Category: Iran

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How low can Downer go?

Our embarrassing foreign minister, Downer, has done it again, brazenly out-toadying his lackey leader, lecturing those uncharitable, churlish Europeans and their media who might dare to question the wisdom of the illegal invasion of Iraq, despite Americans questioning it wholeheartedly themselves, both in government and on the street. Shades of Lon Cheney’s “Be careful what you say” post 911 imperial decree.

“In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Alexander Downer urged European politicians to weigh up the consequences of their words before they “leap out there and attack America”.

Mr Downer gave warning that criticism of America’s conduct in Iraq could inadvertently provide an incentive for terrorist attacks.

“People in the West, and not only in Europe, blame America for a suicide bomber in a market in Baghdad,” he said.

“That only encourages more horrific behaviour. Every time there is an atrocity committed, it is implicitly America’s fault, so why not commit some more atrocities and put even more pressure on America?”
….

“The more you can get media denigration of America, the more that the war against terrorism is seen to be an indictment of America, the better for those who started this war.”

Media critical of America is good for those who started the war – the neocons? What is Downer trying to propagandise here? Does he think Al Qaeda somehow started the war in Iraq by waving a magic wand over Bush, Cheney and the rest of the warmongering, fash fools?

Unbeknownst to the hapless, witless Downer, his fat foot once more in his mouth, he has given the Iraqi insurgents some wonderful encouragement – according to him, their supposed strategy is a winner. Fat chance that Europeans or the media are going to stop criticising America because of Downer’s abysmal pseudo-logic.

Perhaps in his inadequate amphibian brain, only non-American atrocities count as *real* atrocities and have no logical, reasonable cause at all, or is he automagically blaming the victims, attempting to shift the blame from the actual perpetrators of the war against Iraq? This disconnect is already rife amongst braindead flagwavers – to question the empire, no matter how brutal, self-serving and self-defeating it is, is treasonous – so everything is always someone else’s fault, not the perps’. The simple undeniable fact is that there would not *be* suicide bombers in Baghdad markets if the Coalition of the Gobbling hadn’t stupidly, wilfully and illegally invaded Iraq. Are we meant to forget this by withholding criticism of the fools who deliberately and with malice aforethought created the mess which has engendered such gruesome and ongoing outcomes? To collude with such madness through silence one would have to be mad oneself.

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it – and so the neocons are hoping for the next stop already – Iran.

The rampage in Iraq will end when it becomes clear the “surge” and escalated aerial bombings aren’t working either and the Americans leave, as the Iraqis have wanted for years and as now the overwhelming majority of Americans also want, regardless or in spite of further loss of imperial face. And *that*, with any luck, will discourage the disgraceful warmongers from further misadventurism for fun and profit in the region for quite some time.

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Coalition of the Gobbling vs Iran V

Brzezinski, grand master of the Great Game and unrepentant original architect of the rise of Bin Laden and the Afghanistan mess, has thrown the book at the mad chimp, warning that he is seeking a pretext to whack Iran, ironic considering Brzezinski’s own Machiavellian manipulations and designs on preventing the “barbarians”, Russia, China and Iran, from coming together.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism in the Middle East and internationally.

Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he called the “war of choice” in Iraq by characterizing it as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity.”

“Undertaken under false assumptions,” he continued, “it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.”

Brzezinski derided Bush’s talk of a “decisive ideological struggle” against radical Islam as “simplistic and demagogic,” and called it a “mythical historical narrative” employed to justify a “protracted and potentially expanding war.”

“To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.

Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” [Emphasis added].

This was an unmistakable warning to the US Congress, replete with quotation marks to discount the “defensive” nature of such military action, that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for an attack on Iran. Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation—including a possible terrorist attack within the US—to provide the casus belli for war.

That a man such as Brzezinski, with decades of experience in the top echelons of the US foreign policy establishment, a man who has the closest links to the military and to intelligence agencies, should issue such a warning at an open hearing of the US Senate has immense and grave significance.

Brzezinski knows whereof he speaks, having authored provocations of his own while serving as Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser. In that capacity, as he has since acknowledged in published writings, he drew up the covert plan at the end of the 1970s to mobilize Islamic fundamentalist mujaheddin to topple the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan and draw the Soviet Union into a ruinous war in that country.

Following his opening remarks, in response to questions from the senators, Brzezinski reiterated his warning of a provocation.

He called the senators’ attention to a March 27, 2006 report in the New York Times on “a private meeting between the president and Prime Minister Blair, two months before the war, based on a memorandum prepared by the British official present at this meeting.” In the article, Brzezinski said, “the president is cited as saying he is concerned that there may not be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and that there must be some consideration given to finding a different basis for undertaking the action.”

