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 On the Eve of DestructionPosted on Oct 22, 2007
By Scott Ritter Don’t worry, the White House is telling us. The world’s most powerful leader was simply making a rhetorical point. At a White House press conference last week, just in case you haven’t heard, President Bush informed the American people that he had told world leaders “if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” World War III. That is certainly some rhetorical point, especially coming from the man singularly most capable of making such an event reality.
When I was a weapons inspector with the United Nations, there was a jostling that took place at the end of each day, when decisions needed to be made and authorization documents needed to be signed. In an environment of competing agendas, each of us who championed a position sought to be the “last man in,” namely the person who got to imprint the executive chairman (our decision maker) with the final point of view for the day. Failure to do so could find an inspection or point of investigation sidetracked for days or weeks after the executive chairman became distracted by a competing vision. I understand the concept of “imprinting,” and have seen it in action. What is clear from the president’s remarks is that, far from an innocent rhetorical fumble, his words, and the context in which he employed them, are a clear indication of the imprinting which is taking place behind the scenes at the White House. If the president mentions World War III in the context of Iran’s nuclear program, one can be certain that this is the very sort of discussion that is taking place in the Oval Office. A critical question, therefore, is who was the last person to “imprint” the president prior to his public allusion to World War III? During his press conference, Bush noted that he awaited the opportunity to confer with his defense secretary, Robert Gates, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice following their recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. So clearly the president hadn’t been imprinted recently by either of the principle players in the formulation of defense and foreign policy. The suspects, then, are quickly whittled down to three: National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Vice President Dick Cheney, and God. Hadley is a long-established neoconservative thinker who has for the most part operated “in the shadows” when it comes to the formulation of Iran policy in the Bush administration. In 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Hadley (then the deputy national security adviser) instituted what has been referred to as the “Hadley Rules,” a corollary of which is that no move will be made which alters the ideological positioning of Iran as a mortal enemy of the United States. These “rules” shut down every effort undertaken by Iran to seek a moderation of relations between it and the United States, and prohibited American policymakers from responding favorably to Iranian offers to assist with the fight against al-Qaida; they also blocked the grand offer of May 2003 in which Iran outlined a dramatic diplomatic initiative, including a normalization of relations with Israel. The Hadley Rules are at play today, in an even more nefarious manner, with the National Security Council becoming involved in the muzzling of former Bush administration officials who are speaking out on the issue of Iran. Hadley is blocking Flynt Leverett, formerly of the National Security Council, from publishing an Op-Ed piece critical of the Bush administration on the grounds that any insight into the machinations of policymaking (or lack thereof) somehow strengthens Iran’s hand. Leverett’s article would simply underscore the fact that the Bush administration has spurned every opportunity to improve relations with Iran while deliberately exaggerating the threat to U.S. interests posed by the Iranian theocracy. The silencing of informed critics is in keeping with Hadley’s deliberate policy obfuscation. There is still no official policy in place within the administration concerning Iran. While a more sober-minded national security bureaucracy works to marginalize the hawkish posturing of the neocons, the administration has decided that the best policy is in fact no policy, which is a policy decision in its own right. Hadley has forgone the normal procedures of governance, in which decisions impacting the nation are written down, using official channels, and made subject to review and oversight by those legally and constitutionally mandated and obligated to do so. A policy of no policy results in secret policy, which means, according to Hadley himself, the Bush administration simply does whatever it wants to, regardless. In the case of Iran, this means pushing for regime change in Tehran at any cost, even if it means World War III. But Hadley is simply a facilitator, bureaucratic “grease” to ease policy formulated elsewhere down the gullet of a national security infrastructure increasingly kept in the dark about the true intent of the Bush administration when it comes to Iran. With the Department of State and the Pentagon now considered unfriendly ground by the remaining hard-core neoconservative thinkers still in power, policy formulation is more and more concentrated in the person of Vice President Cheney and the constitutionally nebulous “Office of the Vice President.” Cheney and his cohorts have constructed a never-never land of oversight deniability, claiming immunity from both executive and legislative checks and balances. With an unchallenged ability to classify anything and everything as secret, and then claim that there is no authority inherent in government to oversee that which has been thus classified, the Office of the Vice President has transformed itself into a free republic’s worst nightmare, assuming Caesar-like dictatorial authority over almost every aspect of American national security policy at home and abroad. From torture to illegal wiretapping, to arms control (or lack of it) to Iran, Dick Cheney is the undisputed center of policy power in America today. While there are some who will claim that in this time of post-9/11 crisis such a process of bureaucratic streamlining is essential for the common good, the reality is far different.
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By PatrickHenry, November 15, 2007 at 4:07 pm #
(1074 comments total)
General, you must have seen some pretty interesting stuff.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Gen. Buck Turgidson, November 15, 2007 at 2:45 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Curt LeMay and I used to meet with Ed Teller for lunch sometime. We’d always be given our best table in the place, where we could see the clear Vandenberg skies out the window and watch the doors too. Curt would challenge Teller to come up with a new “package,” as he liked to call it, one he could fit to his 58 and pipe down the nose of some Russian base commander. Curt loved those clear skies over Alaska, was especially taken with the Arctic Route, pristine,...what a hot dog he was, always wanting to do the solo penetration run instead of being part of a wing. Teller, obliging his quirky companion, would pull a sheet of paper out from his vest pocket and sketch-out his newest device for General LeMay’s perusal. I would usually sit there quiet, sipping at my wellwater tea while these two huddled and made the world simpler to understand. Eddie came up with a beaut once, leaving LeMay walking out the door talking about where could he get funding, the package a lightweight ten clustered-cylinder job Curt could flip out the bay of the 58 at mach3 anywhere near the target. The cylinders, each good for a megaton or so would flip apart in flight, scattering over maybe 2 miles before doing their near-surface detonations. For both Eddie and the old pilot, one megaton of H-bomb was worth a hundred of fission megatons..they really ate up this stuff.
