Truthdig: Generals Warn Against ‘Disastrous’ Iran Attack

[marmar]

Generals Warn Against ‘Disastrous’ Iran Attack

Posted on Feb 4, 2007
Three former high-ranking U.S. generals have called on the Bush administration to pursue diplomacy with Iran, saying “an attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences,” a concern shared by a group of 22 physicists, including 12 Nobel laureates, who’ve asked Congress to restrict the president’s ability to use nuclear weapons against Tehran.


Diplomacy can still win Iran (published in the Sunday Times):

AS FORMER US military leaders, we strongly caution against the use of military force against Iran. An attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences for security in the region, coalition forces in Iraq and would further exacerbate regional and global tensions. The current crisis must be resolved through diplomacy.

A strategy of diplomatic engagement with Iran would serve the interests of the US and the UK and potentially could enhance regional and international security. The British government has a vital role to play in securing a renewed diplomatic push and making it clear that it will oppose any recourse to military force. The Bush administration should engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions. There is time available to talk, we must ensure that we use it.

Lieutenant General Robert G Gard Jr
US Army (Ret), Former assistant to the Secretary of Defense, president, National Defense University
General Joseph P Hoar
US Marine Corps (Ret), Former Commander in Chief, US Central Command
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
US Navy (Ret), Former Director of the Center for Defense Information and currently Chairman, Military Advisory Committee

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20070204_generals_warn_against_disastrous_iran_attack/

[Benhurst]

1. Recommended

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I hope that if Bush pushes the button

someone somewhere down the line says, "This is insanity!" and refuses to obey the order.

Sigh. If I copied this list and used it to refute the freeper armchair warriors at Yahoo Answers, they would ignore it. They have this quaint notion that people who never served, who never studied tactics, have a much better notion of how to wage war than professionals. I don't want a "smart bomb"--I want a "stupid bomb" that would somehow deliver a payload of BRAINS and COMMON SENSE to these people!

[Miss Chybil]

3. How many people lined up to say this stuff about attacking Iraq?

Hundreds, if not thousands. Bush cannot hear and nobody tells him "no."

[Peace Patriot]

4. Did Iran invade somebody? Kill a 100,000 people? What am I missing?

Why is Iran on the chopping block? Why is it even being talked about? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?

So, they want nuclear weapons--so what? Pakistan has nukes. So does Israel. So does India. So does France. So does Russia. So does China. So does GUESS WHO?

Iran is furthermore one of the most potentially progressive countries among Israel's neighbors. They are not Wahabi Arabs, or Arabs of any kind. They are Persians! They are not run by fatcat sultans and kings in dictatorships like Saudi Arabia. They are a REPUBLIC. They have ELECTIONS. Yes, they are guided by religious leaders, but WE drove them to THAT--when we destroyed Iran's democracy in 1954 and inflicted them with 25 years of torture and oppression under the horrible Shah of Iran!

So...what have they done?

They have ONE elected leader who said--not "death to Israel," as I have previously misstated--but something like "the west will fall and Israel with it." It wasn't a threat. It was a prediction, more than likely based on his religious belief that we are corrupt. And he is very much on the outs--his support has severely declined.

Bush--that reliable source--has said that Iran has operatives in Iraq. Well, if China had bombed Mexico, and slaughtered 100,000 of its people--to get their oil--and then contrived to create utter bloody chaos in Mexican society, just how long would the U.S. put up with that, before we had operatives in Mexico helping the Mexicans to oust the invaders and restore order?

Iraq is directly on Iran's border! They CAN'T HAVE total chaos on their border. ANY neighbor country might intervene in that situation, and have a lot of justification for doing so. And that's if you believe Bush that there are any Iranians in Iraq! I just read a news report the other day that Iran had closed their border. Our government CANNOT be trusted to give us truthful information.

Which brings me to Iran's situation vis a vis the U.S. military. Bush is sending more troops to Iraq--lying that it's 21,000. It's actually more like 50,000--a major escalation. (Bush turns cooks and logistics people into combat troops, then turns those non-combat jobs over to Halliburton, at twenty times the cost, with no-bid contracts.) Iran has a major part of the U.S. military on its border, and a U.S. navy attack fleet in the Persian Gulf, with a tinpot dictator in the U.S. saber-rattling at them every day--in defiance of the will of the American people, 70% of whom want the Iraq War ended, and EIGHT-FOUR PERCENT of whom oppose any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war (according to a poll posted here at DU last summer).

We don't want a war with Iran. We can't afford a war with Iran. We have no beef with Iran. Iran poses no threat to us, or anybody else. Iran has shown NO signs of aggressive behavior. A war with Iran is nuts. Yet that is what Bush is daily threatening against this country that has done nothing to deserve such a threat--a country that is furthermore under no obligation to remain signatories to nuclear non-proliferation agreements--especially when they are being directly threatened by the most powerful nation on earth with the biggest and most lethal military machine ever created by mankind.

