I am slapping this down really fast cuz I am really, really, really angry. I will write a fuller blog later I am sure on the Iran and US situation, but I couldn't let this moment pass. Please indulge me.
I caught part of a podcast of Meet the Press. A part where David Gregory sets up Senator Joe Lieberman to "war monger" once again for war with Iran. That part begins at 30:25 if you access the podcast link for Meet the Press before next Sunday 4/11/10.
David Gregory disingenuously asks Senator Lieberman if Lieberman is AFRAID that the US and the West, in general, are DRIFTING to a war with Iran. Drifting to war with Iran? We all know damn well Lieberman is paddling away like crazy to get us there!
Of course Lieberman has already earlier in the show reminded all of us we were attacked on 9/11 and we are at WAR WAR WAR ... but that is when he was talking about ... what was it.... not throwing out the law in dealing with enemy combatants.. but the question was more aptly WHICH LAW should be used with them. That is the question, he said. You mean the real law, Joe, or the jingoistic faux-law that Bush imposed and Obama is following up on? But that is for another blog ... grrrrrr. Anyway, .... back to Iran ....
Lieberman leaps in to say that we are not acting quickly enough, David, as if Gregory does not know damn well how Lieberman views this issue. Inflammatory war-mongering language, sorry I did not transcribe it but it is there, yadda ... yadda ... yadda ... including how it is the LAST CHANCE we are giving Iran and ourselves.
LAST CHANCE????
Drum roll .... (Why do I have the image of a mushroom cloud in my mind?)
More yadda yadda yadda .. but we can count on Congress to get serious .... as Jane Harmon nods vigorously and there is Michael Chertoff. Michael Chertoff? What is he doing there? Didn’t he leave his post?
But then Gregory often likes to ask Greenspan and old timers who f*cked things up to give their expert opinions on what should be done. (I keep thinking I must have an old TV when I see Meet the Press and all these guys back. Did Gregory not get the latest memo with the personnel changes of the Obama administration? I mean, I know some of them are depressing, too, but Gregory likes to recycle the old toxic status quo neocon guard.)
ANYWAY ...
Iraq memories anyone?
I find myself rushing to read Glenn Greenwald as an antidote for all this. Greenwald who reliably, but is one of the very few who does, calls out the war-mongering for what it is. Whether Fox News or the New York Times, etc. After Iraq and Afghanistan, maybe generalized jingoism is not the way to go senators, Congresspeople, disingenuous soft-ball lobbing media anchors, et al. YA THINK????
Mr. Greenwald:
Fox News currently has an article at the top of its website that is headlined: "CIA: Iran Moving Closer to Nuclear Weapon." The report, by DOD and State Department correspondent Justin Fishel, begins with this alarming claim:
A recently published report by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iran is still working on building a nuclear weapon despite some technical setbacks and international resistance -- and the Pentagon say it's still concerned about Iran's ambitions.
But, as blogger George Maschke notes, that statement is categorically false. The actual report, to which the Fox article links and which the DNI was required by Congress to submit, says no such thing. Rather, this is its core finding:
The report says the opposite of Fox's statement that "Iran is still working on building a nuclear weapon." And, of course, the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate which concluded that Iran ceased development of its weapons program has never been rescinded, and even the most hawkish anonymous leaks from inside the intelligence community, when bashing the 2007 NIE, merely claim that analysts "now believe that Iran may well have resumed 'research' on nuclear weapons -- theoretical work on how to design and construct a bomb -- but that Tehran is not engaged in 'development' -- actually trying to build a weapon."
Greenwald has this to say about the war mongering of the New York Times:
Meanwhile, The New York Times' David Sanger -- who is the Judy Miller of Iran when it comes to hyping the "threat" based overwhelmingly, often exclusively, on anonymous sources -- continues his drum beat this week. In an article co-written with William Broad, Sanger warns -- "based on interviews with officials of several governments and international agencies" ("all" of whom "insisted on anonymity") -- that "international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies say they suspect that Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands." But rather than the secret, nefarious scheme which the NYT depicts this as being, these plans for additional sites were publicly announced -- by the Iranian government itself -- many weeks ago.