Forgive all this idle recollection. I’ve just got word our wing is out past failsafe; I’d better get washed up and attend to business at hand. Things are going to warm up in a hurry around here and I have to get those 50’s out to the boys at the perimeter.
Reply to this | Report thisBy weather, October 29, 2007 at 2:00 am #
(216 comments total)
WR Curley, you’ve written a wonderful piece here. Thank You.
Reply to this | Report thisBy WR Curley, October 28, 2007 at 4:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Good, Mr Fishburne. We do see a confluence of disparate interests in these grand historic movements. But history doesn’t usually “happen”, does it?
It takes years of dedicated efforts by thousands of participants to prepare the ground for the sowing of the seminal event - Pearl Harbor, 9/11, the burning of the Reichstag, ShockAndAwe - that changes the sweep of historic tides.
There actually are conspiracies, you know, in board rooms and think tanks, in caucuses and editorial staff meetings, in retreats and convocations, in tea houses and chat rooms. There are rolling conspiracies sustained over many weekends by shifting foursomes teeing off of a fine Sunday morning. Conspiracies organize funding, and phone banks, and boycotts, and strikes, and sell-downs, and buy-outs, and lock-outs, and freeze-outs, and sick-outs, and marches and movements and wars.
Doug Feith’s “Office of Special Plans” was a conspiracy to stovepipe intelligence vetted to endorse our ill-starred adventure into the MidEast boneyard of imperial ambition.
AIPAC is a conspiracy to keep US and Israeli interests forever joined at the goddamn hip.
David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes run a conspiracy called Campus Watch, which is dedicated to ensuring that the voice of dying Palestine never gets a public airing.
These disparate conspirators conspire together when their interests coincide. This then becomes advocacy. It’s perfectly legit, no one doubts that.
No, it’s not just twelve people in the Situation Room. At first. But it can get there soon enough, and that was an article of the thesis Kubrick laid out in “Strangelove” (really, people, if you haven’t had the experience, rent this flick). It can devolve, sadly, to the point where one earnest and decent man tries to persuade another earnest and decent man not to participate in the utter and irrevocable thermonuclear transformation of sweet mother earth.
The red phone, Mr Fishburne. The moist mouthpiece of the red phone. That’s what all of human history can come down to.
No one suggests a simplistic analysis. One does suggest that the complex is refined, by conspiratorial consent, down to the simple in order to generate a simplistic response. “With us or against us.” “Axis of evil.” “Evildoers.” “Fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here.” “Spreading global democracy.”
That last, by the way, was a public “yee-hah” moment limned by Bill Keller on the editorial page of the NY Times back in the days before the shitstorm. In an op-ed, he wrote - in effect - forget WMD, forget all the other excuses we’ve labored to devise to justify invasion. This is the master narrative: We are bringing democracy to the benighted. This is the one we run with.
Look it up. Got him promoted to Editor in Chief.
So, in fine, yes. It’s complex. But communities of interest conspire to select the most effective wedge. After the nut is cracked, there is plenty of time to quarrel over the meat.
Night night,
WR Curley
Reply to this | Report thisElizabeth, Colorado
By george, October 28, 2007 at 4:35 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I bet $100 that Scotty Ritler will not touch the story that 7 informant members of the airbase of the B-52 bomber with the nukes--all found dead. Accidents my @ss.
Reply to this | Report thisKillings go on and our media are silent. {:-(
By weather, October 27, 2007 at 10:40 pm #
(216 comments total)
Free us from the remarkable arrogance and manipulating deceit that is Israel - this is not a relationship, it’s a very carefully gift wrapped bribe.
Reply to this | Report thisBy TAO Walker, October 27, 2007 at 9:32 am #
(167 comments total)
One time this old Indian mentioned to Northern Dine (Cree) friend WolfChild that some of the younger ones were distressed because so few of us seemed to be aware-of and responding-to the actual “situation” here. He suggested reminding them that our Mother Earth, while exceedingly generous, is not wasteful. If only “a handful” are available, he said, then only that many are necessary to restoring the balance (actually, in our languages, literally “dynamic imbalance") She thrives on. So cyrena (#109876) might take heart from knowing first-hand even a few of “the few”....not to mention being among us herownself.
For each of those neo-fascist/nazi/liberal/con “bunkers” being prepared (all of ‘em, not surprisingly, in or near places long-known by us Natives to be especially strong in a spiritual way), there are also a handful at least of us surviving free wild natural People who will be the Good Medicine that acts as anti-dote to the blitzkreig of terminally toxic terror the tormentors and their damned fool tame two-legged dupes intend to unleash upon the masses of “their” sleep-walking subject/citizens. So the “numbers” racket turns out to be just another big part of the whole privateering pyramid scheme anyhow. Our Mother Earth will have what she needs in the way of Two-Legged Children....come hell AND high-water (the Purification Ceremony, the Beauty Way, Washte Wash-Day, as some of us call it).
We sure are living in “interesting times.”
HokaHey!