I am truly grateful for these U.S. generals and others who are speaking out. If ever there was a situation that called for diplomacy, it is this one. But the trouble is that Bush, Cheney and Rice are NOT CAPABLE of diplomacy. They are liars. They are murderers. They are torturers. Nobody trusts them. And the only things they know how to do are killing people and massively looting them.

So it is time for Congress to intervene. I know that that is a shaky reed upon which to rest what may be the fate of the entire planet.* But it's all we've got. These people--who have brought our country to these desperate straits, and who have ended world peace, by fiat, already--MUST BE REMOVED.

I do not agree with those who are criticizing Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders for meeting with Bush the other day--nor for Pelosi's talk about Americans voting for Congress to "work closely with the President." Galling as it is to behold, Pelosi is under an obligation to keep close watch of this monster, and to work on him in every way she is able to. He should not be left alone with Dick Cheney as his only adviser. It is Cheney who is propping this puppet up. Congress should go after Cheney--and the facts that have come out so far in the Fitzgerald trial of Scooter Libby give them plenty of reason to. Voluminous testimony and piles of memos all point to Cheney as the mastermind of the conspiracy to out our entire WMD counter-proliferation network (of which Valerie Plame was covert CIA head). He is a traitor!

Even with the '06 Democratic victory, Congress is still not very representative of the American people (due in part of Diebold/ES&S's 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists). That's why I call it a "weak reed" (pun intended). Even so, never in the history of our country--with the exception of the Constitutional Convention of 1775--has any American legislature been more important to us. They MUST restore the "balance of powers" NOW, and curtail this tyrant. That's what the Constitution was deliberately designed for--to deal with just this situation.

It shouldn't just be generals and physicists and Nobel Laureates trying to stop a war with Iran. It should be Congress, which holds the key power to do so. This business of presidential war--which started back with Vietnam--MUST END. We had no declaration of war against Vietnam, because Vietnam had done nothing whatsoever to harm or threaten us, and they all knew it. WE were the aggressors. And the trumped up "Gulf of Tonkin" incident gave Congress the excuse to GIVE AWAY its power to declare war to LBJ. Same with Iraq. And same with Iran, if--God forbid!--Bush-Cheney attack that country. You will NOT see a declaration of war, as the Constitution requires. At best, you will see a mere resolution giving Bush-Cheney yet more power to attack yet another country--if they even bother this time to request it.

Congress needs to rescind the Iraq War Resolution, and impeach Cheney NOW.

-----------------

*(Read Carl Sagan's book, "The Cold and the Dark," for a description of the impacts to our atmosphere of even a limited use of nuclear weapons. Hint: end of all life on earth.)

[marmar]

5. D'accord. I agree completely.

n/t

[Felinity]

9. D'accord, aussi. N/T

[Peace Patriot]

6. Has anybody had the thought that this whole Iran thing is a DISTRACTION,

to DELAY addressing global warming, while the oil giants clean up the last profits from polluting our planet?

I certainly know it may not be--given Iraq, and the PNAC (all the NeoCon planning that went into U.S. military domination of the Mideast oil fields). But still, when you look at Bush-Cheney's utterly evaporated power base, and how many establishment figures are opposed to their continued war plans, AND the opposition of virtually the entire world, including giants and nuke powers like China and Russia (China, which holds much of the paper on our huge debt, with a particularly big oil business with Iran), and the vulnerability of countries like Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, Pakistan, to a conflagration in Iran--and also Israel, as a matter fact--countries that could be hit by nuke fallout, and likely to be flooded with refugees--and also considering the limitations on U.S. forces (in numbers, AND in vulnerability), it is almost inconceivable that Bush-Cheney would or could do it (nuke, bomb or invade Iran). So what do they have in mind? Conceivably a limited air strike of some kind, to weaken Iran's military defenses. Then what?

Other possibilities: The escalation in Iraq, and the U.S. fleet buildup, are gunboat diplomacy (but to what end?), or cover for withdrawal of U.S. troops "over the horizon," to fight another day (?). (Are the war profiteers counting on Hillary, or some other new "LBJ"?) Perhaps the escalation and fleet buildup are scare tactics toward Iran, intended to prevent Iranian domination of Iraq, as U.S. troops withdraw and an international effort is convened to stabilize Iraq? And the saber-rattling is all bluster?

With any half-reasonable people in the White House, that's what I would surmise. But with Bush-Cheney, the evidence is that they are not reasonable, and that they feel accountable to no one. So who knows? But I've been conscious of their "bait and switch" tactics on domestic policy--rattle the majority's cage over here, say on women's rights, and meanwhile cut tax cuts for the rich again, with a $10 trillion deficit.

So what is the bait and what is the switch on Iran? If you follow their chief motive in everything--thievery, greed--it points to their oil buds and what they may want (more price gouging, no global warming effort any time soon), and also war profiteers (who are profiting from this escalation and naval buildup perhaps even more than they would from an actual conflict--one last big stuffing of the beast, then they will stop manufacturing wars for a while?). There is also a coincidence of interests between them--oil giants, war profiteers. It takes a whole lot of fuel to keep the U.S. navy and airforce in the Middle East.

