Jun 23 2008

It’s Going To Happen

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

According to Stephen C. Webster at Raw Story:

“Former CIA officer Ray McGovern states that he believes ‘a perfect storm seems to be gathering in late summer or early fall,’ when the Bush administration and allies in Israel will launch attacks against Iran. “This time it will be largely the Air Force’s show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy,” writes McGovern. “Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.”

In his editorial at Anti-war.com Ray McGovern warns:

Emerging from a 90-minute White House meeting with President George W. Bush on June 4, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the two leaders were of one mind: “We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions, and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House.”

Americans need to understand the severity of the Bush/Cheney threat, they need to understand the necessity of vanquishing it, they need to be ready to resist martial law, they need to understand the complicity of most members of Congress in BushCo war crimes and massive violations of the Constitution, they need to understand that Beltway fascists, their corporate media stooges, and Democratic enablers are the greatest threat to peace.  

Iran didn’t invade Iraq, Bush and Cheney did.  Iran isn’t killing American soldiers, Bush and Cheney are.  Iran doesn’t have 800 military bases all over the world, Bush and Cheney do.  Iran hasn’t sold weaponry to dozens of countries, Bush and Cheney have.  Iran has no nukes, Bush and Cheney do.  

20,000 of them.

So who’s the threat to world peace?

Ray McGovern:

So far it has been a handful of senior military officers that have kept us from war with Iran.  Senior officers trying to slow the juggernaut lumbering along toward an attack on Iran have been scandalized watching what can only be described as unconscionable dereliction of duty in the House of Representatives, which the Constitution charges with the duty of impeaching a president, vice president or other senior official charged with high crimes and misdemeanors.

The Commander Guy desperately wants a war with Iran, he thinks that would salvage this flat-lined, brain-dead clusterfuck of all clusterfucks he calls a “presidency”, but as Steve Clemons noted at Salon, Bush was told by the Joint Chiefs of Staff “that our intelligence inside Iran is very sketchy. There is no way to be sure that we could take out all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Furthermore, the Chiefs warned, the Iranian response in Iraq and, quite possibly, in terrorist attacks on the U.S. could be devastating.”

The corporate masters of this country don’t give a damn about that, another 9/11 or two would slam the last nail into democracy’s coffin, Bush would declare martial law, and the corporate media would praise his “courageous leadership in a time of national crisis.”  

Ray McGovern:

The corporate media is already well embarked, a la Iraq, on its accustomed mission to provide stenographic services for the White House to indoctrinate Americans on the “threat” from Iran and prepare them for the planned air and missile attacks.

I would argue that perhaps the most effective way to prevent air and missile attacks on Iran and a wider Middle East war is to proceed as Elizabeth Holtzman urges – with impeachment “forthwith.”  Does Conyers not owe at least that much encouragement to those courageous officers who have stood up to Cheney in trying to prevent wider war and catastrophe in the Middle East?

It is getting late, but this is due largely to Conyers’ own dithering.  In October 1974, after he and the even younger Elizabeth Holtzman faced up to their duty on House Judiciary and voted out three Articles of Impeachment on President Richard Nixon, Conyers wrote this:

“This inquiry was forced on us by an accumulation of disclosures which, finally and after unnecessary delays, could no longer be ignored…Impeachment is difficult and it is painful, but the courage to do what must be done is the price of remaining free.”

Someone needs to ask John Conyers if he still believes that; and, if he does, he must summon the courage to “do what must be done.”

Someone also needs to ask this guy when he’s going to start walking the walk instead of just talking the talk.  

Obama

BushCo is going to attack Iran unless Obama, Conyers, and Democrats in Congress stop them.  That doesn’t seem likely, but if they actually take a stand, if they stop behaving like craven cowards and start behaving like American lawmakers, THAT would be change we can believe in.

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    • Edger on June 23, 2008 at 13:23
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    Three relevant quotes from articles that that everyone should read also.

    AEI.org

    Operation Comeback  

    By Joshua Muravchik

    Wednesday, November 1, 2006

    We neoconservatives have been through a startling few years. Who could have imagined six years ago that wild stories about our influence over U.S. foreign policy would reach the far corners of the globe? The loose group of us who felt impelled by the antics of the 1960s to migrate from the political left to right must have numbered fewer than 100. And we were proven losers at Washington’s power game: The left had driven us from the Democratic Party, stolen the “liberal” label, and successfully affixed to us the name “neoconservative.”