Reply to this | Report thisBy lodipete, October 27, 2007 at 7:19 am #
(83 comments total)
“Jingoism defined:
“That inverted patriotism whereby the love of one’s own nation is transformed into the hatred of another nation, and the fierce craving to destroy individual members of that other nation....Jingoism is the passion of the spectator, the inciter, the backer, not of the fighter.”
Nuff said.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Verne Arnold, October 27, 2007 at 5:25 am #
(494 comments total)
#109886 by cyrena on 10/27 at 3:16 am
(1383 comments total)
If any of this stuff is true, (and there’s no reason to believe that it isn’t), we MIGHT get a reprive.
Cyrena,
What ever “they” are smoking....I want some...actually...no I don’t...I’ll take reality, just the way it is.
Peace
Reply to this | Report thisBy cyrena, October 27, 2007 at 3:16 am #
(4071 comments total)
If any of this stuff is true, (and there’s no reason to believe that it isn’t), we MIGHT get a reprive.
So, I had to post this. I’ve never referenced this site before, so I don’t know how ‘credible’ it is, but it sounds plausible enough to me. More than anything, it sort of gave me a nice chuckle. Anyway, I’ve included a few selected portions from it, and you can use the link to access the rest. Reads almost like a tabloid, EXCEPT that it’s all perfectly believable.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2007
Bush White House begins to disintegrate
Page update: 27.10.07
“The Bush White House is in turmoil. Barbara Bush, the President’s mother has accused George Bush Jnr, the President, of destroying the Bush family name. The President himself is drunk much of the time, and important meetings have had to be cancelled or postponed on “medical grounds” because of this. Laura Bush, the President’s wife, has had divorce papers prepared and has said that she will only continue to present publicly as George’s wife until he leaves office. She has demanded a ten million dollar honorarium for providing this photo shoot service. Laura Bush did not accompany George to the APEC meeting in Sydney in September 2007.”
“One by one the Bush family bank and brokerage accounts are being closed down or blocked….” They say he soon will not be able to pay his Crawford staff.
And then, this…”The World Court has lodged ten charges of Treason against George Bush Jnr, the 43rd President of the United States of America. These will shortly be served on him by the Adjutant General for the USA accompanied by the Provost Marshall for the USA (Brigadier General Rodney Johnson). More details can be found in a Casper Update of the 21st September 2007 here. It is said that the President is using Patriot Act emergency powers to prevent news of these Treason charges reaching the mainstream media in the USA.”
Here’s another tidbit on Cheney too.
“The Vice President, Dick Cheney, is popping pills like Jimi Hendrix at the Isle of Wight. He is as close to dead, physically, as a zombie can be. He is being propped-up by medics like a Soviet-era dictator.”
“Behind the scenes, elements of civil war are becoming evident within the White House. On the eve of the IMF/World Bank Annual Meetings at the end of October 2007, Dick Cheney attempted to steal $45 billion from George Bush Jnr. A long-serving banker of Pakistani origin based at the New York office of Credit Suisse diverted $45 billion for a secret personal account held by Halliburton in Dubai for Vice President Richard B Cheney. The $45 billion represented stolen money held in trust for the President of the United States, George Bush Jnr.”
http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2007/10/bush-white -house-begins-to-disintegrate.html
Oh and, Hugo Chavez says george is on the edge of the psychiatric hospital. (well, we knew that).
Reply to this | Report thisBy cyrena, October 27, 2007 at 12:15 am #
(4071 comments total)
#109750 by TAO Walker on 10/26 at 10:12 am
• …..”the only “out” this old Savage knows of, after a very long life of paying close attention, is what our Lakota relatives call the Tiyoshpaye Way. Of course taking it means giving-up one’s “civilized individuality,” with all of its artifactual “advantages,” and giving all one’s precious personal attention to fulfilling the organic function of Humanity within the Living Arrangment of our Mother Earth.”…
• So, who’s ready for some HERstory, for a change?
ME TAO!!! I’m ready. Been preparing for 7 years. Been trying to prepare as many other of my two-legged creature friends as well, but some of ‘em just can’t get with the program, and so there’s really just me and a scattered few others.
Apparently that instinct for survival isn’t as prevalent among us as you might have thought. (or me either). I find most of my fellow creatures still in an overwhelming sense of denial. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe all of us aren’t meant to survive.
So, I’m paying close attention, to everything you say. (still very much a novice at this, but I’m learning). Purplewolf tells me that the Wolf is the teacher. I used to hear them here…close by, at night. For some reason, it was instinctively a comforting feeling, but I also took it as a warning. NOW, I don’t hear them. Maybe the fires? Maybe the Teacher determined that She couldn’t hang around forever, trying to get the message across. BUT, I heard it.
And, there just doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of time left, to finish the transition. At least not if we’re planning to survive. So, keep talking. A few of us are paying attention.
And, I’m about to go put on my new turtle skirt.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Non Credo, October 26, 2007 at 1:52 pm #
(1106 comments total)
What Americans don’t know: the Kurdish terrorists assaulting Turkey with US and Israeli support are worse than Hizbollah.
