I won't deluge you with links and quotes. You are no doubt aware there is talk now about striking 2,000 targets in Iran, and right-siders are pounding the war drums loudly. This baloney has gone on so long, you have to ask yourself whether or not the Bush/Cheney syndicate is really serious. Maybe we're to be lulled into a placid state of complacency, as if it were really necessary. The Russians just warned us that an attack on Iran would have "catastrophic" results.
Get ready for catastrophe beyond our wildest dreams if a story I read this morning is true. First, let's review a little:
• Barnett R. Rubin:
The Bush-Cheney policy on Iran is unlikely to have any outcome but war, not because of the threat of the use of force, but because of its objective: regime change. The President and Vice-President have never echoed the disavowals of this goal by other officials. Their supporters at AEI, the Weekly Standard, and elsewhere, make it clear that the goal of the policy is destroying the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Even if this were not true, the government (and not only the government) of Iran believes it is true. In repeated discussions on several continents over the past five years, Iranian officials have told me that the main obstacle to improvement in U.S.-Iran relations is the agenda of regime change – not Israel, not Iraq, nothing else. No amount of pressure or threats will force the Iranian government to negotiate its own destruction. Therefore as long as regime change is the goal, or appears to be the goal, Iran has no credible incentives to comply with any demands. Threats are useless. Sanctions are useless. In any case, sanctions will strengthen and enrich the regime, as they almost always do. [...]You saw what happened with "our new friends in Anbar province." Clearly, the U.S., Iranian and other governments around the world are taking the collapse of the dollar and war with Iran seriously, and as inevitable. From February, 2006:
There is an alternative to war, but it has to start with an end to regime change as a policy goal. There are then a number of areas, such as counter-narcotics in Afghanistan and the territorial integrity of Iraq, where the U.S. and Iran have clearly complementary interests and could start a dialogue. I will not attempt to sketch a road map here, and it will be difficult to move far as long as the current administrations are in power in both countries.
The alternative of war will have terrible effects including:• No support for the U.S. from any country but Israel (though Saudi Arabia and other Arab states may not be too unhappy) and the demolition of whatever still remains of the U.S.’s international standing except as a warmaking power; that reputation will also quickly dissipate as this war, too, fails to achieve its objectives.What course of action do I suggest?
• Rapid deterioration of security in (at least) Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; note that much of the support for Benazir Bhutto, whom the U.S. hopes will help shepherd a political transition in Pakistan, comes from Pakistani Shi’a, who will turn violently anti-American in the event of an attack on Iran; northern Afghanistan is also under the de facto control of groups supported by Iran against the Taliban; the government of Iraq in Baghdad will oppose an attack on Iran, but our new friends in Anbar province, whom President Bush visited on Labor Day and who fought Iran for Saddam Hussein, will support it and maybe even volunteer to fight.
• Gasoline prices may reach $7/gallon within a week and probably go higher rapidly, especially if Iran makes even partially successful attempts to block the Strait of Hormuz.
• Either there will be a movement of national solidarity against invasion in Iran from across the entire Iranian political spectrum, or (less likely) Iran will collapse into some kind of civil disorder, with nuclear materials littered about.
• Hizbullah and Hamas will unleash missile attacks and perhaps suicide bombings on Israel, and Israel will respond harshly in Lebanon and Gaza (at least).
• Such an attack will also have other unpredictable consequences, which I will therefore not try to predict.
The immediate goal for Democratic presidential candidates and the Democrats (and sensible Republicans) in Congress should be to use the power of the legislative branch to prevent the administration from launching a war. I can think of two possible ways to do this:• Pass an Act of Congress stating that the 2001 AUMF does not authorize a preemptive strike against Iran (or a strike in response to an alleged provocation–recall Tonkin Gulf). In this case, Congress would claim that war with Iran requires new authorization.
• Cut off funding for any war with Iran not specifically authorized by Congress in accordance with the law after September 30, when spending starts out of next year’s budget. Presumably they won’t be able to start the war by then and rely on the “support the troops” argument.
