knocked out of action. Israel ’s claim that Syria had attacked it could have been disproved by ‘ Liberty .’
Most significant, ‘Liberty’s’ intercepts may have shown that Israel seized upon sharply rising Arab-Israeli tensions in May-June 1967 to launch a long-planned war to invade and annex the West Bank, Jerusalem, Golan and Sinai.
Far more shocking was Washington ’s response. Writes Bamford: ‘Despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel attacked the ship and killed American servicemen deliberately, the Johnson Administration and Congress covered up the entire incident.’ Why?
Domestic politics. Johnson, a man never noted for high moral values, preferred to cover up the attack rather than anger a key constituency and major financial backer of the Democratic Party. Congress was even less eager to touch this ‘third rail’ issue.
Commander McGonagle was quietly awarded the Medal of Honor for his and his men’s heroism - not in the White House, as is usual, but in an obscure ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard. Crew member’s graves were inscribed, ‘died in the Eastern Mediterranean ..’ as if they had be killed by disease, rather than hostile action.
A member of President Johnson’s staff believed there was a more complex reason for the cover-up: Johnson offered Jewish liberals unconditional backing of Israel , and a cover-up of the ‘ Liberty ’ attack, in exchange for the liberal toning down their strident criticism of his policies in the then raging Vietnam War.
Israel, which claims it fought a war of self defense in 1967 and had no prior territorial ambitions, will be much displeased by Bamford’s revelations. Those who believe Israel illegally occupies the West Bank and Golan will be emboldened.
Much more important, the US government’s long, disgraceful cover-up of the premeditated attack on ‘ Liberty ’ has now burst into the open and demands full-scale investigation. After 34 years, the voices of ‘ Liberty ’s’ dead and wounded seamen must finally be heard.
Posted by Eric Margolis on April 29, 2001 08:51 PM | |  | | Phoenix | | Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:02 am Post subject: |
| | Quote: | The photos released by Iran of the British troops playing chess in captivity provides us with a useful image. Iran has played a short game of chess with the UK and won fairly convincingly. But this limited result has greater significance. Iran may not be able to prevail in a straightforward military contest with the West, but it does have significant strategic options available to it. Iran has sent the message that in the wider game of chess with its adversaries it has effective ways and means of striking back and should not be underestimated. Iran may not be able to directly deter the Israeli or US administrations from any military action against it or from increasingly aggressive moves in the diplomatic sphere. But Britain has certainly been warned, and any resulting increase in caution on London’s part will cause problems for US-Israeli hawks. And in addition to showing the limits and risks of the current Western stance, Iran has also demonstrated an alternative and more productive path for its adversaries to take. Audaciously, Tehran has turned the tables to a small extent, and adopted a carrots-and-sticks approach to those it perceives as threatening it.
Conclusions
What are the lessons for those of us in Britain? One is that any US-Iranian war will have severe repercussions for British service-people (along with wider consequences that could be disastrous in the extreme). Another is that Britain’s standing on the international stage is not nearly as strong as policymakers in Whitehall might hope, and that this loss of prestige, influence, goodwill and credibility can not be unconnected with our adventurist foreign policy of recent years. But finally, if we approach what has happened and the context in which it has happened with a degree of honesty, it is a reminder of Britain’s real role in the world. We remain a nation complicit in aggression towards other countries far from our own borders, a clear and present danger to the peace and security of many people in the world. It should not take a demonstration of the costs of such policies to ourselves, a lesson dished out by one of the world’s most odious governments, to illustrate the fundamentally immoral nature of our self-appointed role in Iran’s history, in its present and in the Middle East more generally. Because for all the intricacies of the diplomacy over the last two weeks the question in the minds of many people around the world will have been a simple one: what business did the UK have in or around Iranian waters in the first place? Above all, it is that interference in the affairs of others, that drive to manipulate the outside world to our advantage, that lies at the root of the current crises.
http://www.ukwatch.net/article/the_iran_hostage_crisis_in_context | | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:15 pm Post subject: US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran |
| http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=HDZB2432Z4F1LQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/02/25/wiran25.xml
US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran
By William Lowther in Washington DC and Colin Freeman, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 25/02/2007
America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is accused of repressing minority rights and culture
In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.
The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime.
In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.
Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the south-east. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 per cent of Iran's 69 million population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in Pakistan.
advertisementFunding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.
His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."
Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used in the attack were British and US-made.
Yesterday, Iranian forces also claimed to have killed 17 rebels described as "mercenary elements" in clashes near the Turkish border, which is a stronghold of the Pejak, a Kurdish militant party linked to Turkey's outlawed PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party.
John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity."
Such a policy is fraught with risk, however. Many of the groups share little common cause with Washington other than their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose regime they accuse of stepping up repression of minority rights and culture.
The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group, which last year kidnapped and killed eight Iranian soldiers, is a volatile Sunni organisation that many fear could easily turn against Washington after taking its money.
A row has also broken out in Washington over whether to "unleash" the military wing of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group with a long and bloody history of armed opposition to the Iranian regime.
The group is currently listed by the US state department as terrorist organisation, but Mr Pike said: "A faction in the Defence Department wants to unleash them. They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they might cause a lot of damage."
At present, none of the opposition groups are much more than irritants to Teheran, but US analysts believe that they could become emboldened if the regime was attacked by America or Israel. Such a prospect began to look more likely last week, as the UN Security Council deadline passed for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme, and a second American aircraft carrier joined the build up of US naval power off Iran's southern coastal waters.
The US has also moved six heavy bombers from a British base on the Pacific island of Diego Garcia to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which could allow them to carry out strikes on Iran without seeking permission from Downing Street.
While Tony Blair reiterated last week that Britain still wanted a diplomatic solution to the crisis, US Vice-President Dick Cheney yesterday insisted that military force was a real possibility.
"It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power," Mr Cheney warned during a visit to Australia. "All options are still on the table."
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in London tomorrow to discuss further punitive measures against Iran. Sanctions barring the transfer of nuclear technology and know-how were imposed in December. Additional penalties might include a travel ban on senior Iranian officials and restrictions on non-nuclear business.