The brilliant University Professor Juan Cole (President of the Global Americana Institute, Univ. of Mich.), much hated by the Israel lobby because he tells the truth and knows his stuff, explains:
“The hypocrisy of the Bush case is obvious when it complains about Iran supporting Hizbullah and Hamas. The Kurds based in American Iraq have done much worse things to Turkey in the past month than Hizbullah did to Israel in June of 2006. Yet when Israel launched a brutal and wideranging war on all of Lebanon, destroying precious infrastructure and dumping enormous amounts of oil into the Mediterranean, damaging Beirut airport, destroying essential bridges in Christian areas, and then releasing a million cluster bomblets on civilian areas in the last 3 days of the war-- when Israel did all that, Bush and Cheney applauded and argued against a ‘premature’ cease-fire! Yet they are trying to convince Turkey just to put up stoically with the PKK terrorists who have killed dozens of Turkish troops recently and kidnapped 8 (again, more than the number of Iraeli troops that were kidnapped). Bush’s coddling of the PKK in Iraq is not different from Iran’s support for Hizbullah, except that the PKK is a more dangerous and brutal organization than Hizbullah.”
http://www.juancole.com/
Reply to this | Report thisBy TAO Walker, October 26, 2007 at 10:12 am #
(167 comments total)
The relative ease with which theamericanpeople are being herded to their “destruction” has this old Indian wondering what ever happened to their supposedly strong instinct for “self preservation.” The same holds true for the rest of the world’s nearly 7 billion (by latest count) domesticated humans.
Seems like the tormentors and their two-legged privateering partners couldn’t be much more specific about their intention to dispose of almost everybody not a member of the in-crowd....which is probably 98% of the population. Starting again from-scratch with selected “breeders,” after culling-out all the increasingly marginal old stock, would be exactly what any half-way sensible “operator” would be setting-up to do at this point. Isolating the “chosen few” from whatever bio-chem agents are finally used to implement the latest “final solution” would also be part of the “project.”
Right now nearing completion beneath the Paha Sapa (Black Hills) is a massive “retreat” where some of the select and their “owners” will wait-out the coming “global” auschwitzification of the economically “redundant.” There are other such “undisclosed locations” scattered strategically all around the world.
To any here who might still feel such extreme ruthlessness is beyond the pale for even this present generation of global gangsters, it would be well to look at their utterly vicious record to-date. What have they refrained from carrying-out so far, in the way of institutionalized degradation, exploitation, rape, ruin, and wholesale murder that they have said openly they intended to effect? What part of their increasingly “public” plans for worldwide holocaust (Doesn’t this mean something like “burnt offering”?) can they be counted-on to shrink-from....and for what conceivable reasons? Doesn’t any clear-eyed, strong-stomached look at these “heirs” (like “Temporary” Bush) lead inevitably to the conclusion that they have themselves been bred specifically to implement this “end-game” phase of a ten-thousand-year-long program for “....subdu(ing) the Earth,” and to be (many of them) sacrificed themselves in the process?
Maybe it’d be merely merciful, after-all, if this doom falls “upon the just and unjust alike” while their addled minds are absorbed by politics and pre-occupied with poker and the ten million other manufactured distractions available 24/7/365 to keep the insufficiently wary moving steadily and stupified toward “the showers.” Considering the tormentors’ insatiable appetite for misery, grief, and terror, though, us surviving free wild natural Human Beings are not optimistic about the chances for our tame Sisters and Brothers to simply (and luckily?) “....die in (their) sleep.”
To those on this thread wondering what’s a soon-to-be totally fucked muthah to do, as a possibly viable response to “The Situation,” the only “out” this old Savage knows of, after a very long life of paying close attention, is what our Lakota relatives call the Tiyoshpaye Way. Of course taking it means giving-up one’s “civilized individuality,” with all of its artifactual “advantages,” and giving all one’s precious personal attention to fulfilling the organic function of Humanity within the Living Arrangment of our Mother Earth.
So, who’s ready for some HERstory, for a change?
HokaHey!
Reply to this | Report thisBy John Borowski, October 26, 2007 at 7:38 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The trouble we have with foreign countries that led us into war is because of the failure to interpret the language properly. If we tell a foreigner to go jump in the lake, he believes we want to go swimming. Conversely, if they tell us an expression of theirs we are baffled. Why in the world would they want us to do that in public, do they want us to get arrested? In Latin America GM wanted to sell the indigenous people Nova cars. In Spanish Nova means it doesn’t go? Why in gods name would they want to buy a new car that doesn’t go? Is this the reason that we should not look back because Toyota is gaining on us? HP advertised on their bill boards that means in the Hispanic language that if you use our ink we can bring your ancestors back from the dead. Would they really want that if they owed them money. In Japan, the British package golf balls in a number of balls that are bad luck in Japan. Why would a golfer want golf balls that will surely go in sandtraps or ponds?
Reply to this | Report thisBy jojo {:-(, October 26, 2007 at 6:18 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
America will be toast if Rudy takes over from Bush. If the 2008 election will befixed, my advice to all Mamas--hide your sons from the crazies. Head to the Artic.
Reply to this | Report thisA must read on Rudy--What could be worse than Moron Bush-- Mafia boss Rudy {:-(
http://www2.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0711.m orris.html
By ender, October 26, 2007 at 3:53 am #
(128 comments total)
You really should research a subject before calling your intellectual superiors names. Kurds had a pre-Islamic relgion that has been melded to sufism in order to not be wiped out by the f’n muslims. They have separate religious text for that religon, Ezidism, written in their own language, and keep pretty quiet about it to avoid the capital apostacy charge. Why do you think the rest of the Islamic world hates them so much? Sufism itself is a much more reasonable for of Islam than Sunni or Shia, and persectued in many muslim states. Ezidism even more so.
Reply to this | Report thisBy bill payne, October 25, 2007 at 4:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Let’s see what general Gabreski does.
http://www.prosefights.org/nmlegal/dcvoid/dcvoid.htm#g abreski
Reply to this | Report thisBy Non Credo, October 25, 2007 at 9:32 am #
(1106 comments total)
from #109305 by ender on 10/24 at 10:20 am
“ ...I suspect a majority of Kurds want to reject Islam, but know that they will always be second class citizens without paying it lip service.”
