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TechnoratiThese days we're on needles and pins. We keep our fingers crossed. We hope the US won't attack Iran. There are good reasons to believe it won't. Elsewhere I've argued the folly of doing so.
Cheney and Bush, no doubt, have heard such reasons and yet still itch to attack. They've got the aircraft carriers and Cruise missiles in place. They keep poking Iran hoping to get an overreaction. They keep saber-rattling.
Why, we all wonder, would they replay the same -- or even greater -- debacle as in Iraq? Many readers may be too humane to fathom what goes on in those men's minds. Sociopaths are hard to understand. Nonetheless we must try.
Who knows? Part of Cheney and Bush's crusade may be theological. Isn't it god-like to unleash the Predators? Isn't it god-like to threaten and surge, kill and explode? Islamic Iraq and Islamic Afghanistan may seem to those men like latter-day Sodoms and Gomorrahs. Having smote them, let Islamic Iran be next.
Besides, having failed to force Iraq and Afghanistan to submit, they may well crave another chance. They certainly seek to shore up their faltered administration. They've seen how a new war distracts from scandals in high places. And how it distracts from policy disasters, both domestic and international. A new war puffs up otherwise plummeting presidential and vice presidential polls. Our cowed and co-opted Congress rolls over during war. War pumps up executive power.
But for much of the power structure backing Cheney and Bush, it's economics that rule. The anti-Iran orchestra has all the might and momentum of the Imperium. The US -- with its proxies and puppets, its air, land and sea forces, its Delta and Special forces -- now occupies not only Iraq but much of the Middle East.
The threatened attack is bigger than Cheney and Bush. The US is engaged in a bi-partisan, multi-administration, region-wide resource war. The US oiligarchy covets the region's (including Iran's) vast energy reserves. [See Michael T. Klare's, "Blood and Oil" (2004)]. Reinforcing that imperial thieving are other, subsidiary greeds, other hungers for power.
Demonizing Iran is an old trick. It does what demonizing the Soviet Union did decades ago: it pumps up the jingo mindset. It pumps up military budgets. Military spending draws down domestic spending -- a key right-wing agenda.
Attacking Iran keeps the pot boiling. It perpetuates the phony war on terror. More war provides more enemies and so more pretext to erode civil liberties. Unscrupulous politicians and certain corporations thrive when fear keeps people dumb and dazed. With another invasion the Halliburtons and Blackwaters get to lap up more contracts.
Realpolitik demands we crush our rivals. Despite its intense resistance, militarily Iraq is broken -- in the Middle East that just leaves Iran. Going after Iran would further align our power structure to Israel's military machine and to its allies here in the US. Neutralizing Iran would further strangle those pesky Palestinians.
But note: It's delusory to think that attacking Iran will just be a spasm of quick, "surgical" air strikes. Wars morph; violence bounces. Violating Iran will generate enormous blowback, both in the region and here in the US. This country will polarize. Widespread dissent or "terrorist" retaliation -- contrived or otherwise -- might lead to martial law.
Surely the think tankers have explored the martial law card and have worked out every last detail of implementation. The plans are right there on the shelf. Martial law could provide the pretext for postponing the November election. Far fetched? Does the gang in Washington act as if it's ready to bow out? Can it really allow subpoena power and indictment power to fall into unfriendly hands?
Now, if elections do go forward and we're bogged down with Iran, McCain -- marketed as the tough, commander-in-chief type -- will be more likely to win this otherwise uphill vote. But even if Obama wins, at least his White House years might be hamstrung cleaning up one vast mess. An Iran war begun before either the election or inauguration would, conveniently, derail any partisan domestic agenda he and a Democrat-controlled Congress may have.
* * *
If you've read this far, go with me a little further. Consider this back room scenario. Sometime late this summer Cheney and Bush's people offer the Obama camp a deal: "Have your new attorney general drop any Iraq war crime charges and we won't drop the bombs...."
Kinane visited Iran in 2007. Reach him at edkinane@verizon.net.
54 Comments so far
Show AllDon't for forget Moscow new first strike policy regarding nuclear weapons either. This could put a crimp on the neo con loonies.
This article doesn't make sense. If the US military goes into Iran now other than with just air strikes, given the fact it can't even handle a damn silly insurrection in Iraq fighting a guerrilla force, then it's not the least bit likely this war machine can come close to handling Iran which has an army, air force, and its people behind it. If the US war machine goes in now, it will get the hell beat out of it. Hey, I don't like war, but if the US military would get its booty kicked royally, this militaristic imperialist BS would lose its appeal all out, as would fascism. That's what happened when the Argentine war machine went into the Falklands and got the hell beat of them by the British with a force less than half their size.
