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America Gets Stupid, Again, on Iran
It is estimated that up to a million people died as a function of George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, which Bush later said was based on “faulty intelligence,” the ex-president’s way of passing the blame. The reality was that Bush insisted that accurate intelligence he was getting from traditional sources was false and that lies he was being told by other parties were true.
Netanyahu and Obama walk the White House's Colonnade (Photo: Getty)
Now, there is Iran. Over and again the intelligence community has told the powers that be that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program. And over and again the men and women in Congress and the White House have insisted that these traditional sources of information are wrong and that the stories that are coming from other sources (in this case the Israeli government and its special interest agents in Washington) know better.
As in 2003, so it is in 2012. The politicians appear to be out for blood. One wonders how many dead and maimed bodies will satisfy them? Perhaps it will be a million dead Iranians.
The only difference is that today, we have a president who is hesitant to go to war this very moment. As General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has put it, the major difference between the U.S. and Israel on military action against Iran is timing. For President Obama, first comes the “diplomacy” of ultimatums combined with draconian sanctions, and then comes the slaughter. Perhaps it will come in his anticipated second term.
I have written about this more than once before and it is hard to find anything new to say. Yet, given the play of events, what has been said before warrants being said again. Therefore, below your will find a piece originally posted last June 10, but amended where necessary to bring it up to date.
A Nuclear Weapons Program
On June 3, 2011, the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh gave an interview to Amy Goodman for the radio program “Democracy Now!” The topic was Iran and whether or not it is developing nuclear weapons. Hersh answered this question definitively for Goodman as he did shortly thereafter in a comprehensive piece for The New Yorker (June 6, 2011) entitled “Iran and the Bomb: How Real is the Threat?”
His answer: there is no Iranian nuclear weapons program. There is no threat. This position has been confirmed by two National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on the question of Iran and nuclear weapons. These expressed the collective opinion of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. Their unanimous conclusion has been that “there is no evidence of any weaponization.”
This was reconfirmed in mid-February of 2012 by an array of top U.S. intelligence chiefs appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee to give their annual report on “current and future worldwide threats” to national security.
Hersh set his understanding of the issue against the background of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In that case there was no credible evidence for weapons of mass destruction yet the United States had high government officials going around talking about the next world war and mushroom clouds over American cities. Both the U.S. Congress and the general population bought into this warmongering.
Hersh is obviously worried about a replay of that scenario. Thus, in his interview, he said “you could argue it’s 2003 all over again. … There’s just no serious evidence inside that Iran is actually doing anything to make nuclear weapons. … So, the fact is … that we have a sanctions program that’s designed to prevent the Iranians from building weapons they’re not building.”
In 2003, those kinds of sanctions, applied to Iraq, along with the accompanying misinformation campaign, led to a tragic and unnecessary war. Are we now doing it all over again? As Amy Goodman pointed out, “the Obama White House … has repeatedly cited Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to the world.”
President Obama asserted as much in a May 22, 2011, speech before AIPAC and again in his March 4 talk to the same organization. On the latter occasion Obama told his audience, “I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say.
“That includes all elements of American power: a political effort aimed at isolating Iran, … an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.” All this for something that is simply not happening.
If this is the case, what in the world was President Barack Obama talking about when addressing AIPAC? And what are the members of Congress talking about when they address this same issue? The vast majority of them take the same line not of President Obama, but of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu who thinks Obama is weak and naive and that there should be war against Iran now.
In addition, this morbid fantasizing about Iran’s nuclear ambitions has captured the attention of the mainstream press. Amy Goodman asked Hersh about a New York Times report of May 24, 2011, stating “the world’s global nuclear inspection agency [IAEA] … revealed for the first time … that it possesses evidence that Tehran has conducted work on a highly sophisticated nuclear triggering technology that experts said could be used for only one purpose: setting off a nuclear weapon.”
Hersh quickly pointed out the that the word “evidence” never appeared in the IAEA report and, it turns out, the type of nuclear trigger the New York Times was referring to is so fraught with technical problems that, according to Hersh, “there is no evidence that anybody in their right mind would want to use that kind of a trigger.” So, what in the world is the New York Times telling us?
What is Real?
Questions One and Two: The questions about Iran’s nuclear program are not open-ended. They have real answers. First, is Iran developing nuclear energy? The answer to this is a definitive yes. No one, Iranian or otherwise, denies this. Their aim here is energy production and medical applications. This is all legal.
Second, is it developing nuclear weapons? According to every reliable expert within the intelligence agencies of both the United States and Europe, the answer is no. These answers describe reality in relation to Iran and its nuclear activities.