Greenwald is not refuting that Iran may want to arm itself with a nuclear weapon. It is not IRRATIONAL given US militarism in that part of the world and the desire of having a nuclear weapon to ward off US pre-emptive defensive (oxymoronic) attacks. And I am skating over the concerns of Israel and that dimension, I know, no small issue, but saved for a later blog. Again, I am not leaping in to defend Iran. I am leaping in to say WAF-Minute!!! Okay, America????
Greenwald:
As I've noted before, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Iran wanted a nuclear weapons capability. If anything, it would be irrational for them not to want one. What else would a rational Iranian leader conclude as they look at the U.S. military's having destructively invaded and continuing to occupy two of its neighboring, non-nuclear countries (i.e., being surrounded by an invading American army on both its Eastern and Western borders)? Add to that the fact that barely a day goes by without Western media outlets and various Western elites threatening them with a bombing attack by the U.S. or the Israel (which itself has a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and categorically refuses any inspections or other monitoring). If our goal were to create a world where Iran was incentivized to obtain nuclear weapons, we couldn't do a better job than we're doing now.
Finally, Greenwald stresses how important ACCURATE reporting is on this subject.
A CNN poll from February found that 59% of Americans favor military action against Iran if negotiations over their nuclear program fail (see questions 31-32) -- and that's without the White House even advocating such a step. As the invasion of Iraq demonstrated, the kind of fear-mongering, reckless, and outright false "reporting" we're seeing already -- and have been seeing for awhile -- over Iran's nuclear program poses a far greater danger to the U.S. than anything Iran could do.
So, thanks to Gregory and Lieberman and so many in the war mongering press and Congress, 59% of the population favor military action over Iran if negotiations fail without it being even a very bright twinkle yet in Barack Obama's eye. Great.
Does the American public really know what the negotiations are truly about? What the history is? Why the rush to judgment? Why all this trust? Why not some critical thinking? I know the media is seductive. But come on!!!! This is war we are talking about!!!!
There is 59% of America. 59 f*cking percent!!!!! Ready to trust this government that has looted their tax dollars. Killed off their sons and daughters in combat for years and years and literally millions of innocent civilians in other countries for questionable (a kind word), mega-corporate friendly agendas.
Ready for war with another Mideast country? Really? Down the garden path to another hell ... another quicksand ... mass deaths that all these deciders will be safely away from in their comfortable and important high rise conference rooms, congress chambers, or in front of the cameras on Meet the Press, Fox News, Charlie Rose, et al., playing their egotistical war games as innocent civilians in Iran this time, civilians btw whom they recently professed to admire and care about, die from or be devastated by (not to mention exponentially increasing global anti-Americanism and revenge terrorism) and again, these heartless power wielders risking the young soldier sons and daughters of this country, who will possibly be killed from such war or risk severe physical injury or at the very least psychological scarring for the rest of their lives if they make it through all those deployments now SOP. As Iraq soldiers are launching their FOURTH deployments!!!! Let's play Russian roulette over and over and over with the same chamber with the same people, America.
But hey, we are the United States of Amnesia as Gore Vidal once quipped.
That nice David Gregory. Such a trustworthy face. And Charlie Rose with his talking heads (that wording needs to be reconfigured, Charlie, but I don't have time or respect to do that) ... inevitable war with Iran. Good going guys. We are up to 59% ripening of the American public for another war.
What is that definition of insanity again?
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We're not going to war with Iran.
We're engaging in bluster to move the negotiations down the path and allow everybody on both sides of the fence the latitude they need to get their work done.
Iran has a huge military. We can't take them on like we did Iraq. Getting involved with Iran would be a monstrously large endeavor and no one is interested in that. Not even Lieberman.
