That place named Iran

Juan Cole, who continues to amaze me through his consistently, well, amazing analysis, has a great post up titled “Top Things you Think You Know about Iran that are not True“. Well worth the read. A couple of highlights:

Belief: But didn’t President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to ‘wipe Israel off the map?’

Reality: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that “this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.

Belief: The international community would not have put sanctions on Iran, and would not be so worried, if it were not a gathering nuclear threat.

Actuality: The centrifuge technology that Iran is using to enrich uranium is open-ended. In the old days, you could tell which countries might want a nuclear bomb by whether they were building light water reactors (unsuitable for bomb-making) or heavy-water reactors (could be used to make a bomb). But with centrifuges, once you can enrich to 5% to fuel a civilian reactor, you could theoretically feed the material back through many times and enrich to 90% for a bomb. However, as long as centrifuge plants are being actively inspected, they cannot be used to make a bomb. The two danger signals would be if Iran threw out the inspectors or if it found a way to create a secret facility. The latter task would be extremely difficult, however, as demonstrated by the CIA’s discovery of the Qom facility construction in 2006 from satellite photos. Nuclear installations, especially centrifuge ones, consume a great deal of water, construction materiel, and so forth, so that constructing one in secret is a tall order. In any case, you can’t attack and destroy a country because you have an intuition that they might be doing something illegal. You need some kind of proof. Moreover, Israel, Pakistan and India are all much worse citizens of the globe than Iran, since they refused to sign the NPT and then went for broke to get a bomb; and nothing at all has been done to any of them by the UNSC.

Speaking of that Green Revolution

In my last post I mentioned that imposing further sanctions on Iran would mean “more clamping down on democratic protesters”. I am not the only one who feels this way.

Former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, Iran’s main political opposition leader, called Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy “wrong and adventurist” this week but came out against new sanctions, saying he worried that “deprived people” would pay the highest price.

“Sanctions would not affect the government but would impose many hardships upon the people, who suffer enough as a result of the calamity of their insane rulers,” Mousavi said in a statement.

Government critics and dissidents, dozens of whom are on trial on charges of fomenting unrest after Ahmadinejad’s disputed June 12 reelection, probably would come under more pressure if tougher sanctions were imposed, according to politicians and analysts on both sides.

“The government will say that critics of their policies are doing the foreigners’ bidding” and will use sanctions as a pretext to silence opponents, said Ali Shakouri-Rad, a leading member of the opposition Islamic Iran Participation Front.

So even the people risking their lives to run against Ahmadinejad can see that sanctions will only give the government an excuse to crack down on anyone who opposes the current regime. And only the average Iranian will suffer from sanctions as it becomes harder and harder to make a living and feed their families.

Kind of like what we did to Iraq for years. Saddam Hussein sure suffered in his many giant homes while we imposed sanctions on his country. Of course all those American companies buying oil through their European subsidiaries helped him live large, as they broke federal law in the process.

The article goes on to mention the possibility that sanctions will fuel unrest against Ahmadinejad’s rule. I disagree. It’s one thing to hate your dictator, it’s another thing entirely to have an outside entity, that has a history already of fucking up your country, try to force it’s will upon you. Something about him being an asshole but at least he’s our asshole.

Given how the US has helped overthrow a dictator in Iraq only to help impose a new one in the making, backed one in Pakistan in opposition to the will of the people until they finally threw him out themselves, our total support of countless dictators across the Middle East, and our help in installing one in Afghanistan; with all that, how could anyone think that any action against Iran will drive it’s people apart? We are to be feared by dictators (not friendly to our business interests) and democratic activists alike.

And as long as we openly and unequivocally support Israel’s constant aggression towards its neighbors and the Palestinians the Iranians would be insane to think we have their interests at heart. We blew that when George Bush called Iran part of the “Axis of Evil”. That little remark is what propelled Ahmadinejad into the presidency; before him Iran had a moderate president, one that was actively working with the US to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.

We are repeating the Iraq war build up with a whole one letter change. Iraq, minus a q, add an n, Iran. Wow, that was too easy.

I’ll leave it to the ever amazing Glenn Greenwald to define American imperialism. Read more of his site for further analysis of the Iran war build up hype.