Hi Ed, Great article but what took you so long? Handcuffs! I've said it here and elsewhere for three years! I'll say it again. HANDCUFFS! As many as necessary. It's the only law still on the books that could or would unscrew us.
Thanks Poet for explaining more clearly what I was trying to say.
Turce - I agree 100% about the ccrjustice.org site.
I still feel strongly about the Ides of August instead of October Surprise.
Yep, the takeover apparatus is firmly in place. ACLU or no.
It's time to take to the streets - my hero: Badshah Khan, a Pashtun
leader of the non-violent independence movement in British India's Northwest Frontier, known as the Frontier Gandhi, who might be good to emulaye
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Abdul_Ghaffar_Khan
'Enemies' can be more-useful than even 'friends' (ask any of the former 'Cold-Warriors', or those who pocketed the Profits and enjoyed the 'Mythos'/manipulations).
Iran will be made-Nuclear&more-Useful [not 'attacked'].
In meantime the 'poor' and made-poor, everywhere, will be increasingly-Attacked...[World-War III is almost-over, now, and already-Won -- and, it was a 'Class-War'].
Rich M writes:
"Obama is not "feeling pressure from the right" — he IS the right. That is, he's one of the 2 candidates representing the Right in this election. He's not JFK. He's not going to challenge the military industrial complex in any way"
******************
JFK was the right also in his day--He ran on the promise to close a non-existant "missle gap", successfully portrayed Nixon as soft on Cuba, and genrally made all the correct noises needed to get elected. This history is extensively documented in Seymore Hersch's: "The Dark Side of Camelot"
This was also why theologian Thomas Merton (who was referenced repeatedly in the book on which you commented above) said he had little hope for any meaningful change in Kennedy as a peacemaker and urged everyone to pray for some breakthrough in his thinking.
That change seemed to begin in Oct of '62 during the missle crisis and reached its peak by June of '63 at which time Kennedy gave his famous American University commencement in which he announced his pursuit of a nuclear test ban treaty (which was concluded by the end of July of '63 through personal negotiations between both Kennedy and Khruschev).
At the time of the Cuban missle crisis even Bobby was urging JFK to invade the island and the only thing that stood in the way of a nuclear world war was JFK's determination that it not happen on his watch.
June of '63 was also the time Kennedy came out four square in favor of federal civil rights legislation (after riots at the University of Mississippi had to0 be quelled by National Guard troops)on which he had been waffling for the previous two years.
I don't think that Kennedy had any idea to do any of this stuff on 01-20-61 when he was innaugurated. Things just happened and events took on a life of their own. There is no reason such things couldn't happen again despite Obama's miserable compromises and his aorry choices for advisors. Pray that he doesn't choose another LBJ for his vice presidential running mate.
Wilmor, you should thank those 60+ years of sci-fi for enabling you to see the same scenario unfolding in front of us in real life.
Fiction, or prescience?
Thomas More - You are correct. I did insult those noble animals. My apologies.
But do you know of a low enough life form we could compare Bush to? Even an amoeba has more respect. Even viruses have a purpose.
As far as I can tell, all Bush is good for is using up oxygen and letting gay male prostitutes who pose as journalists sleep over in the Whitehouse.
I wonder what McCain and Bus senior were up to these last few days:
Poppy Bush to Mccain on a Kennybunkport golfcart: Don't worry about the election; it's a slam dunk. We got it covered and everything is in place to put you in the oval seat of power. Just remember our deal. Protect junior and all our important friends from prosecution, destroy any and all documents that may incriminate them (and us), and continue to establish our 1000 year New World Order (as I pronounced it at the 1992 GOP convention---ah the good old days). I hope my daddy Prestcott is looking down on me with pride for finishing the work he started with Adolf. I'm proud of Junior for stacking the courts with our legal servants (I think Adolf and Stalin knew something about that), for all the signing statements, the shredding of this piece of paper called the Constitution, and the jewel in the crown, the martial law executive order. No exit now for any American who opposes our might and ruling power. Ha, Ha, Ha!!!!
Nietzsche - Obama just called Israel a 'success' and pledged undying support to Israel.
