Unravelling The US Political-Military Paradox

March 29, 2007

By Jim Kirwan

What got us into this nightmare was a lengthy string of mega-lies that originated within the twisted plans of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, back in the 1970’s. The U.S. presidents that have come and gone since then, have each played their part, in bringing us kicking and screaming to this decision point. There are several major parallax-views that have led the public to misunderstand and misinterpret the political events and military actions in the Middle-East: Actions that have kept our invasions going, and that now threaten to up-end the world—if these lies are allowed to serve, yet again; for another cover-story that can only end in chaos!

The November elections set the stage for this final confrontation between the desires of the public and the needs of the Outlaws: when it comes to funding and perpetuating our illegal and unilateral military responses to circumstances and to the control of those powers and resources that have become the global stance which has always underpinned the players in their intrigues in the Middle-East. Many nations now are involved to the point of self-extermination in the literal outcomes of how our continued presence there is handled.

It has taken almost forty years to get to the point where the United States government could be reduced from a single government consisting of three branches—to a cabal that has absolute power and that speaks for not only the other two branches, but who is totally opposed to the preferences and the well-being of the people of the United States as well!

One indication of this paradox is the recent behavior of Nancy Pelosi, in her capacity as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war; and her hands will always have the bloodstains of millions of lives upon them – so long as she lives!

“For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran. "'It would take away perhaps the most important tool the U.S. has when it comes to Iran,' she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"'I don't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize in a civilized way,' said Gary Ackerman of New York." According to John Nichols of The Nation, Pelosi's decision to strip the provision barring Bush from attacking Iran without Congress' approval "sends the worst possible signal to the White House."

"The speaker has erred dangerously and dramatically," writes Nichols. Her "disastrous misstep could haunt her and the Congress for years to come." Nichols does not exaggerate.

If Bush now launches war on Iran, he can credibly say Congress and the Democrats gave him a green light. For Pelosi, by removing a provision saying Bush does not have the authority, de facto concedes he does have the authority. Bush and Cheney need now not worry about Congress. They have been flashed the go-sign for war on Iran.

Nothing in the provision would have prevented Bush, as commander in chief, from responding to an Iranian attack or engaging in hot pursuit of an enemy found in Iraq. Nor would the provision have prevented Bush from threatening Iran. It would simply have required him to come to Congress -- before launching all-out war. Now Pelosi has, in effect, ceded Bush carte blanche to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. It's all up to him and Cheney.” (1)

The Second Indication that something is dangerously amiss – are the numbers in the surge. The original demand was for 21,000. That number has since been added to, twice; and now it looks more like 40,000 total. There was never any attempt to comply with the wishes of the electorate or the congress, because the Decider acted immediately upon the announcement of his stated decision – as though no approval was required, from either the people or the congress: This, despite the fact that the public, the congress, and the world had all registered strong disapproval for his plans from the moment he announced them. If The Decider is determined to ‘act as a president and not a Dictator—he has a direct obligation to respond to obvious opposition, with something besides contempt!

But that’s only a sideshow: The real point is how these ‘surged’ troops will now be used. The Decider says they will be assigned to Baghdad. But it’s far more likely that these are the same troops that a Russian Satellite has just spotted, massing along the Iran border with Iraq—troops that will now be used to pre-emptively invade Iran. (2) Bush is lying to the world one more time, to create yet another WAR-Without-Reason: except of course to keep him, his friends, and his supporters out of jail and still in office—until he can disappear into Paraguay, without a backward glance. He’s lied to the world so many times before, what’s one-more-LIE, when the world has apparently swallowed so many of his lies already?

The Third Indication is the immediate reactions by those in the area, to what is obviously about to be. There were supposed to be US war games taking place yesterday and today in the Gulf: last night the media had “film at eleven” of two US aircraft carriers conducting war-games just beyond the territorial limits of Iran, in the Gulf. An Iranian Admiral has just denied that any such actions ever happened. (3) The Brits are also making warlike noises over the detention of 15 British Sailors and Marines, captured by Iran, in what Iran claims were Iranian waters. Tony Blair says otherwise and is demanding their release. So now there are two clay pigeons sitting outside or inside Iran either or both of which can be used as the next “Tonkin Gulf incident” for Iran.

