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Is the ‘bomb, bomb Iran’
brigade winning?
Linda S. Heard
Online
Journal
Wednesday October 03, 2007
These are strange and frightening times! It seems
that human life is being devalued by those with influence and
power and, what's worse, their message that mass death and destruction
is somehow acceptable to achieve a goal is seeping into the psyches
of ordinary people.
On Sunday, the controversial former US Ambassador to the United
Nations John Bolton told delegates attending the British Conservative
Party's annual conference that in his view Iran's nuclear facilities
should be bombed and regime change effected.
Coming out of the mouth of such an abrasive, neoconservative
that sentiment is hardly surprising. What is shocking, however,
is the fact he was cheered and not jeered.
Thankfully, not all British politicians are as jingoistic. An
all-party group of six members of Parliament was stunned by the
words of a senior Defense Department official Debra Cagan, who
reportedly told them that she hated all Iranians.
(Article continues below)
One of the British visitors told the Mail on Sunday of his alarm
"that some in America are looking for an excuse to attack
Iran".
Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani is running primarily
on an anti-terrorism platform and has indicated his willingness
to use nuclear weapons to attack Iran.
Even more telling is the fact Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner
and former mayor of New York City, has hired neoconservative ideologue
Norman Podhoretz, author of "World War IV: The Long Struggle
against Islamofascism," as his campaign's foreign policy
adviser.
An article in the Sunday Times by Sarah Baxter reveals that Podhoretz
privately met with George W. Bush in New York last spring to urge
the American president to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
"You have the awesome responsibility to prevent another
holocaust. You are the only one with the guts to do it,"
he allegedly said.
Tim Shipman, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, says, "American
diplomats have been ordered to compile a dossier detailing Iran's
violations of international law that some fear could be used to
justify military strikes against the Islamic Republic's nuclear
program."
This instruction apparently emanates from the office of Vice
President Dick Cheney, who, according to his former neocon Middle
East adviser David Wurmser, has considered asking Israel to launch
a limited strike on Iran's Natanz site in hopes Iran's subsequent
reaction might give the US an excuse to hurl itself into the fray.
Worryingly, that report may hold water. On Sept. 27, the French
weekly Le Canard Enchaîné ran a front-page story
suggesting Israel will strike first on Oct. 15 with the US joining
a second wave of attacks. It contends the Russian President Vladimir
Putin has warned Tehran of the plan.
The vitriol directed at Iran from the US was never more in evidence
than during President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to New
York. There, he was painted as the face of evil incarnate by the
right-wing media for his wish to lay a wreath at Ground Zero to
honor the fallen.
The furor was such that he might as well have said he wanted
to throw a bomb instead of flowers. Forgotten were the thousands
of Iranians who lit candles and sent condolence messages to Americans
in the aftermath of 9-11, and forgotten were statements of sympathy
from the Iranian government.
The Iranian leader was then treated as a pariah rather than an
invited guest by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger,
who viciously attacked his guest speaker even before he had a
chance to open his mouth. Bollinger, of course, was attempting
to protect his own back.
He imagined he would be lauded for calling Ahmadinejad "a
petty and cruel dictator" to his face, but internationally
Bollinger is now perceived as a rude lout, lacking in manners
and hospitality.
Bollinger's crude behavior was such that, by contrast, the Iranian
leader came across as dignified and composed; almost Gandhi-like
with his peace, love and brotherhood message.
The problem is those who want to bomb Iran don't want a Gandhi
or even an Ahmadinejad. According to the New Yorker's Pulitzer
Prize-winning investigate journalist Seymour Hersh, they need
a Hitler.
"We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize
people," he recently told the German magazine Der Spiegel.
"We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them.
Khruschchev and Mao and, of course, Stalin . . . and now we have
this guy Ahmadinejad," he said.
Haven't we seen this all before?
Wasn't Saddam Hussein painted as a Hitler before the 2003 invasion
of his country? Do you recall how the embedded press toured the
torture rooms at Abu Ghraib prison during those early days of
the war -- rooms that were later to be used by American guards
for the same gruesome purpose?
Do you remember how video clips were churned out by US networks
of Kurds who had been gassed and how anyone who had anything nasty
to say about Saddam was permitted endless column inches in Western
papers?
Unfortunately for the "bomb, bomb Iran" brigade there
are no convenient clips with which to demonize the Iranian leadership.
There is no evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons according
to the nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, and Iran has no history of
military belligerency. Moreover, Iran has never threatened the
West, except in terms of retaliation for an attack on it.
This is why they are presently scratching around for excuses
to act outside international law which hangs on the principle
of self-defense, and trying to find a way of evading the UN route,
which is blocked due to Russia and China's power of veto.
And this is exactly why Israel's initial participation may be
crucial to their plan. When and if the deed is done, Israel will
say that Iran was an existential threat and it had no choice but
to act. The US government will say it was our duty to protect
our No. 1 Middle East ally, Israel, and, thus, we had no choice.
In reality this is just another mega scam. The tragedy is so
many so-called intelligent people are falling for it. "You'd
think that in this country with so many smart people, that we
can't possibly do the same dumb thing again," said Seymour
Hersh when asked about a possible looming war with Iran.
One would think so, but in this topsy-turvy twilight zone of
our post-9/11, world nothing can be taken for granted and little
is what it seems.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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