So bang goes your hopes for peace in the Middle East with Obama at the helm.
Obama is just another opportunistic politician who kneels at the feet of special interest groups.
I agree with you, RichM, the "real left" got kicked to the curb on January 15th, in LasVegas. That's the reason I am not even going to waste my precious gas to drive the 16 miles roundtrip to the polls in November.
rumiluv ( 9:47 pm) writes, "...To fully understand the box Obama is in (tho i'm still disappointed) please read JFK and the Unspeakable, Why He Died and Why it Matters). ...Like JFK, Obama is feeling incredible pressure from the right. ...JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE is an amazing book like Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Buy them, read them, share them...
- I totally agree that EVERYONE should read this book. I just finished reading it last week, & it is indeed a reading experience of extraordinary quality. I thought "Shock Doctrine" was absolutely first rate, but if I could read only one of them, I'd choose "JFK and The Unspeakable" (by James Douglass).
However, I don't believe that the insights offered by this magnificent book apply in any way to Obama. Obama is not "feeling pressure from the right" -- he IS the right. That is, he's one of the 2 candidates representing the Right in this election. He's not JFK. He's not going to challenge the military industrial complex in any way. On the contrary, he's their boy. McCain is also their boy. The election is nothing more than a bullsh*t-slinging contest between two militarist-corporatists. It's "bad" against "even worse." The public has no horse in this race. We've already lost. That's how the 2-party system is designed to work.
911
Ruppert
Rubicon
Michael Turton - "maybe it is pure political theatre. I mean, we've been doing the they-are-about-to-attack-Iran dance for three or four years now…"
Maybe. But our implicit threats to invade Cuba were mostly just theater as well, and they got us into a nuclear crisis. The problem with political theater is that the other side isn't just an audience, it acts back.
"Galen July 22nd, 2008 5:22 pm
The world is now on a hair trigger.
And we have an idiot chimp holding the gun"
I want to have a word or two about having such a high opinion the chimp. I simply believe that if you will revisit your hasty conclusion, you will find you have just insulted chimps and aside from that he's nowhere near that smart.
I'm sending this article to everybody I know. Its time to take to the streets.
To fully understand the box Obama is in (tho i'm still disappointed) please read JFK and the Unspeakable, Why He Died and Why it Maters). JFK(w/support from RFK) aborted preventive nuclear war vs. the Soviet Union and Cuba, and was going ( all. against the Chief Joints of Staff) and the murderous quagmire in Viet Nam as well.
Like JFK, Obama is feeling incredible pressure from the right. It is incumbent on us to with all of of our numbers, passion, and articulation to countervail that pressure.
The Unspeakable AND THE UNSPEAKABLE is an amzing book like Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. Buy them, read them, share them.
Peace, love, justice,
Gsry
Agree with all but one point:
"Does the gang in Washington act as if it's ready to bow out? Can it really allow subpoena power and indictment power to fall into unfriendly hands?"
Unfriendly Hands? Seriously, what are the chances that Nader wins?
I don't think my stomach is going to settle down until Obama is in office.
curmudgeon99 July 22nd, 2008 4:43 pm
Beware the Ides of August!!!!
This essay pretty much sums up one view of the issue.
Pres Security Directive 51, the MCA, etc,etc… and other policies are now in place to give legitimacy to martial l;aw and rounding up of any and all dissidents, Muslims first.
As some have said - 'they' won't go silently into the night
_________________________________________________________
I was talking about this whatever51 last year. I learned about how it is accomplished legally then, from ccrjustice.org, their site was a great learning tool. Suspend Posse Comitatus, roll in the John Warner Defense Act of 2007[the Murderers end run midnight signing in of that bill]which allows suspension of the Constitution and then declare Martial Law. We all thought, still think, an October surprise.
conscience @ 1:17 pm, That sounds like a good one. If only....
risingdawn, I do hope you've seen that viral video of the Canadian Interrogators torturing a child soldier. When you say 'America' I do hope you include Canada, because certainly the Canadian government has blood on their hands as well.
Keep repeating "It's all about oil. It's all about oil."
Thank you, Ed Kinane, I've met you 2 or 3 times, a meeting on Wescott, re the Hatian coup; the false turn over of sovereingty to Iraq in June, '04; and, speaking in Cortland, NY (yeah, fu eavedroppers), last summer.