Here we go again

Another war in the making. It’s like Iraq all over again. Sanctioning Iran will only further empower the Iranian government to become even more extreme. It’s a downward spiral. The more we threaten them, the more Tehran will say, “Look at what they are doing to our people, we have no choice but to defend ourselves.” That means more clamping down on democratic protesters, more money spent on the military, and as the average Iranian finds it harder to feed their family, fundamentalist religious views will spread.

We are told to believe that Iran is now really the threat we should all fear. Iraq? Yesterday’s news. Afghanistan? As long as it’s profitable for the military industrial complex we will still be told it’s the “good war”. But Iran offers up a whole new market for war profiteers to enrich themselves. After all, Iraq didn’t really put up any real resistance, and the Taliban never had large weapons systems to begin with. But Iran, now there’s a country that would cost quite a bit to invade.

What’s worse, the big players in the game are using Iran as a political tool. Look at the Russian’s response. Once we took the missile defense shield off the table, suddenly they see Iran as a problem. It was good for their politicians to resist us and use Iran as a pawn. Makes me wonder what other concessions our government made. No doubt there is a nice fat oil deal or two somewhere in all this for them.

And I’d bet Israel is busy buying up all the military hardware they can get their hands on in anticipation for a war with Iran. The Israeli government is doing the same thing Bush’s administration did; creating the need for more military spending by pumping fear into their people. When the masses are terrified, they have no problem giving into the notion that war will somehow save us all.

It’s sad really. Iran was once a democracy, but our government couldn’t live with the fact that they wouldn’t bow to western corporate profits. How dare they not let us steal their oil for our own gain. What bastards. And that is what this is really about, corporate profits.

Notice how North Korea isn’t on the “to invade” list right now? Oh sure, maybe to some neo-cons. But China would never agree to that, and the reality is that our country is so heavily dependent on loans from China that we wouldn’t dare piss them off. Never mind that China is now home to all our manufacturing base. No, China sells us too much crap to be made an enemy; too many US corporations are making a killing off their slave labor in Chinese factories filling Walmart’s shelves to want to butt heads with the communists.

But if we can convince enough people that war with Iran is a “good war”, then they will have no problem making corporations richer. Because that is what war is really all about; profit. Nothing pisses off the boardroom executives more than knowing that all that oil in Iran is not in their portfolios. The green revolution? Fuck em. It’s better to create an enemy that will require a larger defense budget than to admit we have no business telling other countries what they can do.

Funny how our insane levels of military spending never seem to get mentioned by the teabaggers. Of course not. A single payer health care system wouldn’t be as profitable for the corporate fatcats. We could insure every citizen and then some with much less than we spend building weapons of war. And it would help the average American a hell of a lot more than buying more jets, more bombs and more missiles. But it wouldn’t make the people that are already rich any richer.

There will always be a grave danger to our society as long as money can be made from war. There will always be a need for new weapons systems, bigger “defense” budgets and a further degrading of our constitutional rights. The cycle will never end because our government and the corporations are too in bed together. And our media is owned by the same people that profit from war (I’m looking at you GE). So don’t look to the evening news for the truth. (On a side note, how many of the teabaggers buy communist made product every day while decrying a fear of communism?)

Will we invade Iran? Personally I think we are being primed for an Israeli attack, one that this country will have no option but to support. This works for Israel because they will use it as an excuse to commit further crimes against the Palestinians in the hope that the Palestinians will rise up in response to bombs being dropped in Iran. Same goes for Lebanon and Syria.

And even if an invasion never happens just the threat of one demands an increase in military spending. We have to be prepared after all. And what a great way to change the subject. Torture? Look over here at Iran. Banks getting richer even as the economy crumbles? Iran wants nukes. Health care crisis? Fucking Iran is going to kill us all! Racism alive and well in America? You’re all going to die! Bomb Iran!

So we threaten, and they threaten, and we say we have no choice but war. After all we tried to be nice when we made it impossible for them to feed their families, when we used our might to make them desperate. We corner them, they react, we are justified. Sounds about right. And profitable too.

More War, More Death, Oh Boy!

In two days we get a shiny new president to kick around. And he is all ready for it, so let’s get to work.

