Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran?

[Joanne98]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/02/3564/

Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran?
by Ray McGovern

Why do I feel like the proverbial skunk at a Labor Day picnic? Sorry; but I thought you might want to know that this time next year there will probably be more skunks than we can handle. I fear our country is likely to be at war with Iran-and with the thousands of real terrorists Iran can field around the globe.

It is going to happen, folks, unless we put our lawn chairs away on Tuesday, take part in some serious grass-roots organizing, and take action to prevent a wider war-while we still can.

President George W. Bush’s speech Tuesday lays out the Bush/Cheney plan to attack Iran and how the intelligence is being “fixed around the policy,” as was the case before the attack on Iraq.

It’s not about putative Iranian “weapons of mass destruction”-not even ostensibly. It is about the requirement for a scapegoat for U.S. reverses in Iraq, and the White House’s felt need to create a casus belli by provoking Iran in such a way as to “justify” armed retaliation-eventually including air strikes on its nuclear-related facilities.

Bush’s Aug. 28 speech to the American Legion comes five years after a very similar presentation by Vice President Dick Cheney. Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Aug. 26, 2002, Cheney set the meretricious terms of reference for war on Iraq.

Sitting on the same stage that evening was former CENTCOM commander Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who was being honored at the VFW convention. Zinni later said he was shocked to hear a depiction of intelligence (Iraq has WMD and is amassing them to use against us) that did not square with what he knew. Although Zinni had retired two years before, his role as consultant had enabled him to stay up to date on key intelligence findings.

“There was no solid proof that Saddam had WMD…I heard a case being made to go to war,” Zinni told Meet the Press three and a half years later.

(Zinni is a straight shooter with considerable courage, and so the question lingers: why did he not go public? It is all too familiar a conundrum at senior levels; top officials can seldom find their voices. My hunch is that Zinni regrets letting himself be guided by a misplaced professional courtesy and/or slavish adherence to classification restrictions, when he might have prevented our country from starting the kind of war of aggression branded at Nuremberg the “supreme international crime.”)

Cheney: Dean of Preemption

Zinni was not the only one taken aback by Cheney’s words. Then-CIA director George Tenet says Cheney’s speech took him completely by surprise. In his memoir Tenet wrote, “I had the impression that the president wasn’t any more aware than we were of what his number-two was going to say to the VFW until he said it.”

Yet, it could have been anticipated. Just five weeks before, Tenet himself had told his British counterpart that the president had decided to make war on Iraq for regime change and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

When Bush’s senior advisers came back to town after Labor Day, 2002, the next five weeks (and by now, the next five years) were devoted to selling a new product-war on Iraq. The actual decision to attack Iraq, we now know, was made several months earlier but, as then-White House chief of staff Andy Card explained, no sensible salesperson would launch a major new product during the month of August-Cheney’s preemptive strike notwithstanding. Yes, that’s what Card called the coming war; a “new product.”

After assuring themselves that Tenet was a reliable salesman, Cheney and then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld dispatched him and the pliant Powell at State to play supporting roles in the advertising campaign: bogus yellowcake uranium from Niger, aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment, and mobile trailers for manufacturing biological warfare agent-the whole nine yards. The objective was to scare or intimidate Congress into voting for war, and, thanks largely to a robust cheering section in the corporate-controlled media, Congress did so on October 10 and 11, 2002.

This past week saw the president himself, with that same kind of support, pushing a new product-war with Iran. And in the process, he made clear how intelligence is being fixed to “justify” war this time around. The case is too clever by half, but it will be hard for Americans to understand that. Indeed, the Bush/Cheney team expects that the product will sell easily-the more so, since the administration has been able once again to enlist the usual cheerleaders in the media to “catapult the propaganda,” as Bush once put it.

Iran’s Nuclear Plans

It has been like waiting for Godot…the endless wait for the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear plans. That NIE turns out to be the quintessential dog that didn’t bark. The most recent published NIE on the subject was issued two and a half years ago and concluded that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon until “early- to mid-next decade.” That estimate followed a string of NIEs dating back to 1995, which kept predicting, with embarrassing consistency, that Iran was “within five years” of having a nuclear weapon.

The most recent NIE, published in early 2005, extended the timeline and provided still more margin for error. Basically, the timeline was moved 10 years out to 2015 but, in a fit of caution, the drafters settled on the words “early-to-mid next decade.” On Feb. 27, 2007 at his confirmation hearings to be Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell repeated that formula verbatim.