Question Three: The really important question. Why do American politicians and military leaders refuse to accept reality as regards this issue? That too must have an answer. And intelligent people who investigate these matters should be able to figure it out. I consider myself in this crowd, and so I am going to venture forth with my answer.
Answer to Question Three: It is Politics. However, it is not just U.S. politics. Others have helped write the script. These others can be identified by asking to whom are American officials pledging to pursue the Iranian nuclear weapons fantasy? The president’s pledge has gone to AIPAC and the Israelis. Members of Congress have done the same.
Israeli politicians are addicted to the Iran threat. Iran serves, alongside the Palestinians, as the latter-day ruthless anti-Semite who would destroy the Jews. Zionists seem to need this kind of “existentialist” enemy, the equivalent of the Islamic fundamentalist taking the place of the hateful communist as the great enemy that the United States also seems to need.
And, as it turns out, the Israeli lobby is more influential in formulating U.S. foreign policy toward Iran than all of the nation’s intelligence services put together. Hence U.S. politicians from the president on down, chase shadows, not just verbally, mind you, but in terms of definable policy (like sanctions against Iran).
U.S. politicians and military leaders cannot talk like this and create policy like this without the mainstream press following along. Where there is smoke, there must be fire. Plus, ever since the Iranian hostage crisis (1979-1981), Americans have been told that the Iranians hate us.
So, whether it is Fox TV whose fanatical conservative backers have always lived in a bi-polar fantasy world of good and evil, or the New York Times, whose quasi-liberal backers empathize with Israel just enough to buy into that country’s paranoia, the message is that the Iranians are crazy people out to destroy the West. And the evidence? Who needs it?
Acting on False Assumptions
What happens when a well-armed individual cannot tell the difference between reality and unreality? What happens when a well-armed individual just knows, in his gut, that the other guy is plotting to destroy him? Chances are something horrible will happen.
And, the American public ought to know that this is so, because collectively we have already lived out this tragedy in 2003. In that year we had leaders who were much more influenced by their guts, by religious imagery, by duplicitous Iraqi con men, by scheming Zionists and ideologically driven neo-cons, than anything vaguely resembling hard evidence. That “something horrible” cost the lives of up to a million human beings.
So let us get this straight. It seems there are two worlds. The real world of facts and evidence and the unreal world of fantasy. Our political leaders and their advisers are, apparently, stuck in the unreal one. Their words, and their policies, are built on the assumptions of this fantasy world. They go to war and kill people based on beliefs that are demonstrably false.
And the rest of us? Most of us are stuck in our own local niches and beyond them we do not know what is real or unreal. So we rely on others to tell us what to believe. Who are the others? They just happen to be our political leaders, their advisers and follow-the-leader media commentators. Well, that makes a nice little circle. And, a fatal one at that.
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71 Comments so far
Show All"What happens when a well-armed individual cannot tell the difference between reality and unreality? What happens when a well-armed individual just knows, in his gut, that the other guy is plotting to destroy him? Chances are something horrible will happen.
On the local scale, the "something horrible" usually means a lunatic shooting into a crowd. On the national scale, we had a Vice President badgering intelligence analysts to change their reports so that they would conform to his opinions (not analyses) about Iraq's weapons program.
From what I read in the papers, and in articles here, it is not clear just who is the "bad guy" in this administration. I doubt that Richard Perle and John Bolton are taken seriously by any sane person, but there must be someone in the White House who is stoking this fire.
It might as well be a Satan wannabe as they want to bring about the apocalypse right in time for December 21, 2012.
Obama himself stokes the fires. Look at his family history of genocide in Indonesia. You can't grow up in a household with a father who kills mass quantities of human beings for a living and turn out normal. Colonel Lolo Soetoro of General Suharto's genocidal Indonesian army, BO's step-dad, moved back to Indonesia in 1965 with Barack and his mom, just in time for the coup and the genocide.
I have said this a number of times. Barack Obama seems perfectly normal on the surface. But so did Ted Bundy and many other mass murderers throughout history. Childhood shapes the adult. Obama poses a greater danger than any other politician. He likes to kill.
I'd like to learn more about the history of Obama's step-father in Indonesia. Please provide a few links if you can. I seem to recall Wayne Madsen wrote about this a while back.