"Someone needs to point out that elephants produce infinitely more shit than donkeys." Brad Mays
well, aren't you an anti-war-mongering buzz kill!!!!
Are you applying logic to this situation? Sane thinking?
I think of that movie In the Loop, worth watching. Crony gamesmanship totally bypasses sanity and responsibility.
Well, even if you are right about that, which I hope you are btw, there is 59% of the country, okay with such a decision. I don't know about you, but I find that rather ALARMING!!!!!!!
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. (Japanese proverb)
I'm applying both logic and sane thinking.
And I just watched In The Loop the other night.
We attacked Iraq because we knew that had no ability to defend themselves. As Chris Rock observed, Iraq got jumped. Afghanistan is a similar situation. It may have a reputation as the graveyard of empires, but we aren't setting out at this point to make it part of our empire. Our basic plan involves restoring the pre-Soviet tribal structure and calling it a day.
Iran, however, is a nation that the Democrats have been itching to get into diplomacy with during the entire Bush administration. That's what all that tough talk was about. That's why when Hillary famously told AIPAC that nothing was off the table when it came to Iran (and lots of moronic hysteria followed), she turned around a few paragraphs later and pointed out that it was diplomacy that was off the table (none of the idiots fussing about the former paid any attention to the latter).
But getting diplomacy up and going takes work. We have to do our part to provide the moderates in Iran with both the carrots and sticks that they need to get the hardliners to the table. Or away from the table - whatever the moment is calling for (and you and I probably couldn't find that out if we tried). All of this rhetoric is about creating the moment where the diplomacy can succeed.
We aren't going to attack Iran because they have a major military and our military is too drained and broken to deal with an army that size. Bush came into office with a freshly refurbished military that had only a few minor ventures over the previous eight years - they were itchin' to go to war. Now, the military is itchin' to come home. No one in the Pentagon, except a few really delusional Christians, is interested in taking on Iran now.
"Someone needs to point out that elephants produce infinitely more shit than donkeys." Brad Mays
basement... thanks... will reread this and ponder ...
.. but it sure feels like the same garden path MO.
And if they are playing bluff poker staking WAR ... well, ... what can you say? They ARE delusional and dangerous and whether intended or unintended consequences, we are all screwed. Look at how they decided after regime change in Iraq which was not a legal reason for war and the BIG LIE, they expected hearts and flowers while they raped the land's oil. It was to be a cheap, quick war they assured everyone all because of 9/11 and they got a whole country to attribute 9/11 to the wrong leader, the wrong country.
Afghanistan asked for some evidence that bin Laden was guilty of 9/11 before handing him over to authorities which they were willing to work on and Bush decided to bomb away in Afghanistan for that uppity impertinence. They were ready to deal with it as a criminal matter, but no, that would have slowed down the agenda of the new world order. And so look at how that unfolded. It is heartbreaking and mind boggling and yet we all learn nothing, well, not nothing... learned helplessness... American learned helplessness ... we shut down instead of waking up.
By the way, I was being droll, meaning if you were applying logic and sane thinking ... as to what the military is planning ... well, I don't think they apply those things. You know, the SNAFU attribution. It wasn't a shot at you, but military and political group think.
Didn't you appreciate In the Loop, btw?
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. (Japanese proverb)
Not a matter of if, but when
As your 59% number shows, the important groundwork has already been laid. The "negotiations" are designed to fail. And while the attack may not happen under Obama, it will happen...similarly to how Clinton primed the pump for Bush's invasion of Iraq. An empire ebbing has few choices besides attempting to assert its dominance through military adventurism.
There may never be ground troops...though we're probably still spending a few hundred million every year to destabilize the Iranian government, allying with terrorist organizations inside Iran and running covert operations on Iranian soil...we will attempt to prove our global dominance through America's method of choice: air strikes.
If operations in Afghanistan and Iraq hadn't been flubbed so badly, we'd probably already be in Iran. War is all we've got at this point, and there's a broad, bi-partisan consensus in favor of it.