    …

    Learn from Our Mistakes. We are guilty of poorly explaining neoconservatism. How, for example, did the canard spread that the roots of neoconservative foreign policy can be traced back to Leo Strauss and Leon Trotsky? The first of these false connections was cooked up by Lyndon LaRouche, the same convicted scam artist who spends his days alerting humanity to the Zionist-Henry Kissinger-Queen Elizabeth conspiracy. The second probably originated with insufficiently reconstructed Stalinists. To say that our core beliefs remain true is not to counsel self-satisfaction. We got lucky with Reagan. He took the path we wanted, and the policies succeeded brilliantly. He left office highly popular. Bush is a different story. He, too, took the path we wanted, but the policies are achieving uncertain success. His popularity has plummeted. It would be pigheaded not to reflect and rethink.

    But we ought to do this without backbiting or abandoning Bush. All policies are perfect on paper, none in execution. All politicians are, well, politicians. Bush has embraced so much of what we believe that it would be silly to begrudge his deviations. He has recognized the terrorist campaign against the United States that had mushroomed over 30 years for what it is–a war that must be fought with the same determination, sacrifice, and perseverance that we demonstrated during the Cold War. And he has perceived that the only way to win this war in the end is to transform the political culture of the Middle East from one of absolutism and violence to one of tolerance and compromise.

    …

    Prepare to Bomb Iran. Make no mistake, President Bush will need to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities before leaving office. It is all but inconceivable that Iran will accept any peaceful inducements to abandon its drive for the bomb. Its rulers are religio-ideological fanatics who will not trade what they believe is their birthright to great power status for a mess of pottage. Even if things in Iraq get better, a nuclear-armed Iran will negate any progress there. Nothing will embolden terrorists and jihadists more than a nuclear-armed Iran.

    The global thunder against Bush when he pulls the trigger will be deafening, and it will have many echoes at home. It will be an injection of steroids for organizations such as MoveOn.org. We need to pave the way intellectually now and be prepared to defend the action when it comes. In particular, we need to help people envision what the world would look like with a nuclear-armed Iran. Apart from the dangers of a direct attack on Israel or a suitcase bomb in Washington, it would mean the end of the global nonproliferation regime and the beginning of Iranian dominance in the Middle East.

    Payvand’s Iran News

    1/23/06

    What is the response of Iran to the U.S. or Israelis threat?

    By Hussein Sharifi

    When I asked them what Iran would do if the U.S. was serious in attacking Iranian nuclear sites, Hussein said, “Then they open hell’s gates towards themselves,” and smiled. When I asked him to elaborate more, he continued, “In the papers there is always talk about air attacks on Iranian installations by Israel or the U.S. This type of psychological warfare is used to divert our attention. We know for a fact that no two Western wars are similar and we are sure that the Israelis would not risk an air attack. We know there are at least three possible scenarios of attacking these sites, including using their submarines in the Persian Gulf, commandos from the sea, or Mojahedin Khalgh trained in Israel and Azerbaijan to destroy the Bushehr nuclear power plant from the inside, but these are only plans. We have even more plans for how to confront them as well. This is a game of chess and we have practiced many different scenarios.” Ali, another revolutionary guard, smiled and responded, “We have indicated directly and indirectly that with the first bullet shot at Iran, the map of the Middle East will be changed forever. Many American puppet regimes and dictators will fall and there will never be a government like what is now in Israel.

    …

    “We have our sensors in place in the U.S., Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and most Arab countries. We know ahead of the time when they are coming, and since Mr. Bush has given American democracy along with the preemptive strike as the right of everybody in the world, we are going to use it and use it effectively. We are present in most of the military briefings of the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq. As soon as we see that it is imminent we hit them and hit them hard… Whether the U.S. or Israel attacks us, we will consider it as Israeli attack since we know how much power they have over the U.S. political and decision-making system.” If the attack happens, that will trigger the nuclear efforts of Iran. We will definitely go underground and speed up nuclear weapon production, since there will be no choice except to have them and have them soon. Right now we do not need nuclear weapons which are a liability rather than an asset, because we do not have hostile enemy which we cannot smash when we want to. The country has been able to stand on its feet for the last 2,500 years and will do so in the future. Look at the last war we had with Iraq, which by the way, was shortest war we had during the last 200 years.”