The Fourth Paradox is perhaps the most complex and dangerous element: yet in an ironic twist of potentials, this one may just offer a possible way out, if it doesn’t become the actual reason to launch this operation—for in the twisted minds of the rabid American and Israeli war-mongers they absolutely want these new wars to happen!

“DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: The president of the United Arab Emirates forbade the U.S. military from using bases in his country to attack or spy on Iran as mammoth U.S. Navy maneuvers in the Gulf entered their second day. Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who leads this key U.S. ally, said Tuesday that the Emirates had assured Iran that it was not siding with Washington in its dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

Leaders of Arab nations around the Gulf have grown increasingly uneasy with the tough U.S. stance toward Iran, believing any outbreak of war would bring Iranian retaliation on their own soil, which lies in easy reach of Iranian missiles. On Wednesday, the U.S. Navy continued its largest show of force in the Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with 15 ships, 125 aircraft and 13,000 sailors taking part in an exercise that veered within a few dozen miles of Iran's coast.” (4) However it should be noted that Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey, along with a host of other states would also be drawn, one way or another, into any new war on Iran.

“The Russians and the Chinese for their part are also concerned, beyond their strictly commercial interests in that nation. “Russia's Foreign Ministry has sharply criticized the United States for what it called over-reliance on force and warned Washington against military action against Iran, The Associated Press reported. Russia criticized what it called "the creeping American strategy of dragging the global community into a large-scale crisis around Iran," saying that Tehran helps maintain stability in Afghanistan and Central Asia.” In an already scrubbed report, Russian and China had also warned the US that Washington must sit down at the table with Iran and solve this dilemma diplomatically. Simultaneously they also told Iran that they needed to back down from their hard line position on developing nuclear facilities. It would appear that these two major nuclear powers want this stand-off defanged, so that the world can return to that time before the USA began to behave like the Hulk-of-all-Superpowers that has become overly enchanted with their own purely-macho approach to international affairs.

This is the totality of what’s on the table now, and thanks to Nancy Pelosi, there is no congressional way to stop the Bushwhackers from shattering the Middle-East—like the proverbial Piñata that floats above the banquet-table of the war-mongers—drooling over the ‘possibilities’ that await their next and perhaps final move to empower Israel, and to capture the entire Middle-East, for the Corporatocracy and the Oil, in a bold and savage move.

The only final Paradox that remains, is that in all of this American Military planners have failed to account for what they may actually face with this new attack—exactly as they did when Rummy ran his dog & pony show into Baghdad in 2003. No matter how many times the lies of this administration are repeated—it does not make them true! As the intensity of the bloodlust in their greed does not insure success; so too the half-hearted assessments of the defense of Iran, will not change the outcomes of the trajectories of Iranian missiles one iota. If this misguided and criminal attack gets underway—at any time—the world will suffer for this crime: for decades to come if any of us survive at all. Congress is now irrelevant—again—but the rest of the planet is apparently awakening to the reality that now threatened people everywhere. Why not add your voice to those of the other peoples that oppose this Nightmare NOW! (6)

kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net

1) The AIPAC Girl, Nancy Pelosi Leaves Iran War in Bush/Cheney Hands

http://www.postchronicle.com:80/commentary/article_21270952.shtml

2) Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html

3) Iran Admiral – US War Games Claims – False

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=4137&sectionid=3510101

4) Gulf Arabs distance themselves from U.S. Treats against Iran

http://www.iht.com:80/articles/ap/2007/03/28/africa/ME-GEN-Arabs-US-Iran.php

5) Easter Surprise Attack on Iran, new 9/11. . . Or Worse

http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com:80/node/1052

6) Accept Peace or Face War, Israel told

http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/03/accept-peace-plan-or-face-war-israel.html

Navy boats 'ambushed' in Iraqi water

Navy boats 'ambushed' in Iraqi water

Posted Mar 28, 2007 09:54 AM PST
Category: COVER-UP/DECEPTIONS

Okay folks, I am calling BULL BISCUITS on this one, and here is the reason.

Why would Iran attack British ships in Iraqi waters? Iran knows such an act would be the very justification to invade that the US and UK are looking for. Iran knows the US and UK and trying to provoke them. Iran does not want an invasion, therefore Iran would avoid confrontations.

