"We Are Going to Hit Iran. Bigtime" (for Israel, of course!)

Showdown Over Iran
We can stop the coming war with Iran - but concerned Americans must
act quickly:

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11534
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Attacking Iran Would be Madness and a Capital Crime:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/9631

Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran?:

http://counterpunch.org/mcgovern08312007.html

Jewish Leaders Caught In Iran Bind
As Walt-Mearscheimer book appears, efforts to keep military option
open run counter to national mood

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/ne...p3?artid=14460

Will George Bush Bomb Iran?:

http://tinyurl.com/2bojvn

http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com

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New book challenges US support for Israel
NEW YORK: An upcoming book challenging whether diplomatic and military
support for Israel is in the best interests of the United States is
set to spark fresh debate on Washington's role in the Middle East.
"The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," written by two of the United
States' most influential political science professors, is set to hit
the bookshelves next Tuesday and promises to break the taboo on the
subject. Written by John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago
and Stephen Walt from Harvard, the book follows an article they
published last year that stirred impassioned debate by setting out a
similar position.
Their thesis is that US endorsement of Israel is not fully explained
by strategic or moral reasons, but by the pressure exerted by Jewish
lobbyists, Christian fundamentalists and neo-conservatives with
Zionist sympathies.
The result, according to the book, is an unbalanced US foreign policy
in the Middle East, the US invasion of Iraq, the threat of war with
Iran or Syria and a fragile security situation for the entire Western
world. "Israel is not the strategic asset to the United States that
many claim. Israel may have been a strategic asset during the Cold
War, but it has become a growing liability now that the Cold War is
over," the authors said.
"Unconditional support for Israel has reinforced anti-Americanism
around the world, helped fuel America's terrorism problem, and
strained relations with other key allies in Europe, the Middle East,
and Asia," they added.
According to the two writers, "backing Israel's harsh treatment of the
Palestinians has reinforced Anti-Americanism around the world and
almost certainly helped terrorists recruit new followers."
Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, described the
book as "an insidious, biased account of the Arab-Israeli conflict and
of the role of supporters of Israel in the US," in an interview with
AFP.
"Everything about American policy toward the conflict is presented in
exaggerated form, as if America is completely one-sided in support of
Israel and that those policies are simply the product of the Israel
lobby." He is countering Mearsheimer and Walt's book with his own
title: "The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish
Control," due out on the same day.
Mearsheimer and Walt highlight the three billion dollars in US
economic and military aid that Israel receives every year - more than
any other country. They also point to Washington's diplomatic support:
between 1972 and 2006, the United States vetoed 42 United Nations
Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel, while
watering down many others under threat of veto. Foxman counters that
the special relationship works both ways and that the United States
has gained much out of its ally.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs canceled a public debate on the
issue planned for September and featuring Mearsheimer and Walt when
they were unable to schedule a time that Foxman could also manage.
In the conclusion of their book, Mearsheimer and Walt say that the
United States must change its policy towards Israel. "The United
States would be a better ally if its leaders could make support for
Israel more conditional and if they could give their Israeli
counterparts more candid advice without facing a backlash from the
Israel lobby." With just over a year until the 2008 US presidential
election, however, they said the issue was unlikely to even enter the
debate. afp
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Walt & Mearsheimer's Proof That 'Tail Wagged the Dog' Points American
Jews to a Universalist Ethos:

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweis...n-walt-me.html


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"We Are Going To Hit Iran. Bigtime"
by Maccabee
Sat Sep 01, 2007 at 03:50:24 PM PDT
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/1/183018/1527