    Hussein Sharifi is a retired military officer who served in Iranian Imperial Army and Islamic republic army and now resides in the United States.

  3. about attacking Iran before his term is up.

    We may end up subcontracting a lot of the work to Israel, but it’s the Bush administration driving it.

    I have no faith in Congress stopping this in an election year.  And the executive-power-hawks have undoubtedly been working on bypassing the Congress anyway.  The administration has been concentrating its limited brain power into this area since John Yoo got hired.  

  4. for an attack on Iran is ceded the moment we accept that if they have nukes, its ok to attack.

    Let me say that, from what I’ve read, it doesn’t look like Iran does have nukes, but we cannot let the thinking follow that if enough Americans think they might…someday, war is the answer. Its just too deadly.

    We cannot be led by a hook that justifies an attack on countries that do exactly what any sane country would do when the US is the threat that it has come to be.

  5. wanting to attack Iran BUT but exactly: what will the dems do?

    time to lay those fucking cards on the table, democrats… you can’t weasel your way out. there’s nothing behind which to hide.

    and if there is another attack on this country, we will know why.

    and then, what will Americans do? what will we do? throw up our hands?

    or organize massive transportation strikes, work black outs, no spending days. put away credit cards. contract, hold our breath, and time to push-the-fuck back.

    it’s gonna hurt. but it’s only ever been a matter of when we would have to face the pain. not if, but when…

    so.

  6. exactly the wrong place to put our emphasis is on BushCo. we KNOW what they want and what they’ll do if given the slightest opening.

    we need to focus like lasers on the democrats. join with other blogs and organize a massive telephone and e-mail dump on all dems in washington.

    and e-mail our friends. time for those cocktail parties to discuss what will do.

  8. I mean what is it going to take?  Does he have to be caught red-handed killing babies or what ?

    • geomoo on June 23, 2008 at 17:11
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    that a Congress willing to grant retroactive immunity and vast spying powers to war criminals has a dramatically different view of things than we do.  There is no way they will impeach.  There is no way they will stand up to Bush and Company.

    I like the idea of strikes, boycotts, no-buying days, but my sense is that only a few of us are even paying attention.

    Sorry to be so negative.  I have barely been able to bear coming on line since FISA capitulation.  I am very discouraged, but I’ll bounce back.

    Good essay, Rusty.

    • banger on June 23, 2008 at 18:02
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    Certainly Bush and his faction want to militarily humiliate Iran but it has nothing to do with the “nuclear threat”. It is simply a matter of consolidating the Empire.

    At this time action against Iran is opposed, in my view, by the major part of the world’s financial world (which dominates politics in this country). The potential for major financial collapse in the face of such a war is too risky for Wall Street/City of London to tolerate. So why does the Bush faction want to attack? Because that faction wants chaos and financial collapse in order to introduce full-out fascism within the Empire and use the chaos to grab total control of non-Russian oil before Russia and China grow too strong to stop. But the world elites are too closely configured for that kind of thing to work–I’m not sure a few hard-core fascists/neocons/Likudniks and millenialists in the administration are going to prevail.

    Futhermore, I believe that a deal was struck between Pelosi and the Bush admin after the 06 elections–i.e., no impeachment (or serious inquiry into massive corruption) = no attack on Iran.

    Finally, there has been no consistent propaganda campaign against Iran (unlike the lead up to the Iraq War). All we’ve had is just the usual “Iran is bad” kind of silliness that lacks the shrillness of war-making propaganda and the case of what the world would look like if Iran got a few nukes has simply not been made in the major propaganda organs.

    I think Iran will be consigned to the status of permanent Enemy like Cuba and Venezuela but will be allowed to exist. The U.S. will continue to put pressure on the regime, particularly economic and hope that internal changes within Iran will weaken the central government. The U.S. and Israel will continue to encourage and fund separatist movements and stage periodic raids etc. but not go beyond that. The tension is helpful, like the Cold War, for keeping the ruling elites on all sides in power. We cannot forget that we live in a neo-Orwellian world where nothing is what it seems.