The US and UK, on the other hand, DO want confrontations. They WANT a reason to invade. They are looking for and creating any and all situations that they can use as an excuse to invade.

So, who gets what they want in a border dispute? Who WANTS war?

Truth is the first casualty in war and in watching the mainstream media trying to assure us that Iran "ambushed" (on the water???) Great Britain in Iraqi waters, I am reminded of last summer when that same mainstream media was just as insistent that IsraPublishel's soldiers had been "kidnapped" by Lebanon inside Israel. Later, of course, it came out that the Israeli soldiers had been well inside Lebanon at the time of their capture.

One more thing. How lucky for the media that they had a video interview of Faye Turney to show on TV, taped just before her "capture."

By Mike Rivero

Easter Surprise: Attack on Iran, New 9/11… or Worse

March 28, 2006

By Heather Wokusch
heather@heatherwokusch.com

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." – George W. Bush, September 2002

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous... Having said that, all options are on the table." - George W. Bush, February 2005

The Bush administration continues moving closer to a nuclear attack on Iran, and we ignore the obvious buildup at our peril.

Russian media are sounding alarms. In February, ultra-nationalist leader Vladimir Shirinovsky warned that the US would launch a strike against Tehran at the end of this month. Then last week, the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti (RIA-Novosti) quoted military experts predicting the US will attack Iran on April 6th, Good Friday. According to RIA-Novosti, the imminent assault will target Iranian air and naval defense capabilities, armed forces headquarters as well as key economic assets and administration headquarters. Massive air strikes will be deployed, possibly tactical nuclear weapons as well, and the Bush administration will attempt to exploit the resulting chaos and political unrest by installing a pro-US government.

Sound familiar? It’s Iraq déjà vu all over again, and we know how well that war has gone.

Seymour Hersh has published numerous articles in The New Yorker detailing the Bush administration’s plans to invade Iran. His latest, "The Redirection," discusses US participation in Iran-based clandestine operations, the kidnapping of hundreds of Iranians (including many "humanitarian and aid workers") by US forces and the shocking revelation that an Iran-Contra-type scandal has been run out of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office with some of the illicit funds going to groups "sympathetic to al-Qaeda."

"The Redirection" also reports that the Pentagon has been planning to bomb Iran for a year and that a recently-established group connected to the Joint Chiefs of Staff is formulating a assault strategy to be implemented "upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours." Hersh notes that current capabilities "allow for an attack order this spring," possibly when four US aircraft-carrier battle groups are scheduled to be in the Persian Gulf simultaneously.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Congress busies itself with non-binding, timid resolutions on Iraq and recently altered a military-funding bill to make it easier for Bush to invade Iran. As Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) explained, language demanding that Bush seek congressional approval before attacking Iran "would take away perhaps the most important negotiating tool that the U.S. has when it comes to Iran."

Such sheer ignorance and blind denial would be laughable if it weren’t marching us into Armageddon.

But with this Administration (and this Congress, apparently) diplomacy be damned.

It’s now widely known that Iran had broached peace talks with the US in 2003 - Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice admitted as much in 2006 when she said, "what the Iranians wanted earlier was to be one-on-one with the United States." Yet the White House rejected Tehran’s overture outright and Rice has since developed selective amnesia, later saying of the Iranian proposal, "I don’t remember seeing any such thing. "

For its part, the UN Security Council recently tightened sanctions aimed at pressuring Iran to cease uranium enrichment, and in response, Iran announced it would cooperate less with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It’s worth noting that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and says that its program falls under the legally permitted right to "peacefully use nuclear technology." In contrast, Israel has neither signed nor ratified the NPT and the US would breach the Treaty by conducting a nuclear attack against Iran.

Besides, the Bush administration's message to its enemies has been very clear: if you possess WMD you're safe, and if you don't, you're fair game. Iraq had no nuclear weapons and was invaded, Iran doesn't as well and risks attack, yet that other "Axis of Evil" country, North Korea, reportedly does have nuclear weapons and is left alone. When considering that India and Pakistan (and presumably Israel) developed secret nuclear weapons programs yet remain on good terms with Washington, the case for war becomes even more tenuous.