I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is
planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of
Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft
while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that
all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That
means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked
to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth.
I asked her why she is telling me this.
Her answer was really amazing.
Maccabee's diary :: ::
She started in the Marines and after 8 years her term was up. She had
served on a smaller Marine carrier, and found out through a friend
knew there was an opening for a junior grade LSO in a training
position on a supercarrier. She used the reference and the information
and applied for a transfer to the United States Navy. Since she had
experience landing F-18Cs and Cobra Gunships, and an unblemished
combat record, she was ratcheted into the job, successfully changing
from the Marines to the Navy. Her role is still aligned with the
Marines since she generally is assigned to liason with the Marine
units deploying off her carrier group.
Like most Marines and former Marines, she is largely apolitical. The
fact is, most Marines are trigger pullers and most trigger pullers
could care less who the President is. They simply want to be the tip
of the sword when it comes to defending the country. She voted once in
her life and otherwise was always in some forward post on the water
during election season.
Something is wrong with the Navy and the Marines in her view. Always
ready to go in harms way, Marines rarely ever question unless it's a
matter of tactics or honor. But something seems awry. Junior and
senior officers are starting to grumble, roll their eyes in the
hallways. The strain of deployments is beginning to hit every jot and
tittle of the Marines and it's beginning to seep into the daily
conversation of Marines and Naval officers in command decision.
"I know this will sound crazy coming from a Naval officer", she said.
"But we're all just waiting for this administration to end. Things
that happen at the senior officer level seem more and more to happen
outside of the purview of XOs and other officers who typically have a
say-so in daily combat and flight operations. Today, orders just come
down from the mountaintop and there's no questioning. In fact, there
is no discussing it. I have seen more than one senior commander
disappear and then three weeks later we find out that he has been
replaced. That's really weird. It's also really weird because everyone
who has disappeared has questioned whether or not we should be staging
a massive attack on Iran."
"We're not stupid. Most of the members of the fleet read well enough
to know what is going on world-wise. We also realize that anyone who
has any doubts is in danger of having a long military career yanked
out from under them. Keep in mind that most of the people I serve with
are happy to be a part of the global war on terror. It's just that the
touch points are what we see since we are the ones out here who are
supposedly implementing this grand strategy. But when you liason with
administration officials who don't know that Iranians don't speak
Arabic and have no idea what Iranians live like, then you start having
second thoughts about whether these Administration officials are even
competent."
I asked her about the attack, how limited and so forth.
"I don't think it's limited at all. We are shipping in and assigning
every damn Tomahawk we have in inventory. I think this is going to be
massive and sudden, like thousands of targets. I believe that no
American will know when it happens until after it happens. And
whatever the consequences, whatever the consequences, they will have
to be lived with. I am sure if my father knew I was telling someone in
a news organization that we were about to launch a supposedly secret
attack that it would be treason. But something inside me tells me to
tell it anyway."
I asked her why she was suddenly so cynical.
"I have become cynical only recently. I also don't believe anyone will
be able to stop this. Bush has become something of an Emperor. He
will give the command, and cruise missiles will fly and aircraft will
fly and people will die, and yet few of us here are really able to
cobble together a great explanation of why this is a good idea. Of
course many of us can give you the 4H Club lecture on democracy in the
Mid East. But if you asked any of the flight officers whether they
have a clear idea of what the goal of this strike is, your answer
would sound like something out of a think tank policy paper. But it's
not like Kosovo or when we relieved the tsunami victims. There
everyone could tell you in a sentence what we were here doing."
"That's what's missing. A real sense of purpose. What's missing is the
answer to what the hell are we doing out here threatening this country
with all this power? Last night in the galley, an ensign asked what
right do we have to tell a sovereign nation that they can't build a
nuke. I mean the table got EF Hutton quiet. Not so much because the
man was asking a question that was off culture. But that he was asking
a good question. In fact, the discussion actually followed afterwards
topside where someone in our group had to smoke a cigarette. The
discussion was intelligent but also in lowered voices. It's like we
aren't allowed to ask the questions that we always ask before combat.
It's almost as if the average seaman or soldier is doing all the
policy work."
She had to hang up. She left by telling me that she believes the
attack is a done deal. "It's only a matter of time before their orders
come and they will be sent to station and told to go to Red Alert. She
said they were already practicing traps, FARP and FAST." (Trapping is
the act of catching the tension wires when landing on the carrier,
FARP is Fleet Air Combat Maneuvering Readiness Program- practice
dogfighting- and FAST is Fleet Air Superiority Training).
She seemed lost. The first time in my life I have ever heard her sound
off rhythm, or unsure of why she is doing something. She knows that
there is something rotten in the Naval Command and she, like many of
her associates are just hoping that the election brings in someone
new, some new situation, or something.
"Yes. We're gong to hit Iran, bigtime. Whatever political discussion
that are going in is window dressing and perhaps even a red herring. I
see what's going on below deck here in the hangars and weapons bays.
And I have a sick feeling about how it's all going to turn out."