Our military is gearing up for a “surge” in Afghanistan. President-elect Obama said during the debates he wants more war there, and it looks like he is living up to his rhetoric:

A naval brigade is being diverted to Afghanistan to help prepare for the extra U.S. troops that will be sent to that country, a Pentagon spokesman announced Friday….

… Their change in orders was announced just days before President-elect Barack Obama takes office, and one month after Defense Secretary Robert Gates signed a deployment order to move an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan.

Military officials say those troops will be part of a combat aviation brigade, bringing helicopters to the region, and will go in late spring or early summer.

There are currently more than 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but the U.S. commander there has requested more.

Gen. David McKiernan has requested at least 20,000 more troops be sent to fight resurgent Taliban forces, and Obama has said he would like to see more troops rotated into Afghanistan.

Hooray for the Afghan people. I’m sure this is what they want right about now, more war. Peace is for losers anyway. And let us not forget that Obama has stated he wants to increase the size of the military as a whole, which means a larger budget to support all those new troops, not to mention all their new equipment.

Of course his hands are tied even if he wanted to reduce the military budget, which I don’t think he does. Those bombs are made by middle class Americans, read jobs. Increasing the military would make more jobs or at least keep a lot of people employed.

Look at his response to the Gaza massacre, nothing. Will that change after Tuesday? Don’t hold your breath. Obama openly supported the destruction of Lebanon in 2006 on his campaign website. For those who see him as an anti-war president, your in for a shock.

I wrote not that long ago that I supported Obama because I thought he would make better decisions regarding the military. So far I am not impressed. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens after he is sworn in to truly know where Obama stands on military aggression. Campaign rhetoric is one thing, hat he does from here on out is what really matters.

If he has any sense he will get our troops out of the business of nation building. We are not very good at it:

Whatever the truth of the matter, in the long run, it’s not soldiers but services that count — electricity, water, food, health care, justice, and jobs. Had the U.S. delivered the promised services on time, while employing Afghans to rebuild their own country according to their own priorities and under the supervision of their own government — a mini-Marshall Plan — they would now be in charge of their own defense. The forces on the other side, which we loosely call the Taliban, would also have lost much of their grounds for complaint.

Instead, the Bush administration perpetrated a scam. It used the system it set up to dispense reconstruction aid to both the countries it “liberated,” Afghanistan and Iraq, to transfer American taxpayer dollars from the national treasury directly into the pockets of private war profiteers. Think of Halliburton, Bechtel, and Blackwater in Iraq; Louis Berger Group, Bearing Point, and DynCorp International in Afghanistan. They’re all in it together. So far, the Bush administration has bamboozled Americans about its shady aid program. Nobody talks about it. Yet the aid scam, which would be a scandal if it weren’t so profitable for so many, explains far more than does troop strength about why, today, we are on the verge of watching the whole Afghan enterprise go belly up.

What’s worse, there’s no reason to expect that things will change significantly on Barack Obama’s watch. During the election campaign, he called repeatedly for more troops for “the right war” in Afghanistan (while pledging to draw-down U.S. forces in Iraq), but he has yet to say a significant word about the reconstruction mission. While many aid workers in that country remain full of good intentions, the delivery systems for and uses of U.S. aid have been so thoroughly corrupted that we can only expect more of the same — unless Obama cleans house fast. But given the monumental problems on his plate, how likely is that?

Genocide

Well, another year, another massacre perpetrated by Israel. What a surprise. I guess they felt the need to commit genocide to pay tribute to our out going Dear Leader. One last orgy of death to send the Bush administration off in style. Kind of fitting actually.

And it really works out well for the Israelis because this assault will stir up years of radicalism driven by the need for revenge amongst the Palestinians. Since our president-elect has already declared his unwavering support of the nation of Israel and all its crimes, we can be fairly sure the blood letting will continue with vigor.

Oh sure, there will be peace summits, some good photo ops and a determined looking Hillary stating this and that. But let’s be honest with ourselves, as long as the US continues to turn a blind eye to what is going on nothing will ever change.

Then again I guess it’s hard to say anything with forces in Iraq and Afghanistan chewing their way through the locals. Or for that matter considering how well we’ve handled our relationship with the Native Americans I suppose we shouldn’t point fingers.

