Iran: A Bridge too Far?

[albed]

Nope, those are just people who are familiar with the long, continuous history of particularly vicious violence firmly embedded in middle eastern culture and conclude that the world would be a better place if the whole region was exterminated.

[multi]

then what?

you will never build another society there like the the US did with Japan after WW2.

No big nasty bombs dropped yet but the troops are returning home with radiation poisoning anyway?

so.... a good part of the M.E. gets wiped out by the US and Israel, then bloody what?

that will not get rid of all the radical Islamics in the world.

I would bet there would be just a few left in Pakistan and Southest Asia.. all probably very pissed off.



Ah... I love a good crusade !

[vernarial]

Originally Posted by albed

Nope, those are just people who are familiar with the long, continuous history of particularly vicious violence firmly embedded in middle eastern culture and conclude that the world would be a better place if the whole region was exterminated.

I'm glad you know my friends better than I do, Albed. What would I do without you to show me how to be intolerant.

[albed]

You'd be stupid and tolerant.

[JackSpratts]

christ your "civilised" christian west has butchered more people in the last 100 years than the muslims have in the last 1100. these followers of mohammad have a lot of catching up to do just to equal our barbarism. we've set a fine example. 8-|

- js.

[albed]

Well you can just hop right on over there with your drinking habit and western music collection and start endorsing gay marriage and finally be free of the barbarous western culture with it's murderous oppression of nazi germany, facist japan and the like.


I'll buy your fucking ticket.

[multi]

There was intent in suppressing the oppression of nazi germany & facist japan and it was not to end up becoming them ( or possibly something far worse)

[malvachat]

Originally Posted by albed

I'll buy your fucking ticket.

What????
And leave you all alone in the world.
That's a tempting offer.
Will you buy one for me as well.
Want my Paypal link?
Or are you lying?
Your not a credible source,I don't belive anything you say.

[multi]

There are many other examples of failure on the part of the Democrats in both Houses. They are called weak-kneed, overly sensitive on the security issue, unable for a variety of reasons to take on the President now that they control Congress. However, there is one factor, a key indicator, that runs throughout these failures and that is the amounts of money that key Democratic Congressmen and Senators receive from the Israel Lobby. The Center for Responsive Politics, on their website www.opensecrets.org, tallies the contributions that candidates receive from what they have identified as pro-Israel PACs. Taking the Center’s list of pro-Israel PACs and adding up contributions given by those PACs to various Congressional candidates from 1979 through 2006, a remarkable fact comes through—the current Democratic leadership team in Congress has received twice as much pro- Israel PAC money as the Republicans! According to my figures, individuals serving on the current Democratic Senate leadership team have received $1,955,995 from pro-Israel PACs, whereas their Republican counterparts have received $907,585 directly from the same PACs. In the House, $469,082 has been received by the Democratic leadership team, with just $243,450 going to the Republicans. Included in these numbers are $341,037 to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, $279,206 to Majority Whip Richard Durbin, and $216,100 to Democratic Outreach Chair Jeff Bingaman. In the House Speaker Pelosi has received $84,900, Steny Hoyer $140,626, and Rahm Emanuel a smaller but significant $17,000.

These figures for the Democratic leadership team do not include the amounts from pro-Israel PACs received by Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman. The same data sources indicate that Sen. Lieberman has received $344,750 from these PACs since 1979. In 2005-2006 the same individuals who gave money to the pro-Israel PACs also contributed directly to Sen. Lieberman an additional $900,000, minimum, in helping him get reelected as an Independent after losing the Democratic primary. And it hardly needs pointing out that Lieberman, by agreeing to caucus with the Senate Democrats, has enormous leverage over issues of his choosing in that body. At the top of his agenda, of course, is U.S. Middle East policy.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/ope..._money__es.htm

[multi]

It’s crazy, but it’s coming soon – from the same folks who brought us Iraq.

Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox – in the form of air and missile attacks – begin.

This time it will be largely the Air Force’s show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy. Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.

Emerging from a 90-minute White House meeting with President George W. Bush on June 4, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the two leaders were of one mind:

“We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions, and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House.”

Does that sound like a man concerned that Bush is just bluff and bluster?

A member of Olmert’s delegation noted that same day that the two countries had agreed to cooperate in case of an attack by Iran, and that “the meetings focused on ‘operational matters’ pertaining to the Iranian threat.” So bring ‘em on!

A show of hands please. How many believe Iran is about to attack the U.S. or Israel?

