New Steps by US Against Iranians
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration will announce a long-debated policy of new sanctions against Iran on Thursday, accusing the elite Quds division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps of supporting terrorism, administration officials said Wednesday night.
The administration also plans to accuse the entire Revolutionary Guard Corps of proliferating weapons of mass destruction, the officials said. While the United States has long labeled Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, the decision to single out the Guard reflects increased frustration in the administration with the slow pace of diplomatic negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Both designations will put into play unilateral sanctions intended to impede the Revolutionary Guard and those who do business with it. This is the first time that the United States has taken such steps against the armed forces of any sovereign government.
The action against the Revolutionary Guard, first reported by The Washington Post, would set in motion a series of automatic sanctions that would make it easier for the United States to block financial accounts and other assets controlled by the Guard. In particular, the action would freeze any assets the Guard has in the United States, although it is unlikely that the Guard maintains much in the way of assets in American banks or other institutions.
The decision will be announced jointly on Thursday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the administration officials said. “This is going to be a broad and wide-ranging effort,” a senior administration official said. “We will be freezing assets, and there will be ripple effects of where we can go from there.”
The announcement also intensifies the strained relations between the two countries. The administration has accused Revolutionary Guard members of providing weaponry and explosive devices used by Shiite militias against American troops in Iraq - a charge that Tehran has denied.
In August, White House officials said they intended to declare the entire Revolutionary Guard a foreign terrorist organization, but reports of such a move so raised the hackles of America’s European allies and some officials of the State and Treasury Departments that the administration put those plans on hold while the internal debate continued. The announcement planned for Thursday reflects a compromise.
In the internal debate over American policy toward Iran, Ms. Rice has been struggling for more than a year to hold together a fragile coalition of world powers that have been trying to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions through what was supposed to be a gradually escalating series of United Nations sanctions. But after two rounds of sanctions, Russia and China have balked at escalation to another round.
Last week Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, caused consternation in the administration when he visited Tehran and said publicly that there was no need for military strikes. The guard and its military wing are identified as a power base for Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Under his administration, American officials said, the Guard has moved increasingly into commercial operations, earning profits and extending its influence in Iran in areas involving big government contracts, including building airports and other infrastructure, producing oil and providing cellphones.
The immediate legal consequence of designating the Quds unit as a terrorist organization would be to make it unlawful for anyone subject to United States jurisdiction to knowingly provide material support or resources to it, according to the State Department. Any United States financial institution that becomes aware that it possesses, or has control over, funds of a foreign terrorist organization would have to turn them over to the Treasury Department.
Because Iran has done little business with the United States in more than two decades, the larger point of the designation would be to heighten the political and psychological pressure on Iran, administration officials said, by using the designation to persuade foreign governments and financial institutions to cut ties with Iranian businesses and individuals.
© 2007 The New York Times
The US and Iran have quite a bit in common:” the Guard has moved increasingly into commercial operations, earning profits and extending its influence ” That sounds familiar, big government contracts, Quds, Blackwater, etc.
This has nothing to do with the behavior of Iran.
Rice: “Iran is an obstacle to U.S. goals”
Under Bush, the USA has no respect for International laws and treaties, mush less rights of sovereign nations and innocent civilians. Anyone who gets in the way of our leadership is dead.
How about if Putin flatly stated to Bush if you kill one Iranian we will nuke Crawford. The US is an obstacle to Russian and Chinese and world interests.
Someone please stop us!
It is this insane and dengerous administration that needs to be sanctioned. Sanctions against the US should be brought to bear until we have a regime change, remove our troops from Iraq, and cease provocations against any and all nations.
“The administration also plans to accuse the entire Revolutionary Guard Corps of proliferating weapons of mass destruction”
Huh??? What WMD? These the same WMD that Saddam was supposed to have had?
Didn’t the UN inspectors state quite clearly that there was absolutely no evidence of Iran’s nuclear program being anything other than a civilian power project as they claim?
B.L.Z. Bush is at it again….Dubya is indeed the antichrist and the population of the USA his evil pawns….
If the sheeple of the USA had ANY balls or morals whatsoever, they would kick his evil ass out of office pronto…forcibly is required.
Please vote Dennis Kucinich for president, if it’s not already too late.
We all know the drill. Just keep repeating a bunch of outrageous lies until they somehow convince themselves they are true and then turn another innocent nation into rubble. I say convince themselves because I know it doesn’t work on me.
This is all like an over the top Hollywood script leading to a bad quality “B” movie that would be panned by all the critics. The main difference being that this is reality and the critics are the bought and paid for ilk of the [mainstream media]. It’s like having critics lie through their teeth to sucker you into seeing a movie that everyone knows is crap.
