Tag: Iran

So you can now add Arianna Huffington to the line of people who have jumped the shark and have now jumped on the “let’s go to war with Iran because Iran is evil” bandwagon.

Fortunately, Glenn Greenwald absolutely kicked her ass in this videoclip from MSNBC.

I find it very dismaying that Arianna Huffington would find herself in a pro-war-criminal, pro-Israeli, pro-neocon position of advocating the “evil” that is Iran.

Anyone with half a brain can see that Iran has every reason in the world to defend itself any way possible, seeing as how both of its immediate neighbors have been invaded by the United States, that the President of the United States called Iran one of the “axis of evil” and now even Barack Obama is 100% backing the right-wing Israeli desire to stigmatize Iran as some sort of WMD promulgating, crackpot, irrational and dangerous regime.  

It most certainly is not.   This whole bullshit about Iran is coming 100% from Israel, and can someone remind me again why America is Israel’s bitch?

Anyway, here’s Glenn Greenwald, a small voice of reason in the media cacophony of the bloodthirty insane:

I cannot express the disgust I feel at Arianna Huffington for taking Israel’s side in this.  Israel is the greatest threat to world peace on the planet.  Bombing Iran could easily start World War III.  

Let’s hope Russia keeps things under control by saying it will back Iran.  If it weren’t for Russia, we probably would have already bombed the shit out of Iran and killed untold thousands of innocent people, unleashed god knows what kind of radioactivity into the world and started the biggest war since WWII.

In Federalist Paper #4, founding father of America John Jay wrote:

MY LAST paper assigned several reasons why the safety of the people would be best secured by union against the danger it may be exposed to by JUST causes of war given to other nations; and those reasons show that such causes would not only be more rarely given, but would also be more easily accommodated, by a national government than either by the State governments or the proposed little confederacies.

But the safety of the people of America against dangers from FOREIGN force depends not only on their forbearing to give JUST causes of war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing themselves in such a situation as not to INVITE hostility or insult; for it need not be observed that there are PRETENDED as well as just causes of war.

In 1960, Dwight Eisenhower said in his farewell speech:

Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

In both of the above, two very important individuals in the history of America have warned us, as a nation and government, of the consequences to our country of engaging in unjust wars.  It is a lessen that we, as a nation and government, have failed to heed.

In this essay, I went through the history of American involvement in the Middle East and the reason behind it.  To our government, the availability of oil to our nation became a national security issue.  

When we put the world events over the past nine years into context, we see the beginning of the `resource wars` and no resource is more sought after than oil…

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Obama CAN NOT lose something that is already lost.

   Short diary, but worth discussing.

I WANT TO KILL THIS MEME NOW!

    Meme: Obama might lose Afghanistan without surge

    NEW RULE: Idiots who were wrong about Iraq DON’T GET to give any more unvise about what the military should do.

    Bush and Republicans LOST AFGHANISTAN the Minute they moved the debate to Iraq, like idiots.

Unvice = crappy advise from people who are always WRONG

.

Republicans, Joe Lieberman and the MIC want more war, and they want it bad. No strategy, no exit plan, just give us more troops and money or the Country is DOOMED, I say, DOOMED. And then the terrorists will win, they’ll get WMD’s, the Taliban will get stronger and al Qaeda will attack us again.

     Blah, Blah, Blah, I’ve heard this bullshit before.

To which my answer to the Unxperts are: Didn’t you say that about Iraq?

     More Sunday ranting below the fold

This is original to docudharma.

And so we have another general begging to send more troops to a foreign war.  Apparently McCrystal doesn’t think we can finish the job with what we have there.  All well and good, I suppose.  I can’t imagine many generals not wanting more troops when their war isn’t going swimmingly.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting what would be maybe the best move, yet, by the Obama Administration:

The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

The U.S. will base its decision on a determination that Iran’s long-range missile program has not progressed as rapidly as previously estimated, reducing the threat to the continental U.S. and major European capitals, according to current and former U.S. officials.