What consequences would arise from a US attack on Iran? Retaliation, for one. Tehran promised a "crushing response" to any US or Israeli assault, and while the country - ironically - doesn't possess nuclear weapons to scare off attackers, it does have other options. Iran boasts a standing army estimated at 450,000 personnel, as well as long-range missiles that could hit Israel and possibly even Europe. In addition, much of the world's oil supply is transported through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow stretch of water which Iran borders to the north. In 1997, Iran's deputy foreign minister warned that the country might close off that shipping route if ever threatened, and it wouldn't be difficult. Just a few missiles or gunboats could bring down vessels and block the Strait, thereby threatening the global oil supply and shooting the price of crude oil to over $100 a barrel, with untold
negative consequences for the world economy.

An attack on Iran would also inflame tensions in the Middle East, and could tip the scales towards a new geopolitical balance, one in which the US finds itself shut out by Russia, China, Iran, Muslim countries and the many others Bush has managed to alienate during his period in office.

The most horrific impact of a US assault on Iran, of course, would be the potentially catastrophic number of casualties. The Oxford Research Group predicted that up to 10,000 people would die if the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites, and that an attack on the Bushehr nuclear reactor could send a radioactive cloud over the Gulf. If the US uses nuclear weapons, such as earth-penetrating "bunker buster" bombs, radioactive fallout would become even more disastrous.

The devastating implications of a US strike on Iran are clear. And that begs the question: how could the US public be convinced to enter another potentially ugly and protracted war?
Former CIA Officer Philip Giraldi chillingly noted that the Pentagon's plans to attack Iran were drawn up "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States." Writing in The American Conservative in August 2005, Giraldi added, "The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites ... As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States."

Chew on that one a minute. The Pentagon's plan would be in response to a terrorist attack on the US, but not contingent upon Iran actually having been responsible. How outlandish is this scenario: another 9/11 hits the US, the administration says it has secret information implicating Iran, the US population demands retribution and bombs start dropping on Tehran.

While even contemplating another 9/11 brings shudders, it’s worth noting that last year, Congress quietly approved provisions making it easier for the President to declare federal martial law after a domestic terrorist incident. And recall that in late 2003, General Tommy Franks openly speculated on how a new 9/11 could lead to a military form of government: "a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution."

Meanwhile, Iran conducted wargames in the Persian Gulf last week and just yesterday, the US Navy began its largest maneuvers in the region since the 2003 Iraq invasion, complete with over 100 US warplanes and 10,000 personnel.

The clock is ticking, and there’s far too much at stake.

If you’re from the US, contact your Senators today and ask them to support the Webb amendment prohibiting the Administration from attacking Iran without congressional approval. Tell them to support the Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) bill making it harder for Bush to declare martial law and take over the National Guard, and while you’re at it, tell your Senators to only fund troop withdrawal and to bring the troops home. Thank those Congress members who voted against more war funding.

We could be looking at WWIII. The time for positive action is now.

Persian Gulf of Tonkin Incident

February 26, 2007 Issue
Copyright © 2006 The American Conservative

Spoiling for another fight, the United States may try to provoke Iran.

by Leon Hadar

The Iraq War has produced many, sometimes contradictory, historical analogies, ranging from Munich to the fall of Saigon, as pundits highlight their dubious relevance to Mesopotamia.

Following President Bush’s Jan. 11 speech on U.S. policy in Iraq, in which he accused Tehran of meddling and threatened to “interrupt” the flow of support to Iraqi insurgents, Sen. Chuck Hagel added a new analogy: Nixon’s decision to expand the war in Vietnam into Cambodia as part of a strategy to “interrupt” the flow of support to those other insurgents, the National Liberation Front, from sanctuaries along Cambodia’s eastern border.

“[O]nce you get to hot pursuit, no one can say we won’t engage across border,” Hagel told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “Some of us remember 1970 and Cambodia, and our government lied to us and said we didn’t cross the border,” he said. “When you set in motion the kind of policy the president is talking about here, it is very, very dangerous.”

But Cambodia was never a regional power in Southeast Asia in the way that Iran is today. Like North Vietnam’s anti-U.S. strategy in South Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s, Iran has the military power and policy influence to disrupt U.S. policies in neighboring Iraq, with the Shi’ite militias it supports playing a similar role to that of the Vietcong in South Vietnam.