Additional reporting by Gethin Chamberlain. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:18 pm Post subject: |
| http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=HDZB2432Z4F1LQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/02/25/wiran25.xml
From The Times
March 27, 2007
Kidnapping could be traced back to arrests by US forces
Richard Beeston: Analysis
When US forces burst into a villa and arrested five Iranian men in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil this year, they may have set in motion a chain of events that led directly to the abduction of 15 British servicemen in the northern Gulf last week.
While the British and Iranian governments argue about whether the sailors and Marines were in Iraqi or Iranian waters at the time of their capture, privately there is acknowledgement that their fate is bound closely to that of the Iranian captives.
As part of a campaign to crack down on Iranian influence in Iraq, President Bush ordered US forces to root out Iranian agents suspected of arming and funding Iraqi Shia militias. The Iranian liaison office in the Iraqi Kurdish region was an obvious choice. When US troops stormed the building they found Iranians trying to flush fake documents down the lavatory. All five were allegedly members of the al-Quds unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The unit is responsible for promoting the Iranian revolution abroad by assisting militant groups with funding, training and arms.
Iranian officials speculated that the way to win the freedom of their comrades was to capture American or British soldiers and arrange a prisoner swap. Reza Faker, a writer for the Revolutionary Guards’ newspaper Subhi Sadek, said: “We have the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks.” Reza Zakeri, of President Ahmadinejad’s office, said that capturing a Western soldier was easier than acquiring a cheaply made Chinese product.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Pasdaran, as the guards are known in Iran. Mr Ahmadinejad served with them during the Iran-Iraq War, when they were at the forefront of the fighting. The unit reports directly to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, controls large business interests and is heavily involved in Iranian politics.
Last month its prestige was challenged by reports that General Ali Resa Asgari had disappeared in Turkey and possibly defected to the US. Iran insisted that he was kidnapped, but more reports have since surfaced of senior officers disappearing. US and British commanders in Iraq have been on alert against the threat of Iranian retaliation. The opportunity presented itself on Friday when the two lightly armed Royal Navy inflatable boats were surrounded by a larger armed force of Revolutionary Guard naval patrol boats.
Before HMS Cornwall could respond, the 15 Britons were seen being taken to a small naval base on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which marks the Iran-Iraq frontier.
Britain faced this predicament three years ago, when eight sailors and Marines were seized in similar circumstances by the Iranians. The men were freed unharmed after three days.
This time the process could be longer and more complicated.
Britain’s relations with Iran have deteriorated, in part because of London’s role in pushing through UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme. Tensions have mounted in the Gulf, with a build-up of US naval power in recent months.
As for the five Iranian detainees, they are being held at a US prison camp in Iraq, and still being interrogated. There are no plans to free them while they are seen as a security risk in Iraq. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:30 pm Post subject: |
| http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FAT20070409&articleId=5308
Teetering on the Brink of Disaster: The NeoCons' Decision to Bomb Iran
by Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Global Research, April 9, 2007
Can Neoconservative Belligerent Dogmatism be Halted by the Empire’s Realists?
In mid-September 2006, CNN invited retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, previously a strategic scholar at various U.S. Army War Colleges, to discuss the probability of a U.S. military strike against Iran. Responding on how close, in his opinion, the Bush Administration was away from giving the go-ahead order regarding Iran, Gardiner unmistakably said: "It’s been given. In fact, we’ve probably been executing military operations inside Iran for at least 18 months. The evidence is overwhelming." (emphasis added) He is now promptly interrupted by his interviewer’s anticipatory obedience, who recalls that the President had underlined that he wanted diplomacy to work in order to convince the Iranian government to stop enriching uranium. Quoting Bush, in an interview by David Ignatius of the Washington Post from the day before, with the words "I would tell the Iranian people that we have no desire for conflict," CNN’s familiar face Wolf Blitzer turns back to Gardiner and repeats his initial question. Almost desperately the colonel replies with great emphasis: "We are conducting military operations inside Iran right now. The evidence is overwhelming, from both the Iranians [and] Americans, and Congressional sources." (emphasis added)
This blunt affirmation came from someone who was closely affiliated with the issue of how to handle the Iran case. It was in 2004 that Gardiner conducted a war game organized by the Atlantic Monthly magazine to gauge how an American president might respond, militarily or otherwise, to Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, concluding that military strikes would at the end represent a quite inadequate instrument to confront the issue. However, the go-for-war crew at the White House further underscored their firmness of ‘all options being on the table.’ In that same CNN appearance, Gardiner laid out that despite serious concerns of military leaders about whether U.S. attacks on Iran would be effective, the Neoconservative officials remained fervent to their regime change goal: "The House Committee on Emerging Threats tried to have a hearing some weeks ago in which they asked the Department of State and Defense to come and answer this question [of military operations in Iran underway—the author] because it’s serious enough to be answered without congressional approval, and they didn’t come to the hearing." He stressed the gravity of the situation as the Pentagon war plans have gone to the White House, which is "not normal planning. When the plan goes to the White House, that means we’ve gone to a different state."
The United War Front Gathers
It is that different state that we are in for a half a year now. With covert military operations inside Iran still underway, war preparations with huge military troops lurking in the Persian Gulf being completed, the outbreak of an all-out war only needs the President’s nodding through. In this light, the recent capture and due-time release by Iran of the British Royal Navy mission ‘gathering intelligence’ in and around its waters has finally avoided the escalation emanating from an act of provocation by Anglo-American troops in the region.
A highly significant indicator as to the probability of this Neoconservative covetousness to be realized or not was this year’s annual Policy Conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Estimated to be the United States’ most influential political lobby and renowned for its harsh anti-Iran stance, AIPAC welcomed a number of highest ranking U.S. and Israeli officials to its ever-largest conference held, which was primarily devoted to the issue of the ‘Iranian nuclear threat.’ Vice President Cheney, welcomed by standing ovations, made a hawkish speech par excellence: "We [the American and Israeli people—the author] are the prime targets of the terror movement that is global in nature, and yes global in its ambitions. The leader of this movement speak openly and specifically of building a totalitarian empire covering the Middle East, extending into Europe and reaching across to the islands of Indonesia." Unmistakably displaying his commitment to take action against Iran, Cheney called for "moral clarity, the courage of our convictions, a willingness to act when action is necessary and a refusal to submit to any form of intimidation ever." His speech was concluded with the words: "we’re in a war that was begun on the enemy’s terms. We’re fighting that war on our own terms and we will prevail." His statements which were marked by a peculiar version of the historical reality the world is witnessing today in the Near and Middle East, were not all too surprising as he is known as the Administration’s key figure pushing for ‘regime change’ in Iran, but still remain highly perturbing.