It has all to be a master plan to destroy our own nation.
In a virtual repeat of the 1930’s, the world has appeased der Bush over and over as he takes and invades and sanctions one country after another.
Hopefully, Iran will prove to be Bush’s Poland and the world will rise up to stop us. Iran has lots of trading partners and some mutual defense treaties, as did Poland. If these treaties come into play, der Bush might find out he’s not as omnipotent as he thought he was.
The sad part is, the Bushits are nuts enough to start nuking everybody in sight and that bodes ill for our beleaguered and stressed planet.
Will either Congress, or We the People please haul these people off to a rubber room somewhere and give them some toys and paper dolls to play with? The ottabe inmates are running the asylum.
Right, Bane Richter!!
If the Quds are state-sponsored terrorists, what then are Blackwater and its ilk?
Terrorists target civilians, not uniformed state regulars. By nearly every account, Blackwater targeted civilians in Nisoor Square. No suicide bombers, no insurgents, just civilians.
This has been going on since before Fallujah in 2004.
Now, tell me again, what Iran is guilty of — besides struggling to protect its interests in the region? So far as I’ve been able to glean, there’s not a lot of evidence to justify these acts of “diplomacy” on the part of the Bush admin.
Kinda like the pot calling the kettle black, eh?
The US is now supplying bombs to terrorists in Iraq (PJAK) and Iran (PRMI) killing innocent people, and has threatened to nuke Iran and maybe their other neighbors because they are Arab. The US has been the single largest supporter of terrorists for 60 years, i.e. School of the Americas, Omega 7, Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, Alpha 66, National Endowment for Democracy, Luis Posada, Nicaragua Contras, Bay of Pigs, PBSUCCESS, Jundallah, Phalange, Sadam Hussein, Mujahedin, in dozens of democratic countries. Don’t forget US hatred of anyone who thinks differently, especially if they are non-white or non-Judea/Christian, etc, etc, etc.
And, Bush was totally subverted the neaning of the word “Diplomacy”. It used to mean “negotiations and resolutions of disagreements between the representatives of two nations”.
But in Bush’s usage, it means “do everything we demand of you, than we talk - until then we will wage ruinous, murderous, economic war on you”
The only talking Bush plans on doing are to his lap dogs - Brown, Merkel, Sarkozy, Harper the soon to be ex-prime minister Howard and others.
Condoleezza Rice: “Iran is an obstacle to U.S. goals.”
An arrogant statement from an arrogant person. She’s a Zionist shill and said something to the effect that she wouldn’t “waste” time talking to the Palestinians about peace with Israel.
I don’t think trying to obtain peace through diplomacy is a “waste” of time. But then when was the Bush-Cheney Crime Syndicate ever interested in peace?!
Have no doubt - bush&co. will attack Iran, most likely with nukes. When this happens all Hell will break lose. If the elections are not out-right canceled bet Goulani will be the next POTUS. The 800 detention camps Haliburton has built across this country will be put to good use by what will be then a full-blown police state.
We have to stop fooling ourselves. This country is lost. We don’t have a government that represents the people, we have millionaires protecting billionaires. We’re a plutocracy. We the people are nothing more than consumers and cannon fodder.
What proof do I have? If we were a true democratic/republic bush would never have become president. We wouldn’t be fighting illegal wars. We’d have National Health Care, streets that were safe to walk and drive down, schools that actually educate, more jobs and less crime and a host of other commonsense policies that are denied us.
Our elections are a sham. Useless other than to give the people the illusion we have some say in policy decisions. After the 2000 farce of an election one would think a major effort would have been made to have uniform verifiable election reform. Instead not even commonsense things like moving the voting day to Saturday or getting rid of the antiquated Electoral College plus k. rove’s election fraud machine is still in place and it’s gotten stronger.
Now if anyone can disprove these truths, please inform me I’m wrong and I will be happy to admit it.
An escalated tension with Iran is inevitable in the lead-up to the 2008 elections. The question (always the question), is will it work in combination with other scares to cause at least a slight, slight tilt of election results to the major conservative candidates? If so, everybody else loses (again). And a loss by a razor-thin margin is still a loss, on every issue.
I am not a psychologist, but I am a fairly capable observer. The first time I saw a photo of Condoleezza Rice, I was struck by the rage in her eyes. Even when she smiles, those eyes just seem to radiate hatred and rage. I don’t know what there is in her past that she is getting even with; jilted by a lover, molested by a parent or relative as a small girl, or what, but that rage is still there. I don’t know if it would go away if she managed to destroy the world.