Thanks. Cydonia
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/18/wayne-madsen-obamas-cia-connections-part-i-and-ii/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okKud3SHUjY
SheepHerder, you have the exactly correct analogy. The USA knows that it plans and practices, and often actually does, horrible, violent attacks on other nations. We take our own aggressive, immoral thinking, and then project it on to other nations and are confident that they are planning to do to us, what we know we are planning to do to them. This imagined danger, coming from our own minds, is believed with confidence and we see (or create) facts to confirm our paranoia. And then we kill a million people, at enormous moral, economic, and political cost to ourselves. In the private realm, this is called criminal insanity, like the shooter last summer in Norway. In the geopolitical realm, this is called "real politik". We as a nation are sick. We need therapy.
To say "We need therapy" is to project psy-ops... as it presumes a consensusi in favor of war where there is none. And if there were majority "support" it would largely be the result of a martial media pounding the drums incessantly FOR war. That's called manufacturing consent, and when it's based on The Great Deceit, it is not the same thing as genuine support. So speak for yourself, if anyone is sick.
And this author is either naive or narrow-minded. Anyone who doesn't understand that a nation centered on war must make war to justify its MIC apparatus, and that its entire industrial engine (or what's left of it) relies upon oil... therefore it must use war to obtain this resource. Israel's interests fall into synch with these other factors, and that's why it's seen as a major factor. It is a factor, to be sure; but any writer who makes the entire direction of U.S. foreign policy about Israel, purposely sets up a decoy for when the shit comes down. And it will if these polices of destruction continue to be pursued (*by joint interests, some of them covert).
" Mr. Davidson PLEASE stop calling it politics". No I would say that word is quite appropriate because politics comes from the greek and translates in English to: Poli...meaning many and tics meaning....blood sucking leeches! Too bad we don't use the English translation.
"I know it's in Texas, it's probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. It fool me. We can't get fooled again."
baby bush, on wmd
with clarity of thought like that its incomprehensible that we got lost in iraq
"the terrorists never stop thinking up new ways to hurt amerika, and neither do we"
bush baby on terrorists
"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them"
baby bush on wmd
not bad from an alcoholic cokehead who stole two elections, one aginst the nwo ghoul al gore and the other against the nwo ghoul john kerry
there is no choice, never was never will be - your owners don't want that
mittens and obummer could share the next presidency - it would allow marie antoinette obummer to go on more vavactions
amerika is stupid for the most part - that is why they don't get to vote anymore, nwo can't trust them to pick their boys
shit - we might even pick ron paul...if we had a choice that is
"You know, I could run for governor and all this but I’m basically a media creation. I’ve never really done anything. I’ve worked for my dad. I worked in the oil industry. But that’s not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office. "
bush baby
Priceless. Yes, AMERICA IS STUPID. With just enough hubris and marketing instinct to never collectively realize it.
Reminds me of an old 'Strangers with Candy' episode where a fellow student mocks Jerry: "You're so illiterate you probably can't even HEAR me, you illiterate!"
Too dumb and proud to even know it. Free. Dumb. America.
Interesting article. Particularly since I was kicked off "truthdig"s site when I compared Iran with Iraq.
Did ya try that at free-repuke-lick? They banned my ip years ago. :)
Interesting article. Particularly since I was kicked off "truthdig"s site when I compared Iran with Iraq.
Good article. But I'm concerned that every article I read about this issue asserts that there is no evidence Iran is developing nuclear weaponry, thus leaving unaddressed the question--and what if they *are* developing nuclear weapons?
As for what all the intelligence agencies supposedly say, how relevant is that to anything? I don't believe the CIA, no matter what it says. You cannot place trust in institutions that regularly lie and deceive as a matter of course.
Also, nuclear technology is inherently dual use. And I don't find Hersch's statement about the trigger mechanism supposedly found by IAEA in Iran to be credible.
Every time someone asserts we should not go to war or support an attack on Iran because there's no evidence Iran is developing nuclear weapons, does it not imply that if Iran *were* developing nuclear weapons, Israel and/or the US *would* be justified in attacking Iran?
This arrogant imperialist logic, that Israel is somehow ethically permitted to have 200 nuclear weapons, and the US tens of thousands, but Iran is not, needs to be challenged, particularly in light of the fact that it is Israel and the US that are the regular aggressors in the region, not Iran. Iran has invaded no country in more than a century.
Israel has invaded Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, regularly attacks Gaza, etc. Israel is a very belligerent country, constantly threatening Iran. Would Iran's leadership not be foolish NOT to try to develop a nuclear weapon, having such a belligerent nation so close by? I believe these weapons are evil, but when you are dealing with war-mongering nations like the US and Israel, they could have a deterrent effect, which is justified.
Points well taken. These articles are repetitive and assume the logic leading to war.