That is why it was, however, more interesting to hear the speech by the new Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi—a long-standing friend of AIPAC, as she was introduced by a former AIPAC president. Her first statement with a political dimension was dedicated to "recall[ing] the history of a Persian leader threatening the Jewish people and the heroine Esther who had the courage to speak out and save them. Today the Israeli people have that same courage to meet that same challenge." Pelosi went on saying: "Let us be very clear; Iran must not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. It threatens the security of Israel, the stability of the region and the safety of the world," underlining that "confronting that challenge […] when Israel has a choice to make it makes courageous choices for peace." At the apogée of fundamentalist rhetoric which was absorbed by an often electrified crowd, the evangelical pastor John Hagee proclaimed that "[t]he sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awoken!"
Although an explicit claim for waging a war on Iran was not made, implicit hints for the necessity for doing so were not missing at all. But AIPAC’s momentary plan seems to be further escalating the nuclear stand-off with Iran. According to its ‘Iran memo,’ the pro-Israel lobby group called for much harsher sanctions to be pursued on economic and financial grounds with the hope of letting the Iranian regime to collapse. This flows into a new bill entitled the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act, introduced by the ranking members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Democrat Tom Lantos and Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. In a single day thousands of AIPAC lobbyists descended to Capitol Hill where "they were greeted by nearly every U.S. senator and more than half the members of the House of Representatives – approximately 500 meetings were held between AIPAC representatives and members of Congress."
But what do such avowals tell us about an imminent threat of a war on Iran? First of all, they show a pro bellum camp horrifyingly certain about their mission. They also signal that the spearhead of the Democratic opposition backs the Administration’s fervent commitment to confront Iran with all means necessary. There are however some obstacle to be overcome.
The Empire’s Realists’ Fight Against the White House’s "Gut Instincts"
While the current U.S. president received the largest applause among all his predecessors during an AIPAC slide show, at the same time the same president was graded with an ‘F’ for its foreign policy performance one of the country’s leading pundits on foreign policy. In his new book Second Chance – Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower, the Realist guru Zbigniew Brzezinski designates presidency of Bush jr. as having "strong gut instincts but no knowledge of global complexities and a temperament prone to dogmatic formulations." Brzezinski bluntly expressed of what is at stake for the American Empire:
"We are facing a very serious crisis regarding the future. Our next twenty months are going to be absolutely decisive. If we surmount the next twenty months without the war in Iraq getting worse and expanding to a war with Iran, I think there is a good chance we’ll recoup. […] But if we do get into that larger conflict, then I’m afraid the era of American global preeminence will prove to be historically very, very short."
With Bush’s presidency being in a deep crisis, the decision to expand the ‘war on terror’ onto Iran can be momentous for the fate of both his administration and his party—but first of all decisive for the future of American global preponderance. It seems that the fragmented camp of war opponents in Congress can hardly prevent the President to unilaterally set the stage for a disastrous war. It is up to influential strategic thinkers affiliated to Realist beliefs to convince Bush not to follow the path predetermined by Cheney. Recently also Henry Kissinger pointed to the very opposite direction of what the Bush Administration is heading to. He proposed an extensive deal with Iran through clever diplomacy. One thing is clear: the outcome of this decisive struggle between the Realist and Neoconservative camps will determine whether we will face a terrible war theater in the Middle East with tremendous global repercussions.
The situation remains strained as those pushing for war are in the corridors of power—in the American, but also Israeli capital. With Tehran announcing its non-compliance vis-à-vis the recent UN Security Council Resolution 1747’s indeed misleading demands, Iranian affinity for negotiations remains. But Tehran’s sole precondition for talks must be met if a peaceful settlement should be achieved: And that is, that the preconditions set by its primarily Western counterparts should be put aside.
In the United States, the pro bellum camp is sensing that through their president’s miserable performance the rug—which is believed to serve them to fully implement the Neoconservative agenda for the Middle East—could be pulled out from under its feet by the final yards. As the godfather of U.S. Neoconservatism Bill Kristol demands in the current issue of their influential organ The Weekly Standard, Bush and other Republicans ought to fight back in order to ensure the Administration’s survival. As the British Guardian just reported, during the recently evoked Anglo-Iranian ‘hostage crisis’ Washington had offered aggressive air patrols in Iranian airspace. But such action, which could have easily triggered a war, was rejected by London. But what else, if not a new war, for saving the Bush/Cheney crew?
Ali Fathollah-Nejad is the author of a study on the Iran crisis entitled Iran in the Eye of Storm – Why a Global War Has Begun (pdf). ali_fna@yahoo.de | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:02 pm Post subject: NM Commentary: No war with Iran |
| NM Commentary: No war with Iran
The United States is mired in two endless conflicts already; people must act to prevent another
BY Armen Chakerian
Thursday, April 12, 2007
http://www.abqtrib. com/news/ 2007/apr/ 12/commentary- no-war-iran/ ?printer= 1/
Today's byline: Chakerian is chairman of the New Mexico Coalition Against War with Iran, organized last fall.
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In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, Pete Seeger sang these lyrics on the Smothers Brothers Show: "We were waist deep in the Big Muddy, and the big fool said to push on." The song, which was deemed too incendiary by CBS censors the year before, instantly became a popular allegory for an unpopular war.
Now, almost 40 years later, Pete is white-haired, yet America once again finds itself in the same predicament. In the 1960s, it was because of our policies in Indochina. Now it's because our policies in the Middle East.
Wars without end in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eyeball-to-eyeball with Iran. Perpetual deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians. Strains with Lebanon and Syria. Deteriorating relations with the Islamic world at large. Islamophobia at home.