This is a brilliant move, on several levels, the first and foremost being that “missile defense” is an enormously expensive farce that has yet to come close to being a proven technology. Despite billions upon billions poured into the coffers of its various contractors. Beyond that, though, merely attempting to put even an ostensibly advanced weapons system in Central Europe, in nations that were once part of the former Soviet Union’s buffer zone, was seen as a blatant provocation to Russia, thus politically enabling the hard line Putin regime. As explained by the BBC:

The American people, from left to right, are forced to work for change within a culture of money, power and greed.  In my mid-fifties now, I’ve never seen a higher overall agreement level among the masses concerning the power corporations and special interests have over our politicians, our “representative” government.  The steady transfer of wealth to the elite 1%, the loss of millions of jobs, reduced wages and hours, increased health insurance and health care costs, the hegemonic march through the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and the erosion of civil liberties have most of the population in a daze and not liking it.  

We want health care reform so we work within the system to convince our politicians to do the right thing.  The corporations fight back and use their money to convince politicians and gullible citizens to do the right thing for the corporations.  The corporations will most likely win again and health care reform will go the way of torture prosecutions, indefinite detention, and the Patriot Act, absorbed and accepted with tails between legs.  On to the next issue dujour and the next corporate or special interest controlled political process.  All while the politicians continue their 20 day a month fund raising schedules.  

It is impossible to understand modern American history, modern American foreign policy, anti-American anger throughout the Middle East and the developing nations, and the roots of anti-American terrorism, without understanding what happened on this date, in 1953. Any understanding of modern Iran has to begin with an understanding of what happened on this date, in 1953. For on August 19, 1953, the little known and not even six year old Central Intelligence Agency overthrew the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, installed a new prime minister of its own choosing, and restored to the throne a recently self-exiled Shah. It wouldn’t be long before the Shah seized total local control of his government and established the brutal Savak to crush all opposition.

Mohammed Mossadegh is not widely remembered in this country, but he was Time Magazine’s Man Of The Year, for 1951. The first Iranian to receive an advanced education from a European university, and a man widely renowned for his blunt honesty and impeccable integrity, Mossadegh was brilliant and disturbingly passionate, capable of verbally eviscerating opponents in political or juridical debates, and just as easily capable of breaking down crying, while giving a speech, or even passing out, while in the middle of tense negotiations. His understanding of national and international law became legendary. He often conducted official business while lying in bed.

Iran’s monarchy had had a long, turbulent history, with the corrupt and incompetent Qajar regime being forced to democratize by the 1906-1911 Constitutional Revolution, but that effectively came to an end when the Qajars were toppled in the early 1920s, by a British-backed military officer named Reza Khan. In 1925, Reza Khan became Reza Shah Pahlavi, and soon turned the Iranian parliament, or Majlis, into a rubberstamp. Most people don’t understand this, but the final Shah of Iran was heir to a dynasty that had lasted exactly two generations, himself included. Reza Khan’s rule was secular but brutal, and he often clashed with the clergy and just as often eliminated his chief political rivals. But Iran’s monarchy long had been but a compliant puppet of the British, who had controlled much of the Middle East, which had not yet become important because of oil, but was important as gateway to India, the British Empire’s Crown Jewel, which the Russian Empire long had coveted. But in the early Twentieth Century, oil had become important, and the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company controlled Iran’s oil production, creating a sprawling and horrifying slum to house the Iranian workers, with a parallel, segregated country club community for the British executives and managers. Iran was so taken for granted, and the British oil company’s profits were so staggering, that AIOC actually paid more in taxes to its home government than to Iran for the right to steal its oil. During World War II, Reza Shah wanted to remain neutral, so the old rivals Britain and Russia, now allied against Germany, invaded and occupied. In 1941, the Shah was forced to abdicate, and was replaced by his young son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.