But Iran will go worse than either of our two current wars (and we'll just discount Somalia, The Yemen, etc. since most Americans don't even know that US troops are fighting in those places too).
“Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask anything of them” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Versailles will keep doubling down ...
.... until there's nothing left (of ours) to lose.
I'm afraid that means they'll take us to war with Iran. Or maybe they'll get Israel to do the first strike, and then set up some sort of cordon sanitaire. After all, we've got all those bases in Iraq; use 'em or lose 'em!
After getting China's OK (but not Russia's, since it's a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to Russia).
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
I don't think that we ourselves will do much in Iran...
but Joe Biden did say several months ago that basically, if Iran did develop the capacity to have nuclear weapons, then America wouldn't stop Israel from destroying them.
Of course, that nutjob Achmadinnerjacket isn't helping matters much with his Holocaust denial and averrances that all Jews should be wiped off the planet. I dunno - all we need is some convenient excuse that the Israeli people will believe, and I think Netanyahu will take action.
That's why the neocons support Israel - because it's their foothold to glory and conquest in the Middle East. Imagine all that Iranian oil in their grasp! AIPAC is just a convenient excuse for the American Empire's warmongering and lust for disappearing natural resources.
Never vote for people who hate you.
ERA Now!
The Widdershins
You know,
Ahmadinejad never said those things. He is a rhetorical loose cannon, but those are purposeful mistranslations that you're repeating.
“Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask anything of them” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
We won't get China's OK
There's too much trade between China and Iran. And China, Iran and Russia are all working in some degree of concert on natural gas (which is what Iran really has a lot of).
That's why we can't get the sanctions regime that we want, China won't go for it. The planned embargo is, btw, an act of war in and of itself.
And Israel can't do anything about Iran without significant help from us. There's flyover privileges for one. But the larger reason is that Iran would kick the living shit out of Israel...the IDF hasn't looked so good the last few times out. I'd bet on Hezbollah, especially if Iran stopped being so surreptitious about its support.
I haven't looked into the sale of first rate air defense batteries to Iran from Russia lately, but there's that too.
And for all this, we will give it a go at some point.
“Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask anything of them” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The 59% statistic is alarming...
One can only hope that that it is false. However, if it is correct, isn't it interesting that statistically speaking the same people who criticize the cost of the HCR
are willing to waste another trillion blowing sh*t up.... priceless...
- The Mayberry Lane
thanks 4 feedback ... but can't we make it stop????
I mean after I blogged, before I went back and edited with more exclamation points basement angel was assuring me there would be no war. I had all this adrenalin and excitement but in a way I was hoping maybe she is right or maybe it is just my tv set, or my alarmism, and the media weren't being as shallow, disinforming and war mongering on everybody else's sets.
I wanted as Rachel asked her guests to "talk her down." Maybe wink wink it was all posturing and bluster to hasten peace. NOT. (I do recommend that movie In the Loop btw, it was only around for a minute, but it was about the Brits and US getting ready to con UN about Iraq ... and it is a galloping movie and funny and then you realize no one is talking about what happens in war!!!! everyone addicted to pr game ... and even incompetent at that)
This is like the movie Ground Hog Day. When will America get it right? The same scenario, except the price tag of obtuseness of our population, mind you when our population is even respectably awake, like 60% of us actually wanting universal health care, that is sure no guarantee majority of citizens rules any more. That ship sure sailed if it ever really existed. Yes Mayberry... I noted that 59% and thought ... wow... what is wrong with so many of us. Wise enough for the health care, idiotic about war. But the neocon corporate leadership will do what it needs to do, even if they haven't adequately conned us to believe it is what we want.
America's karma now coming home to roost as our government and avaricious international mega-corporations can now burn the working class and middle class in terms of jobs and the profit making from outsourcing and inhumane exploitation of workers. The gated community of exceptionalism is shrinking.. .and nationalism which protected us partially enough to survive isn't offering us that minimal security even. We are steadily being treated by those in power the same way this nation has treated non-elites, and stand up morally awake innocents in other countries ... with cruelty or at best indifference.