In Iraq, whatever benefits came from removing a tyrant and trying to install a democracy have been overwhelmed by horrendous intrareligious violence. To have even a chance of a military solution would require 200,000 more American troops and a return to the draft - impossible both politically and in regards to time. Whether we stay, pull out or leave gradually to forestall a bloodbath, all the scenarios are grim.
From the start, there were dissenters who opposed the war as a bad idea. They argued Saddam did not pose an imminent threat to America. They cautioned that a war with Iraq would sap energy from the war on terrorism, would become a recruiting bonanza for terrorists and would alienate our allies and the rest of the world. They warned a U.S. invasion might unleash internal conflict leading to a civil war, might be longer and more costly than predicted and, like any war, might not even succeed.
As with Vietnam a generation before, those who counseled caution were ignored by a gung-ho, flag-waving public. And as with Vietnam, their warnings came painfully true.
Now we're being set up again, this time for a war with Iran. We'll find out soon enough whether the public has learned not to reflexively swallow the line the government peddles when trying to sell a new war.
Sure, Iran's president is flaky and provocative, but he's also powerless on military matters. Ayatollah Khamenei is the real decider. He - and Iran's voters - are already sidelining the president. But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the perfect bogeyman, made to order for the neocon hawks and Israeli generals who are beating the war drums.
As for Iran developing a nuclear bomb, of course that's not good. But Iran would use it no differently than the other eight nuclear powers - to augment its influence in the region, not to commit national suicide.
Israel's 100 or so nuclear bombs can easily deter a potential aggressor, no matter how hostile its rhetoric. In fact, if anyone is likely to be the first to use nuclear weapons in the 62 years since Nagasaki, it is Israel, employing them to destroy the underground enrichment facilities at Natanz.
Our heavy-handed policy with Iran dates back to 1953, when the CIA helped overthrow its democratically elected leader and install the despotic Shah, which led to the Khomeini revolution and in turn to our supporting Saddam. And look what that yielded.
It's time for a new approach, not another war. We already have two wars on our hands - in Iraq and Afghanistan - and neither is going very well.
To stop a third war, people must speak up now. The time to make a real difference is before a war starts, not after.
Democratic leaders have already rolled over and played dead on Iran. So once again it is up to the people to lead, so their leaders will follow.
We need to turn around, before we get any deeper in the Big Muddy. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 8:52 am Post subject: |
| http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/13/494/
The Final Act of Submission
by Scott Ritter
In the months leading up to President Bush's ill-fated invasion of
Iraq, I traveled around the world speaking to various international
groups, including many parliamentary assemblies. I spoke about
democracy and the need of any nation or group of nations espousing
democracy as a standard to embrace the ideals and values of justice
and due process in accordance with the rule of law. I spoke of
international law, especially as it was manifested in the charter of
the United Nations (a document signed and adopted by all of the
countries I visited).Invariably, my presentation focused on the
nation in question, whether it was Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands,
Japan or Great Britain, and the status of its relationship with the
United States. As an American, I said, I appreciated each nation's
embrace of the United States as a friend and ally. However, as a
strong believer in the rule of law, I deplored the trend among
America's so-called friends to facilitate a needless confrontation
which would severely harm the U.S. in the long run. These nations
were hesitant to stand up to the United States even though they knew
the course of action planned for Iraq was wrong.
Such permissive submission was deplorable, and invariably led to a
comment from me about the status of genuine sovereignty in the face
of American imperial power. If a nation was incapable of defending
its sovereign values and interests, then it should simply
acknowledge its status as a colony of the United States, pull down
its disgraced national flag and raise the Stars and Stripes.
Now the tables have turned. Americans, through the will of the
people as expressed in the November 2006 election, voiced their
dissatisfaction with the conduct of the American war in Iraq, and
empowered a new Democratic-controlled Congress to reassert itself as
a separate but equal branch of government-especially when it came to
matters pertaining to war and the threat of war.
This new Democratic leadership has failed egregiously. Not only has
the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, been unable to orchestrate
any meaningful legislation to bring the war in Iraq to an end, but
in mid-March she carelessly greased the tracks for a whole new
conflict. By excising language from a defense appropriations bill
which would have required President Bush to seek the approval of
Congress prior to initiating any military attack on Iran, Pelosi
terminated any hope of slowing down the Bush administration's mad
rush to war.
Despite the fact that Congress was only stating through this
language a simple reflection of constitutional mandate, Speaker
Pelosi and others felt that the inclusion of such verbiage put the
security of the state of Israel at risk by eliminating
important "policy options" for the president of the United States.
In short, Israeli national security interests trumped the
Constitution of the United States.
I consider myself to be a friend of Israel, a status which has been
demonstrated repeatedly through words and deeds from January-
February 1991, when I was involved in the effort to stop Iraq Scud
missiles from striking Israel during the 1991Gulf War, to the period
between October 1994 and June 1998 when I served as the lead liaison
between the United Nations weapons inspectors and Israeli
intelligence, working to find a final accounting of Iraq's
proscribed weapons of mass destruction. I know only too well the
precarious reality of Israel's security situation, and am
sympathetic to its need to proactively deal with threats before they
manifest themselves in a manner which threatens Israel's ability to
survive as a nation-state.
However, as an American who served on active duty in time of war as
an officer of Marines, I also remember the oath I took to "uphold
and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against
all enemies, foreign and domestic." As such, I am troubled by the
recent actions of Speaker Pelosi and other members of Congress who
have not only abrogated their collective responsibility to uphold
and defend the Constitution but have taken actions which, under
normal circumstances and involving any other nation, would border on
treasonous. Our collective duty as Americans must center on
defending the very document, the Constitution, which defines who we
are and what we are as a people and a nation. To have our elected
representatives flagrantly push aside their constitutional
responsibilities in the name of the security interests of another
nation is unthinkable. And yet it has just happened, apparently
without consequence.
Sadly, the new Democratic Congress has cemented its status as yet
another iteration of a system which long ago sold its soul to
special interests. Democrats can cackle about Republican scandals,
including the Jack Abramoff affair, which brought down Rep. Tom
DeLay among others. But history will show that the Pelosi-led
sellout to Israeli special interests endangered the viability and
security of America as a sovereign state governed by the rule of law
more than Jack Abramoff ever could.