    • robodd on June 23, 2008 at 18:13
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    Iraq was just a stepping stone all along.  Now, an attack is  the only way Bush can think of himself as not being a total loser. No matter the mess it causes and the fact there is, and will be, no plan to fix it.

    I’m getting tired of having to suffer for Bush’s need to prove to the world he is not a total loser.  It’s been proven, George.  You are a total loser and always will be.  

    • sharon on June 23, 2008 at 18:30
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    check out h. con. res. 362 and the 170 dem cosponsors.

    i don’t have time to post today, but read this over the weekend and think many of the responses in the thread are worth reading, particularly anna missed’s who has a different perspective.  you can get to the thread at moonofalabama.

    Cheney and Friends

    by Antifa

    lifted from a comment

    While it is heartening to hear that bombing Iran is not an act reasonable people would take, that has no bearing on the state of mind within the Cheney bubble. Cheney and Friends are logical and dedicated and skilled about their crazy ass plans. Cheney and Friends look at consequences like reasonable people do, in fact they look at consequences first and foremost, and all consequences come second to keeping America on top, period and permanently.

    If the fall of America is to be the consequence, well then a whole lot of hell will have to go down on its enemies first.

    The people who want to bomb the hell out of Iran are supremely logical about it, and have been since ’79, and have been pushing American hegemony by military means since ’89 in the halls of government, and have been actively planning it to the last nut and bolt since 2000.

    They’ve drawn up the several thousands of targets, set a perfectly logical order for them, set aside the fuel and spare tires and chow for the sailors, and parked the carrier fleets on station in the Gulf and the Mediterranean. Ready to shoot. Tomorrow will do, or the next day, or the next. Ready.

    Meanwhile, they keep the PR and diplomatic chaos and military position in place until any reasonable excuse arrives to pull the trigger. Any reasonable excuse will do. Polish troops attacking a German radio station will do just fine …

    In 1941, President Roosevelt put an oil embargo in place against Japan to rein in their military adventurism. At that point, it became an absolute economic imperative for Japan to break that stranglehold. War or collapse were their options, and time was short.

    America faces a similar stranglehold in the coming decade, yea even now. It was not put in place by an enemy nation, but by the relentless squeeze of peak demand for oil. If America is to keep its place atop the global economy, others have to accept that unipolar world.

    Not a likely scenario, absent overwhelming force to put it in place. America is a great, debt-ridden, bloated, staggering economic powerhouse, “too big to fail” and yet it can collapse as quickly as the Soviet Union did. Just as fast, and just as thoroughly.

    What would bring on that rapid collapse? Losing the petrodollar, the reserve currency status of the fiat dollar that has let America live way beyond its means for nearly half a century. We get to print endless money, with no apparent consequence to ourselves. Other nations that do that hit the canvas, real quick.

    Cheney and Friends, Cheney and the amoral, apolitical elites who simply want to see this economic empire remain a going concern look at the Middle East as America’s right, and property. The idea of sharing, or competing fairly for those resources, is beyond the pale. It is something sweet and reasonable people would discuss on a blog somewhere. Not the real world.

    In Cheney’s world, reality involves tactical nukes, and the will to use them. That act alone will send a message that will reverberate throughout this New American Century.

    Like Japan in ’41, the oil crunch impends. Either that Iraqi, Saudi, Kuwaiti, Iranian, and Caspian petro wealth all gets sold under the fiat dollar regime, or America has to start living within its means, all of a sudden like.

    And America as it exists now, as it is currently owned and operated, simply cannot do that. The current political arrangements cannot survive that.

    It was completely unreasonable of Japan to attack America in 1941, as in “What the hell were they thinking?” unreasonable. But they saw no other choice. Like Cheney and Friends now, the Japanese honchos sat around and said things like, “Just 24 hours of decisive action will change the whole world.”

    To the honchos atop our government and economy, America has no other choice but to defend its economic role in the world, even by nuclear means if necessary. So the rational option is . . . take our oil from whomever is in the way.