What this nation has for leadership at all levels is tragic. There is no love or compassion or empathy, just greed and hatred and lust for power.
libertas fugit…it’s called Karma, after the Code Pink lady called her a War Criminal, she of all the nutjobs in the white house has some level of intelligence..She may be cold, callous, calculating and mercenary in her views, but she would be aware at some intellectual level what a total unmitigated disaster the Administrations Foreign Policy [sic] has become at every level and in every arena..This explains in-part her surly rage full demeanor..Maybe some guilt or shame could be seeping through her conscience…
Alternately, her appearance could just be a reflection of the fact that she is just be one nasty pathological bitch!
I have trouble with the line… “…the decision to single out the Guard reflects increased frustration in the administration with the slow pace of diplomatic negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.”
Ms. Cooper, this implies that the Administration is seeking a diplomatic solution and actively engaging with Tehran. Nothing could be further from the truth. Iran is unable to talk to the U.S. at any level while not being guilty(according to the IAEA) of pursuing nuclear weapons.
As for sponsoring terrorism, the U.S. is so far ahead of the rest of the world in supplying arms to terrorist groups, it is almost laughable that the U.S. would single out any one nation as a terrorist threat.
The Administration is not frustrated at all with the absence of negotiations as this is part of their non-engagement policy that has been a predictable pattern of the neo-cons for quite some time.
Therefore the line should have read… “…the decision to single out the Guard reflects the extent the administration is determined to launch an unprovoked war with a very oil rich country. Excuses such as ‘the slow pace of diplomatic negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program’ is nothing more than a smoke screen which has proved quite effective in covering up Washington’s true intentions.”
Dear God.
I know you love us generally, and you have sent us your sons and daughters to tell us its so, over the centuries. Won’t you step in, somehow, and stop the madness?
Signed,
The peace loving and humane inhabitants of Planet Earth
Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.”
William Blum
” The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic.”
John Dewey, American philosopher and educator, 1859-1952
Though the NYT article provides significant information, it is written very carefully, never once calling into question any aspect of the US administration’s motives. For instance (one example among many):
“…In the internal debate over American policy toward Iran, Ms. Rice has been struggling for more than a year to hold together a fragile coalition of world powers that have been trying to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions through what was supposed to be a gradually escalating series of United Nations sanctions…”
This is supposed to make you think that Rice was “struggling” for a diplomatic solution (ie, she’s not a warmonger). The article takes as established fact, the US assertion about Iran’s “nuclear ambitions.” And though the article specifically says the administration plans to accuse the Revolutionary Guard of “proliferating WMD,” there’s no mention of the fact that the US itself, and many of its allies, already have WMD. So Iran is guilty because the US says it’s “trying to develop WMD,” but Israel and Pakistan aren’t guilty, even though they’re well-known to have WMD.
The whole article is based on a set of assumptions about the inherent goodness & legitimacy of anything the US government does; and nothing that might call that into question is even mentioned.
I finally understand: to keep the MIC (military industrial complex) alive, you go around pissing people off until somebody attacks you, then invade their country in the name of defending amerka’s interests.
Don’t worry America; the MSM will get its talking points from us, publish them, and then we can point to the MSM’s “reports” as proof that Iran is provoking war.
Its all being handled - please go back to working really hard for the falling dollar.
Thanks,
Your Republican Leadership
war on iran will be part of the rulers’ method for dealing with the deepening economic crisis. it will give them a pretext for repression of those organizing around the economic crisis.
Hard to believe that the exact same thing is happening again, Oh well, you know the old saying, “fool me once shame on…….”
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
George Bush of Washington is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torch light crimson on the copper kettle drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon,and he comes.
George Bush laughing with his brave lip curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for the flag of all the free.
Love-light of ‘Merica!
Death-light of all Iraq,
George Bush of Washington
Is riding to Iran.
(Excuse my presumption, fans of GKC)
WHEN are we the People going stand up to this FACIST Leadership? It took to long for Bush and his cronies to come under public disfavor. It is good to know that I despised Bush and this facist rule way before it became politically correct. It sickens me!
BEWARE THE LEADER WHO BANGS THE DRUMS of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know ? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. - Anonymous
Is anyone out there listening?!
IMPEACH !!!
Before it is too late.
It has taken 40 years to get here…they will not give up. A police state looms. They have to be stopped in their tracks. When will we all just march up to that 1600 address and carry them off to the Hague? I do think the time is NOW !!!!!! I’ll meet you there. And hopefully 10 million of my closest friens will be there too.
jjpeter October 25th, 2007 3:16 pm
My favorite is along the lines of “Some of the weapons/bombs used to kill American soldiers have Iranian labels on them.”
Like if the Iranians were going to smuggle weapons accross the border… they would just leave the Labels of origin on so that their adversary would know exactly where the weapons came from.