More on this from the American Conservative:

…The actual purpose is connected to Israel’s long-term vision of how it intends to live with millions of Palestinians in its midst. It is part of a broader strategic goal: the creation of a “Greater Israel.” Specifically, Israel’s leaders remain determined to control all of what used to be known as Mandate Palestine, which includes Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians would have limited autonomy in a handful of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves, one of which is Gaza. Israel would control the borders around them, movement between them, the air above and the water below them.

The key to achieving this is to inflict massive pain on the Palestinians so that they come to accept the fact that they are a defeated people and that Israel will be largely responsible for controlling their future. This strategy, which was first articulated by Ze’ev Jabotinsky in the 1920s and has heavily influenced Israeli policy since 1948, is commonly referred to as the “Iron Wall.”

What has been happening in Gaza is fully consistent with this strategy.

War on Terror Report Card

Tom Engelhardt over at his site TomDispatch gives us a breakdown of the War on Terror waged by BushCo for the last 7 years. Short version, we get an F for failure. I highly recommend reading the whole thing, links and all. Tom’s site is one of the most informative out there, and his guest writers seem to always pretty much nail it, what ever the subject.

I would just add that we are at the end of America as the “Most Chosen Nation”. We are quickly becoming irrelevant, a joke, a sad caricature of greed and lust still clinging to the hope of an empire along the lines of Rome or Britain in its hay day. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe it’s time we as Americans except the fact that we have been riding the victory of WWII, when we were the only industrialized power left, and that the rest of the world is finally caught up with us. The idea of empire building in this day and age doesn’t work, people are too connected now. And as the financial mess shows us, and history as well, things too big to fail always do.

This country needs to get over the idea that we are somehow “Chosen” and except that we are only 1 out of every 20 people. Instead of forcing our views on them, it would be wiser to learn their views and trying sharing the planet and its resources. Humanity as a whole needs to learn that we are all there is out there, we are all in this together, and we have all we need right here on this little planet we call Earth. We can either continue to fight over it till there is nothing left to fight over or we can learn to appreciate each other for who we are and realize that we never left Eden, it’s all around us.

What this has to do with America is that our Republic could be a great model for others if we could get it to work like it’s supposed to. We are all supposed to have a voice, a vote, an interest in the system working. Instead we have countless laws, regulations and hurdles that keep most of us from even wanting to try and participate. What we end up with is an elite few gaming the system for themselves while the fringe elements work to divide the citizenry through the political parties and the media.

I read the other day that countries are no longer turning to our courts to learn about democracy because we have slipped so far away from our roots and into violating the very human rights we claim to promote. This doesn’t surprise me at all considering how we imprison millions of Americans for activities that our government has no business making illegal in the first place. We have created a prison system that needs mandatory sentencing to justify itself, turned our police departments into paramilitary units and have thrown out the notion of innocent until proven guilty. We seem to have no problem spending an ever larger percentage of our tax dollars on super-mega prisons but we balk at pay raises for teachers, after school programs, extracurricular activities; you know, the things that might give kids something to do so their not bored enough to get in trouble in the first place.

This attitude extends to our foreign policy. Both candidates for president want to expand our military, which we already spend a third of our budget on now. Why? Why do we need more bases overseas, more weapons systems, more wars? Wouldn’t it be wiser to tone down our bravado and try talking with the rest of the world? I know, that’s surrender monkey talk. Real men kill them all and let god sort them out. I guess George Washington wasn’t a real man then: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” Yep, he sure hated America.

We have a president who said Saddam Hussein was evil because he had people tortured, and then we learn we are doing the same thing in the very same prison in Iraq. We all watched the twin towers fall in horror, killing thousands, yet our own military has killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and do we feel the same horror and disgust? Even now we are bombing civilians in Pakistan with drone aircraft, robot warriors out of science fiction. What could be more terrifying then knowing that there are countless drones flying over head and at the whim of someone far away one of them will unleash death upon your home and you won’t even have the chance to flee for your life?