In this time of constitutional crisis, the American people need to
wake up and demand that the basic tenets of the Constitution be
adhered to. Congress is solely empowered by the Constitution to
declare war. Demanding that the president of the United States
adhere to this prerequisite is a logical and patriotic stance.
Allowing any non-American interest, even one possessing such highly
charged political and emotional sensitivities as Israel, to dictate
otherwise represents nothing more than a capitulation of
sovereignty. We the people need to rally around this defense of
sovereignty. We must demand not only that Congress reassert its
constitutional responsibilities and authority by demanding the
president obey the letter of the law when it comes to war, whether
against Iran or any other nation, but also to place in check the
anti-American activities of one of the most powerful lobbies in
Washington, D.C., the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
For decades AIPAC has operated in the shadows of American foreign
policy decision-making, exerting its influence on elected officials
away from the public scrutiny of the very constituents who elected
those officials to begin with. It is impossible to hold someone
accountable for actions that are kept secret, and as such AIPAC's
ability to secretly influence American foreign and national security
policies represents a flagrant insult and threat to the very essence
of American democracy. I am not advocating the dissolution of AIPAC.
However, I am demanding that AIPAC be treated as any other
representative of a foreign nation is treated. It should have to
register as an agent of a foreign power so that the totality of its
interactions with American officials can become a part of the public
record. We require this of all other nations, including our good
friends the British.
To state that AIPAC, and by extension Israel, is above the law in
this regard is to acknowledge the reality that American national
sovereignty no longer matters when it comes to the state of Israel.
So be it. But then we are, collectively, no better than those
nations I mocked prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as "colonies"
of the United States. So if we are to continue to permit AIPAC to
operate as an undeclared agent of a foreign nation, and to influence
American foreign and national security policymaking at the expense
of our Constitution, then we should acknowledge our true status as
nothing more than a colony of Israel, pull down the Stars and
Stripes and raise the Star of David over our nation's capitol. While
representing the final act of submission, it would also be the first
truly honest act that occurred in Washington, D.C., in many years.
Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, 1991-1998,
and author of `Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's
Intelligence Conspiracy'
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://antonyloewenstein.com/blog/2007/04/14/the-final-act-of-submission/
The Final Act of Submission
Published by Andre April 14th, 2007 in Israel
Scott Ritter has never minced words. He mocked the international community prior to the Iraq 2003 invasion, for failing to stand up to the US, and who could argue with him?
As an American, I said, I appreciated each nation’s embrace of the United States as a friend and ally. However, as a strong believer in the rule of law, I deplored the trend among America’s so-called friends to facilitate a needless confrontation which would severely harm the U.S. in the long run. These nations were hesitant to stand up to the United States even though they knew the course of action planned for Iraq was wrong.
Such permissive submission was deplorable, and invariably led to a comment from me about the status of genuine sovereignty in the face of American imperial power. If a nation was incapable of defending its sovereign values and interests, then it should simply acknowledge its status as a colony of the United States, pull down its disgraced national flag and raise the Stars and Stripes.
While this may sound harsh, he holds the United States to the same standards with regards to the capitulation of Washington to AIPAC, by putting the interests of Israel ahead of it’s own and the Constitution of the United States. In March, House Speaker Nanci Pelosi withdrew language at the 11th hour from a defense appropriations bill that required President Bush seek approval of Congress prior to initiating any military attack on Iran. There are no prizes for guessing who was behind this move.
Despite the fact that Congress was only stating through this language a simple reflection of constitutional mandate, Speaker Pelosi and others felt that the inclusion of such verbiage put the security of the state of Israel at risk by eliminating important “policy options” for the president of the United States. In short, Israeli national security interests trumped the Constitution of the United States.
It is clear why, as someone who has served his country and loves it, Ritter is ashamed of a political leadership that has sold out.
So if we are to continue to permit AIPAC to operate as an undeclared agent of a foreign nation, and to influence American foreign and national security policymaking at the expense of our Constitution, then we should acknowledge our true status as nothing more than a colony of Israel, pull down the Stars and Stripes and raise the Star of David over our nation’s capitol. While representing the final act of submission, it would also be the first truly honest act that occurred in Washington, D.C., in many years.
Hardly a week goes by where an example of John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s thesis is not played out.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:38 am Post subject: |
| Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack, John... and Whitewash
Media Beat (4/12/07)
By Norman Solomon
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3084
The Pentagon’s most likely next target is Iran.
Hillary Clinton says “no option can be taken off the table.”
Barack Obama says that the Iranian government is “a threat to all of us” and “we should take no option, including military action, off the table.”
John Edwards says, “Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons.” And: “We need to keep all options on the table.”
A year ago, writing in the New Yorker, journalist Seymour Hersh reported: “One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.”
For a presidential candidate to proclaim that all “options” should be on the table while dealing with Iran is a horrific statement. It signals willingness to threaten -- and possibly follow through with -- first use of nuclear weapons. This raises no eyebrows among Washington’s policymakers and media elites because it is in keeping with longstanding U.S. foreign-policy doctrine.
This year, with their virtually identical statements about “options” and “the table,” the leading Democratic presidential candidates -- Clinton, Obama and Edwards -- have refused to rule out any kind of attack on Iran.
If you’re not shocked or outraged yet, consider this:
On Feb. 22, the national leaders of MoveOn sent an e-mail letter to more than 3 million people with the subject line “War with Iran?” After citing a need to give UN sanctions “a chance to work before provoking a regional conflict,” the letter said flatly: “Senator Hillary Clinton has provided some much needed leadership on this.”
The MoveOn letter quoted a passage from a speech that Clinton had given on the Senate floor eight days earlier: “It would be a mistake of historical proportion if the administration thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check for the use of force against Iran without further congressional authorization. Nor should the president think that the 2001 resolution authorizing force after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in any way, authorizes force against Iran. If the administration believes that any, any use of force against Iran is necessary, the president must come to Congress to seek that authority.”