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Bush's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, his planned attack on Iran
More Shame, More Sorrow
By Paul Craig Roberts
08/29/07 "ICH" -- - In the administration of George W. Bush, the
Republican Party has achieved the greatest combination of idiocy and
evil in human history.
The Republicans have bogged America down in a gratuitous and illegal
war. The war has destroyed Iraq, killed between 650,000 and 1,000,000
Iraqi civilians, displaced 4,000,000 Iraqis, and littered the country
with depleted uranium. Bush's war remains unwon despite its five year
duration and $1 trillion in out-of-pocket and incurred future costs.
Bush's invasion of Iraq is a war crime under the Nuremberg standard, a
direct counterpart to Hitler's invasion of Poland. Both were based on
lies and deception, and the declared reasons for both were masks for
secret agendas.
Bush's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, his planned attack on Iran
[http://www.rawstory.com/images/other...udy082807a.pdf ], and his
support for Israel's attack on Lebanon and genocidal policies toward
the Palestinians have radicalized the Middle East and Muslims
worldwide. American and Israeli aggression have vindicated Osama bin
Laden's propaganda, produced massive recruits for Al Qaeda, and
unleashed destabilizing forces throughout the Middle EastBush's wars
are strengthening Islam. Abdullah Gul has just been elected president
of Turkey. Gul is described by the American media as "former
Islamist." Gul is supported by the ruling political party of prime
minister Erdogan, another "former Islamist."
Gul's election to the presidency by 76% of the Turkish parliament has
upset Turkey's secularized military, long in the pay of the US
government. On August 27 Turkey's military chief, General Yasar
Buyukanit, declared that "centers of evil systematically try to
corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic." The Turkish
military, many believe at the request and pay of the US, has
overthrown four Turkish governments since 1960, the last only 10 years
ago.
With President Bush's rant about "bringing democracy to the Middle
East," the Turkish military is less able to impose Western values on
an Islamic people. Similarly, the American puppet in Egypt cannot as
easily suppress the Islamic values and aspirations of Egyptians.
US puppet rulers in Jordan and Pakistan, and even the Saudis and oil
emirates, report the ground shaking under their feet. America's puppet
in Pakistan is in trouble, and his difficulties are compounded by US
military incursions into Pakistan. The Bush administration is
considering contingency plans to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons in
the event the American puppet is overthrown, delusional contingency
plans considering the over-stretched US military.
In the postwar years, the US managed with its money and influence to
secularize an elite class in Middle Eastern countries, an elite that
identifies with the West and not with their own cultures. This
artificial elite has produced a wide political gap between the masses
of the people and the rulers. Increasingly, Muslim masses perceive
their rulers as allied with foreign powers against them.
In Iraq the American puppet government of Nuri al-Maliki seems to be
on its last legs. The Sunnis have pulled their support, as has the
most important Shi'ite leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, who realizes that the
Maliki government is too complicit in US crimes to be a legitimate
government of Iraq. With both the Bush administration and Congress
blaming Maliki for America's failure in Iraq, Maliki's fate looks
increasingly to be that of Ngo Dinh Diem, America's Vietnam puppet who
was blamed for the failure of US intervention in Vietnam.
Just as Hitler long denied German defeats on the Russian front and
even in his last days was ordering non-existent German divisions to
relieve Berlin, the Bush regime finds a new straw to grasp in Iraq
each time the previous straw proves to be a delusion. The latest straw
is "the surge." While Americans surge, the British have been defeated
in southern Iraq and have withdrawn to two bases in eerie similarity
to the French at Dien Bien Phu. The British bases are subjected to
between 30 and 60 mortar and rocket attacks each day. British generals
want their troops out of Iraq. The longer UK prime minister Brown
keeps them in Iraq in order to appease the Bush administration, the
harder it will be to rescue the survivors.
With American retreat south to Kuwait now potentially cut off, how
will the US extract its troops and equipment when American defeat can
no longer be denied?
The Bush administration and its politicized military are already
blaming the failure of "the surge" on Iran. Iran is alleged to be
training and arming Iraqis who resist the US occupation. Bush has said
he will hold Iran responsible. There is abundant evidence that the
Bush administration is preparing yet another illegal attack on a
Muslim country without assessing the consequences.
The Bush administration seems destined to produce such disasters that
it will be driven to the use of nuclear weapons in order to avoid
defeat. The Bush administration possesses the combination of evil and
stupidity required to escalate a failed "cakewalk war" into a nuclear
one.
Many of the administration's most evil members--Wolfowitz, Feith,
Libby, Rumsfeld, Rove, and Gonzales--have been discarded as the
tragedy deepens, but Cheney remains ensconced as does the moron in the
White House. Before they fall, Bush and Cheney will bring more sorrow
to the world and more shame to Americans.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street
Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He
is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions


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Has Bush Boxed Himself In?
By Pat Buchanan
08/29/07 "Creators Syndicate" -- - As Americans anguish over how to
extricate this country from Iraq without a disaster greater than what
we now have, and without our friends suffering the fate of our friends
in Cambodia and Vietnam, they had best brace themselves. This
escalator is going up.
and his generals are laying out the case for a new war. And there has
been no resistance offered either by a vacationing Congress or the
major presidential candidates.
On CNN's "Late Edition" Sunday, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, No. 2 commander
in Iraq, said, "It is clear to me that (the Iranians) have been
stepping up their support" for enemy fighters in Iraq.
"They do it from providing weapons, ammunition, specifically mortars
and explosively formed projectiles. ... They are conducting training
within Iran of Iraqi extremists to come back here and fight the United
States."
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said his troops were following 50 members of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who have been crossing the border and
training fighters in Iraq. The State Department is about to declare
the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
Earlier in August, President Bush directly charged Tehran with aiding
Iraqi insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers:
"I asked Ambassador Crocker to meet with Iranians inside Iraq ... to
send the message that there will be consequences for ... people
transporting, delivering EFPs, highly sophisticated IEDs, that kill
American troops."
The EFPs are roadside bombs that penetrate Bradley Fighting Vehicles
and Abrams tanks. They have taken the lives of scores of U.S.
soldiers.
Whether Bush has made the decision to attack the al Quds training
camps inside Iran, he has painted himself into a corner.
If he does not strike the camps, he will be mocked by the War Party as
a weak commander in chief, too timid to use U.S. power to protect
soldiers he sent into battle or to punish those killing them.
Thus, Bush must either announce that his diplomacy has worked, and
attacks out of Iran have diminished or been halted, or he will have to
explain why the Top Gun of the carrier Lincoln was too wimpish to do
his duty by the soldiers he sent to fight.
Who is pushing for attacks on Iran? Israel and its lobby. Vice
President Cheney. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has been calling for air
strikes on Al Quds camps for months. And a War Party facing lasting
disgrace for having lied the country into an unnecessary war, and for
having assured the American people it would be a "cakewalk."
The arguments for war on Iran are both strategic and political.
Israel is terrified Iran will end its nuclear monopoly in the Middle
East and wants an all-out U.S. war on Iran to prevent it. The War
Party fears Iran may acquire a nuclear weapon, which would inhibit
U.S. freedom of action in the Gulf and convince the Arab states that
the United States is yesterday and they must appease Iran or go
nuclear themselves.
As for Bush and Cheney, if they go home without hitting Iran's nuclear
sites, and Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, the Bush Doctrine will have
been defied by the Ayatollah as well as Kim Jong-il, and their legacy
will be a no-win war in Iraq.
The War Party is thus seeking an excuse to launch air strikes on Iran,
as that would trigger Iranian counterstrikes on our forces. Then they
will have their long-sought casus belli for U.S. strikes on Iran's
nuclear facilities.
First, the al Quds camps, then Natanz, Isfahan and Bushewr.
Initially, Americans might cheer the bombing of Iran, and Congress
would head for the tall grass. But as U.S. strikes would be an act of
war, rallying the Iranians behind the failing regime of Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and igniting a long war the end of which we cannot see and
the troops for which we do not have, there are powerful arguments
against a new war.
Iran and the United States would both pay a hellish price, and Iran at
least seems to recognize it. Both the Iraqi and Afghan governments say
Iran is behaving as a good neighbor. There is evidence Tehran's
nuclear program is faltering, or being curbed. Iran is said to be
making concessions to U.N. inspectors.
Iran has released an American seized in response to our seizure of
five Iranian "diplomats" in Iraq. Iran's ambassador to the United
Nations, in a letter to the Washington Post, denies Iran is aiding the
Iraqi insurgency and calls on the U.S. government to "proffer
evidence" and "provide the list of Iranian agents who it alleges are
operating in Iraq."
If there is a rush to war here, it is not on the part of Iran.
As Bush is preparing for war on Iran, if he has not already decided on
war, where is Congress, which alone has the constitutional power to
authorize a war?
Or has it given Bush and Cheney another blank check?
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
Syndicate web page at www.creators.com .