My last job was outsourced to India, but soon after the Indians got burned and it went to Philippines cuz labor was even cheaper there.
We export all that weaponry. We are so big and strong. Let's really destabilize the whole world. And we work with oppressive regimes. We enable opium crops (lets not even consider what the ripple devastation of that drug really is in terms of humanity ... ) and ruin the environment for people growing other saner crops, cuz we are a nation led by amoral pragmatists who don't seriously give a sh*t about human lives, whether our own even, 45,000 Americans die prematurely each year from inadequate health care but was that a factor in a humanitarian regard for giving us what every other industrial nation enjoys, health care as a civil and human right for every citizen, and take away all the grotesque profit-making and it would be two times at least cheaper... but having devastated so many lives, killed so many civilians around the globe, no one is even counting seriously any more, not that the press ever bothers to mention this dark stuff.
Tiger Woods resurfaces today. So that is the bright shiny object for America and the media.
madamab, right you are. oil, oil, oil... I didn't even mention that, did I? Cheney circled the MidEast on the map long ago when war was certainly a bright sparkle in his eye and the new world order was given a big old tidal wave of advancement.
callowness of this country. I mean Wag the Dog, but not much wit or subtlety. The short hand. Bring up 9/11 as blanket buzzword excuse for anything. Illegal laws. Illegal wars. Polite David Gregory asked the trigger question and wound up Lieberman goes on and on and on... with a smirky, reassuring smile and pattering whine about what we must do. Uninterrupted. Such respect for such vile, anti-civilization intentions.
Yes, Gregory sat there as Lieberman smiled and crooned out urgency and touched all the neocon bases. It wasn't even well done, the kabuki... yadda yadda yadda ... war mentioned as if it is SOP, which it is.... I see the blog "war addicts" here and must read.
What can we do to stop the insanity??? I mean I know people are trying. But the magic box is hypnotic. The military industrial complex. Patriarchal power and control.
Keep everyone economically devastated and that oughta distract and disempower any of 'em wanting to give the rich psychopaths trouble about killing and raping and robbing..
And all this prep work so if war happens ... Americans from their fog will remember.. oh yeah.. they talked about that on the tube... yeah.. that is right... iran... war... yeah... they tried to tell us about it, I guess, and all the authoritarians on tv and in the government think it is the thing to do... .. I guess it must be.
And all those military bases, lambert. You said use them or lose them and it gave me a dark chill. We build billion dollar embassies, we call them embassies, but is it baghdad it is the size of maybe 40 football fields? That isn't an embassy. That is a ... an... well, a permanent outpost... a military outpost. In the middle of a culture which we have devastated. And the people may not have clean water or lights, but that "embassy" will maybe cuz the taxpaying money went to the corrupt contractors who have to make it nice for the cronies who overpaid them, right, and the foreign carpetbaggers who must stay there to rape all the oil rights and resources from the indigenous people? And if the troops or security mercenaries or our new corrupt cronies we set up to run things get frisky and decide to rape the women or men or children ... well ... what happens in the Middle-east in terms of US transgressions stays there. Cronyism and corruption. and all that money spent for luxury accommodations for foreign corporatists and overpaid consultants ... and re accommodations for the lowly troops, then the work can be shitty and they just take the money and run, who cares about electrocutions, etc. Profit uber alles.
And if too many Americans are upset about US casualties, you are right, lex, the drone is the celebrity weapon now. So maybe we commit war more and more like it is a video game ... what a dark world. Quoting Rachel again, who is also on my shit list for ignoring the serious left, "what an ethical freakshow of a universe." No argument.
Gotta go. Where did I put that black arm band??? Geeeez.
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. (Japanese proverb)
Make no mistake
Both sides of the American political divide are pushing for war with Iran, over an issue that Iran denies and there is no proof that Iran's lying about its denial.