This man is a true Berrigan/St. Patrick's 4 style patriot who has done serious jail time in the name of peace, freedom, and justice. He and the women and men in the Syracuse Peace Council are the kind of people we all strive to be! -- Gary Hammond, Cortland, NY. Bush, by the time i need to fly a plane again you will be in a soft jail.
On CNN Int'l yesterday I listened to Obama explaining the benefits of his recent trip. He said "......I am going to be dealing with these guys over the next 8-10 years." Does Obama know something we don't?
Obviously, he is the chosen one to win the election, no problem with his forgetting about the elections. But what about the extra 2 years (he could have said 8-9 if the countdown started today)?
Are we going to have a National Emergency before Obama takes over, but after the election, or when he takes office?
Remember Lieberman said he will be tested by AQ upon taking office?.
Would a COG and martial law, be more easily implemented with a Bush (outgoing) - Obama (incoming) team, pacifying both the left and the right by eliminating the polarization and paranoia of the left (that would result if Bush was the leader) vs right (if Obama was the leader). This gets left and right to join together to sacrifice to handle the emergency.
The COG would not count towards Obama's presidential term since he would not have been inaugurated. Could it be planned to last 2 years?.
Attacking Iran could trigger a wave of terrorism blamed on Iran that could trigger martial law.
The conspiracy theorists (gulp) would be rounded up and detained, and the internet will be shut down or heavily censored.
Maybe much adoo about nothing, but then I think back to that secret meeting last March in the House, called by the neocons who wanted to tell the Dems something they should know before they voted on FISA. Remember? What were they told? Could they have been told we were going to be attacked, and a no vote would make them the scapegoat?
Is a bell ringing in your ears?
And what is the COG about anyways.
Last August, Rep. Peter DeFazio, a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee, sought access to the "classified annexes" of the Bush administration's Continuity of Government program. His interest was the NSPD-51 that was issued a few months earlier. It gives the executive branch the sole authority to decide what constitutes a national emergency and to determine when the emergency is over, and seemed to imply it would control all aspects of government. Defazio and other leaders of the Homeland Security Committee, including the Chairman, were denied a review of the Continuity of Government classified annexes.
Defazio was later quoted by the Oregonian, "Maybe the people who think there is a conspiracy out there are right."
It's probably making too much of a slip of the tongue. Maybe that Afghan opium is really hard on the brain cells and he forgot Presidents only last 8 years, max. Maybe.
Uh, like this is news? You mean the US presence in the Middle East is all about oil? Why does CD even publish the handwringing of the obvious?
Kinane accurately states, "The threatened attack is bigger than Cheney and Bush. The US is engaged in a bi-partisan, multi-administration, region-wide resource war. The US oiligarchy covets the region's (including Iran's) vast energy reserves. ... Reinforcing that imperial thieving are other, subsidiary greeds, other hungers for power."
The simple reason that this is true is that the US is in the hands of a two-party 'Vichy' facade of democracy running things for the ruling 'corporatist Empire'.
This is standard operating procedure for all empires and their death-spirial 'economics of empire'.
It's all about the American Jewish lobby!
You can already see what a vicious putz McCain is---standing there with Poppy Bush talking his OWN "courage" etc. on Iraqistan. Pathetic. And we "trust him more" as Cmdr. in Chief? A direct Daddy of this fuckin catastrophe? Who makes up these "polls"?!
The world is now on a hair trigger.
And we have an idiot chimp holding the gun...
World is not so complicated. Moral/Ethical behavior is what ensures species' survival and florishing.
We don't need attorney generals or prosecutors to bring bush/cheney to justice. Their crimes are well understood by the good people of the world.
The good people will take matters into their own hands. The good people will administer justice.
Beware the Ides of August!!!!
This essay pretty much sums up one view of the issue.
Pres Security Directive 51, the MCA, etc,etc... and other policies are now in place to give legitimacy to martial l;aw and rounding up of any and all dissidents, Muslims first.
As some have said - 'they' won't go silently into the night!
Yes, for some time now I have wondered about how Cheney/Bush have gone so far to destroy our Nation, and yet, that they would just walk away come November?! That doesnt seem realistic. The author's final paragraph, offers the only hope for avoiding the bomb that I too could imagine. Martial law would otherwise be the answer. While sociopaths act and believe as though they are above the laws of mere men, they are usually not stupid either and have thought through potential outcomes; it is why Hitler and others committed suicide before capture.
Try to remember what you have seen happen these five years of war. From WMDs...