It is only possible for people to be "stupid" on these issues because the corporate media has done a phenomenal job of brainwashing. And, of course, when the left fell for the 9/11 hoax, that paved the way for endless war based on a false flag operation that had at its center the mafia signature: Blow up your old casinos before you build the new ones.
OK, I'll bite. If Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, we obviously do not know where that weapons development site is, for if we knew, we would trumpet it to the hills and force them to accept a IAEA inspection of that site. The entire world, including Russia and China, would turn against them.
Since we do not know where the clandestine weapons development is happening, we can not destroy it with our airforce, or with cruise missiles. There is only one way to find the site and destroy it, invasion on the ground and an occupation at least until the site is discovered and destroyed. Iraq's population was 20 million. Iran's is 60 million. So, just by the numbers, it would take an occupying force of close to 400 thousand. Add to the numbers the intangible that Iran is a much more homogeneous society than Iraq, much more difficult to "divide and conquer" than Iraq was. This would be no cake walk.
In addition, all this assumes that Iran's conventional (as opposed to guerrilla) capabilities are no better than Saddam Hussein's were. There's evidence that's not the case. We don't know the capabilities of their Chinese cruise missiles, but we do know that their anti-tank missiles were quite effective against Israeli tanks in Lebanon.
Nor at this point can we let the Israelis attack and say, "Who, me?" after we've given the Israelis the latest bunker buster bombs and anti-missile defenses. If the Iranians are attacked, they will know the US supported and encouraged it regardless of Obama's protestations that Israel is a sovereign nation and makes its own decisions. Whether and how the Iranians retaliate against US targets is entirely up to them.
And when all is said and done after such an attack, and there are thousands of Iranian dead, they will most certainly have a nuclear weapons program even if they don't have one now.
Good article! But maybe put in the word "crazy" for "stupid." Insanity is running rampant.
War is the purview of the aristocracy(the king). The spirit is the purview of the Priest. To serve these masters is the role of the people. Thus it has been and still is. The fourth estate, the press, is supposed to check the ambition of the king but as we can see, that role is often abrogated.
And as Goebbels stated "Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths."
In this case the truth is that the moneyed classes swim in a 'sea of war' and there gilled carcasses filter the oxygen (money) from those waters and by that
they live. Also it is a small matter to convince the people of the need for war by creating some imaginary threat and then appealing to their patriotism to stand up and defend the home land. The pacifist is considered a coward and maybe worse, a communist or social deviant.
And as Hitler understood about propaganda; "But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success".
In this case the point is that Iran is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the world and must be made to bend to the will of the emperor, who ever is US president at the time. Iran's government is no paragon but none the less has never actually attacked anyone that I know of. Funny that a government that has attacked numerous innocents can turn the tables and claim one that has not attacked anyone is the aggressor. And the people failing to comprehend this fine distinction see no irony in the fact but rather are passionate in their conviction that the official truth is in fact the truth.
It's really not about Iran at all. It's about Israel, but not as any kind of existential threat by Iran to them or anyone else. It's about the huge strategic advantage Israel enjoys as the sole nuclear weapons state in the Middle East.
Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, let the cat out of the bag in a recent interview. "From our point of view, a nuclear state offers an entirely different kind of protection to its proxies. Imagine if we enter another military confrontation with Hezbollah, [and a] nuclear Iran announces that an attack on Hezbollah is tantamount to an attack on Iran. We would not necessarily give up on it, but it would definitely restrict our range of operations." And the "range of operations" is, of course, of paramount importance for Greater Israel.
But don't worry, folks. According to Agence France Presse and several other sources, the US is offering Israel advanced weaponry (bunker-busting bombs and long-range refuelling planes) in return for agreeing to put off a possible attack on Iran until 2013, after the November elections. So it's not really a question of "if" for the US either. Just when.
Ain't "freedom and democracy" grand? Aren't you glad your forefathers fought a revolution to rid your country of imperial tyranny?
.
.
Good article.
But change the wording to fit the actual event.
Saying that America gets "stupid" is like saying the teenagers are at it in the front room again wrestling and wrecking the joint--------------------not the concept America's actions represent. It isn't mere stupidity.
It is far far far worse than stupidity.
What those actions represent is extremely deranged, psychotic, criminally homicidal destructive behavior that is the very antithesis of sensible civility.
Might as well call it what it is: pure and simple, these fuckers at the helm are crazy men who are a threat to every one, every thing.
The American asylum is being staffed by the worst of the inmates.
Well, I think stupidity, or at least willful ignorance and insistence upon maintaining our illusions and cultural superstitions plays a huge role... (those all equate more or less to stupidity in my book; it's all resistance to a greater understanding)... However, your overall point is right on.
"It is far far far worse than stupidity."