    If the American people get in the way, that’s their problem. Hence we see all the domestic impoverishment and repression coming rapidly into force at home. The American population needs to be under control.

    Both political parties know this crunch is coming, long since, and both parties know the option is stark. If there was a gentle way down off this pole, the time to exercise it passed many years ago.

    To the people atop our government and empire, there is only one reasonable course, and that is force.

    The fact that other reasonable people find this option unlikely and irrational means precisely nothing. When 24 hours of decisive action will change the whole world, what reasonable honcho can resist it?

  13. I wake up and when I check the news I do it with dread.

    I don’t think it’s finalized but there sure is a large part of the administration who wants to bomb Iran. The necon wing does and they have been gaining recently and most scarily they have the ear of Bush.

  14. The end of August, the time when Congress and Supreme Court are both out on recess. In the fish bowl world of DC, it would make sense for the Executive to declare martial law when the other two branches of government are out of town.

    No doubt about it, whether it is Isreal or the US as lead in the invasion, the US will be at war with Iran before the elections, and there goes the elections, they will be suspended, no doubt what so ever in my mind. And I really don’t think that there is a thing to be done about it. Just about all the good officers in the command structure of the military have been forced out, a large percentage of the remainder are Evangelicals “waiting to go home”, the lame stream media continue to bang the war drum……., and me?

    My solar plexus is quivering in apprenhension, my whole essense is screaming NO, and I can see no way to stop the coming war. The general public doesn’t give a shit. It is that simple. They believe the crap spewed out in the media, and the 1% of the country ( if that many ) that understand are going to be taken along for the ride, a steep descent into hell. With no choice, except to die in the coming conflagration, become an ex-pat, or go to one of their vacation spas with the nice curly, sharp wire at the top of all the fences. I would like to be proven wrong, I really am an extreme optimist, but currently my optimism is focused out more than a hundred years, hoping that the remainder of the human race is doing ok. Word!

    • Alma on June 23, 2008 at 19:33
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    Think JC is going to move his timeline again, to say, “If you attack England we’ll impeach you.”.

    We are so fucked.

  16. Martial law training exercises were had in 24 different sites (parks and malls) in Indianapolis, for over two weeks this month.  Martial Law  It’s my understanding they’ve had such training in Denver, Colorado, as well.

    So, what does this mean?  And how many people even know about it?  Is it to make us very afraid again?  Is it planned in conjunction with a “hit” on Iran?  

    A possible cancellation of elections?  

    There is no fucking end with these sociopaths.

    They need to be impeached and incarcerated!

    Important and good essay, Rusty!

  17. on my reality seem endless and unrelenting. Just when I think it’s okay, kind of, nobody likes this shit, the Dems are winning or any other such nonsense, something like this looms waiting to be sprung. They, the government and the pols (biparitsan) drop the other shoe. The really scary next shoe the one you have to fight, the next assault on your sanity and the future of mankind, make that femkind. Jeez just let it fall apart already. Monkeys have a better grasp of social responsibility. We’ve devolved into piranhas, all for the love of life style and vital national interests, who do unspeakable to other humans for nobodies interest but profit.  

  18. When the attack starts…Obama will support the “troops”. Then he will say we need to support the troops and worry about whether this was a wise policy decision to attack Iran later..

    Obama is Pro Israel….Period…his words…

    Israel’s government…most elements in it, I believe or at least the controlling interests want to bomb Iran….

    NO ONE IS GOING TO STOP BUSH BOMBING IRAN….

    THE DEMOCRATS WILL SUPPORT THIS….

    • feline on June 24, 2008 at 04:10
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    I saw the McGovern article this morning – I hope Conyers reads it.  Bloggers have been discussing this very issue for months, and now it’s come down to this after the “dithering”, just as we’ve anticipated.

    I appreciate that you keep these discussions alive, Rusty.

    • feline on June 24, 2008 at 05:06
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    I’ve forgotten how to post on blogs!

    And forgotten how to sleep…

    I don’t know, maybe a ginkgo biloba cocktail?

  21. I realize you ain’t too hip on the GOS, but troutfishing wrote a good piece on Iran over there…

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

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