Perhaps it’s payback for us supplying weapons in the 1980’s, including Biological Weapons of Mass Destruction to Saddam as he massacred hundreds of thousands of Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war?
I notice a thread very familiar in these comments: “You guys do something to stop this.” Each of you who has commented on this blog needs to call your Senators and reps and tell them to stop this folly. They must examine the DoD budget submission and strike out the line itms that will provide the means to strike Iran. Then you need to mobilize locally. Remember Vietnam? If you are too young, then do a little Google search. Public pressure recorded by television cameras forced LBJ to not run again and eventually lead to the end of the war. It’s cool to write cryptic comments on blogs like this but WHAT HAVE YOU DONE???? WRITING CRYPTIC COMMENTS ON PROGRESSIVE NESLETTERS READ ONLY BY OTHER PROGRESSIVES HAS ZERO EFFECT ON POLICY.
Can it be any clearer that this is the Cheney/Bush Cabal precursor to war? This next war (whether it’s just Iran as the target or indeed, a WW III) is the next step necessary to postpone indefinitely the Federal elections in 2008, so that the dictatorship may march on and on and on! Hitler was a piker! His Third Reich, which he declared would last for a millenium, only made it about 14 years - - Cheney/Bush et al will last for all eternity!!!
Edit this all you want - - I’ll not change a word GCB
this whole fricking administration is one blunder after another. i firmly and truely think that cheney and bush enjoy killing. we haved been able to win a war in my lifetime (1956). we are still fighting korea, 55 years later…got are asses kicked in viet nam, nicaragua, somalia,etc., and now we can’t even beat 2 countries WITHOUT armies!! how the hell are we going to qwin a war against the most powerful army in the middle east? it would be an impossible proposition to think we can fight 3 wars at the same time, and win any of them. it’s totally suicidal. a war with iran would make iraq look like a snowball fight. fuck bush and dick cheney before he dicks you.
The Bushies are not smart enough to think about Iranians in any context. They need to bring Bruce Laingen out of mothballs– he or similar people who actually know something about Iran, who could start in the first
minute to explain the difference between the same Iranian with his back down or up.
Iran is a complex place. The Bushies are not complex. They are appallingly simple, superficial persons who run on ready-made ideas, preconceptions and labels on everyone.
Such reverse labelling– Bushies as object of it– is the one case that applies. Because Bushies are so superficial, and consciously choose to be that way, they may be easily labelled, and the labelling is apt.
When the hysterical, unfunny Condoleezza Rice says that Iran is the nation that is most a threat to us, all journalists need to challenge the statement– every single one.
They must question Rice, Bush and everybody, including themselves.
Anyone should be able to see that the nation that most threatens the United States is the United States, and Iran is not even in the first ten.
psyops70 is sooo right!
We have got to take our country back NOW! We need to badger and harrass the Dem.s into doing what is RIGHT for the Country and not for their political careers. Enough of Vichy-America.(Ya hear that Hillary and Barak??)
These steps toward war with Iran have been talked about and predicted by the likes of Arthur Silber and Chris Floyd for quite some time. Google them, go to their blogs, and learn.
It’s a done deal. It is only a matter of timing. We’re going to bomb Iran.
Bethedolphin….Your way is the ONLY way anything will happen. It’s so obvious. Nothing else has or is working. And we have Hillary to look forward to? Ten million in DC is THE answer. Now, how do we do it? HOW do we get committments from ten million Americans without a football game or American Idol as the carrot????
The entire United States of Israel top administration should be arrested and thrown into jail, pending trial for criminal activities involving a terror scam for oil, war crimes on civilization in Iraq, and fraudulent misuse of taxpayer dollars, using for the oil terror Ponzi scheme for the corporations doing the grim reaping in Iraq. They are so slimed in bad behavior, that all knowing bystanders must be considered as having aided and abetted criminal behavior. Failure to at least impeach is criminal, and implies serious criminal involvement. Where in the USI is an institution still unsullied enough by criminal influence that they can take action , such as arresting the entire GOP and Democratic party top hierarchy as a terrorist organization, to save what is left of the grace of the USA? Fail to take action at this point will damn the whole human race, which is pretty well damned now anyway. We would like the dignity of self acknowledgment of crimes before execution.
She looks like a bitch (the one with four legs) looking at her owner.
Now that the nuke propaganda has become cold and IAEA is handling it, BushCo have to invent other excuses like Iran is making WMD, as if the 10,000 nukes the US has are just candies. Or that Iran is making ICBM’s, or this and that.
The US has put sanctions on Iran since 1979, and the new talk about sanctions is symbolic with no teeth. The US is now acting like a man on his deathbed, hallucinating, and gasping for his last breath.