But, while quoting Hillary Clinton’s speech as an example of “some much needed leadership,” MoveOn made no mention of the fact that the same speech stated: “As I have long said and will continue to say, U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. And in dealing with this threat, as I've also said for a long time, no option can be taken off the table.”
Earlier this year, David Rieff noted in the New York Times Magazine on March 25, “Vice President Cheney insisted that the administration had not ‘taken any options off the table’ as Iran continued to defy United Nations calls for it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The response from Democrats was not long in coming. Senator Clinton helped lead the charge, reminding the president that he did not have the authority to go to war with Iran on the basis of the Senate’s authorization of the use of force in Iraq in 2002.
“But what Senator Clinton did not say was at least as interesting as what she did say. And what she did not say was that she opposed the use of force in Iran. To the contrary, Senator Clinton used virtually the same formulation as Vice President Cheney. When dealing with Iran, she insisted, ‘no option can be taken off the table.’”
To praise Hillary Clinton for providing “much needed leadership” on Iran -- and to mislead millions of e-mail recipients counted as MoveOn members in the process -- is a notable choice to make. It speaks volumes. It winks at Clinton’s stance that “no option can be taken off the table.” It serves an enabling function. It is very dangerous.
The stakes are much too high to make excuses or look the other way. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 9:12 pm Post subject: Fisk: Divide and rule - America's plan for Baghdad |
| The following seems to be in accordance with the 'divide and conquer' agenda as conveyed by Israeli Oded Yinon via the 'Israeli Origins of Bush II's War' piece linked below:
Israeli Origins of Bush II's Iraq War:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/04/26/the-israeli-origins-of-bush-ii-s-war.php
Subject: Fisk: Divide and rule - America's plan for Baghdad
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2439530ece
Robert Fisk: Divide and rule - America's plan for Baghdad
The Independent
Revealed: a new counter-insurgency strategy to carve up the city into sealed areas. The tactic failed in Vietnam. So what chance does it have in Iraq?
Published: 11 April 2007
Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.
The campaign of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - will involve up to 30 of the city's 89 official districts and will be the most ambitious counter-insurgency programme yet mounted by the US in Iraq.
The system has been used - and has spectacularly failed - in the past, and its inauguration in Iraq is as much a sign of American desperation at the country's continued descent into civil conflict as it is of US determination to "win" the war against an Iraqi insurgency that has cost the lives of more than 3,200 American troops. The system of "gating" areas under foreign occupation failed during the French war against FLN insurgents in Algeria and again during the American war in Vietnam. Israel has employed similar practices during its occupation of Palestinian territory - again, with little success.
But the campaign has far wider military ambitions than the pacification of Baghdad. It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year.
The latest "security" plan, of which The Independent has learnt the details, was concocted by General David Petraeus, the current US commander in Baghdad, during a six-month command and staff course at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Those attending the course - American army generals serving in Iraq and top officers from the US Marine Corps, along with, according to some reports, at least four senior Israeli officers - participated in a series of debates to determine how best to "turn round" the disastrous war in Iraq.
The initial emphasis of the new American plan will be placed on securing Baghdad market places and predominantly Shia Muslim areas. Arrests of men of military age will be substantial. The ID card project is based upon a system adopted in the city of Tal Afar by General Petraeus's men - and specifically by Colonel H R McMaster, of the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment - in early 2005, when an eight-foot "berm" was built around the town to prevent the movement of gunmen and weapons. General Petraeus regarded the campaign as a success although Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border, has since fallen back into insurgent control.
So far, the Baghdad campaign has involved only the creation of a few US positions within several civilian areas of the city but the new project will involve joint American and Iraqi "support bases" in nine of the 30 districts to be "gated" off. From these bases - in fortified buildings - US-Iraqi forces will supposedly clear militias from civilian streets which will then be walled off and the occupants issued with ID cards. Only the occupants will be allowed into these "gated communities" and there will be continuous patrolling by US-Iraqi forces. There are likely to be pass systems, "visitor" registration and restrictions on movement outside the "gated communities" . Civilians may find themselves inside a "controlled population" prison.
In theory, US forces can then concentrate on providing physical reconstruction in what the military like to call a "secure environment" . But insurgents are not foreigners, despite the presence of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. They come from the same population centres that will be "gated" and will, if undiscovered, hold ID cards themselves; they will be "enclosed" with everyone else.
A former US officer in Vietnam who has a deep knowledge of General Petraeus's plans is sceptical of the possible results. "The first loyalty of any Sunni who is in the Iraqi army is to the insurgency," he said. "Any Shia's first loyalty is to the head of his political party and its militia. Any Kurd in the Iraqi army, his first loyalty is to either Barzani or Talabani. There is no independent Iraqi army. These people really have no choice. They are trying to save their families from starvation and reprisal. At one time they may have believed in a unified Iraq. At one time they may have been secular. But the violence and brutality that started with the American invasion has burnt those liberal ideas out of people ... Every American who is embedded in an Iraqi unit is in constant mortal danger."
The senior generals who constructed the new "security" plan for Baghdad were largely responsible for the seminal - but officially "restricted" - field manual on counter-insurgency produced by the Department of the Army in December of last year, code-numbered FM 3-24. While not specifically advocating the "gated communities" campaign, one of its principles is the unification of civilian and military activities, citing "civil operations and revolutionary development support teams" in South Vietnam, assistance to Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq in 1991 and the "provincial reconstruction teams" in Afghanistan - a project widely condemned for linking military co-operation and humanitarian aid.
FM 3-24 is harsh in its analysis of what counter-insurgency forces must do to eliminate violence in Iraq. "With good intelligence, " it says, "counter-insurgents are like surgeons cutting out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact." But another former senior US officer has produced his own pessimistic conclusions about the "gated" neighbourhood project.
"Once the additional troops are in place the insurrectionists will cut the lines of communication from Kuwait to the greatest extent they are able," he told The Independent. "They will do the same inside Baghdad, forcing more use of helicopters. The helicopters will be vulnerable coming into the patrol bases, and the enemy will destroy as many as they can. The second part of their plan will be to attempt to destroy one of the patrol bases. They will begin that process by utilising their people inside the 'gated communities' to help them enter. They will choose bases where the Iraqi troops either will not fight or will actually support them.