Thus the correct historical analogy may not be Nixon’s secret air campaign and incursions into Cambodia, but the Tonkin Gulf incident—the alleged pair of attacks by North Vietnamese naval forces against American destroyers that President Lyndon B. Johnson used to win public support and congressional approval for escalating the confrontation with North Vietnam.

For years, the U.S. government asserted that the Americans had done nothing to provoke a naval engagement in the Tonkin Gulf. In fact, the Johnson administration argued that it acted with restraint by refusing to respond to the first attack on Aug. 2, 1964, and retaliated only after North Vietnam made a second attack two days later. But recent research, based among other things on declassified signal intercepts as well as personal recollections, suggests that the second attack probably didn’t take place and that the first was provoked by covert U.S. action against North Vietnam.

According to respected military historian and Vietnam expert John Prados, the U.S. had been pursuing a program of covert naval commando attacks since January 1964 to pressure Hanoi to stop sponsoring operations in South Vietnam. Prados, who as a fellow with the National Security Archive at The George Washington University studied many declassified intercepts, White House tapes, and other documents related to the Tonkin Gulf incident, has concluded that contrary to the Johnson administration’s characterization of the Tonkin Gulf incident—that an American warship simply happened to be cruising in the Gulf to exert a U.S. presence—“the naval battle between the destroyer USS Maddox and several North Vietnamese torpedo boats occurred on August 2, 1964, in the immediate aftermath of a series of 34-A maritime raids on North Vietnamese coastal targets,” including two offshore islands. When Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara briefed U.S. lawmakers on the incident, however, he asserted that the raids on North Vietnam were South Vietnamese naval missions and had nothing to do with the United States, Prados reports.

But the major challenge to the official version of the Tonkin Gulf incident has focused on another question: did a second attack on U.S. warships occur on the night of Aug. 4? In the aftermath of the naval battle of Aug. 2, President Johnson ordered a second U.S. destroyer, the USS C. Turner Joy, to join the Maddox and sail to the Gulf of Tonkin. On the night of Aug. 4, both ships reported that they were coming under attack again and sent messages reporting contacts with the enemy. It was after that alleged second attack that President Johnson ordered retaliatory bombing and asked for the congressional resolution, which passed on Aug. 7.

But the certainty of the second attack was never as clear as the first. “The supposed surface action took place at night and in poor weather,” Prados recalls. “The skipper and four seamen aboard the C. Turner Joy variously claimed having seen a searchlight, boat cockpit lights, smoke at a location where they claimed their gunfire had hit a Vietnamese vessel in the water, and one, or perhaps two, torpedo wakes.” But no physical evidence such as wreckage, bodies, or photographs from Aug. 4 were ever discovered.

Indeed, the documents and transcripts that have been released by the National Security Agency and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum tend to support the consensus among researchers that the “second attack” never happened. Retired Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, meeting with McNamara in 1995, categorically denied that Vietnamese gunboats attacked American destroyers on Aug. 4, while admitting to the attack on Aug. 2. Furthermore, on Oct. 31, 2005, the New York Times reported that according to a classified finding, NSA historian Robert J. Hanyok concluded in 2001 that North Vietnamese intercepts were falsified and evidence skewed, if not for political motives, to cover translation mistakes.

Historians will continue to debate whether policymakers were aware that intelligence reports about the incidents were incomplete—Johnson is said to have told Undersecretary of State George Ball, “Hell, those dumb, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish”—or whether the administration believed it was providing Congress with accurate information. What is certain, however, is that the Johnson and his advisers wanted military action against Hanoi and used the incident as a pretext to seek a resolution approving the use of force and creating legal justification for full-blown war.

Critics of the Bush administration have invoked Tonkin before, accusing the White House of citing flawed intelligence about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and then trying to cover-up these political and bureaucratic machinations. And as is the case with the Tonkin Gulf incident, we will probably have to wait for the declassification of government documents before we find out whether President Bush and his advisers were aware that their allegations were based on questionable evidence.

But as storm clouds gather over the Persian Gulf, those who studied the administration’s modus operandi in the period leading to the ouster of Saddam Hussein are wondering whether the White House is again manipulating evidence to create the conditions for a U.S. military confrontation.