Clearly, Iran would like the technology to build a nuclear weapon. There are two reasons: regional power issues and deterring a US/Israeli invasion. But aside from the fact that Iran is a signatory of the NNPT, there's no reason why it can't build a nuclear weapon. The NPT angle is brought up a lot by editorialists on the American left as a reason to push Iran, but that requires discounting US behavior in withdrawing from, ignoring and refusing to ratify treaties. (ABM, Geneva, Cluster munitions and line mines)
Look carefully at how the "negotiations" with Iran have gone...especially after Obama came to power. We "offer" conditions that Iran would be foolish to accept. It's a classic gambit of US foreign policy because so few Americans pay close enough attention to foreign affairs. We offer, they refuse, we paint them as evil for refusing to negotiate. The fuel swap fell apart because of us; because Iran agreed to it so long as it handed over its share at the same time it got the refined fuel. We wanted it structured so there'd be a time where none of the fuel was on Iranian soil. Would you agree to that? (there were other shenanigans too)
Most of our "evidence" - which we won't show to anyone - is generally figured to be a mass of forgeries by careful analysts...at least from what they've seen.
And then there's the "Green Revolution". Dig around among the other "color" revolutions of the last decade. Our covert fingerprints are all over them. And the classic method is that the destabilizing candidate declares fraud before any votes have been counted, which is exactly what happened in Iran. (Look, i'm not saying that there wasn't fraud, but again, are we going to hold other nations to standards that we don't bother with? And if so, the question must be "why?") We all saw the protests because the media made a conscious decision to broadcast them, but those protests were confined - geographically and by class lines.
We hear how the "moderates" need to be supported in Iran. But the Iranian moderates are all for Iran's nuclear program too.
And never mind documented US support for listed terrorist organizations in Balochistan. Also, be prepared for the day that history books write about how the US flooded Iran with Afghan heroin (Iran has one of the largest heroin addict populations in the world) during our stay in Afghanistan.
I'll repeat. It's when, not if. Iran sits in a strategic location. It has petroleum reserves. But the biggest reason of all is that it refuses to do what the hegemon tells it to do, and it can create all sorts of problems in our new colonies.
We will not send in ground forces, at least not right away...and discounting covert/special operations units. We'll do our normal bomb and run routine, in conjunction with Israel. It won't be tomorrow or the next day, but make no mistake: the war drums are beating and they won't be silenced. Everyone's on board. Laying the groundwork is the Dems' job right now, and when it comes to the Empire, there is no disagreement between the parties.
Also, building Iran as a regional threat is great for the American arms business. Seen some of the latest sales to Gulf regimes far less democratic than Iran? All on the back of the great Iranian threat.
“Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask anything of them” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
lex, again, thanks for such wisdom and background! chilling....
lex, sorry I didn't get to respond sooner!
I nodded my way and also learned all the way through your explanations. I remember being so angry when bipartisan Senate/Congressional top group gave away $400 million for destabilizing Iran -- Sy Hersh let it out. Bushco had Dem help for sure.
Can we not stop this horrible momentum? And US plays with all the aces it seems, re demonisation with a low-informed public still.
I just heard on NPR that dangerous back surgery is way up even though the general medical consensus is that this surgery is dangerous and unnecessary. But three reasons they said: doctors who really believe in it, doctors who want the money for that juicy 8 hour operation, and the last... the manufacturers of screws and medical equipment for the dangerous operations are pressuring amorally the doctors to use their products for a win/win scenario.. screw the patient literally and figuratively with their expensive screws for the back... which they say increase the chances of stroke and heart attack and life altering other physical probs if one survives operation. I remember Miller's All My Son's play. Wow. Miller had it nailed. The cravenness of a human being, the potential for cravenness.
btw, information clearing house picked up this anti-war blog though they put it under libby liberal not libbyliberal (there is a libby liberal somewhere out there), but it was a rush personally and also it means the message spreads. Truth ripples back to others and against ruthless power.
To be continued, my friend.
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. (Japanese proverb)