The plan was always Iran.
Iraq was not so much about oil (we pay full market price like anyone else so we didn't get any oil) though oil companies did get the oil, so far.
Now the bases in Iraq must be shifted to Afghanistan since the Iraqis want us to leave. Suddenly we hear that we will draw down troop levels in Iraq and send them to Afghanistan where we will presumbably begin building new and bigger bases.
Martial law? What about Obama?
The telecoms win over the constitution (plus privatized data mining) made the need for martial law relatively unneccessary. Obama is not an outsider and the shift of forces is a continuation.
What else would he do? If the plan remains Iran?
And how, exactly, does attacking Iran help high gasoline and heating oil prices, that are already destroying the economy and millions of American families?
If prices go any higher, and it's clear that the blame falls on the current Administration rather than, say, Obama (as per the current fraudulent McCain ad), the uproar will be heard even in the inner sanctums of the White House. I strongly suspect that behind the scenes, the McCain people and the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee folks are pleading with the White House not to go there.
Allow me again to try to explain. It's really quite simple.
1. Corporate America, specifically the so-called defense industry, makes a lot of money when we make bullets, bombs, rockets, jet planes, and all that stuff. It's very profitable but peace is of very little interest to CA and the "Defense" folks because, well hell, where's the profit in peace? Look, $150 million a copy for an F-16. There's a cash flow stream there that touches Congress, the folks back home working in the jet factory, all the other companies making stuff for that factory. It's big business. Who profits from peace?
2. There's really no "2". There's just "1" above. That's why we go to war and give not a fig for peace. So a few people - maybe a few million people get hurt or killed - what's that to the profit margin and share holders of Lockheed-Martin or Bechtel or Halliburton. Pish!
The whole idea behind the Neo-Con plan for global hegemony is to destabilize every country in the world and to get them to fight each other, with US/UK/IL weapons, so that no nation or group of nations can withstand the onslaught of the Neo-World-Order. It's all there in the Project for the New American Century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Oh sure! All of this is wide spread knowledge for those with an operating brain..(perhaps a small percentage of the american population), but what about the two million civilian casualties (murder of women, men and children) and another eight million wounded Iranians in one way or another from the radiation that will be released in the attack on their nuclear facilities ( these are the estimated figures congressman kucinich gave us recently). What new regions of the imagination do we need to access to conceive of this monstrous and evil idea of attacking Iran! Perhaps a new category of crimes needs to be established i.e. crimes against God!
I am sickened to the core of all the American media and journalists that repeatedly refer to the tragedy of American soldiers deaths with the occasional side note about casualties of the occupied country as though it is taken as some kind of common acceptance that their lives are somehow more important than the lives of other nationals...it is simply a continuity of the grand hubris that is the stock and trade of current US culture. As a Canadian and a world citizen I deplore the unspeakable moral depravity of the neo-con henchmen and have watched in horror and astonishment as the American people have systematically been dumbed down to an all time low. If there is an axis of evil it is rotating around the full body of evil...the US. Apparently the collective mass of america does not remember, or never knew, Sir Isacc Newton's third law of physics ' for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' or the similar law of Karma or let's just use the simple truth that Jesus gave us " as you sow, so shall you reap ". It boggles all the faculties of the mind to conceive of the 'harvest' that is in store for America!!!
Oh sure! All of this is wide spread knowledge for those with an operating brain..(perhaps a small percentage of the american population), but what about the two million civilian casualties (murder of women, men and children) and another eight million wounded Iranians in one way or another from the radiation that will be released in the attack on their nuclear facilities ( these are the estimated figures congressman kucinich gave us recently). What new regions of the imagination do we need to access to conceive of this monstrous and evil idea of attacking Iran! Perhaps a new category of crimes needs to be established i.e. crimes against God!
I am sickened to the core of all the American media and journalists that repeatedly refer to the tragedy of American soldiers deaths with the occasional side note about casualties of the occupied country as though it is taken as some kind of common acceptance that their lives are somehow more important than the lives of other nationals...it is simply a continuity of the grand hubris that is the stock and trade of current US culture. As a Canadian and a world citizen I deplore the unspeakable moral depravity of the neo-con henchmen and have watched in horror and astonishment as the American people have systematically been dumbed down to an all time low. If there is an axis of evil it is rotating around the full body of evil...the US. Apparently the collective mass of america does not remember, or never knew, Sir Isacc Newton's third law of physics ' for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' or the similar law of Karma or let's just use the simple truth that Jesus gave us " as you sow, so shall you reap ". It boggles all the faculties of the mind to conceive of the 'harvest' that is in store for America!!!
generallee said: "He knows better than to dance with the devil." (meaning Obama)...