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU NIT-WIT? THE KURDS [I]ARE[/I] MOSTLY MUSLIMS - [I]SUNNI[/I] MUSLIMS!! YOU ARE CONFUSING ETHNICITY AND RELIGION!!
Reply to this | Report thisBy Verne Arnold, October 25, 2007 at 3:02 am #
(494 comments total)
As this article slides down the page to irrelevance…a few thoughts:
Cheney…the black heart of America! The poster man (not a boy) of all that is wrong and evil,
That we allow him relevance is a travesty of even our own black history,
It defies the very image we hold so dear, illusion at its best,
This nation in denial of so much,
Fear rules and like a thief in the night,
Steals that which we hold so dear, that which we never were.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Gerrit Schroder, October 24, 2007 at 8:49 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Scott Ritter, another amateur historian. He cribs some Muslim history from a couple of popular paperbacks (or Wikipedia?), then criticizes Americans for not keeping up to his Freshman collegiate standards?
Where’s the application of this background to the statements of Iraqi Shia and Sunni leaders, to the so-called (insultingly) Arab Street in Iraq? What do modern Iraqis believe, given this historical context? Oh, finding that out would be real work, something Ritter has conveniently left to those who don’t take crib notes to their exams.
Pull the beam out of your eye, Scotty, before you complain about the mote in ours.
Reply to this | Report thisBy PatrickHenry, October 24, 2007 at 6:06 pm #
(1074 comments total)
“George W. Bush’s White House, where the leader of the free world gets advice from reckless neoconservatives, “war criminal” Dick Cheney and “God.”
Don’t forget Barney.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Paolo, October 24, 2007 at 6:02 pm #
(278 comments total)
It appears the neocon nut cases in charge of our government perceive Iran, like Iraq, as “doable” (in the immortal words of Wolfowitz).
Is America stupid enough to fall for this obvious propaganda a second time? I’m afraid so.
Iran hasn’t invaded another country in over two hundred years. Iran has no nuclear weapons, and her leaders repeatedly have stated they have no intention of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran has every right to pursue peaceful nuclear power; in fact, the USA was in the process of building nuclear power plants for Iran back when they were under our satrap, the Shah.
Iran has a GNP--even with oil revenues--about on a par with Ireland, slightly more than Denmark, and a little less than Norway (see Wikipedia to verify this). In short, it is a typical, third world economic basket case.
Now, George W. Bush speaks openly of “World War III” if Iran is allowed even the technology to build a nuclear weapon. He talks about Iran some day acquiring missiles (at some indeterminate date) that could reach Europe or America. This guy is freaking nuts!
Iran has repeatedly made attempts to open talks with the US government. All such attempts have been rudely rebuffed.
Am I part of the “blame America” crowd? YES. (That is, I blame the American government. The American people are now solidly against this insane empire-building. But, contrary to what Ms. Pringle taught you in 8th grade social studies, “the People” do not rule. They just issue a sanction to the government every two years to keep doing the same thing.)
Do I “hate America”? NO. But I sure as hell hate our government. If you cannot see the fact that the neocon whackos running our government are moral monsters, you’re blind, deaf, and lobotomized.
Time for a revolution, folks!
Reply to this | Report thisBy Quincy, October 24, 2007 at 3:20 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Is Bush the only one who believes in Armageddon? According to the timeline of events leading up to the Iraq war assembled by Mother Jones magazine (see its website), on August 14, 1992, Cheney spoke to the Discovery Institute in Seattle. The Discovery Institute is a think tank best known for its advocacy of creationism, more recently in the guise of ‘intelligent design’. Why would Cheney be speaking there?
Reply to this | Report thisBy Ben Cohen, October 24, 2007 at 2:09 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Check this interview with David Barsamian. He’s convinced the U.S are itching for another war, and it’s hard not to agree with his logic: http://originalbanter.blogspot.com/2007/10/exclusive-d aily-banter-interviews-david.html
It’s very scary.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Tim Fishburne, October 24, 2007 at 1:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
For such a brilliant group of commentators, I have to wonder why there is so much preoccupation with reducing America’s middle east policy down to one motive?
I couldn’t even get 10 of my friends to come up up with a single reason for playing a game of softball. It’s just not reasonable to look for an overriding determinate factor for our current war-in-waiting with Iran.
It should be obvious that the oil barons have their reasons, and the evangelicals have theirs. Just as the Military Industrial Complex has altogether different motives. And the Israel-first crowd have theirs.
Sure, money is driving some people, but I would guess very few. They may live in a gated community, but they gotta come out sometime, if only to fill up their tanks, or to look for some fresh breeding stock. It wouldn’t do them much good to render the world outside their gates a technicolor wasteland.
But if those same people could fight a culture war AND horde some filthy lucre in the process - now we’re talking business. If they could do god’s work and land that stealth bomber contract…
To be sure, there are folks out there who really do believe we are surrounded by evil on all sides. And there are others who know fully well that they are taking advantage of a society’s fresh-off-the-assembly-line fears, but rationalize cynically, ‘if not me, then someone else...’
Yes, if only it all came down to just 12 guys in a Strangelove boardroom playing checkers with people’s lives. That would be so simple, so elegant, so biblical in it’s moral shading.