"What those actions represent is extremely deranged, psychotic, criminally homicidal destructive behavior that is the very antithesis of sensible civility."
"Might as well call it what it is: pure and simple, these fuckers at the helm are crazy men who are a threat to every one, every thing."
I'd call them 'crazy monkeys'....(we are all monkeys after all, but not all of us are crazy), otherwise I couldn't agree more.
American 'intelligence' in Iran has historically been a corporate-driven fiasco, and this is no different. Instead of the corporate client being BP, it is the Military-Industrial Complex, which is in 'need' of another chance at the trough of US taxpayer $$$.
I think maybe change the headline to read: "American Elitist Politicos and their Zionist, Corpora-Fascist, and Bankster Buddies ready to Invade the Next Country in their Imperial Conquest"
AmericanS, the actual people who comprise our nation, may or may not be Stupid - but, since the propaganda machine (media) is mostly owned/controlled by the folks mentioned in my new headline, most citizens do not have regular access to actual Facts.....just fabrications that abound in the local/cable "news".
Millions of Americans have their hands full trying to: save their homes, feed their families, get jobs, pay the utility bills, ensure their kids have access to education, get access to medical care, save for retirement, maintain civility in their neighborhoods, and other daily, mundane activities of living their lives. They don't have the time to do 'research' every day to ensure the crap they are "eating" - whether actual food or news/information - is good for them.
This is mainly why the 1%'ers have worked so hard for the past 40-50 years to get us to this point.....so, we're not paying enough attention to what they're doing in our names.
"Our political leaders and their advisers are, apparently, stuck in the unreal one. Their words, and their policies, are built on the assumptions of this fantasy world. They go to war and kill people based on beliefs that are demonstrably false."
A small correction, Laurence....'they' do not go to war! 'They' send in the underprivileged youth to do their murdering and be killed by those trying to protect themselves from the aggressor! Also, you don't mention one of the most obvious reasons for the war mongering......money! Lots of it for the MIC!
It would be interesting to see the response if Iran would simply agree to the same nuclear limits and regime of inspections as Israel. Who says Iran should be limited where Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, France and even the US are not???
Why is it Israel and the US never consider the development of nuclear power by Saudi Arabia as a threat?
This really is about Iran's financial threat to current world financial powers rather than it's nuclear ambitions. The same reason Libya needed regime change.
"Who can deny that the interest of the Israeli state advances under the Petro-Dollar system for oil payment? The prospect of allowing an oil exporter to do business paid in gold disrupts the balances that maintain an uneasy political rapprochement. Even more threatening to the globalist monopoly is a defiant regime like the Islamic Republic playing by different rules that bypass central banking approval."
http://www.infowars.com/iran-gold-and-oil-the-next-banksters-war/
"If the US dollar loses its position as the global reserve currency, the consequences for America are dire. A major portion of the dollar's valuation stems from its lock on the oil industry – if that monopoly fades, so too will the value of the dollar. Such a major transition in global fiat currency relationships will bode well for some currencies and not so well for others, and the outcomes will be challenging to predict. But there is one outcome that we foresee with certainty: Gold will rise. Uncertainty around paper money always bodes well for gold, and these are uncertain days indeed."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28854
We should all face the fact that these wars have nothing to do with religion, human rights violations or military threats but are simply wars to maintain financial power centers and control. But that is hard sell to the 99%. It's much easier to drum up support by waving flags, conjuring foreign boogeymen and thumping bibles. How many of us would send our children off to war and see our domestic economies sacrificed in the name of protecting the 01% who are "too big to fail"?
And the last thing they've ever been about has been "democracy" or individual civil rights!
re: "This really is about Iran's financial threat to current world financial powers rather than it's nuclear ambitions. The same reason Libya needed regime change."
and "We should all face the fact that these wars have nothing to do with religion, human rights violations or military threats but are simply wars to maintain financial power centers and control. But that is hard sell to the 99%. "
Exactly. This is the dialog the Americonned People will never hear or be allowed to understand by the corporate establishment. Far too few people seem to even recognize or appreciate what should be obvious to anyone able to observe or think for themselves.
Half of America thinks the GOP debates matter. What does that say about us? It says we are easily swayed by the standard manipulation techniques used day in day out by the media and gov't psyops specialists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Operations_%28United_States%29
Excellent comment gardenernorcal!
Gardener: You raised important points here. As I often post, things as huge as war require a variety of "interested parties" and their interests may not all be alike; but they do fit together like a jagged jig-saw puzzle. In my view, any purportedly well-informed writer who makes a case based on only ONE factor, is not as intelligent as they may think themselves to be... lest they're serving a very narrow agenda.
