Iran: The War Begins- John Pilger

[Jcrowley]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PIL20070205&articleId=4689

Iran: The War Begins
by John Pilger

Global Research, February 5, 2007
The New Statesman

As opposition grows in America to the failed Iraq adventure, the Bush administration is preparing public opinion for an attack on Iran, its latest target, by the spring.

The United States is planning what will be a catastrophic attack on Iran. For the Bush cabal, the attack will be a way of "buying time" for its dis aster in Iraq. In announcing what he called a "surge" of American troops in Iraq, George W Bush identified Iran as his real target. "We will interrupt the flow of support to the insurgency in Iraq from Iran and Syria," he said. "And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

"Networks" means Iran. "There is solid evidence," said a State Department spokesman on 24 January, "that Iranian agents are involved in these networks and that they are working with individuals and groups in Iraq and are being sent there by the Iranian government." Like Bush's and Tony Blair's claim that they had irrefutable evidence that Saddam Hussein was deploying weapons of mass destruction, the "evidence" lacks all credibility. Iran has a natural affinity with the Shia majority of Iraq, and has been implacably opposed to al-Qaeda, condemning the 9/11 attacks and supporting the United States in Afghanistan. Syria has done the same. Investigations by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and others, including British military officials, have concluded that Iran is not engaged in the cross-border supply of weapons. General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said no such evidence exists.

As the American disaster in Iraq deepens and domestic and foreign opposition grows, "neo-con" fanatics such as Vice-President Dick Che- ney believe their opportunity to control Iran's oil will pass unless they act no later than the spring. For public consumption, there are potent myths. In concert with Israel and Washington's Zionist and fundamentalist Christian lobbies, the Bushites say their "strategy" is to end Iran's nuclear threat.

In fact, Iran possesses not a single nuclear weapon, nor has it ever threatened to build one; the CIA estimates that, even given the political will, Iran is incapable of building a nuclear weapon before 2017, at the earliest. Unlike Israel and the United States, Iran has abided by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which it was an original signatory, and has allowed routine inspections under its legal obligations - until gratuitous, punitive measures were added in 2003, at the behest of Washington. No report by the International Atomic Energy Agency has ever cited Iran for diverting its civilian nuclear programme to military use.

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[redqueen]

1. Thanks for posting this. n/t

[whistle]

2. Mad-dog reTHUGlicans foaming at the mouth...

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Published on Saturday, June 3, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Foaming Republicans
by Larry Beinhart

Today’s Republican Party is a stool that rests on three legs of fear: fear of foreigners, fear of dark people and fear of sex.

The issues that touch on these fears are usually called hot button issues. But a better term is ‘foam at the mouth’ issues. Because they make Republicans foam at the mouth. As does any person or any idea that challenges that foaming.

Foaming is now most visible around the “immigration” issue.

The “immigration” issue is not about immigration.

It’s about Mexicans, those dark foreigners. There are no Minute Men, or Second Men or Hour Men for that matter, out to patrol the frozen wastes from the Straits of San Juan de la Fuca to the St. Lawrence Seaway. There are no foamers screaming for the Navy to get out on Lake Superior and shoot those Canadian canoes out of the water before the illegals reach Minnesota and take up residence in Lake Woebegone.

The reality is that the illegal immigration may be a problem, but it’s not a big problem. Their impact on health care, for example, is utterly trivial compared to our real health care problems. Their impact on wages is irrelevant compared to congress’s refusal to raise the minimum wage. Their impact on jobs is minor compared to the wide variety of ills that affect the American job market; globalization, the growth of corporate power, America’s disinvestment in infrastructure, the weakening of unions and the misplaced economics policies of the government (if you take at face value the claim that they are designed to stimulate the economy and create jobs).

When Republicans are in full foam at the mouth mode it does no good to discuss reality with them. That only makes them foam more. Rightly so, because reality is their enemy.


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http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0603-20.htm