The toughest kind of conspiracy to fight is the conspiracy of circumstance. That flash-point in time when the situation is right for history to… well, happen. But that is just what we are facing in the showdown/shakedown with the Ayatollahs.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Brennan, October 24, 2007 at 12:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I took notice of this quote awhile back, while watching the news one evening.
“Everything is on the table as in all things.”
George Bush, ABC News, 1/30/2007, in response to position on use of force against Iran.
So…
Reply to this | Report thisIf you ever wondered where we are ultimately going in all of this, and what our current top secret analysts are really projecting and planning for the future, here is the only answer you will ever need.
By Trixie, October 24, 2007 at 12:19 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Armageddon as believers envision it is going to be pretty universal. I wonder on what rock in what ocean or on what distant planet the Bushies think they themselves are going to escape the consequences of their own evil folly. For some reason, I just don’t see Heaven in the mix.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Trixie, October 24, 2007 at 12:08 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Trying to decide on the scariest thing to masquerade as on Halloween? Look no farther. A Bush mask will serve the purpose (get a Cheney mask if the Bush false faces are all sold out—emphasis on “false faces").
Reply to this | Report thisBy ender, October 24, 2007 at 10:20 am #
(128 comments total)
With atrocities being committed on both sides in Servia/Kosovo, I actually understand the idea of ethnic cleansing vs. becoming an Islamic state. Partition was the best solution. The Kurds are in almost the same boat. While Turkey claims to be secular, I suspect a majority of Kurds want to reject Islam, but know that they will always be second class citizens without paying it lip service.
Likewise, Iraq, the tribal animosity between Shia and Sunni in Saddams wake probably won’t stop until the Sunni are all gone or dead, and partition may be the only answer.
You may be too optimistic about humanity, particularly when members of the cult of Abraham are in the mix.
Reply to this | Report thisBy ezeques, October 24, 2007 at 10:18 am #
(3 comments total)
We be in deep du-du Tonto!
Reply to this | Report thisBy Scott, October 24, 2007 at 9:38 am #
(215 comments total)
No, Doug;
Why are you buying into ethnic nationalism?
Truly. Look back to what VillageElder wrote
This article depicts the grim future we face with clarity. People have be commenting on, and warning about, both the madness and the hidden politics for years. Comparison have been made to Germany of the 1930’s since the beginning of the Bush/Cheney era.
History has shown that countries, and their empires, trumpeting that the are following “god’s voice” are moving towards collapse. Delusions of the final age and judgments have sent other “most powerful” countries in the world into collapse. Usually accompanied with a belief that financial services are all “god’s people” need for a viable economy. A sure sense that there is no need for production but only financial services.
Since the stone age our species has been moving toward a reality and knowledge based world view. The trek has been long, painful and beset with many detours and reversals. Today we Americans have had a cabal pushing for illegal and unnecessary wars, replacement of reality and knowledge by superstition and the destruction of of our constitution for their own purposes.
We owe it to the world to end this madness we have visited upon our species.
What humans have to do, as a species, is to start thinking like a race of Earthling’s.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Robert E Reed, October 24, 2007 at 9:22 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Outstanding article.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Bill Blackolive, October 24, 2007 at 8:24 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
People like Scott Ritter have to start yelling there is in the US governing a cover-up of 9/ll or we drown in shit swamp.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Non Credo, October 24, 2007 at 5:07 am #
(1106 comments total)
Douglas Chalmers:
“There once was a nation called Kurdistan which was dissected by British and other european invaders after the fall of the Turkish empire at the end of WW1 some 80 years ago. They are a large ethnic group just as much as the Arabs and the Persians and deserve to have self rule.”
No, Doug;
Why are you buying into ethnic nationalism?
There never was a real, independent nation-state of Kurdistan. There always was and still is a demographically predominantly ethnic-Kurd area of the world, with loosely defined borders, called Kurdistan. The idea that any large ethnic group “deserves” to have its own nation state defined by belonging to the ethnic group is the basis of European ethnic nationalism, which brought us lovely things like Aryan nationalism, Serb nationalism, and Zionism.
The right of “peoples” (ie, ethnicities) to have their own geographical nation-states dates at least to the days of Woodrow Wilson’s crusading nonsense and is a recipe for endless wars of ethnic cleansing and land-grabbing. The Kurdish nationalists are not so different from the Serb ethnic nationalists and the Zionists. Have you read their stuff? Their leaders have the same blood-and-soil myths about the glorious destiny of the Kurds to drive out the Others and return to an imaginary past of ethnic purity and national glory.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, October 23, 2007 at 9:38 pm #
(2900 comments total)
#109169 by cyrena on 10/23 at 8:57 pm: “...since it IS a very dangerous enterprise, for which there is no pay, and lots of pain, and impossible to accomplish alone, ALL HELP would be most appreciated....”
I think that the Burmese (Myanmar) people, Buddhist monks especially, should be our example. Theirs is a far greater risk and at far greater cost yet they have repeatedly persevered despite previous bloody military crack-downs. It would be very poor indeed not to try to equal their dedication and bravery and unselfishness yet still to refer to the USA as “the land of the free”! By the way, something should be done about Chevron, there, too, uhh.
But, back to “the Eve of Destruction”, WASHINGTON - “...The Bush administration is considering air strikes against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq in an attempt to stave off a Turkish invasion of Iraq to fight the rebels, administration officials said....” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-tur key23oct23,1,355556.story
There once was a nation called Kurdistan which was dissected by British and other european invaders after the fall of the Turkish empire at the end of WW1 some 80 years ago. They are a large ethnic group just as much as the Arabs and the Persians and deserve to have self rule.
