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Edited on Fri May-04-07 10:30 AM by madhoosier
An original article by Madhoosier, aka H. Kevin Cloyd
With a 28% approval rating and less than two years left in their presidency Bush and Cheney know that a turn around in the polls is impossible since their dismal popularity is a direct result of the policies they have implemented. They’ve given tax cuts to millionaires while they’ve mortgaged our children’s future, they’ve deployed America’s military to do the bidding of the Israelis and the Saudi royal family and they’ve bastardized America’s government into a republican political tool. But even with this abhorrent record there are still worse things left undone on their “to do” list; Iran is poised to become the preeminent Islamic power in the Middle East as a direct result of Bush’s invasion of Iraq and the Neocons simply will not allow Iran to assume the roll they’ve reserved for the Saudi royals.
Within the next few days a third American aircraft carrier will arrive in the Middle East, the U.S.S. Nimitz will join the U.S.S. Stennis and the U.S.S. Eisenhower as part of a rotation to allow the Ike to return to the U.S. Accompanying the carriers are dozens of American warships armed with the largest concentration of missile firepower in the history of the world. Since the Nimitz left San Diego April 2nd there has been no mention of the naval buildup in the Middle East in America’s corporate owned media. The buildup of naval power is significant because all of America’s allies in the Middle East have refused to give the U.S. permission to use airbases in their countries for an attack against Iran (although they did accept American Patriot anti-missile missiles to guard against missile attacks from Iran.) I fear that the rotation of carriers is really a buildup of naval power for the long promised attack on Iran.
An attack on Iran would be completely outside the boundaries of International Law. Since Tehran is at least 600 miles from America’s aircraft carriers an attack with aircraft or cruise missiles would allow enough time for Iran’s political and religious leadership to disappear into Iran’s vast countryside. If the purpose of an attack on Iran is regime change then the first wave of the attack will probably be with ballistic missiles in an attempt to take out Iran’s leadership, these missiles will, in all probability, be tipped with nuclear weapons. These so called tactical nukes are as much as ten times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of W. W. II. The United States affront to international law would dwarf Japan’s breach of law at Pearl Harbor.
The clues of the coming attack are limitless, Divine Strake, the trial run bombing campaign in Lebanon, the naval buildup in the Middle East, McCain’s “Bomb Iran” quip, Dick Cheney’s day after Thanksgiving rush to Saudi Arabia, the President’s January 10th speech where the Patriot missile deployment to America’s Sunni allies in the Middle East was announced and the President’s saber rattling toward Iran went into overdrive, leaks from the Pentagon that Bush had demanded plans be made to bomb Iran, the leak that any terrorist attack on American interests anywhere would be used as the excuse for the attack on Iran, then there’s the little Neocon ditty “Anybody can go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran” and the biggest clue of all, America’s surge into Baghdad, a policy that makes no sense at all unless you expect an attack from the Shia militias aligned with Tehran.
How does it make sense to burn the side that isn’t blowing you up in Iraq to appease the Saudi royal family, the same old friends that have threatened to openly support the same Sunni insurgents that have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of American casualties? Apparently in Bush Bizarro World it does.
To describe the Bush administration as reckless is an understatement, so far there have been repeated prolonged visits to the White House by a male prostitute. Dick Cheney has shot a man in the face. It’s widely reported in the underground press that the once dry drunk W. is back on the juice. During the first seven months of the Bush administration, while the threat of a terrorist attack was an extreme concern to America’s counter terrorism professionals President Bush set a record for vacation days. During this same time period then Attorney General John Ashcroft quit flying on commercial flights because of an unspecified “risk assessment.” The President told the Aug. 6th National Security briefer “You’ve covered your ass.” upon the delivery of a briefing entitled “bin Laden determined to Strike in U.S.” The President has crashed his bicycle repeatedly, once bowling over several of London’s finest. And the President and his Neocon advisers have started a war in the Middle East, based on a case of premeditated lies that they now seek to expand because they are powerless to stop it. Were it not for the deaths of over a half a million innocents their accomplishment would be suitable fodder for the next generation of comedians.
The international repercussions of an attack on Iran are nearly limitless, first a quarter of the world’s oil will stop- flowing through the Straits of Hormuz and skyrocketing energy prices will cause a world wide depression. The dollar will fall as nations dump their holdings of dollars. China and Russia are not going to stand by and watch the United States hijack the petroleum resources of the Middle East, while they probably won’t retaliate militarily they may economically. Further American intervention in the Middle East could cause domestic trouble for Musharraf in Pakistan, the real potential source for a nuclear bomb falling into the hands of terrorists.
Religious war between the Shia and the Sunni could spread across the Middle East with the high probability that virtually all oil from the region would quit flowing? Hugo Chavez in Venezuela would also cut off supplies of oil to America.
Then there are the domestic repercussions of war with Iran. American casualties in Iraq would explode as formerly trusted Iraqi Shia turned on their former American allies. Iran’s anti-ship cruise missiles have a high probability of inflicting serious damage to America’s war ships in the bathtub sized Persian Gulf and Iran has at least a dozen cruise missiles stockpiled for every American warship in the Middle East. The combination of massive American casualties coupled with the massive anti-war rallies that an expanded war would generate are a recipe for a bloodbath between the anti-war protesters and the right wing war supporters. In Rwanda hate radio was a major factor in spreading the genocide, in America right wing talk radio has the potential of inflaming its dittohead listeners into unprecedented violence. Also many left wing organizations have been infiltrated by police agencies since 9/11 and these infiltrators acting as agent provocateurs are virtually guaranteed. Finally as the Los Angles police department on Monday demonstrated America’s finest have no qualms about beating the crap out of innocents.
Since the likely scenario for the attack on Iran involves the United States using ballistic missiles in a surprise attack there is also the Constitutional crisis of having President Bush start a war without Congressional consent (as opposed to acting in self defense). The overdue Constitutional crisis between the Unitary Executive and the Congress could no longer be avoided. With America’s Supreme Court packed with ultra-right wing judges God only knows what absurdities they’d rubber-stamp.
Another probability is that President Bush will declare Martial Law, ban war protests, and round up anybody that violates the ban. In addition to these arrests thousands of additional Federal prosecutions will be levied against left wing activists using minor tax violations, trumped up drug charges, alleged pornography violations, and any other violation of the law, no matter how flimsy, that would be able to provide a federal arrest warrant to justify rounding up the left and locking them in jail. The recent dismissals of the United States Attorneys may well have been motivated by the need to place rubber stamp USA’s in position to argue that massive arrests are legal and send the message to the rest of the USA’s to lock’em up and throw away the key.
At a 28% approval rating the Bush administration is backed into a corner, instead of placing the Republican Party in a position to dominate America’s politics for a generation the grand dreams of the Neocons appear to have had the opposite affect. They now have nothing left to play but their endgame, which will be far worse than anything we’ve seen so far.
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