The new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, has sharply criticized the administration’s increasingly combative stance, telling the New York Times that efforts to portray Iran as a growing threat are uncomfortably reminiscent of rhetoric about Iraq before the American invasion. He warned that the administration is building a case even as intelligence agencies still know little about either Iran’s internal dynamics or its intentions in the Middle East. “To be quite honest, I’m a little concerned that it’s Iraq again,” the senator said. “This whole concept of moving against Iran is bizarre.”

At the same time, the decision by the Bush administration to appoint Adm. William Fallon to oversee military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has raised red flags among observers in Washington. Why choose a navy admiral to lead two ground wars in the Middle East and South Asia unless you are expecting an “incident” that would trigger a military confrontation with Iran? If that happened, Iran would retaliate by attacking oil platforms and tankers, closing the Strait of Hormuz, and perhaps hitting oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia; the U.S. Navy would then play a key role in protecting the oil flowing from the Persian Gulf.

The Bush administration’s decision to dispatch a second carrier group to the Persian Gulf—the USS John C. Stennis —to back up the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, marking the first time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 that the U.S. has had two carrier battle groups in the Gulf, raises more concern, as did President Bush’s authorization of American forces in Iraq to pursue Iranian operatives involved in aiding insurgents.

Those like Rockefeller who suspect that the administration is gearing up for war against Iran through a campaign of disinformation could also point to recent media reports that the U.S. is investigating possible Iranian involvement in an attack that killed five American soldiers in Karbala, as well as the continuing barrage of statements by top administration officials accusing Iran of meddling in Iraq.

At the Senate confirmation hearing for his nomination to be deputy secretary of state, intelligence chief John Negroponte said, “Iran has been emboldened in its behavior during the past couple of years and has played a more assertive role and that certainly manifests itself in Iraq, where we have increasing evidence that they have been providing lethal assistance to extremist Shia groups in that country.” Like other officials, Negroponte has downplayed the notion that the U.S. is using “gun diplomacy” to deal with Iran and suggests that Washington is just trying, in the aftermath of setbacks in Iraq, to reassert its position in the Persian Gulf.

But Sen. Barack Obama warned during a hearing against drifting into hostilities with Iran: “You’ve got a policy that appears to be purposely somewhat ambiguous in terms of how the administration is going to pursue Iranians who are on Iraqi soil. This has led to grave concern on the part of many observers that we are stumbling into a more aggressive posture ...”

If the past is any guide, we may less stumble than step—while claiming to have been pushed. You say “Persian Gulf,” I say “Tonkin Gulf.” Let’s go to war.
_______________________________________

Leon Hadar is a Cato Institute research fellow in foreign-policy studies and author, most recently, of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East.

Repeating History

Feb 22, 2007

By Robert Fantina
bfantina@gmail.com


No exit strategy; violent resistance by the occupied nation's citizens; opposition to the war in the United States; international anger at the U.S. because of the war; the American economy being decimated by the war; escalating casualties; presidential refusal to recognize mistakes: all of these statements apply to the Iraq war today as much as they did to the Vietnam War forty years ago.

While it is difficult to pinpoint the start of the Vietnam War, since America was involved marginally in that country as early as the 1950's, major escalation began in 1964. The circumstances bringing about this escalation parallel the start of the Iraq war to an amazing degree. Brief descriptions of this first, major escalation in Vietnam, and the start of the Iraq war, follow.

During the Vietnam War, the staging area for the U.S. Seventh Fleet was the Gulf of Tonkin, on the east coast of North Vietnam. On August 2 1964, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was on an espionage mission when it was fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo patrol boats. The Maddox, with supporting air power, fired back, sinking one North Vietnamese boat.

Two evenings later the Maddox and another destroyer, the C. Turner Joy were again in the gulf. The instruments on the Maddox indicated that the ship was under attack or had been attacked and the captain began an immediate retaliatory strike. Both ships began firing into the night with assistance from American air power.

Hours later the captain concluded that there might not have been an actual attack. James B. Stockdale, who was a pilot of a Crusader jet, undertook a reconnaissance flight over the waters that evening and when asked if he witnessed any North Vietnamese attack vessels, Stockdale replied: 'Not a one. No boats, no wakes, no ricochets off boats, no boat impacts, no torpedo wakes--nothing but black sea and American firepower.'