But the Bush Neocon’s solution? Let’s go bomb them (Turkey is our “ally” so f#ck them)!!!
Reply to this | Report thisBy cyrena, October 23, 2007 at 8:57 pm #
(4071 comments total)
#109151 by Douglas Chalmers
..."SOMEBODY has to START holding them accountable!!!"…
Douglas,
On THIS, we are in absolute agreement. OH YES. And, while you may be unaware of it, there are those of us (myself among them) who have been trying to do...EXACTLY THAT!!
I might add, that it is a very DANGEROUS activity..attempting to hold them accountable. BUT, it hasn’t kept us from trying, nor will it prevent (ME at least) from continuing those efforts.
However, since it IS a very dangerous enterprise, for which there is no pay, and lots of pain, and impossible to accomplish alone, ALL HELP would be most appreciated.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, October 23, 2007 at 7:34 pm #
(2900 comments total)
#109037 by Mossada on 10/23 at 12:04 pm: “...Can Gandhism work against the likes of Cheney and Bush and the Saudi Royal thugs...?”
Well, WHEN are you going to start???
#109128 by cyrena on 10/23 at 6:21 pm: “...You don’t give a destructive child idiot all the keys to the gun cabinet, then claim you couldn’t stop him from shooting people....”
SOMEBODY has to START holding them accountable!!!
Reply to this | Report thisBy cyrena, October 23, 2007 at 6:21 pm #
(4071 comments total)
#109032 by hazmaq
Hazmaq,
Thank you, thank you, and thank you – again. For…pointing this out, and bringing it to our attention. Even those of us who do our best to maintain a position of informed decisions and analysis, can be (and often are) distracted by the BS. (which is of course the intention)
So, I’ve reposted the summary and what is (for me at least) the most important thing to take from this, (besides a reminder of these names, Lantos, Hoyer, there are a few others). So, you wrote:
• Notice that the focus and blame for all Democratic failures is all on Pelosi of ‘San Francisco’. She’s obviously an inept public leader and doesn’t run the show behind the scenes, or Murtha would be in charge.
But what they’re really doing is to let her be used as a scapegoat and a punching bag, while they continue to have private agreements with George W. Bush.
This small bunch of Democrats are almost more at fault than Bush. You don’t give a destructive child idiot all the keys to the gun cabinet, then claim you couldn’t stop him from shooting people.”....
Again, I thank you for the clarity.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Kevin, October 23, 2007 at 4:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
There are many insightful statements here, but what are We The People going to do to fix this situation now and then what are we going to do to ensure it never happens again?
Reply to this | Report thisBy Barrie Machin, October 23, 2007 at 4:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
http://peacesource.net/BushspeakswithGOD.jpg
Reply to this | Report thisA case of mistaken identity
see also http://peacesource.net/blog
By wlr, October 23, 2007 at 2:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
First of all, Scott has good credentials. His article shows great insight into what is going on behind the scenes in WDC, and I enjoyed it, in spite of the following exceptions.
I took exception to Scott’s interpretation of the church and state issue. He is merely parrotting the unfounded conclusions of our corrupted courts and politicians. Scott got it half right. The First Amendment was intended to keep government out of religion, but not the other way around. Many of the Founders (they weren’t a monolithic group, by the way), believed that government leaders (and the people at large from whom leaders would be chosen) should be guided by religious principle, otherwise the government and society would devolve into a cabal of self-interest run amok. Of course, being guided by religious principle is not the same as being a theocracy.
Washington said it best in his Farewell Address: “Of all the dspositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indipensible supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Note that Washington, a man of the Enlightenment period, says that both REASON and EXPERIENCE forbid us to conclude that “national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Benjamin Franklin had this to say in a letter to Ezra Stiles: “As to Jesus of Nazareth, ... I think the system of morals, and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England some doubts as to his divinity; ... I see no harm, however, in its being believed [i.e. Christ’s divinity], if that belief has the good consequence, as it probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed;...”
Although Lincoln’s quote might seem to have been appropriate, it is hypocritical coming from a despot who preferred to go to war and cause the slaughter of 600,000 fellow citizens rather than change economic policy, which was the root of the War Between the States, not slavery.
Finally, the last book of the Bible is the Book of Revelation, singular, not Revelations, plural.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Trigger finger, October 23, 2007 at 12:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Bush to Congress:
Hey Pardners: weerr donn heer in da canyon and runnin short on lead. cant fight widout lead. Could ya thro a couple a cases ah bullets on the next stage, and maybe soom beef jerky 2. hurry plees. and o maybee som empty kegs 2 stan behin, but mostly need plente ah bullets.
Your Commamdar in chearg georg.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Mossada, October 23, 2007 at 12:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Can Gandhism work against the likes of Cheney and Bush and the Saudi Royal thugs?
Americans have lost their jobs; the US Corporations are richer than ever; US Billionaire have gone from 50 to 200; The Chinese Government exploite their own cheap labor; and the beautiful people are busy celebrating their wealth.
Whatever happened to a Government of the people; for the people; by the people???
What happens to the ordinary human being, across the world, who just want a, normal, happy life?
How many Iranian children will die for Cheney, Bush and Bibi Netanyahu to achieve happiness?
I just wish there were more Jewish people applying their intellect to pointing out the insanity with the whole system the Democrat/Republicans serve so slaveishly.
Reply to this | Report thisBy hazmaq, October 23, 2007 at 11:33 am #
(46 comments total)
Scott, do you believe as I do that Bush wouldn’t be so cock sure of himself if he didn’t already believe he had enough support in Congress to carry all of his plans forward?