The truth is that Iran is guilty of only one thing: It’s an obstacle to the US imperialism.
We know a war is coming. There is a marked increase of fascist trolls out here. Just like in 2002/3.
You can call your Senators. But I think you’d better realize that won’t stop this war. We know dang well the Democrats support this war. The leading presidential contenders all refuse to oppose it, and the Democratic party leadership refuses to oppose it. Most are facilitating it. Hillary’s vote on the bill calling the Iranian military a terrorist group is one example. Pelosi’s dumping of language earlier in the year that would have made it plain that Bush didn’t have authorization to do this is another.
Don’t count on the Democrats to stop this. And since we won’t have elections before it happens, that means you’d better start thinking of some other ways to stop it besides just calling your Senators.
To: willybill October 25th, 2007 6:09 pm “Ten million in DC is THE answer. Now, how do we do it? HOW do we get committments from ten million Americans without a football game or American Idol as the carrot????”
I agree that we need to get out there in droves. But why does it have to be DC? Why do we have to go to DC? Why are the Oct 27th marches only in the big cities - and not even in all that many big cities? I can’t affored to travel to DC. Hell, I can’t even afford to travel to Chicago. But I CAN and WOULD travel to Omaha. Why isn’t there a march there? I don’t live in Omaha and so can’t coordinate the march there. A march in the place where I live might get five people if we’re lucky.
The world-wide-pre-Iraq-protest organization fell apart. What can be done to get it back together again?
The problem with the march in DC is that everyone knows it will be over by Saturday night. So what if a lot of people go march around the streets when everyone in the govt is out of town on a weekend? Do you really think either Bush or Democrats care?
Now, if they knew that on Monday the city would be shut down by 10,000,000 protesters demanding that this war not happen, that would be a different thing. Especially if everyone knew they’d be there on Tuesday and Wednesday and every day until we were assured as a nation that we weren’t going to launch another disastrous war based on lies. And if they knew another 10,000,000 are on the way because they’ve seen the first 10,000,000 are having an effect, that could lead to change.
Power,power the law of the land.
those living for death will die by their own hands.
lifes no ordeal if you come to terms
reject the system dictating the norms
through humanization for arms production
to hasten this nation toward its destruction
its your choice, your choice
peace or annihilation.
Aperfect Circle
CONSIDER for the moment that, even if Iran was close to having region-capable nuke weapons, the US, alone, would still have no right under international law (or implicitly, under the US Constitution) to take unilateral military action against it.
Focus, simultaneously, on the fact that (in addition to the above), Bush&Co have Once Again provided absolutely No independently-verified hard evidence of such Iranian threat — and that, once again, no one in the US Congress is even seeking such verified evidence.
Bush’s sole (and bogus) military rationale for threatening Iran is his claim that: Iran is now aiding anti-US insurgents in Iraq. Iraq being s country which Bush illegally invaded, to begin with, using the same unverified claims of ‘threat to the US.’
Simultaneously focus if you will on how US Congressional Democrats are, again (even after the illicit invasion of Iraq), going along with Bush’s 2nd Act thematic replay of Hitler’s machinations, at the outset of WW II. First it was H’s unverifiable claim that “German Interests” were threated by Poland; next, his same claim RE Czechoslovokia.)
The Democrats in congress have a Hitler doppelganger on their hands in the person of Bush; they know this, and they know that they’re Constitutionally-able to stop him:
Yet They Don’t. The Democrats don’t even use simple, politically-safe, legal, courtroom-grade, evidentiary challenges, to call Bush’s Iran-threat claims into Question.
And for a 2nd time, current Dems fail to restrain the self-declared Bush Unitary Executive; but this time, even with ‘oppositional’ majorities in both lawmaking chambers.
The question is no longer: What are the Dems waiting for?
Since it’s now clear that Congressional Dems aren’t ‘waiting’ at all, but actively colluding with Republican fascists, the question should be:
For What Change, and From Who, in this maddness, is the sane segment of the US citizenry waiting?
Surely, it [We The People] can’t be wating for a cleaning of the filthy stables of corrupt governance from the same donkeys & elephants who now, both, unapologetically, pile-up their offal therein, on top of our citizen heads.
This would, clearly, only be a fool’s wait.
So, I would ask of Dennis Kucinich {a seeming, cleansing-oriented maverick in the stables, whom I provisionally support):
Show us now, Dennis, that you’re willing to use what public visibility you have as a congressperson and Demo Prez candidate, to vigorously challenge [at the very least!] the intelligence/threat claims, against Iran, that Bush is now mouthing yet again to a collusive congress and press, and to an all-too-gullible public.