Regardless of any inconsistencies, this incident, which may not have happened at all, was presented to the world as an act of aggression against the United States. The fact that the U.S. had no legitimate business in the Gulf of Tonkin was not addressed. Congress quickly met and with the same lack of fact-finding rigor demonstrated by that body nearly forty years later, passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed the president to take all necessary measures to repel aggression. Those measures resulted in a significant escalation of the war. The ultimate result was years of death and carnage for American soldiers and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.

On September 12, 2002, President Bush addressed the United Nations and told the skeptical delegates and the doubting world about his belief in Iraq's progression towards creating nuclear weapons and his purported knowledge of its scientists, weapons designs and attempts to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. None of it was true, but Congress bought the story, with both Republicans and Democrats proclaiming the need to give Mr. Bush the authorization to invade Iraq. The result, to date, has been death and carnage for American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers and civilians.

During the Vietnam War, President Nixon ordered the secret invasion of Cambodia, with the apparent goal of containing communism to North Vietnam. Congress approved the bombing of that nation when it passed the Cooper-Church amendment in 1971. While this amendment restricted the ability of the president to deploy troops, it allowed him to do whatever he deemed necessary ' to protect the lives of American armed forces wherever deployed,' and did little to limit the president's use of air power. While Mr. Nixon denounced the bill, it did not prevent him from bombing Cambodia under the guise of protecting the lives of American soldiers.

Today Mr. Bush is stating categorically that he knows Iran is supplying weapons to Iraqi freedom fighters. He has further stated that he is going to do 'something' about it. Congress appears to be in a somewhat less receptive mood than it was four years ago, but it is likely that, in the name of 'supporting the troops' Mr. Bush will once again be given a free reign, with nothing more than a slap on the wrist in the form of a non-binding resolution from Congress to express its displeasure.

When Mr. Nixon opposed the Cooper-Church Amendment (it was an amendment to another bill), he said that it harmed the war effort. Mr. Bush and Co. vehemently opposed the non-binding resolution expressing disagreement with his decision to send an additional 20,000 troops, echoing Mr. Nixon's sentiments and claiming that it would show the 'enemy' that America is divided, and would be a slap in the face to the soldiers serving in Iraq.

In 1967, six Vietnam Veterans founded the organization 'Vietnam Veterans Against the War.' These men had served in Vietnam, and knew first hand that the war was, at best, a calamitous mistake. Thirty-seven years later, a group of veterans of the Iraq war formed 'Iraq Veterans Against the War.' Like their predecessors, these men and women are exposing the cruelty, carnage and obscenity of the war.

The outcome of the Iraqi war will not be known until some future date; Mr. Bush has said that it will be another president, not he, who decides when American soldiers will leave that country. But history does tend to repeat itself, as has been indicated by even this cursory look at some of the major milestones of the Vietnam and Iraq wars. If that is indeed the case, the world can expect several more years of blood and death in Iraq, more American soldiers returning home in coffins, and a growing resentment of the U.S. There does not appear to exist any more optimistic precedent in America's history.


Robert Fantina is a long-time activist for peace and social justice. He has worked with the Coalition for Peace Action in New Jersey. Originally involved in the Dennis Kucinich presidential campaign in 2004, he eventually worked as a district organizer through MoveOn.org on the Kerry campaign in Florida. Following the 2004 presidential election, he moved to Canada, where he now resides. is the author of "Desertion and the American Soldier, 1776-2006".

How to Start a War with Iran

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

by Jacob G. Hornberger

Amidst all the denials by U.S. officials of an intent to attack Iran, another country that has never attacked the United States, perhaps this would be an appropriate time to recall the words of Hermann Goering, Hitler’s Reichsmarshall:

“Why, of course, the ‘people’ don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship…. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

If President Bush wants war with Iran, he has several avenues to bring it about.

One, he can manipulate and squeeze Iran with sanctions, embargoes, and humiliations, the tactics that Franklin Roosevelt successfully employed to secure a Japanese attack on U.S. forces in the Pacific, thereby enabling Roosevelt to secure U.S. entry into World War II.

Or Bush could simply do what another Texas president — Lyndon Johnson — did to escalate U.S. involvement in Vietnam — just make up an attack, like Johnson did with the fake Gulf of Tonkin attack.

In either event, the president would be able to excitedly exclaim, “We’ve been attacked! We’ve been attacked! Iran has attacked us! We’re innocent! It’s another day that will live in infamy.”