He continued: “I’ll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to the New York Times: ‘The memo states that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.’

“He described the several ways in which this could be done. I won’t go into that… the ways were quite sensational, at least one of them.

“If one is of the view that one is dealing with an implacable enemy that has to be removed, that course of action may under certain circumstances be appealing. I’m afraid that if this situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, and if Iran is perceived as in some fashion involved or responsible, or a potential beneficiary, that temptation could arise.”

At another point Brzezinski remarked on the conspiratorial methods of the Bush administration and all but described it as a cabal. “I am perplexed,” he said, “by the fact that major strategic decisions seem to be made within a very narrow circle of individuals—just a few, probably a handful, perhaps not more than the fingers on my hand. And these are the individuals, all of whom but one, who made the original decision to go to war, and used the original justifications to go to war.”

None of the senators in attendance addressed themselves to the stark warning from Brzezinski. The Democrats in particular, flaccid, complacent and complicit in the war conspiracies of the Bush administration, said nothing about the danger of a provocation spelled out by the witness.

Following the hearing, this reporter asked Brzezinski directly if he was suggesting that the source of a possible provocation might be the US government itself. The former national security adviser was evasive.

The following exchange took place:

Q: Dr. Brzezinski, who do you think would be carrying out this possible provocation?

A: I have no idea. As I said, these things can never be predicted. It can be spontaneous.

Q: Are you suggesting there is a possibility it could originate within the US government itself?

A: I’m saying the whole situation can get out of hand and all sorts of calculations can produce a circumstance that would be very difficult to trace.

Vid of Brzezinski’s testimony here …

PDF download of testimony.

Brzezinski testimonies to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee since the above:

Strategic Assessment of U.S.- Russian Relations (06/21/2007)

OIL, OLIGARCHS, AND OPPORTUNITY: ENERGY FROM CENTRAL ASIA TO EUROPE (06/12/2008)

U.S. STRATEGY REGARDING IRAN (03/05/2009)

FINDING COMMON GROUND WITH A RISING CHINA (06/23/2010)

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Coalition of the Gobbling vs Iran IV

Posted by Dub and written by Douglas Herman, read the chilling Aftermath: Day 2 of the War With Iran.

An excerpt:

In the first fierce day of war, when coordinated air strikes on Iranian targets destroyed most of the Iranian air force and navy, the US military appeared invincible again. Wrecking a second-rate military power does that for an imperial war machine.

By the second day of the war, however, most American and Iranian citizens wished for peace. Unfortunately, wars are always easier to get into than out of. While the war planners in the Pentagon and Israel had devised a workable plan to force Iran into war, using a fake attack on US warships by Iranian gunboats (as the faked Tonkin Gulf attack initiated the Vietnam War), the US Navy fared far worse than the planners wished.

Journalistic luminary John Pilger provides a timely, superb summary of the current precarious situation.

Continue reading “Coalition of the Gobbling vs Iran IV”

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Coalition of the Gobbling vs Iran 111

A couple of weeks ago, Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) wrote that “one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike.”

Now we read that:

President Bush is preparing to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of April and the US Air Force’s new bases in Bulgaria and Romania would be used as back-up in the onslaught, according to an official report from Sofia.

“American forces could be using their two USAF bases in Bulgaria and one at Romania’s Black Sea coast to launch an attack on Iran in April,” the Bulgarian news agency Novinite said.

….

Sofia’s news of advanced war preparations along the Black Sea is backed up by some chilling details. One is the setting up of new refuelling places for US Stealth bombers, which would spearhead an attack on Iran. “The USAF’s positioning of vital refuelling facilities for its B-2 bombers in unusual places, including Bulgaria, falls within the perspective of such an attack.” Novinite named Colonel Sam Gardiner, “a US secret service officer stationed in Bulgaria”, as the source of this revelation.

Curiously, the report noted that although Tony Blair, Bush’s main ally in the global war on terror, would be leaving office, the president had opted to press on with his attack on Iran in April.

Before the end of March, 3000 US military personnel are scheduled to arrive “on a rotating basis” at America’s Bulgarian bases. Under the US-Bulgarian military co-operation accord, signed in April,2006,an airbase at Bezmer, a second airfield at Graf Ignitievo and a shooting range at Novo Selo were leased to America. Significantly, last year’s bases negotiations had at one point run into difficulties due to Sofia’s demand “for advance warning if Washington intends to use Bulgarian soil for attacks against other nations, particularly Iran”.