The worst part to me is that our push for ever more destructive weapons drives the rest of the world to develop something to counter them. Iran may very well want nukes, and why not since Israel got them from us and is an aggressor nation just like us. We are systematically arming countless dictatorships around the world all the while claiming to be spreading “Democracy”. That is, as long as your democracy is favorable to our business interests. Don’t dare want to help your own people or you will get a visit from our illustrious covert ops.

Our War on Terror would be better labeled a War of Terror. We are far better at terrorizing humanity then a bunch of guys in the desert waste lands. Our government has used this war as cover to spread across the globe, and anyone who dares to protest quickly gets labeled a terrorist, making it impossible for them to do business and putting a price on their head.

What a sad reality for a country that claims to be a beacon of hope and a bastion of liberty.

Earth to Bush

Surprise, surprise. Once again, when disaster hits, our fearless leader is no where to be seen. No, he’s on the other side of the planet trying to start another war, because the other two he started are going so swimmingly.

I know it’s a lot to expect this shit head to give a rat’s ass about the people of this nation, but come on. I am sure the leaders of Europe would understand if the boy king cut his farewell tour (like he’s some kind of fucking rock star) a little short and at least showed up for a photo op or two. But no, he’s hanging with the French Prez (when did we start talking to the cheese-eating surrender monkeys again?) trying to convince the Europeans that it would be really cool to bomb the fuck out of some more brownish people. Besides their Muslims, and Europeans hate Muslims, so why not bomb millions more of them back to the stone age? Makes sense to me. I’m sure none of this will ever come back to haunt us.

As for all you poor people in the Mid-West, well maybe if you had some oil Bush might care about your freedoms. Hell, he might even have a few of you tortured to show you his compassionate side. But since your just a bunch of suffering citizens, well, you can just go suck a nut. Maybe he will ship you all some nice France wine.

While we are on the subject of public servants, where are our presidential candidates? This would be a good time to show what real leadership looks like. They should be out in front of this, pushing hard to make sure this doesn’t end up like Katrina, trailers and all (many of which, incidentally, should be available soon).

Speaking of which, where do you think that water is heading? My guess is down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Time to test those rebuilt levees.

Tellingly, as I write this there isn’t a single blip about the flooding on the front page of whitehouse.gov.

Update – Good:

Mr. President?

An Irrelavant America

While our congress critters worry about flag burning, same sex marriage, abortion, the Pledge of Allegience and brown people invading our southern borders a much more pressing matter slips by. For too long we have ignored the world outside our borders, assuming the rest of humanity has nothing better to do then sit in the dirt and wait for us to save them with our “democracy.” The reality of the matter is that we are the ones sitting on our butts arguing about who is more patriotic while those other folks (you know, the other 5,730,000,000 inhabitants of this planet) have been getting their shit together.

From the Socialist Democracy revolution in South America to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Asia, our brothers and sisters outside our borders are slowly but surely finding their way.

Interesting Tidbits

So I was talking with a friend who just returned last night from National Guard duty in New Orleans. I am in the process of getting him to write the entire story of what he experienced. For now, I want to share a few tidbits.

First, there was no planning to feed the National Guard. Apparently, his unit had planned to eat food from the Red Cross, until someone informed them that the food was for refugees. So his unit lived off MRE’s for 10 days (which showed up later, leaving the troops hungry for a day) and then finally arrangements were made to get real food to them.

Also, he asked me if I knew why people quit shooting at helicopters. It was because the 82nd Airborne showed up and starting shooting people. Now, as I recall, our military is not supposed to be used against the general populace, but that is not the case here. Our military shot civilians. Regardless of why, this is illegal.

He also told me that real looting, the kind not about survival, happened far outside of New Orleans. As his unit approached the submerged city, they saw first hand looting of a Walmart in an area not affected by the flooding.

One last bit. His unit was not activated until the Friday after the hurricane Katrina hit. A whole week went by before the national Guard was activated. A whole week full of starvation, of people left on their own.

I will post the rest of his story as soon as he writes it down. At the moment he is spending some much earned quality time with his family.

The truth of what happened in New Orleans will never be completely known, but each story told by the people who were there breaks through the lies our government has told us.

We owe it to each and every person who’s body was washed into Lake Pontchartrain during the pumping out of New Orleans to get the truth out.