Or President Bush could simply do to Iran what he did to Iraq — attack a country that has never attacked the United States, killing and maiming countless Iranian people, many of whom have nothing but the utmost respect for our country (but not for our government).

However the war with Iran would come, Bush and other U.S. officials would be certain that they could count on a certain segment of American society, including many in the press, that, once again infected by war fever, would excitedly exclaim, “The time for debate and discussion is over. We are now at war and we must support the troops, as they drop their bombs on the Iranian people. We’ve got to help the president and the troops win their war against Iran. They’re our team. That’s what ‘morality’ and ‘patriotism’ are all about.”

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Those Thoughtful Iranians

From the Telegraph;

Iran kindly provided Robert Gates with weapons with English markings rather than in Farsi or Arabic.



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Posted by on February 05, 2007

Taki Theodoracopulos

Some of us old timers remember it only too well. In 1964 Lyndon Baines Johnson gave the order for American fighter bombers to attack North Vietnamese oil tanks and torpedo boat bases at Vinh, the first assault by Uncle Sam on the North Vietnamese mainland. Johnson, an accomplished liar and manipulator - he managed to win a bronze star during the Second World War despite the fact he was never within one thousand miles of a battle - claimed that American warships in the Gulf of Tonkin had been attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. “Aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed,” said the Texan. Everyone in Congress voted for aggression except one, senator Wayne Morse, the Cassandra of his time. “This will end in tears,” he predicted. And how right he turned out to be.

The only good thing to emerge from that tragic war - one that I covered and one that I backed to the hilt until the very last day - was that it ruined LBJ's prospects of running for a second term. It cost 58,000 American lives, and close to two million Vietnamese ones - north and south - and made celebrities out of opportunists like Jane Fonda's husband, Tom Hayden, clowns like Abbie Hoffman, and professional busybodies like Daniel Ellsberg. It took Uncle Sam a generation to recover from the trauma of the Vietnamese debacle.

30 years later, give or take a couple, another Texan is trying to pull an LBJ, with one major difference. He already pulled it four years ago, when he went looking to destroy Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. We all now know that those weapons existed only in the minds of the neo-cons, the Fifth Columnists whose allegiance is to the state of Israel and not to that of the United States. Unfortunately these Fifth Columnists still have the Bush-Cheney ear, and what they're looking for is more war. This time against Iran. A Gulf of Tonkin-style gambit is what these sofa samurais will use sometime this spring.

The facts, of course, are somewhat different. In brief: Iran is two to five years away from building a nuclear bomb, and some experts say as much as ten to twenty years. Even if Iran possessed one, why would Iran launch a nuclear attack on Israel when it knows its own homeland would be vaporized the next day. The neo-con traitors do not care, however. They are determined to get the last ounce of war-making from the Bush-Cheney duo. Neither Iraq nor Iran were responsible for the events of 9/11, but they interfered with America's Israel-focused interests in the Middle East.

Bush's evangelical supporters in America insist that the president is right on the big picture. Smashing the enemies of Israel and the US is the way to go. In this they seem to be as delusional in their strategic outlook as they are in their religious one. Once America or Israel initiate hostilities against Iran, this world of ours will never be the same. From China to India, from Pakistan to Indonesia, there will be not only tremendous collateral damage, there will also be new alliances not necessarily conducive to good relations with Uncle Sam.

America is now seen as the biggest bully of the block by the majority of the people of this world. This is a very sad state of affairs. And we have the neo-cons to thank for it. I wonder when the good people of the United States will wake up and demand that these people are brought to book.

Taki Theodoracopulos

The Lies Of Our Times

Write a Letter to the New York Times:

The New York Times today ran an article supporting Bush administration claims that Iran is supporting attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq – claims that seem intended to clear the way for a military attack on Iran. The story includes no named sources and no direct evidence of Iranian involvement, just speculation. Tell the Times editors that such reporting is unacceptable:

Letters to the Editor: letters@nytimes.com
Public Editor: public@nytimes.com
News Editor: nytnews@nytimes.com
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Are the NY Times writer's, AMES GLANZ and MARK MAZZETTI, Judith Miller wannabee's?

Iran May Have Trained Attackers That Killed 5 American Soldiers, U.S. and Iraqis Say

Two index fingers way up for The NYT.