"The American reaction will be to use massive firepower, which will destroy the neighbourhood that is being 'protected'. "
The ex-officer's fears for American helicopter crews were re-emphasised yesterday when a military Apache was shot down over central Baghdad.
The American's son is an officer currently serving in Baghdad. "The only chance the American military has to withdraw with any kind of tactical authority in the future is to take substantial casualties as a token of their respect for the situation created by the invasion," he said.
"The effort to create some order out of the chaos and the willingness to take casualties to do so will leave some residual respect for the Americans as they leave."
FM 3-24: America's new masterplan for Iraq
FM 3-24 comprises 220 pages of counter-insurgency planning, combat training techniques and historical analysis. The document was drawn up by Lt-Gen David Petraeus, the US commander in Baghdad, and Lt-Gen James Amos of the US Marine Corps, and was the nucleus for the new US campaign against the Iraqi insurgency. These are some of its recommendations and conclusions:
* In the eyes of some, a government that cannot protect its people forfeits the right to rule. In [parts] of Iraq and Afghanistan. .. militias established themselves as extragovernmental arbiters of the populace's physical security - in some cases, after first undermining that security...
* In the al-Qa'ida narrative... Osama bin Laden depicts himself as a man purified in the mountains of Afghanistan who is inspiring followers and punishing infidels. In the collective imagination of Bin Laden and his followers, they are agents of Islamic history who will reverse the decline of the umma (Muslim community) and bring about its triumph over Western imperialism.
* As the Host Nation government increases its legitimacy, the populace begins to assist it more actively. Eventually, the people marginalise insurgents to the point that [their] claim to legitimacy is destroyed. However, victory is gained not when this is achieved, but when the victory is permanently maintained by and with the people's active support...
* Any human rights abuses committed by US forces quickly become known throughout the local populace. Illegitimate actions undermine counterinsurgency efforts... Abuse of detained persons is immoral, illegal and unprofessional.
* If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents. Aggressive saturation patrolling, ambushes, and listening post operations must be conducted, risk shared with the populace and contact maintained.
* FM 3-24 quotes Lawrence of Arabia as saying: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them."
* FM 3-24 points to Napoleon's failure to control occupied Spain as the result of not providing a "stable environment" for the population. His struggle, the document says, lasted nearly six years and required four times the force of 80,000 Napoleon originally designated.
* Do not try to crack the hardest nut first. Do not go straight for the main insurgent stronghold. Instead, start from secure areas and work gradually outwards... Go with, not against, the grain of the local populace.
* Be cautious about allowing soldiers and marines to fraternise with local children. Homesick troops want to drop their guard with kids. But insurgents are watching. They notice any friendships between troops and children. They may either harm the children as punishment or use them as agents. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:35 am Post subject: |
| From:
Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 7:00 AM
Subject: The sailors' ordeal was a diversion
Iran: the war ahead
http://www.newstatesman.com/200704160013
John Pilger
Published 16 April 2007
The sailors' ordeal was a diversion from the bigger danger. The US and UK identified their new enemy long ago and are preparing the propaganda for the war ahead. Plus Rageh Omaar on how the Iran affair has weakened Britain's hand
The Israeli journalist Amira Hass describes the moment her mother, Hannah, was marched from a cattle train to the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. "They were sick and some were dying," she says. "Then my mother saw these German women looking at the prisoners, just looking. This image became very formative in my upbringing, this despicable 'looking from the side'."
It is time we in Britain stopped looking from the side. We are being led towards perhaps the most serious crisis in modern history as the Bush-Cheney-Blair "long war" edges closer to Iran for no reason other than that nation's independence from rapacious America. The safe delivery of the 15 British sailors into the hands of Rupert Murdoch and his rivals (with tales of their "ordeal" almost certainly authored by the Ministry of Defence - until it got the wind up) is both a farce and a distraction. The Bush administration, in secret connivance with Blair, has spent four years preparing for "Operation Iranian Freedom". Forty-five cruise missiles are primed to strike. According to Russia's leading strategic thinker General Leonid Ivashov: "Nuclear facilities will be secondary targets . . . at least 20 such facilities need to be destroyed. Combat nuclear weapons may be used. This will result in the radioactive contamination of all the Iranian territory, and beyond."
And yet there is a surreal silence in Britain, save for the noise of "news" in which our powerful broadcasters gesture cryptically at the obvious but dare not make sense of it, lest the one-way moral screen erected between us and the consequences of an imperial foreign policy collapse and the truth be revealed. John Bolton, formerly Bush's man at the United Nations, recently spelled out the truth: that the Bush-Cheney-Blair plan for the Middle East is "an agenda to maintain division and ethnic tension and the only way to finally capture and enslave a country that has historically thrown out its occupiers on every occasion". He was referring to Iraq, but he also meant Iran, which would be next. That is the news.
One million Iraqis fill the streets of Najaf demanding that Bush and Blair get out of their homeland - that is the news: not our nabbed sailor-spies, nor the political danse macabre of the pretenders to Blair's Duce delusions. Whether it is Gordon Brown, the paymaster of the Iraq bloodbath, or John Reid, who sent British troops to pointless deaths in Afghanistan, or any of the others who sat through cabinet meetings knowing that Blair and his acolytes were lying through their teeth, only mutual distrust separates them now. They knew about Blair's plotting with Bush. They knew about the fake 45-minute "warning". They knew about the fitting up of Iran as the next "enemy".
Declared Brown to the Daily Mail: "The days of Britain having to apo logise for its colonial history are over. We should celebrate much of our past rather than apologise for it." In Late Victorian Holocausts, the historian Mike Davis documents that as many as 21 million Indians died unnecessarily in famines criminally imposed by British colonial policies. Moreover, since the formal demise of that glorious imperium, declassified files make it clear that British governments have borne "significant responsibility" for the direct or indirect deaths of between 8.6 million and 13.5 million people throughout the world from military interventions and at the hands of regimes strongly supported by Britain. The historian Mark Curtis calls these victims "unpeople". Rejoice! said Margaret Thatcher. Celebrate! says Brown. Spot the difference.