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Pentagon 'three-day blitz' plan for Iran
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2369001.ece
September 2, 2007
Pentagon 'three-day blitz' plan for IranSarah Baxter, Washington
THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200
targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians' military
capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon
Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing
for "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities. "They're
about taking out the entire Iranian military," he said.
Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a
conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the
US military had concluded: "Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-
out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same."
It was, he added, a "very legitimate strategic calculus".
President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week,
accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East "under the shadow of a
nuclear holocaust". He warned that the US and its allies would
confront Iran "before it is too late".
Related Links
Hardliner takes over Revolutionary Guards
One Washington source said the "temperature was rising" inside the
administration. Bush was "sending a message to a number of audiences",
he said ? to the Iranians and to members of the United Nations
security council who are trying to weaken a tough third resolution on
sanctions against Iran for flouting a UN ban on uranium enrichment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week reported
"significant" cooperation with Iran over its nuclear programme and
said that uranium enrichment had slowed. Tehran has promised to answer
most questions from the agency by November, but Washington fears it is
stalling to prevent further sanctions. Iran continues to maintain it
is merely developing civilian nuclear power.
Bush is committed for now to the diplomatic route but thinks Iran is
moving towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to one well
placed source, Washington believes it would be prudent to use rapid,
overwhelming force, should military action become necessary.
Israel, which has warned it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear
weapons, has made its own preparations for airstrikes and is said to
be ready to attack if the Americans back down.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance
of Iran, which uncovered the existence of Iran's uranium enrichment
plant at Natanz, said the IAEA was being strung along. "A number of
nuclear sites have not even been visited by the IAEA," he said.
"They're giving a clean bill of health to a regime that is known to
have practised deception."
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, irritated the Bush
administration last week by vowing to fill a "power vacuum" in Iraq.
But Washington believes Iran is already fighting a proxy war with the
Americans in Iraq.
The Institute for the Study of War last week released a report by
Kimberly Kagan that explicitly uses the term "proxy war" and claims
that with the Sunni insurgency and Al-Qaeda in Iraq "increasingly
under control", Iranian intervention is the "next major problem the
coalition must tackle".
Bush noted that the number of attacks on US bases and troops by
Iranian-supplied munitions had increased in recent months ? "despite
pledges by Iran to help stabilise the security situation in Iraq".
It explains, in part, his lack of faith in diplomacy with the
Iranians. But Debat believes the Pentagon's plans for military action
involve the use of so much force that they are unlikely to be used and
would seriously stretch resources in Afghanistan and Iraq.



http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com