I bring this up after just hearing about a bill stalled for years in the Foreign Relations Committee now chaired by the old pro-war, pro-attack Iran, anti-muslim racist hawk named Lantos.
It’s H.Con.Res.177, which expresses “..the sense of Congress that the crisis regarding the Iranian nuclear program should be primarily resolved through diplomatic means.”
Or how about House Joint Resolution 14, which will return war declaration authority to the rightful hands of the legislative branch and prevent a preemptive attack on the people of Iran?”
But no. Steny Hoyer has allowed nothing but useless time wasting motions to come to the floor instead. Trying to buy George W. Bush some time? As they did while Lebanon was destroyed. Or time to grab Iraq’s oil and wealth, perhaps? Hoyer is the main force behind that benchmark.
Steny Hoyer not long ago told people he had no intention of using “a balanced hand” when dealing with the people of the Middle East. And Lantos is a neo-con hard-liner at heart. And Bush knows those two are with him.
So this group of newly crowned ‘Democratic’ wolves in sheeps clothing threw other good Democrats and the voters under the train and now promote every NSA/war related policy Bush has asked for.
Look at the past...Hackett, Murtha, Ned Lamont, Feingold and on and on I could go, all good people silenced not by dirty tactics of the Right, but by an inside cabal of Congressional Democrats with ‘other interests’, who used the DCCC and DSCC purse strings to look for more hard liners..
The same ones who gave election promises to Joe Lieberman and helped force him back into his Senate Chairmanships.
Now, Lieberman, Hoyer and Lantos call most of the shots on our foreign policy decisions and on all matters of war.
Bush couldn’t have asked for better allies.
Notice that the focus and blame for all Democratic failures is all on Pelosi of ‘San Francisco’. She’s obviously an inept public leader and doesn’t run the show behind the scenes, or Murtha would be in charge.
But what they’re really doing is to let her be used as a scapegoat and a punching bag, while they continue to have private agreements with George W. Bush.
This small bunch of Democrats are almost more at fault than Bush. You don’t give a destructive child idiot all the keys to the gun cabinet, then claim you couldn’t stop him from shooting people.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Non Credo, October 23, 2007 at 11:28 am #
(1106 comments total)
What’s interesting is that polls show Americans overwhelmingly against going to war with Iran even though Americans seem to have bought the Bush lies about Iran (that Iran is a nuclear threat, is suicidally determined to destroy Israel, and is “killing our boys” in Iraq and trying to bring down the Iraqi government).
This must drive the neocons crazy - their false propaganda was believed, but it didn’t lead Americans to conclude that going to war against Iran is justified!
There is only one country on earth where a majority of the population believes America should go to war against Iran: Israel. Once again, we are shooting ourselves in the foot for them.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Nathan, October 23, 2007 at 10:49 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hi Mossada, I just wanted to say that the Saudi’s virtually own Bush due to large investments in the Bush empire throughout the 70s and 80s. That’s why they are not responsible for 9/11. (Plus it was an inside job, and we put them up to it..)
Reply to this | Report thisBy loveinatub, October 23, 2007 at 9:22 am #
(81 comments total)
Bush is a scare and war mongerer. He is George Orwell’s reality come true. “War is peace” “ignorance is strength” “freedom is slavery”
The war profiteers, the Blackwaters, the war machine, the military industrial complex, all of is reality and all of it is an ongoing nightmare.
Reply to this | Report thisBy ender, October 23, 2007 at 9:06 am #
(128 comments total)
The public faces of gov’t are not the true power brokers in the US. Most are not on the ‘list of wealthiest people’ either. Bill Gates has more influence on our national policy than you or I, but not significantly more. Bush, Cheney, and Rummy may have been an “Axis of Evil” but neither they and the think tank kids like Rove and Libby are just tools of the old money families where money is in private businesses and trust with unclear ownership and control.
The elite most likely look at the monkeys in the White House as dumb kids just having a little fun.
If they start WWIII, so what? The small group of families that wield true power are so international and own so enough of all of the channels of wealth, that any calamity only funnels more wealth upward. They can’t lose. And I suspect they get a secret pleasure in a time such as this when we are shown we are sheep with no real control of our national policy or direction.
If you think the Democrats are any different you are sadly mistaken. They work for the same people and that ain’t you or me.
The American economy is vaporware. We produce very little, while even food production, one of our most prolific resources, is now only part of a global supply chain that can be turned off overnight if we misbehave. They don’t need us anymore, hence the open borders, free trade, offshoring and H-1B workers widen the gap and keep us invested in the survival of conspicuous concermerism as our national religion.
The only real threat to that elite in recent years has been Iran and Iraq engaging in oil trade in Euros vs the Dollar. The Federal Reserve issues money on an imaginary value that actually is tied to the worlds largest commodity market, Oil. If the dollar becomes unhinged from the oil market, any intrinsic value is lost, and the emperor’s new close aren’t there anymore.
That is why the only way Iran can avoid being the ‘cause of WWIII’ is to rejoin the Dollar base oil bourse. Saddam refused and we saw his fake exicution. The Iranian people probably won’t be so lucky.
Israel is a convenient tool to maintain the unrest in the mideast that keeps despots in power. We can deal with despots. Educated, thinking humans that attempt to excersize control over their own lives are much harder to deal with. As long as they are busy hating and scratching out an existence in ignorance, the money and power just keep flowing up.
Reply to this | Report thisBy Non Credo, October 23, 2007 at 8:43 am #
(