Iowairish…I tell you my friend, I can’t afford it either, but if ever there was a time to go into a little debt. We are talking about our country here..what’s left of it. We need a mass of people in DC to literally take the capital back. These disjointed far and wide protests are not getting it done. TPTB can control these small gatherings. They CANNOT control millions..that is where our power lies….in the numbers. This is the time to step out and up. CoMarc has it exactly!! It’s up to us..you and me…NO ONE ELSE CAN DO IT.
And do not worry about the MSM..THEY MUST cover 10 million people in DC…THEY CANNOT IGNORE US!!!Not in those numbers. Massive numbers of Citizens with a common, honorable cause is the key to success. We must reclaim our Republic. What in the name of all that is holy or unholy are we afraid of? What’s ahead? More tyranny! National IDs. Asking the government if it’s OK to fly? More tasers? More unwarranted searches? “Papier bitte!! Papier bitte! Now the Muslims! Who is next? Athiests? Agnostics? Brown eyes? Parapalegics? Bedroom searches? Detention camps? How much are we willing to tolerate??
Just in the news today–The 196 billion military bill contains millions to modify bombers to carry bunker busting bombs. What would they be needed for immediately? Obviously, Iran.
Where are all of those people that needed to buy large quantities of assault weapons in case they need to protect themselves from our own government? The time is now, people.
I know people will probably throw rocks at this, but Ron Paul is a partial solution. Kucinich does not seem to be generating similar momentum on the Left. Paul is becoming a major threat on the Right. If he wins the NH primary, you will hear widespread panic in neo-con circles.
More weapons of masturbation?
“Running around like a mad man with a blade in one’s hand is not the best way to solve such problems,” Putin said in Lisbon.
George, darn it, you’ve upset Vladimir now, too.
SEYMOUR M. HERSH
The New Yorker staff writer talks with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, David Remnick. From the 2007 New Yorker Festival.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/HershRemnick
I think we need to consider the situation from Iran’s point of view with international law in mind. Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter (and by extension the US Constitution via Article 6 (2)) forbids threats of or attacks against member states. The Nuremberg and the Tokyo precedents establish illegal aggression as the supreme international crime–a crime against peace. The US government is violating the law, not only in Iraq with the invasion and occupation; not only via the threats against Iran; but is actually building up troops and naval forces to strike Iran. The president and the candidates in both major parties are threatening war including nuclear war by saying “all options are on the table”–a war crime. Consider what this means. If some nation did all of this to us, via UN Charter Article 51, we would have the legal right to inform the UNSC that we are invoking the Article 51 right of self-defense, and while we strike those preparing to strike us, we ask the SC to restore peace and prevent war. This is the legal right of preemption. But the US government is the aggressor. Iran has never invaded or occupied another nation, not in modern times. Iran has an inalienable right to their commercial nuclear enrichment program via Article 4 of the NPT. In fact the US has the obligation to help them develop it, while we have the obligation to engage in good faith efforts to negotiate for complete nuclear disarmament (via Article 6). What does all this mean for progressives regarding a likely crime against peace by the US against Iran? Simply this: Iran increasingly has a legal right to strike US forces provided they invoke Article 51 with the UNSC. So if and when Iran strikes out to defend itself from US government aggression, it is important for progressives to have a clear understanding of the legal and constitutional situation. The way to deal with such an outbreak of hostilities is not to rally behind US government leaders, but to hold them accountable for their crimes and seek peace with the Iranians.
New sanctions against Iran on Thursday is an act of war against Iran.
“Last week Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, caused consternation in the administration when he visited Tehran and said publicly that there was no need for military strikes.” When will the press, like the rest of us, treat the consternation of warmongers with the fierce contempt it warrants?
Rich, Dowd, Brooks and others have finally found a squeaking little voice. Doubtless it feels a bit strange for them to be a step removed from fashionably slick banter. How stange and seemingly premature would it feel to roar? But many prominent voices must do so immediately.
It has come to this: Unless all hell breaks loose in public debate it will break loose in global war. In the characteristic words of the shits, it’s time to take off the gloves. Either liberty or lies will die presently and cotton wool never beats brass knuckles.
“Last week Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, caused consternation in the administration when he visited Tehran and said publicly that there was no need for military strikes.” When will the press, like the rest of us, treat the consternation of warmongers with the fierce contempt it warrants?
Rich, Dowd, Brooks and others have finally found a squeaking little voice. Doubtless it feels a bit strange for them to be a step removed from fashionably slick banter. How strange and seemingly premature would it feel to roar? But many prominent voices must do so immediately.
It has come to this: Unless all hell breaks loose in public debate it will break loose in global war. In the characteristic words of the shits, it’s time to take off the gloves.
Cotton wool never beat brass knuckles and this clash of lies and liberty can have only one survivor.