On the contrary... Obama does the jig with good ol' satan just fine... look no further than the fellating speech he made before AIPAC...
wilmoor (1:39 pm),
You wrote:
"THEY" (cheney and bush are in there) have this plan to gain control of all the oil and water worldwide, deplete all nations' wealth, and turn the ordinary people into thier slaves.
…blame it on sixty plus years of SciFi, but it seems like reality to me.
Don't blame the sci-fi. Bush and Cheney, as they serve the corporatocracy, appear quite determined to aid the super elites to everyone else's detriment. With dwindling supplies of energy, and global warming reducing the habitable proportion of the planet, and upcoming medical advances that will provide very expensive methods to achieve extreme longevity with relatively good health (not to mention the need for organ donors, whether voluntarily giving their organs or not), they feel the need to create a wide chasm between the few super elites and the rest of humanity, so there will not be any question about who will "deserve" the privileges allowable to only the few, and it seems virtually everything they do is calculated to move closer to that end.
Much better psy-ops than either Scott Ritter or Ray McGovern combined. Okay gang, the real agenda is the antithesis of FDR's famous exhortation "we have nothing to fear but fear itself".
Forget Iran--as long as WE the People can be prodded or poked by such nightmare scenarios we just might give these manipulators what empowers them most--ourselves paralyzed with the fear that allows them to do whatever they please.
Oh, and by the way, about that deal for Obama to call off his AG from prosecuting Cheney/Bush for war crimes, if Barack O is offered such a deal he should take it in a snap-then after he is innaugurated he should spill the whole nasty plan to the nation.
Then, after declaring in a nationwide address that "only the guilty have something to hide" (the Mantra of intrusive snooping by telescreen in Orwell's 1984)he should instruct his AG (betcha Vincent Bugliosi would be up to the task) to go on the war-path against every one of those neoconmen and women in Bushco. Even if all he did was to divulge such a plot to the nation, it would still unravel it.
Steady Common Dreamers,. don't drink the cult Kool Ade of Ed Kinane or any other fear mongers.
war crimes and war criminals must be charged and brought to justice - no immunity for war criminals in our administration or for those who spy on americans against the constitution and the law. these crimes are too severe, and the perps must be jailed lest they continue to terrorize americans and continue their attempts to destroy our freedoms and cause death, economic and even moral failure worldwide.
there will be no holding the world hostage to a back-room deal, exempting criminals from deserved prosecution where successful cases can be brought against them. any time counsel for the administration wants to meet about such a quid pro quo, be sure to have the tape recorders going. could be useful.
ChrisHorton,
Thank you so much for making the point that the worse thing we can do is give up.
Do you know what the ruling class in America is scared to death of? -- the people organized.
As Ralph Nader put it: "Pessimism is a function of inactivity." ... So don't plan on being inactive. Fight the power!
"THEY" (cheney and bush are in there) have this plan to gain control of all the oil and water worldwide, deplete all nations' wealth, and turn the ordinary people into thier slaves.
...blame it on sixty plus years of SciFi, but it seems like reality to me.
What irks me is how the US asserts the self-righteous morale to say who can and cannot have nuclear weapons. Most countries know that nuclear blowback is a serious possibility and only use their nukes to get them something at the bargaining table. The US is the only country to have ever utilized a nuclear weapon in warfare (Hiroshima & Nagasaki). It makes no sense and smacks of Orwell.
QUOTE: If you've read this far, go with me a little further. Consider this back room scenario. Sometime late this summer Cheney and Bush's people offer the Obama camp a deal: "Have your new attorney general drop any Iraq war crime charges and we won't drop the bombs…." UNQUOTE
Sadists like Cheney/Bush are going to do all the damage
they can given any opportunity they have to do it.
If they were to make such an offer to the Obama camp, I would suspect that they would have already decided that
they weren't going to attack Iran. And what if Obama
revealed this offer - or betrayed them? And, if they
are worried about justice in America for war crimes,
what are their fears of international courts?
And - btw - the Congress has already given them license
to attack Iran.
I think it is pretty well set that they are simply looking
for an opportunity for the attack and to keep the threat
of it going.