Iran is surrounded by openly hostile American military bases, they would be out of their minds if they did NOT want a nuclear bomb. I do not think a nuclear powered Iran would be a threat any more than nuclear powered Pakistan. That being said, the whole point of secretly building a nuclear bomb is that is SECRET, so even if intelligence idiots said they were not building nuclear weapons does not mean they aren't. 99% of the rest is bullocks.
If it's only a matter of timing, what would good timing be? Well, we have to have a manufactured incident first to show that we were provoked and we have to have that incident timed to create patriotic sentiment to support the Commander and Chief. I'd say I;d guess it would be just before the election, particularly if the economy stalls and Obama's prospects are not looking good. Will the US public go along--OF COURSE THEY WILL- This is a war loving country, a country that puts its resources where they think it will matter, where the display of military force is seen as a display of its greatness. This is not a country reluctantly lead to war, this is a country that revels in it.
Are there more yokels like the ones B Maher's videographer Pelosi interviewed in Mississippi, than sane people in America?
The author deliberately ignores the actual policy in play--Regime Change--for which the "nuclear issue" is to provide justification. As such, the essay is a failure as it does NOT provide the reader with all the information at hand. Others raise the unwise use of "stupid" in the headline--where in the hell is the word CRIMINAL? Yes, the overall template is similar to Iraq as the plan was to raise another Coalition of the Willing to undertake the massive task of invading Iran and imposing a neverending occupation, but that is no longer possible as the dynamics of the situation have markedly changed and Iran is decidedly not a weakened, strickened, broken Iraq made easy prey by the Iraqi Holocaust.
For those yet to do so, here are two very important policy essays penned by Vladimir Putin that provide part of the explanation behind the changing dynamics mentioined above:
http://en.rian.ru/world/20120227/171547818.html
http://premier.gov.ru/eng/events/news/16622/
"The reality was that Bush insisted that accurate intelligence he was getting from traditional sources was false and that lies he was being told by other parties were true."
No, Lawrence, you didn't get "reality", quite right. The Bush Administration, intentionally silenced the intelligence they new to be accurate, and sought out, or manufactured the lies, "to catapult the propaganda".
That kind of either intentional, or just lazy shorthand is inexcusable.
And this little gem…
"Their words, and their policies, are built on the assumptions of this fantasy world. They go to war and kill people based on beliefs that are demonstrably false."
So, what, Lawrence? They are a victim of their own cognitive dissonance? Bullshit.
It's called resource wars, and Empire. Intentional, lucid, deceit and slaughter for an end.
Thanks for highliting some of the additional dishonesties in an essay that many are saying is good. That the writer's a tenured historian pisses me off.
Iran is in a morally tough position. Their religion teaches that God told Moses that the massive killing of civilians is morally wrong, it's just plain murder of people, and that an atomic bomb kills hundreds of thousands of civilians. Furthermore, Jesus of Nazareth had nothing to do with war, period, and the life of Jesus is a major part of Islam. Next, their prophet Muhammad was disappointed with one of his disciples who was only interested in killing the enemy of their day.
On the other hand, most of Iran's neighbors -- Russia, China, Pakistan -- all have the bomb. Israel and the U.S. aren't officially next door neighbors, except the U.S. has invaded countries on both sides of Iran, and the US and Israel have the bomb. Saudi Arabia simply has more money for more modern weapons.
There's a long history of conflict with the U.S. The CIA installed the Shah of Iran, who had to be overthrown by the Iranian populace in 1979 at a considerable cost of life. Someone blew up almost all of the Iranian parliament in the early 1980s. In the 1980s Saddam Hussein launched a CIA-backed war to steal Iran's oil. Everyone knows that the CIA will do anything to overthrow the Ahmadinejad regime, that a CIA drone came down in Iran, and that someone closely connected with Israel is assassinating Iranian government officials, usually connected with the nuclear effort.
My best guess is that Iran is pursuing a middle nuclear course: don't actually build an a-bomb, but build the materials necessary to build an a-bomb. This strange pathway is supposed to provide some of the "comfort" of having nuclear weapons without actually building a bomb, which in Shiite Muslim theology is going over the cliff into hell. In practice I'm not sure that their half-warlike Muslim atomic philosophy really works at all, but they're trying it.