Brown is no different from Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and the other warmongering Democrats he admires and who support an unprovoked attack on Iran and the subjugation of the Middle East to "our interests" - and Israel's, of course. Nothing has changed since the US and Britain destroyed Iran's democratic government in 1953 and installed Reza Shah Pahlavi, whose regime had "the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture" that was "beyond belief" (Amnesty).
True carnage
Look behind the one-way moral screen and you will dis tinguish the Blairite elite by its loathing of real democracy. They used to be discreet about this, but no more. Two examples spring to mind. In 2004, Blair used the secretive "royal prerogative" to overturn a high court judgment that had restored the very principle of human rights set out in Magna Carta to the people of the Chagos Islands, a British colony in the Indian Ocean. There was no debate. As ruthless as any dictator, Blair dealt his coup de grâce with the lawless expulsion of the islanders from their homeland, now a US military base, from which Bush has bombed Iraq and Afghanistan and will bomb Iran.
In the second example, only the degree of suffering is dif ferent. Last October, the Lancet published research by Johns Hopkins University in the US and al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad which calculated that 655,000 Iraqis had died as a direct result of the Anglo-American invasion. Downing Street officials derided the study as "flawed". They were lying. In fact, the chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Sir Roy Anderson, had backed the survey, describing its methods as "robust" and "close to best practice", and other government officials had secretly approved the "tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones". The figure for Iraqi deaths is now estimated at close to a million - carnage equivalent to that caused by the Anglo-American economic siege of Iraq in the 1990s, which produced the deaths of half a million infants under the age of five, verified by Unicef. That, too, was dismissed contemptuously by Blair.
"This Labour government, which includes Gordon Brown as much as it does Tony Blair," wrote Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, "is party to a war crime of monstrous proportions. Yet our political consensus prevents any judicial or civil society response. Britain is paralysed by its own indifference."
Such is the scale of the crime and of our "looking from the side". According to the Observer of 8 April, the voters' "damning verdict" on the Blair regime is expressed by a majority who have "lost faith" in their government. No surprise there. Polls have long shown a widespread revulsion to Blair, demonstrated at the last general election, which produced the second lowest turnout since the franchise. No mention was made of the Observer's own contribution to this national loss of faith. Once celebrated as a bastion of liberalism that stood against Anthony Eden's lawless attack on Egypt in 1956, the new right-wing, lifestyle Observer enthusiastically backed Blair's lawless attack on Iraq, having helped lay the ground with major articles falsely linking Iraq with the 9/11 attacks - claims now regarded even by the Pentagon as fake.
As hysteria is again fabricated, for Iraq, read Iran. According to the former US treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, the Bush cabal decided to attack Iraq on "day one" of Bush's administration, long before 11 September 2001. The main reason was oil. O'Neill was shown a Pentagon document entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts", which outlined the carve-up of Iraq's oil wealth among the major Anglo-American companies. Under a law written by US and British officials, the Iraqi puppet regime is about to hand over the extraction of the largest concentration of oil on earth to Anglo-American companies.
Nothing like this piracy has happened before in the modern Middle East, where Opec has ensured that oil business is conducted between states. Across the Shatt al-Arab waterway is another prize: Iran's vast oilfields. Just as non existent weapons of mass destruction or facile concerns for democracy had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, so non-existent nuclear weapons have nothing to do with the coming American onslaught on Iran. Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory, and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations. The International Atomic Energy Agency has never cited Iran for diverting its civilian programme to military use. For the past three years, IAEA inspectors have said they have been allowed to "go anywhere". The recent UN Security Council sanctions against Iran are the result of Washington's bribery.
Until recently, the British were unaware that their government was one of the world's most consistent abusers of human rights and backers of state terrorism. Few Britons knew that the Muslim Brotherhood, the forerunner of al-Qaeda, was sponsored by British intelligence as a means of systematically destroying secular Arab nationalism, or that MI6 recruited young British Muslims in the 1980s as part of a $4bn Anglo-American-backed jihad against the Soviet Union known as "Operation Cyclone". In 2001, few Britons knew that 3,000 innocent Afghan civilians were bombed to death as revenge for the attacks of 11 September. No Afghans brought down the twin towers, only citizens of Saudi Arabia, Britain's biggest arms client, which was not bombed. Thanks to Bush and Blair, awareness in Britain and all over the world has risen as never before. When home-grown terrorists struck London in July 2005, few doubted that the attack on Iraq had provoked the atrocity and that the bombs which killed 52 Londoners were, in effect, Blair's bombs.
In my experience, most people do not indulge the absurdity and cruelty of the "rules" of rampant power. They do not contort their morality and intellect to comply with double standards and the notion of approved evil, of worthy and unworthy victims. They would, if they knew, grieve for all the lives, families, careers, hopes and dreams destroyed by Blair and Bush. The sure evidence is the British public's wholehearted response to the 2004 tsunami, shaming that of the government.
Certainly, they would agree wholeheartedly with Robert H Jackson, chief of counsel for the United States at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders at the end of the Second World War. "Crimes are crimes," he said, "whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct which we would not be willing to have invoked against us."
As with Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld, who dare not travel to certain countries for fear of being prosecuted as war criminals, Blair as a private citizen may no longer be untouchable. On 20 March, Baltasar Garzón, the tenacious Spanish judge who pursued Augusto Pinochet, called for indictments against those responsible for "one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history" - Iraq. Five days later, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to which Britain is a signatory, said that Blair could one day face war-crimes charges.
These are critical changes in the way the sane world thinks - again, thanks to the Reich of Blair and Bush. However, we live in the most dangerous of times. On 6 April, Blair accused "elements of the Iranian regime" of "backing, financing, arming and supporting terrorism in Iraq". He offered no evidence, and the Ministry of Defence has none. This is the same Goebbels-like refrain with which he and his coterie, Gordon Brown included, brought an epic bloodletting to Iraq. How long will the rest of us continue looking from the side?
John Pilger's new film "The War on Democracy" will be previewed at the National Film Theatre, London SE1, on 11 May. http://www.bfi.org.uk/nft
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