Is it just fearmongering? Who has whom in the corner?
For the past 4 years I marvel as I hear NPR and all the main stream media giving hourly updates about ‘the war’ in Iraq as if it had credibility….it is insanity. We have known for 4 years that ‘the WMD’S’ and all the other ‘reasons’ for invading that country were ALL FALSE. 4 years of living a lie, wasting our taxes, killing our children, killing their children, ravaging this nations constitution and it’s sense of self-identity. This is serious mental disability at the highest seats of power in this country. Trust me when I tell you that this government is well into self destruction. Trust that it will happen because it is too far along to stop. Nothing we could do will alter this. There is the very real possibility that if we launched an overt revolution, we will lose. If we do nothing but continue to meet here and vent, it helps to relieve the stress. There is a very real chance that to launch an overt combative revolution would play right into ‘THEIR’ plan. There is a real possibility that doing nothing combative leaves THEM in the spot light, on the world stage, melting down grotesquely for all the world to see….but one thing is for sure, THEY can not, and must not be allowed to invade another country as if their motives were SANE…..THAT’S BEEN LONG SINCE SHOWN AS A LIE.
All of the great evil dictatorships in the history of Earth have eventually come to ruin.
The Bush / Cheney criminal regime will be no different. It’s too bad that they ruined our country, but hey, all good things must end, right?
War without end ….amen, amerika’s life’s blood and THE “religion” of a mongrel fusion that only achieves “unity” at home when it is waging war (at home) or abroad. Even a hubris filled highschool understanding of the deeds of this nation prove that beyond a doubt. War in the militarist amerikan context has always been as much an end in itself as a means for expansion and the robbing of other nations’ resources.
The game is becoming more complex, however because the mask of curmudgeon Sam has slipped and the pirate nation skull is finally visible to all of mankind as it hoists its tattered jolly roger or Old G’ory for the last spoils of Iraq/Iran. The only problem of course or is that indeed the point is that the other global players of the so called “Great Game” will not allow pirate ship amerika to rule the waves without paying the price.
My money is on the Big Three, Russia, China and Iran and indeed for the good of amerikans themselves this Bushian misadventure must be sent to the bottom of the ocean where it belongs.
“We are now at the year 1908, which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations. And, in that year, the trustees meeting, for the first time, raised a specific question, which they discussed throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion. And the question is this: Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people? And they conclude that, no more effective means to that end is known to humanity, than war. So then, in 1909, they raise the second question, and discuss it, namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?”
-Norman Dobbs, U.S. Congressional Special Committee for the Investigate of Tax-Exempt Foundations (1982)
War is the ultimate means of attempting to change societies and reshape nations. It is through war that national economies and political structures can be forcibly restructured. War is, potentially, the ultimate economic shock therapy. The wars in the Middle East are stepping stones towards establishing a vision of global order that has been in the hearts and minds of the Anglo-American establishment for years. That vision is global ascendancy.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6577
Someone here wonders about the face of that snake-in-the-grass ‘Anaconda Rice’. In her photo above I see not a black skin, but *a very dark heart* within. I feel it’s not just anger (-although that as well) ~ but a welter of evil stored inside her.
How could it be otherwise? She is willingly and deeply ensconced in one of the darkest regimes on the planet.
While the people slept, -submerged in their consumerism, games & sport, mindless media, drink & drugs, this conniving coterie of evil worked unseen, -analogous to woodworm; who’s mark you only see when they have already done their covert damage and emerged from exit holes.
What’s to be done?
The good people who hang out at Common Dreams are woeful and perplexed, sometimes bitter, - other times angry, sad, and still more…
Some ask and others opine, “Is it too late, - already a fate accompli?”
My own little opinion is that ‘no’ it’s not too late, but as Dylan / Hendrix sung in ‘All Along The Watchtower’ - *the hour* is certainly getting late:
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief,
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”
“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke,
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”
…
Dylan wrote those lines after reading the Book of Isaiah in his bible. Therein he found:
“Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise ye princes, and prepare the shield. … Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth. And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses … and he hearkened diligently with such heed … And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.”
Well, ~ in the same vein, we here who inhabit the ‘watchtower’ need to alert the general populace as to what is going on under their very noses. This is important work. Once they are woken from their slumbers and peeled off their “I’m a crass dummy who mindlessly supports George *WW3* Bush” bumper stickers, (or whatever) and joined with us in our mission to ensure BushCo are safely housed in a lunatic asylum which DOESN’T resemble the Pentagon or Gray House, -then we’ll have the needed *unstoppable force* which even the crooks, worms and phoneys who damage humanity via the mEss media and government won’t be able to halt in it’s tracks…
Not easy work, but hey, - no one ever said that creating the revolution and revamping of human consciousness was gonna be a cakewalk…
Is ‘the pen’ (keyboard) mightier than the sword? – I think so, but only if we are *persistent* enough, and use our time wisely / accurately in helping to educate the dumbed-down masses as to what is REALLY going on in the world.