The differences between Muslim atomic theology and Christian atomic theology are pretty small, because they operate under most of the same Bible stories. I suspect that both Muslims and Christians can accommodate the killing off of masses of good humans in Jesus's name (or in Muhammad's name) only by being a bit two-faced about their own religious beliefs, as in, yeah yeah yeah that's what the Bible says, and every word in the Bible is the Word of God, but really this is too important.
re: "Muslim atomic theology and Christian atomic theology"
Those claiming a morally sanctified position in their use of nuclear weaponry have no valid theology... they are secretly nihilists with no reverence for the sanctity or preciousness of life or the Earth's delicate biological integrity.
These so-called religious justifications for preparations for mass murder and widespread ecological contamination are blasphemous, in any religion.
I understand that you are simply making an objective observation of the involved parties psychological/theological attitudes, which is pertinent to the discussion – so I'm not directing my contempt towards you PaulK. I just felt I needed to state my own psychological/theological reaction to these peoples' insanity. 'Protecting' our nations by threatening all life on Earth, and stamping it all with the seal of God's approval. How intelligent. How sanctified.
Cheers
Khameni, Iran's Supreme Ruler, issued a fatwa regarding nuclear weapons and has reiterated it on many occasions. Many Western pundits cannot understand Iran's stance and often pose the "build the capability but not the bomb--yet" argument because that's what THEY would do. Lets look at Pakistan's experience first:
Did having nukes keep Pakistan from being invaded by the US Empire? No. Why? Pakistan has no deterence capability as it has no way to deliver its warheads to the US mainland. Pakistan might eventually construct such a system, but it would be very costly for a country that has too many domestic problems needing attention and funding. Plus, it must be admitted that the dynamic that fueled Pakistan's desire for a nuke was because India wanted one too.
Iran faces domestic problems similar to Pakistan's, but has so far detered the effort to be invaded by the US Empire despite not having Nukes--How? Its geography, military capabilities, and the very solidly entrenched nationalism of its people who have already shown the West what they are capable of doing when faced with an existential threat. Plus, Iran's made it very clear that any invasion will be met by an all out assault on the Gulf region's hydrocarbon industry's infrastructure that will effectively end the Industrial Era. And that is why Iran doesn't need to devote its scarce resources to deveolping a nuclear weapon--It simply doesn't need one.
So why are we aiding with US tax dollars Saudi Arabia gaining nuclear power? Where in the Bible does it ordain that we should? Weren't they the majority of the hijackers on 09/11>
ALLEGED hijackers, alleged by proven liars, no less.
Two more beats on the drum of war March 7 at 8:55 p.m. (CST) on FOX:
Guest John McCain echoed host Sean Hannity's assertion "...Iran now has threatened a modern-day holocaust, repeatedly saying they're going to wipe Israel off the map. They continue to pursue nuclear weapons..."
McCain: "...they are dedicated as they have repeatedly stated to wipe Israel off the map..."
I've taken as a (sick, maybe?) hobby the collecting of "wipe Israel" assertions, filing them as I stumble across them at random ( no dedicated searches), beginning in October of 2007 complete, whenever possible, with URLs. Anyone doing research?
Hannity and McCain just provided me with numbers 70 and 71.
It's apparent it's the publicly the agreed upon spin, but it's not the accurate depiction on why any of this is happening.
This really is about Iran's financial threat to current world financial powers rather than it's nuclear ambitions. The same reason Libya needed regime change.
"Who can deny that the interest of the Israeli state advances under the Petro-Dollar system for oil payment? The prospect of allowing an oil exporter to do business paid in gold disrupts the balances that maintain an uneasy political rapprochement. Even more threatening to the globalist monopoly is a defiant regime like the Islamic Republic playing by different rules that bypass central banking approval."
http://www.infowars.com/iran-gold-and-oil-the-next-banksters-war/
"If the US dollar loses its position as the global reserve currency, the consequences for America are dire. A major portion of the dollar's valuation stems from its lock on the oil industry – if that monopoly fades, so too will the value of the dollar. Such a major transition in global fiat currency relationships will bode well for some currencies and not so well for others, and the outcomes will be challenging to predict. But there is one outcome that we foresee with certainty: Gold will rise. Uncertainty around paper money always bodes well for gold, and these are uncertain days indeed."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28854
We should all face the fact that these wars have nothing to do with religion, human rights violations or military threats but are simply wars to maintain financial power centers and control. But that is hard sell to the 99%. It's much easier to drum up support by waving flags, conjuring foreign boogeymen and thumping bibles. How many of us would send our children off to war and see our domestic economies sacrificed in the name of protecting the 01% who are "too big to fail"?
And the last thing they've ever been about has been "democracy" or individual civil rights!