• Mike Whitney:
The bottom line on the bourse is this; the dollar is underwritten by a national debt that now exceeds $8 trillion dollars and trade deficits that surpass $600 billion per year. That means that the greenback is the greatest swindle in the history of mankind. It’s utterly worthless. The only thing that keeps the dollar afloat is that oil is traded exclusively in greenbacks rather than some other currency. If Iran is able to smash that monopoly by trading in petro-euros then the world’s central banks will dump the greenback overnight, sending markets crashing and the US economy into a downward spiral.Simply occupying a small province makes more sense than leveling the whole country, as if any of it makes sense. The Bush administration has larger dreams. Seymour Hersh wrote in the spring of 2006 the strategy of attacking "underground bunkers" with RNEPs (robust nuclear earth penetrators) has been replaced with an operation called "over the shoulder" bombing—firing tactical missiles up and then down armed with nuclear warheads, thought to yield five megatons. If that is true, those warheads yield more than 300 times that of the bomb used to destroy Hiroshima. How would the U.S. respond if Russia or China did this to Iran? What will they do to us?
The Bush administration has no intention of allowing that to take place. In fact, as the tax-cuts and the budget deficits indicate, the Bush cabal fully intends to perpetuate the system that trades worthless dollars for valuable commodities, labor, and resources. As long as the oil market is married to the dollar, this system of global indentured servitude will continue.
Battle Plans
The Bush administration’s attention has shifted to a small province in southwestern Iran that is unknown to most Americans. Never the less, Khuzestan will become the next front in the war on terror and the lynchpin for prevailing in the global resource war. If the Bush administration can sweep into the region (under the pretext disarming Iran’s nuclear weapons programs) and put Iran’s prodigious oil wealth under US control, the dream of monopolizing Middle East oil will have been achieved.
Not surprisingly, this was Saddam Hussein’s strategy in 1980 when he initiated hostilities against Iran in a war that would last for eight years. Saddam was an American client at the time, so it is likely that he got the green-light for the invasion from the Reagan White House. Many of Reagan’s high-ranking officials currently serve in the Bush administration; notably Rumsfeld and Cheney.
Khuzestan represents 90% of Iran’s oil production. The control over these massive fields will force the oil-dependent nations of China, Japan and India to continue to stockpile greenbacks despite the currency’s dubious value. The annexing of Khuzestan will prevent Iran’s bourse from opening, thereby guaranteeing that the dollar will maintain its dominant position as the world’s reserve currency. As long as the dollar reigns supreme and western elites have their hands on the Middle East oil-spigot, the current system of exploitation through debt will continue into perpetuity. The administration can confidently prolong its colossal deficits without fear of a plummeting dollar. (In fact, the American war-machine and all its various appendages, from Guantanamo to Abrams Tanks, are paid for by the myriad nations who willingly hold reserves of American currency.) [...]
This strategy has been called the “Khuzestan Gambit”, and we can expect that some variant of this plan will be executed following the aerial bombardment of Iranian military installations and weapons sites. If Iran retaliates, then there is every reason to believe that either the United States or Israel will respond with low-yield, bunker-busting nuclear weapons. In fact, the Pentagon may want to demonstrate its eagerness to use nuclear weapons to deter future adversaries and to maintain current levels of troop deployments without a draft. [...]
...step by step, Iran is being set up for war. What difference does the provocation make? The determination to consolidate the oil reserves in the Caspian Basin was made more than a decade ago and is clearly articulated in the policy papers produced by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) The Bush administration is one small province away from realizing the its dream of controlling the world’s most valued resource. They won’t let that opportunity pass them by.
Iran knows full well, as do the governments of every country on earth, the United States has submarines equipped with tactical missiles poised to bomb them should they launch a preemptive attack. For some reason, the Bush administration doesn't consider a counterstrike against the U.S. as possible, or problematic. I assume they know it will happen, and they just don't care, or it's the outcome they desire.
This goes beyond theory and rhetoric, and if this article can be believed, the U.S. military believes a preemptive, nuclear attack on Iran is imminent, and is trying to stop it:
Russian Military Intelligence Analysts are reporting today that one of the United States most secretive spy satellites, the KH-13, targeting Iran was "destroyed in its orbit" with its main power generator powered by the radioactive isotope Pu-238 surviving re-entry and crashing in a remote region of the South American Nation of Peru, and where hundreds are reported to be ill from radiation poisoning.The last article is dated September 20, 2007. It makes startling, blood-curdling claims. Bush and Cheney can insist evil powers are forcing their hand, but I don't buy it. Would this be happening if Gore and/or Kerry had gone to the White House, as voters intended? I can't picture it; in fact, if voters had put my old General Electric toaster in the White House instead of Bush, we'd be a prosperous nation at peace. I loathe what Bush, Cheney and their rubberstamp GOP Congress have done to America, and no penalty exists that is harsh enough to bring them to justice.