You say you missed Olmert’s account of what Bush has undertaken to do? So did I. We are indebted to intrepid journalist Chris Hedges for including the quote in his article of June 8, “The Iran Trap.”

We can perhaps be excused for missing Olmert’s confident words about “Israel’s best friend” that week. Your attention – like mine – may have been riveted on the June 5 release of the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding administration misrepresentations of pre-Iraq-war intelligence – the so-called “Phase II” investigation (also known, irreverently, as the “Waiting-for-Godot Study”).

Better late than never, I suppose.

Oversight?

Yet I found myself thinking: It took them five years, and that is what passes for oversight? Yes, the president and vice president and their courtiers lied us into war. And now a bipartisan report could assert that fact formally; and committee chair Jay Rockefeller could sum it up succinctly:

“In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.”

But as I listened to Senator Rockefeller, I had this sinking feeling that in five or six years time, those of us still around will be listening to a very similar post mortem looking back on an even more disastrous attack on Iran.

My colleagues and I in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) issued repeated warnings, before the invasion of Iraq, about the warping of intelligence. And our memoranda met considerable resonance in foreign media.

We could get no ink or airtime, however, in the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) in the U.S. Nor can we now.

In a same-day critique of Colin Powell’s unfortunate speech to the U.N. on Feb. 5, 2003, we warned the president to widen his circle of advisers “beyond those clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

It was a no-brainer for anyone who knew anything about intelligence, the Middle East, and the brown noses leading intelligence analysis at the CIA.

Former U.N. senior weapons inspector and former Marine major, Scott Ritter, and many others were saying the same thing. But none of us could get past the president’s praetorian guard to drop a memo into his in-box, so to speak. Nor can we now.
The “Iranian Threat”

However much the same warnings are called for now with respect to Iran, there is even less prospect that any contrarians could puncture and break through what former White House spokesman Scott McClellan calls the president’s “bubble.”

By all indications, Vice President Dick Cheney and his huge staff continue to control the flow of information to the president.

But, you say, the president cannot be unaware of the far-reaching disaster an attack on Iran would bring?

Well, this is a president who admits he does not read newspapers, but rather depends on his staff to keep him informed. And the memos Cheney does brief to Bush pooh-pooh the dangers.

This time no one is saying we will be welcomed as liberators, since the planning does not include – officially, at least – any U.S. boots on the ground.

Besides, even on important issues like the price of gasoline, the performance of the president’s staff has been spotty.

Think back on the White House press conference of Feb. 28, when Bush was asked what advice he would give to Americans facing the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline.

“Wait, what did you just say?” the president interrupted. “You’re predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?…That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.”

A poll in January showed that nearly three-quarters of Americans were expecting $4-a-gallon gas. That forecast was widely reported in late February, and discussed by the White House press secretary at the media briefing the day before the president’s press conference.

Here’s the alarming thing: Unlike Iraq, which was prostrate after the Gulf War and a dozen years of sanctions, Iran can retaliate in a number of dangerous ways, launching a war for which our forces are ill-prepared.

The lethality, intensity and breadth of ensuing hostilities will make the violence in Iraq look, in comparison, like a volleyball game between St. Helena’s High School and Mount St. Ursula.
Cheney’s Brainchild
Attacking Iran is Vice President Dick Cheney’s brainchild, if that is the correct word.

Cheney proposed launching air strikes last summer on Iranian Revolutionary Guards bases, but was thwarted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff who insisted that would be unwise, according to J. Scott Carpenter, a senior State Department official at the time.

Chastened by the unending debacle in Iraq, this time around Pentagon officials reportedly are insisting on a “policy decision” regarding “what would happen after the Iranians would go after our folks,” according to Carpenter.

Serious concerns include the vulnerability of the critical U.S. supply line from Kuwait to Baghdad, our inability to reinforce and the eventual possibility that the U.S. might be forced into a choice between ignominious retreat and using, or threatening to use, “mini-nukes.”

Pentagon opposition was confirmed in a July 2007 commentary by former Bush adviser Michael Gerson, who noted the “fear of the military leadership” that Iran would have “escalation dominance” in any conflict with the U.S.

Writing in the Washington Post last July, Gerson indicated that “escalation dominance” means, “in a broadened conflict, the Iranians could complicate our lives in Iraq and the region more than we complicate theirs.”

The Joint Chiefs also have opposed the option of attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, according to former Iran specialist at the National Security Council, Hillary Mann, who has close ties with senior Pentagon officials.

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