Fantasy? Fantasy?!! Those pushing for war against Iran are not living in a fantasy world, but they are spinning fantasy for public consumption to present a false justification for their quite real bloodlust. It does not matter how many millions die, as long as the elites continue to have their unrestrained flow of billions. We are a criminal enterprise posing as the United States. When gold is discovered in those Black Hills, anyone in the way of enriching the few had better grab their ankles and kiss their asses goodbye. Millennia and the supposed march toward civilization have never had any effect on the good old USA, as greedy and murderous as ever, and, as always, spinning our murder as moral and necessary.
The "fantasy" lies in thinking "the elites [will] continue to have their unrestrained flow of billions" if war commences. Please see my comment below as to why.
I apologize for my lax use of language. The mere prospect of mega-riches to be gained by war is sufficient to drive us to rampage and murder. The issue of who will actually benefit is quite complicated, and beyond my intended remarks. There is no lack of short-sightedness when it comes to greed (e.g. the denial of the existence of global warming), but also no lack of war mongering when there are potential billions to be made, even if those perverse dreams are merely a fantasy.
Knowing that the constant banging of war drums will not bring about the war has led me to think about other reasons for such behavior. It's certainly helped oil producers everywhere earn more money for their product, and the headline-grabbing has obscured many other important actions, while detering well desevered War Department budget cuts. And Israel's acts are also covered-up. A week ago, I asked why the US Empire was continuing to pursue a failed policy but got only one reply, and it was sincere and productive. Perhaps the fallback policy was to continue beating the war drums in an attempt to split OPEC.
One thing is certain, however, The Iraq affair and the debacle in Libya has accellerated the onset/return of a Multipolar World and death of the "New World Order" announced by GHW Bush.
The US designs on Iran, are that of pyschotic serial rapist and murderer, stalking another intended victim. The only concern shown is that of possible consequences to itself.
Much worse than that. We have a world power willing to sacrifice it's resources and citizens and those of the countries it attacks in order to protect a single minority class of powerful people. Rapists and murderers act on their own behalf. Today the US is mobilized to act on behalf of the 01%, some of whom are not even citizens.
"America Gets Stupid, Again, on Iran"
Was there some break in the stupidity that I missed - some few brief moments of lucidity? 'Cause it looks to me like the stupid just goes on and on.
Mr Davidon's analysis is great. No words minced in that article.
"Most of us are stuck in our own local niches and beyond them we do not know what is real or unreal. So we rely on others to tell us what to believe. Who are the others? They just happen to be our political leaders, their advisers and follow-the-leader media commentators."
Excellent choices in points and ideas to raise to the table of relevancy, Mr. Davidson. However, the news today is that while most of us are indeed returning to local niches of power/control, bringing the crafting of product and policy with us, here to our local realms, to own and control ourselves, we most certain
ly do know, more and more everyday, what is real and what is unreal. Because our focus on serving our own personal better interests reveals the truth, which comes only from within each of us, which happens to be very similar to the truth coming from within everyone else, after we bury the elite propaganda. We know what is real (despite liberal attempts at sabotage), thank you very much! And we're acting appropriately. Exciting times for the people!
"So, whether it is Fox TV whose fanatical conservative backers have always lived in a bi-polar fantasy world of good and evil"
There is a MOST crucial distinction to make, Mr. Davidson. While Merkan konservatives create a bipolar fantasy world of good/evil, it is for the wrong reasons, and the destruction comes not from the creation of the bipolar fantasy world, but instead from those wrong reasons mentioned, that wrong agenda which is being promoted via the bipolar fantasy world.
Meanwhile, the liberals point falsely at the bipolar fantasy world as the problem itself, instead of pointing at the agenda, the real cause of the destruction, the very same agenda shared by the liberals - world domination, class oppression, biosphere destruction (despite liberal pretenses to care).
To create a bipolar world of right and wrong is most definitely crucial to the people's emancipation from elite oppression. Simply look at the massive paralysis of liberals, who cannot act in the defense of the people because they are hopelessly confused by their deliberate focus on the wrong explanation of reality.
Constructing our reality into a group of things that help us and another group of things that hurt us, is most crucial to our survival. Sustainability and self-determination require efficiently sorting out right from wrong. Liberalism was a cooked up concoction of urbanites, fried in coal-fired boilers, a philosophy not concerned about sorting out right from wrong because it doesn't matter so long as someone keeps shoveling the coal to the boiler. Obviously an unsustainable, dead end system.
So, the big news of the day is the people are re-learning to sort things out into right and wrong, for our goal of sustainable self-determination. Associating good with good means we can internalize the process to recognize and defend what is good. Powerful strategy for self-determination, universal enlightenment, solidarity, equity, justice. Exciting times for the people.