A “final” draft of the follow-up NIE mentioned above had been completed in Feb. 2007, and McConnell no doubt was briefed on its findings prior to his testimony. The fact that this draft has been sent back for revision every other month since February speaks volumes. Judging from McConnell’s testimony, the conclusions of the NIE draft of February are probably not alarmist enough for Vice President Dick Cheney. (Shades of Iraq.)

According to one recent report, the target date for publication has now slipped to late fall. How these endless delays
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/02/3564/

[Jim__]

1. The article implies that Congress should stop this. Congress will not stop this.

The article states: Air strikes on Iran seem inevitable, unless grassroots America can arrange a backbone transplant for Congress.

I'm sorry, but Congress is not going to stop this. The people might; but it would take massive action before Iran is actually attacked. Will the American people act before bush does?

[Frogger]

2. No, we probably don't

The 60s are dead. The hippies moved on into the corporate world, and are now enjoying their ill-gotten gains. Their children are fat and happy. All's right with their world, so why should they care about "the other"?

Without bringing back the draft there will not be a groudswell of protest against the war. AFter all, isn't Bush keeping us "safe"? There's money to be made. We've got to get our priorities straight, don't we?

[mahina]

3. Zinni did certainly speak out against this war prior to its start.

His quotes were on the flyers we handed out at intersections. I don't have them anymore but it was on point well stated irrefutable and, it turns out, right.
...http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec03/zinni_09-30.html
JIM LEHRER: General Zinni, you remained silent in your criticism until recently about what was going on in Iraq. What caused you to speak up finally?

GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Well, first of all, I wasn't silent before. I was called before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and I gave my piece. I voiced my concern in several venues here in this town and they were concerns that I wasn't the lone voice, there were other generals -- former commanders and chiefs of CENTCOM and other general officers -- once the shooting started, I was supporting those troops that were in the field. They didn't need some general back here commenting on the war or in some way Monday morning quarterbacking defense that went on. Now that part of it is over. Now our troops are stuck.

Anthony ZinniI'm hoping we can come out of this. I definitely don't think it's too late. I do not believe this is a quagmire. We're not at that stage yet. But I do think we can't do business as usual. We can't just stay the course and keep doing the same things. We're going to have to take some dramatic action to internationalize this effort to put qualified, highly trained Iraqi security forces in the field, to generate an economy and a level of business that gets jobs on the street.

Unfortunately it's going to cost us $87 billion and probably more down the road. But time can run against us in this and it has to be executed more quickly. I would like to see more people on the ground. I think you need a Bremer and a Bremer-like team at every provincial level, maybe 18 teams down to the grassroots level. You can't leave it to a battalion commander to run the local school or to the run the local city council or village council. You need a political, economic, security, humanitarian piece at every level.

JIM LEHRER: Anybody listening to you, general?

GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Just you.

JIM LEHRER: A couple of others listening with us tonight. Thank you very much.

GEN. ANTHONY ZINNI (RET.): Thank you, Jim.

[reprobate]

4. Here's a curious note: The two presidents, one presiding over the beginning

of this nation, and the one causing the end of this nation are named George. wonder why?

More and more I'm seeing parallels between us and Germany of the late 30s.

A media that parrots whatever lies the government wants to tell.

A legislature that can't say 'NO' and has no opposition party.

A population so cowed by the fascist acts of government that it's silent to the atrocities.

A leader that makes war based on lies.


Will congress do anything to stop an attack on Iran? Of course not. That would require an opposition leadership. I should say to Nancy and Harry that leadership means more than genuflecting to those who constantly beat you up. Someone will have to ask Nancy when this debacle is over, just how it feels to be responsible for the destruction of her nation, when she could have stopped it by leaving impeachment right where it was, in the constitution. You, madam, will be known by future generations as Vichy Democrat.

Joanne, I understand your call for the population to act now, but I'm afraid that after the government has been taken over by the corporations with the aid of the courts, the only call to action that would be effective is: "Let's go shopping".

I weep for the nation I grew up in. It was far from perfect, but at least the government was responsive to the people. Of course, that was B.D. (before Diebold)

[tom_paine]

5. No.

n/t

[Demeter]

6. Do We Need To Start a Nuclear Holocaust To Get Bush and Cheney Declared Insane

and lock them up for safety while we put out all the fires they set?