Seymour Hersh’s latest piece for The New Yorker, Preparing The Battlefield: The Bush Administration Steps Up Its Secret Moves Against Iran, is a must read…
“Admiral Fallon acknowledged, when I spoke to him in June, that he had heard that there were people in the White House who were upset by his public statements. “Too many people believe you have to be either for or against the Iranians,” he told me. “Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”
You can also visit The New Yorker and listen to an audio presentation of Hersh commenting on US-Iran developments.
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What kind of scared me really was the fact that a similar story could be found in a typical mainstream daily newspaper over here. Protagonists don’t seem to see any need to hide away the plans of war against Iran other than it was before the invasion of Iraq.
According to the article I read today Israel is playing a key role in forcing war plans against Iran. To this very day I haven’t seen any piece of evidence clearly convicting Iran of being working on the bomb or even of doing so explicitely for the reason to destroy Israel. So we are drifting righ into the next huge crime against humanity committed by the “civilized west”. At least that’s how it looks like so far.
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“Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.”
The fact there is any debate in Congress about the credibility of the Bush adminstrations assertions shows just how compromised the US political system has become. In any sane, rational democracy Bush and his people would have been removed long ago.
Probably over a million Iraqis have died as a result of the choices made by Bush and Cheney. Iraq is now divided into three armed camps with little central power and will fall without US backing. Now we’re asked to believe yet again, on less than convincing evidence, that we’re all at significant threat from a country in the GULF region and military action is the only solution? Have people forgotten that these are the same people that told us Saddam was looking for yellowcake uranium for the bomb in 2003 and that Iraqi UAVs carrying anthrax and nerve gas threatened the eastern seaboard. It didn’t really matter that the Iraqis hadn’t been looking to acquire uranium since 1989 or its military lacked the UAVs AND weapons to launch an attack.
The US has and will into the foreseeable future, pose a much greater threat to Iran than vice versa. The US has already overthrown the legal Iranian government and replace it with one that harshly oppressed any opposition setting the stage for the 1978 revolution. It helped turn Saddam into the tyrant he became by giving him some most of the dealiest weapons in the world to attack the Iranians in one of the bloddiest wars of the last century.
When is enough, enough? I think any US politician that supports a US led or backed attack on Iran should be shown the door. Who really owns the US government anyway, the special interests representing the defence and energy sector or the people of the USA?
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Hersh has been crying wolf about Iran for a few years now.
Although, I do feel inclined to point out that the boy who cried wolf was eventually right. And I wouldn’t put it past the Retard King to do something as stupid as turning a population who largely dislikes the mullahs against the United States by appealing to their nationalism after bombing them…
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It’s too bad that a handful of Iranians are making decisions that 80 million people aren’t.
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Quoting zeezul:
It’s much more tragic that a handful of Americans are making decisions that 300 million aren’t.
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Quoting Doug:
True, but both statements are valid.
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Quoting Stephen K:
I couldn’t agree with Doug any less. Oh, the irony of Democracy.
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Quoting Doug:
That is so true that special interest groups run this country. George W. Sr. & Jr. have openly been tied to many oil companies. Michael Moore discussed it in his documentary Fahrenheit 911. It makes you feel so helpless as a citizen as your government destroys your image as a nation. It’s like watching your drunk uncle embarrassing you at every public outing.
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Quoting zeezul:
I tend to agree with you. But it’s a difficult issue. Of course Iran is far away from being a democracy. But I’d say that he was never closer to it than he is today and one should appreciate that in some way. Sure, candidates in iranian elections are preselected but in the end the actual president is elected in a more or less democratic act through the iranian people. And I keep asking myself who we are claiming to have a right to question the decisions made by the iranian people.
It’s not that simple to say there’s a dictatorship in Iran and its people wasn’t involved at all in the politics as Doug did.
I also ask myself what Iran did so bad that it deserves Invasion in the mind of many. Was it Iran that inflicted war and death on other countries and millions of people in the past?? I think this was the policy of other countries. What greater crime do we know than that?
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Ok, I see, I shouldn’t post before 10 in the morning ;)
I mussed up all the quotations… aaarrrgh
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On that, agreed. Iran is not a threat to any of it’s neighbours in the Middle East. It’s government’s crimes are with respect to how it treats its own citizens, and I think it is worthwhile to support pro-democracy movements within Iran.
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…and human rights movements as well.
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“In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.”
Well, who else felt this quote douse that flame of hope that something good will come of the upcoming election? Even if it’s not all the way gone, this is not something that I enjoy hearing.
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Quoting Tuuli22:
Yah, you mixed me up with Zeezul.
I’m much more concerned about the decay of the democratic system in the US and the threat that poses to world peace than I am about Iran. Iran was moving towards a more moderate politcal system when the Bush administration decided to park a sizeable chunk of the US military right next door. There’s no doubt in my mind that a lot of the radicalization of Iran in recent years is a direct result of the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Those who are yelling the loudest about the threat Iran poses are curiously quiet about the continuing threat being posed by the world largest military power. Hypocrisy is alive and well in todays world.
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Quoting Doug:
Yup, I saw. Sorry for that.
Quoting Doug:
I totally agree. It was the same in Iraq. Saddam was certainly a bloody dictator, but never was there a system more secular in Iraq than it was under Saddam. He was an upright opponent of islamism and until the UN came up with the embargo, Iraq was one of the most developped countries in the middle east.
It’s a shame what we did to this country.
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I didn’t have any real sympathy for Saddam, I just don’t see any evidence the US invasion of Iraq had anything to do with freeing the people of the country. In a very real sense the tyranny of Saddam has been replaced with the greater tyranny of foreign control focused on exploiting the oil wealth of Iraq.
Attacking Iran would compound an already disasterous situation.
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Quoting Doug:
Nor do I (have sympathy for Saddam). It’s not so much about the figure that was Saddam, it’s more about a comparison of the systems before and after Iraq was invaded.
I mean, I don’t see the sense in that - declaring war on islamistic terrorism one hand and helping to strengthen it on the other by leading wars that regularly kill thousends if not millions.
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I agree, the war on terror has been used as a front for a expansion into Iraq that was in the planning long before 9/11.
Considering the expense the US went to support Iraq in the war against Iran I also think there is a strong conservative element in the US that is strongly in favour of attacking Iran whatever the justification. Little thought is given to the long term consequences.