Are they threatening Iran simply to steal more money from us? (If their goal is to take over Iran's oil fields, nuking Iran or massive conflict in Iran, would not be conducive to that goal. There would be endless conflict about it, beginning with the Iranians, who would cause them endless grief, and probably extending to the other Islamic countries who couldn't keep young fighters out of that guerrilla war. They might gain temporary control of Iran's oil, but they could not keep it. And meanwhile, back in the U.S.A? Insurrection?)

[Peace Patriot]

7. Another possibility for the Iran "bait and switch" distraction, of course, is

Bush and Cheney's criminal culpability on so many fronts, involving a list of major presidential crimes such as we have never seen in our history. As long as the country is distracted by a potential holocaust in the Middle East, we might not get it together to put these two behind bars, or, at the very least, to remove them from the White House.

This could be one of the tightropes that Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are walking--and why, for instance, they came in saying "impeachment is off the table." But sooner or later they are going to have to face the Constitutional issue of their right to "undeclare" a wrongful war and de-fund it--and their right to say "Absolutely not!' about Iran--unless Bush-Cheney backs down. And if they wait until these cornered criminals and madmen manage to spark a war with Iran, it will be too late.

[Akoto]

8. I wonder ...

Does anyone else think that it might be the military itself which ultimately puts a stop to this madness?

[Felinity]

10. We can hope. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

11. Yes, I do think that is a possibility, for a number of reasons.

Good guy reasons: Lot of good guys in the military who believe in the U.S. Constitution a lot more than Bush and Cheney do. I'm sure they are chafing under these chickenhawk, lawless commanders. There is lots of evidence of it--so many generals speaking out, the internal struggle of the jag lawyers against torture, and the failure to establish a mission in Iraq and an end date, leading to horrendous impacts on the military including outright slave labor (multiple tours of duty, under compulsion), not to mention Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld's dismissal of advice AT THE BEGINNING. We can't do this without more troops! But they were ordered to do it anyway--against the better judgment of the most honest and experienced professionals in the military. And they went in with a big deficiency in troop strength and lack of training and equipment. Meanwhile, non-combat troops like cooks and logistics personnel were turned into combat troops and their non-combat jobs given to Halliburton and co., at twenty times the cost, in no-bid contracts, to disguise the fact that there weren't enough troops, and all the money for re-construction began to be looted, hand over fist, by the VP's own company and others. It was disgusting! It would set the hair on fire of any decent commander or non-com. They couldn't do their job, for so many reasons--all caused by the Bush regime! And they have suffered a wound to their pride. Another stupid, unjust, illegal, unnecessary, heinous FAILED war.

I believe there was also a US air force brass revolt against use of nukes on Iran. Can't remember where I read it. So, yeah, I think that it is quite possible that people in the U.S. military are keeping an eye on things, and might well act to prevent foolish or catastrophic decisions. I think Bush and Cheney have a very tenuous hold on the military, as they do on the country. And I think there are as many sensible, rational, truly patriotic people in the military as there are in the general population, maybe more. But I do worry about the purging of the good guys out of positions of power, and their re-placement by toadies and yes-men. Also, we're come to a sorry pass, as a democracy, when we are hoping that the military will save us from the madness of our illegitimately elected so-called leaders.

Bad Guy reasons: Because of all of the above, many people are starting to look real hard at the cascades of money showered upon the U.S. military, and increasingly upon unaccountable military contractors. What is all this money--being bled out of our pockets--FOR? When was the last time the "Defense" Department actually DEFENDED us? (They couldn't even defend the nations' capitol on 9/11, under Rumsfeld!). WHY do we have this humongous military machine--a standing invitation to fascists to commit unjust war--and in this case, a corporate resource war? What is REALLY required for REAL defense? (My guestimate: 10% of what we now spend.) So, in short, the war profiteers had better fix this mess, or they could well lose their gravy train, as the American people become increasingly alarmed and angry at the misuse of our military! If Bush-Cheney orders them to strike Iran, and they do it, then I think that may be the end of the U.S. military as we have known it. We've come a long way from March 2003 and the invasion of Iraq. People are truly fed up. EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT oppose any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war! If they defy that large of a portion of the American people, they are in big trouble as to future military spending.

[scarletwoman]

12. Nope. They will obey the orders given them by the C in C.

Read Pat Lang (retired U.S. Army Colonel & former DIA defense intelligence officer for the Middle East, South Asia, and terrorism):

one of his comments from his blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis

All

You folks are wrong to think that American officers will not carry out an "execute" order from the CinC. You are simply wrong.

As to the judgment as to whether or not such an order would be legal. Line officers are not lawyers.

American officers do not, I say again do not, associate their situation in any way with that of the Germans and Japanese who were hanged after WW2. American officers do not expect to be tried by the victors. pl

sw