We can also see that there are forces other than those
fanatics backing Bush/Cheney who are pushing for diplomacy.
This team of sadists have made a great deal of money for
their backers and I think most of them want to quit the
fight before it becomes suicide.
Oh yes. I can't imagine Dick and George spending their spare time packing their personal belongings preparing to stroll off to their homes to retire and finally leave us alone. They have to be planning something equally as stupid as every thing else they've done to protect themselves from the possibility of being charged with crimes. Obama won't accept any deals from them. He knows better than to dance with the devil. He'll tell them go ahead, bomb Iran and I'll add that to the list when my AG drags your asses into court. War or no war, this country has had enough of the cheap card trick politics.
Don't get sucked in by their ideological nonsense about Islam and the Rapture, Zionism and Muscular Christianity. For Cheney and Bush, the neocons and the oil barons, It's about oil, and gas, and huge, huge profits, and the geo-political top of the mountain. It's about the power to call the tune that the rest of the world has to dance to, as the oil supply flatlines and the world's appetite grows. The - for them utterly unpalatable - alternative is sharing the mountaintop with an Iran and a post-occupation Iraq that they can't control. They're playing the game of world power, and they know no rules but the ones they make themselves.
Which doesn't mean they can't be stopped. The Iraqi and American people, and the people of most of the world, agree the war should stop, and the ruling elite is split on both Iraq and Iran, with a growing number of "realists" seeking support from the people to help rein the loonies in. This is a moment of great danger but also of great opportunity.
But no matter how things break, we have no need, no right and no excuse to give up and give in.
"Who knows? Part of Cheney and Bush's crusade may be theological. Isn't it god-like to unleash the Predators? Isn't it god-like to threaten and surge, kill and explode? Islamic Iraq and Islamic Afghanistan may seem to those men like latter-day Sodoms and Gomorrahs. Having smote them, let Islamic Iran be next."
Perhaps the most under reported story of the malignant, bloody reign of George Wanker Bush and Fat Death Cheney is the extent to which the invasion and occupation of Iraq is the beginning of a Religious Crusade by Muscular Christianity to stomp on the Islamic world and possibly, in their sick and incomprehensible minds, to destroy it completely. I've always wondered why progressive media don't talk about this, always assuming the motivation is almost exclusively oil, or the protection of Israel, or the opportunity by these Kurtzian gangsters to piss in the sands of Arabia and mark their territory. Bush, certainly, is one of those boobs who thinks the world is coming to an end quite soon, with a Hollywood style Final Battle taking place in Jerusalem. He sees himself as Victor Mature, dressed in a loincloth, with curly, glistening, long black locks and bulging biceps, taking on every villain in every crummy biblical epic movie from the 1950's, in garish Technicolor and Cinemascope. Cheney is simply America's answer to Joseph Stalin; the only things he believes in are money and murder, not necessarily in that order. If religion is indeed one of the major motivating factors behind our catastrophic meddling in the ME, then an attack on Iran is even more certain. There are some days when I get up in the morning and cannot believe any of this nonsense and utter bullshit is actually taking place. But of course it is and it seems the only answer is to throw the covers back over your head and resume sleeping.
It's more than just oil. Major gas pipelines come to the ocean in Iran, as I recall, and the pipelines crossing central Asia to China and India must cross -- Afghanistan, itself a gas exporter prior to the USSR invasion.
Or maybe it is pure political theatre. I mean, we've been doing the they-are-about-to-attack-Iran dance for three or four years now...
Michael
Interesting idea for the backroom chat. I can see that a rational person would be looking for a way to avoid warcrime charges, but I am not sure that either bush or cheney are rational at all. I am quite sure that they couldn't concieve of the notion that they've done anything wrong at all, they don't fear any charges. They're sure they'd never be held to account, as they've never had to account to anyone in the past...
Wow, I can't add much more than this. I think this story covers just about everything most of us have been thinking and saying. Whether cheney/bush initiate an attack on Iran or we let our israeli friends do it for us, I'm sure cheney doesn't give a hoot. When that first bomb drops in Iran, it doesn't matter the signature on it - we are in deep doo-doo. Martial law and cancelled elections are real possibilities.
"...a new war distracts from scandals in high places."
How true this has been. I can't think of any follow-up on any of the countless scandals that seemed in the forefront when dems took over. Doesn't matter if 100 repugs were involved; as long as one or two high-ranking dems were, it won't get investigated.