Western media reports are stating that the US spy satellite debris hitting Peru was caused by a meteor, but which, according to these reports, would be "impossible" as the size of 30-meter crater, if caused by a meteorite, would have hit the ground with about as much energy as 1 kiloton tactical nuclear weapon, and which would have been recorded by the seismic stations around the World.
Most astonishing about these reports, however, are that they state that it was the Americans themselves who destroyed their own spy satellite with the attack upon it being made by the United States Air Forces' 30th Space Wing located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
This incident further fuels the intrigue involving the United States War Leaders plans to attack Iran in their attempt to engulf the entire Middle East in Total War, but, against which, according to Russian Military Intelligence Analysts, a "high ranking and significant" faction of the American Military Establishment is opposed to. [...]
Though the rival American power blocs do seem to have maintained their uneasy truce, and which have, to date, prevented further attacks within the United States itself, these latest events, according to these reports, appear to show that this truce is now breaking down over threats and planning by the American War Leaders to attack Iran, and which Russia has warned would be "catastrophic."
What remains unknown to us, at this time, is what counter-planning the American War Leaders have in store for furthering their war aims against Iran as the United States Military have "clearly signaled" that it will not allow nuclear weapons to be used, even to the extent of denying to their War Leaders one of their most prized spy satellites used to guide their nuclear cruise missiles to their intended Iranian targets.
As the American peoples desire for war appears to be exhausted, and with new polls showing their President and Congress' approval ratings at "record lows," these reports paint a frightening picture of an American War Leadership determined to engulf the entire World in Total War in order to perpetuate their hegemony.
Not since last century’s German Nazi and Japanese Empire’s has the World seen such naked aggression towards the capture of the Earth's resources, and which caused the deaths of nearly 100 million people, but which the United States and its Western Allies now seem determined to see through to its brutal, and bloody end. [interesting live links removed]
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Update: Here is an example of the typical "mainstream" news story about the event, titled "Meteorite likely caused crater in Peru."
Such impacts are rare, and astronomists still want to do other tests to confirm the strike.This so-called "official" story is just weird and impossible to believe. Boiling water? Radiation testing? Give me a break. Yes, those rock-grinding sounds of descending meteors always cause symptoms of radiation sickness and boiling water. It's just your imagination, nothing to see here...move along... I admire how the reporters don't seem to question a bit of it. No wonder the mainstream media has made itself irrelevant.
Other details don't add up, they said -- such as witness accounts of water in the muddy crater boiling for 10 minutes from the heat. Meteorites are actually cold when they hit Earth, astronomists say, since their outer layers burn up and fall away before impact.
Experts also puzzled over claims that 200 local residents were sickened by fumes from the crater. Doctors who examined them found no evidence of illness related to the meteorite, and one suggested a psychosomatic reaction to the sight and sound of the plunging meteor. [...]
More details emerged when astrophysicist Jose Ishitsuka of Peru's Geophysics Institute reached the site about 6 miles from Lake Titicaca. He confirmed that a meteorite caused a crater 42 feet wide and 15 feet deep, the institute's president, Ronald Woodman, told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Ishitsuka recovered a 3-inch magnetic fragment and said it contained iron, a mineral found in all rocks from space. The impact also registered a magnitude-1.5 tremor on the institute's seismic equipment -- that's as much as an explosion of 4.9 tons of dynamite, Woodman said.
Local residents described a fiery ball falling from the sky and smashing into the desolate Andean plain.
Doctors told an Associated Press Television News cameraman at the site that they had found no sign of radioactive contamination among families living nearby. But they said they had taken samples of blood, urine and hair to analyze.
Peasants living near the crater said they had smelled a sulfurous odor for at least an hour after the meteorite struck and that it had provoked upset stomachs and headaches. But Ishitsuka said he doubts reports of a sulfurous smell.
Meteor expert Ursula Marvin said that if people were sickened, "it wouldn't be the meteorite itself, but the dust it raises."
A meteorite "wouldn't get much gas out of the earth," said Marvin, who has studied the objects since 1961 at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts. "It's a very superficial thing." [...]
Modesto Montoya, a member of the medical team, told El Comercio that fear may have provoked psychosomatic ailments.
"When a meteorite falls, it produces horrid sounds when it makes contact with the atmosphere," he said. "It is as if a giant rock is being sanded. Those sounds could have frightened them."