Yes, ~there are those who we’ll likely never ‘get through to’, -those poor wee things who’ve so ‘lost the plot’ that they won’t catch up till many lifetimes hence, but they are in a minority.
The bulk of (eg) American citizens are not such a lost cause, and one can, with the right words and approach, appeal to their innate intelligence, conscience and sensitivities.
In this way, we can successfully rip the wheels off the BushCo *Axles of Evil* chariot, and stop those braying asses in their tracks.
Then their ‘Babylon’ will have fallen, and we’ll tread their ‘graven (grave-yard) images’ into the dust, and their supra-evil, black magic cabal will never be allowed to see the light of day again.
~ [ And let their charnel-house anthems of “Onward Un-christian Soldiers” be drowned out by Hendrix soloing on ‘Watchtower’! ]
…and the Democrats stand idly by, appeasing the world’s only megalomaniac fascist leader as he and his followers prepare to expand their wars.
Pete Stark spoke his mind about the Bush regime recently, and I’ll be damned if some wimpy Democrats didn’t sell him out and refuse to stand with one of their Democratic colleagues. Once again, the Republicans made a Democrat grovel and beg forgiveness. This tendency of Democrats to try and be fair and cordial in their political dealings is ridiculous when the other side has no intention of doing so.
These Democrats will be held responsible for aiding and abetting the Bush regime’s crimes…
George W. Bush is a fascist pig.
“The guard and its military wing are identified as a power base for Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
Perhaps the Neocons have a better understanding of Iran’s power structure than I do. I thought that Ahmadinejad does not have any powerbase beyond what the Ayotolahs (clerical leaders) says he can have.
This seems to be another article which allows the reader to thoughtlessly assume Ahmadinehad has any actual power or sway over international policy.
These “sanctions” may merely be a facesaver for a U.S. administration which can’t appear to be backing down on the military front. It says “look we ARE doing SOMETHING even if it is not what our hard line supporters or Israel may have hoped for”. In reality “sanctions” on the Iranian army won’t affect anything much.
I posted the below in response to the Taser probe article where the State of AZ declared the use of tasers on a student who was asking questions of John Kerry was within its guidelines for use. The same post applies to this article and basically the Bush admin’s entire foreign policy;
The U.S. Government has declared war on its own people and is using terrorism to wage it Terrorism in the form of fear mongering on TV ALL day long on virtually every channel, except for those few like Free Speech TV and Link TV. I said it after 9-11 and I’ll keep saying it until it is no longer true; the so called “War on Terror” is nothing more than the implementation of fascism and a declaration of war on free people everywhere. Every govt. that has “signed on” to the US war on terror is using it to do the same only in most places it is much worse than what our own government is doing. The US government makes sure these other dictatorships have the proper weaponry to impose their brand of terror on their own people. This what is meant when you hear War on terror or “exporting democracy”. You cannot export that which you do not have. We do have terrorism for sale and that is what the US is exporting.
Somebody ought to tell Bush to stick a sock in it! Like he and his nutty political party have any credibility, anymore! You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me!
I never thought the US would start WWIII, much less continue it this long.
One wonders what would happen, should the World instead heed Iran’s counter-claim — that the covert-CIA and overt-Military of the United States are “terrorist organizations” — and then follow with “seizure of American-Funds/Assets, as a dictate of anti-Terrorism and prerequisite for Peace”?
When they discover that an American bank has got assets that belong to the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, it would seem to be the appropriate time for an extraordinary rendition of the CEO of that bank. They could send him to Syria for interrogation and torture to find out why he hates America so much.
I wonder if war with Iran is really necessary… Read Naomi Kline’s “Shock Doctine.”
“…She [condi] is willingly and deeply ensconced in one of the darkest regimes on the planet.
While the people slept, -submerged in their consumerism, games & sport, mindless media, drink & drugs, this conniving coterie of evil worked unseen, -analogous to woodworm; who’s mark you only see when they have already done their covert damage and emerged from exit holes….”
Well said uncommon dreams…
“…She [Condi] is willingly and deeply ensconced in one of the darkest regimes on the planet…”
simonhhh, I guess that’s why she looks like the Dark Witch.
Anyone who pretends to be a progressive but sides with the immoral, lying, right-wing extremist war criminal Condi is as phony as a $3 bill.
Rice got to her current level of power by going along with everything Bush says and does. I have never heard her utter an independent or intelligent thought.
She is probably merely not extermely delusional.