Not good news at all. Can the Dems stop the chimp’s cynical war frenzy in time to save the world? Unlikely, as they are equally a part of the US MIC.

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Coalition of the Gobbling vs Iran 11

While IAEA director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, urges concern and caution, warning that an attack of Iran would be catastrophic, the Israeli warmongers hustle for support for bombing hell out of it. They should be had up for inciting violence, yet get away with their belligerence as usual. The Israel lobby is sufficiently strong enough that Republicans crawl to it to help woo the fundamentalist rightwing vote.

In the words of the Prince of Darkness himself:

“Richard Perle, former head of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and a vocal advocate for military action to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, said voters should expect to hear a lot of hawkish foreign policy speeches from presidential contenders.”They’ll all sound like Romney,” said Perle, now at the American Enterprise Institute. “They’ll all talk tough about Iran.”

The sleazy Olmert, under investigation for corruption and rapidly becoming very unpopular with his electorate, ramps up the idea that Israhell will use any means at its disposal to defend itself against nuclear threat from Iran. Not that there is a existing threat. This is the Iraq WMD propaganda all over again.

Zionism sucks just as much as the tyrannical Saudi oligarchy.

Arab League secretary, Amr Moussa added to IEAE concerns in Davos:

“There is a 50/50 chance the United States will attack Iran and any such strike would risk spreading sectarian violence through the Middle East. It’s a 50/50 proposition, and we hope that it won’t happen. Attacking Iran would be counterproductive.”

Yet if sectarian violence engulfs the Middle East, the Israeli hawks won’t care – divide and conquer will suit them nicely as while others, further stereotyped as terrorists, battle – Israel will use the cover to grab more land. But the United Stupids will pay for this – oil prices will skyrocket. And their blood will be further spilled to protect the apartheidist land thieves.

One point of view in the above article and another in the Australian was interesting … the Saudis may cooperate with the United Stupids to put a squeeze on the oil price to crash the Iranian economy which is largely dependent on oil. This would also further Saudi fundo Sunni schemes to maintain their political control of the region. Thus, if the oil price drops radically, we will know the chances of Iran being attacked have increased.

Of course, when one is also aware that the Saudi dictators have been buying up gold bigtime lately, the story all starts to hang together. 😉 It’ll suit them just fine to drive the POO down – gold will follow. Will the United Stupids’ finances be presented in a rosy enough light to enable this in the week to come?

COMMENTS FROM THE OLD BLOG:

Fringe:

Here’s the Australian article:

http://tinyurl.com/3xzl5y

A senior British military source said yesterday that the Israelis were serious about the use of military force to stop Iran, and were now engaged in preparing public opinion for such a prospect. “They’re watering the turf. The Iranians are not under enough pressure,” the source said.

Israeli officials who spoke to the Independent this week refused to go into details about the possible catastrophic regional fallout from military strikes, although one source said that if they were restricted to Iran’s Natanz facility where its centrifuges are known to be enriching uranium, “there would be headlines in the papers for two days.”

But any military campaign would provoke retaliation by Iran which is expected to reactivate its Hezbollah allies on the border with Israel, who according to officials here have been rearming with missiles since the end of the summer campaign. The 140,000 American troops inside Iraq could be significant targets of the Iranians. Syria could also be drawn into a wider war, although the Israelis believe that both Syria and Russia would remain on the sidelines.

Other questions concern the Bush administration’s appetite for another war, already bogged down in Iraq and facing calls from the Democrat-led Congress for a phased withdrawal.

And the strength of the Israeli armed forces would be further tested after their flawed campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. “The IDF are not as good as they think they are,” said the British source. “It’™s an army of conscripts, commanded by reserve officers. Do you want to send conscripts into a war for the national interest?”

Some analysts say that in any case, miitary strikes would be counter-productive as they would only delay, and not stop, Iran’s nuclear programme.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2183872.ece

Another thought about the oil price … if the United Stupids are going to double their strategic reserve, it would suit them nicely for the Saud tyrants to drive the POO down to help their disgusting buddies out. The topping up starts in 2 months – coinciding interestingly with the usual dip in POG every year.

The ghastly Woolsey goes even further:

“Woolsey also warned that the United States, Israel, and their allies could face an empowered threat if various extremist factions in the region align. “The Wahhabis, al-Qaida, the Vilayat Faqih in Teheran, although often lethally competitive with one another in the way the Nazis and communists were in the 1930s, are capable of unification,” Woolsey said, according to The Jerusalem Post.”

http://washtimes.com/upi/20070123-020613-4695r.htm