The average American will likely have trouble with the following:
Iran Attack Next?
By Bruce K. Gagnon
This map tells the whole story. Each star represents a U.S. military base. In the middle, in blue, is Iran. Iran has no military bases outside its borders. Just north of Iran is Georgia that has essentially become a U.S./NATO base. Turkey belongs to NATO. Iran has been checkmated. North of Georgia is Russia. Can there be any wonder why Russia is so alarmed about an attack on Iran?
Imagine if we saw a map of the U.S. with Russian or Chinese military bases throughout Canada and Mexico along with their warships just off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The American people would be going ballistic. But when we do it to others, no one even blinks an eye.
Following the recent spy drone fiasco over Iran the U.S. has been working hard to justify these flights. In an Associated Press story yesterday it was reported that the covert operations in play are “much bigger than people appreciate,” said Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser under George W. Bush. “But the U.S. needs to be using everything it can.” Hadley said that if Iran continues to defy U.N. resolutions and doesn’t curb its nuclear ambitions, the quiet conflict “will only get nastier.”
Hadley’s statement “But the U.S. needs to be using everything it can” has the sound of imminent danger, of desperation. But after looking at this map where does the danger really lie? Iran is actually no danger to anyone. The real danger is that the U.S./NATO/Israel have their itchy fingers on the war trigger and could attack at any time.
One last thing is Mr. Hadley himself. Unknown to the public at large, Stephen Hadley carried on a quiet career in the shadow of Brent Scowcroft and Condoleeza Rice. A business lawyer convicted of fraud, he became the counselor for the largest arms manufacturer in the world, Lockheed Martin. He advised the candidate George W. Bush, helped write the U.S.’s new aggressive nuclear doctrine, helped create the Department of Homeland Security, supervised new entries into NATO, and helped sell the invasion of Iraq. Ever faithful, he protected Bush the father from the Irangate scandal and Bush the son from the lies of the Iraq war. He found himself rewarded by becoming George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Mr. Steven Hadley ran an insurance fraud of close to $1.1 million. He was discovered, found guilty by a court in Iowa, and forced to reimburse the money. To erase any trace to his crime, he changed his name to Stephen John Hadley.
When Ronald Reagan took the White House, Mr. Hadley stayed in the private sector. However, in 1986, the Irangate scandal broke. President Reagan appointed a commission of three wise men to “investigate”. It was composed of the Texan Senator John Tower, Edmund Muskie, and Brent Scowcroft who called Stephen J. Hadley to his side. In spite of the evidence, the commission concluded that President Reagan and Vice-President Bush were innocent. They found that the financing of the Contras in Nicaragua through the trafficking of drugs and illegal weapons sales to Iran was a secret initiative of over-zealous members of the National Security Council, put into place without the knowledge of their superiors. No big heads rolled.
As lawyer for Lockheed Martin, Hadley worked with the directors of the firm, including Lyne Cheney (wife of Dick). He became close with Bruce P. Jackson, the vice-president of the firm in charge of creating new markets. Together they initiated the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO into which they brought Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. The Committee engineered the entry of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland into NATO in 1999. Then that of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latonia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Each time, the leaders of the new member states were solicited to bring their armies up to the scale (interoperability) with NATO, in other words, to purchase new military hardware from Lockheed Martin.
Global Network board member Karl Grossman reported 10 years ago that Hadley was also instrumental in helping Donald Rumsfeld write his report calling for U.S. control and domination of space. “Space is going to be important. It has a great future in the military,” Hadley told the Air Force Association Convention in a 2001 speech. Introduced as an “adviser to Governor George W. Bush,” Hadley said that Bush’s “concern has been that the [Clinton] Administration…doesn’t reflect a real commitment to missile defense.” In 1998 Rumsfeld’s commission reversed a 1995 finding by the nation’s intelligence agencies that the country was not in imminent danger from ballistic missiles acquired by new powers, declaring that “rogue states” did pose such a threat. The answer? Missile defense.
It is obvious that Hadley has been at this game a very long time. His connections to Lockheed Martin, and even the Bush administration, have been long forgotten. So when he is quoted in a current news story few see the irony of him defending CIA spy drone flights over Iran. It is good that we take a moment though and remember the real “his-story” otherwise we are likely to repeat the terror and carnage of past U.S. snake oil invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
full txt and images here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29977.htm
The title says it all: “If you were an Iranian…”; well, we’re NOT!
Why would a prudent individual not take the take the blood-thirsty spiritual, political and religious descendants of the fiendish psychotic Ayatollah Khomeni at their word.
Self-centered people like Mr. Gagnon, so busy worshipping at the altar of their own butts, can afford to be liberals; those with responsibilities of a higher level cannot.
Oh please.
Bloodthirsty? How many other countries have the Iranians attacked over the past 50 years? No, the past 100 years?
How many people has the Iranian government killed?
How many other countries has the United States attacked in just the past 10 years? How many hundreds of thousands of people has it killed?
You want “bloodthirsty”? How about The Chimp, whose almost sexual eagerness to assault Iraq was obvious even before 911? How about Waco – an action (as a friend of mine described it) worthy of Heinrich Himmler. Etc. How about Abu Ghraib? How about machine-gunning unarmed civilians from a helicopter? Here’s a clip for you:
“Fiendishly psychotic”? That better describes the vicious, amoral leaders of the United States – who assert the power to extrajudicial murder, torture and indefinite detainment without charge – than the Ayatollahs of Iran.
No “raghead” has taken away any of my rights – but the government of this country sure has.
I know nothing of Mr. Gagnon’s politics, but the last thing I’d call “self-centered” would be to object to chickenhawk psychotics such as The Chimp, Rumsfeld (and now Obama, Newtie, et al) who so glibly toy with and destroy other people’s lives.
I know, I know. I must be “anti-Semitic.” Or an “enemy of freedom.” C’mon. Say it. I know that’s where this is headed.
And I’m proud to be an ahhhhmerrikun , because at least ah know ahhhm freeeeeeee!
Gosh Bill, can you explain the moral difference between what the wealthy elite (primarily Anlgophiles) are and have been doing with the U.S. military in the middle east nowadays and the Anglo-Chinese wars (i.e. Opium Wars) and the treatment of India in the 19th century? How about if the U.S. government hadn’t screwed around in Iran’s internal affairs in the ’50’s we probably never would have heard of the Ayatollah khomeni, because the U.S. sock puppet Shaw wouldn’t have been in power. Don’t believe me Bill; study some history.
What has U.S. interventionist foreign policy done for me? Let’s see here: a smaller paycheck, inflated money, a national debt that is arithmetically impossible to repay, a significant loss of individual Liberty under a burgeoning surveillance / police state and a lot of pissed off foreign neighbors that want to kill us (“blowback”) for occupying their land. Is this the “peace dividend” we were promised after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the “Cold War”?
All the U.S. has to do is return to a neutral foreign policy of “Trade Not Raid” and we will start the wheels of peace, prosperity and Liberty turning both here and abroad. Of course that wouldn’t be real good for the bottom line of Haliburton, Xe, L-3 or Lockheed-Martin, now would it? It also wouldn’t do much for U.S. imperial hegemony either. So which government agency or defense contractor did you say you worked for?
Very eloquent.
I wish I could put-down words the way you and Eric’s can. Be careful though. You’re beginning to sound like those left-wing, bleeding heart, Godless Europeans (and the people of most other Countries) – not a true, I’ll kick your ass if you’re not with me American.
Thanks, Doug – we’re not all psychopaths. Or dumb! Hence, the following does not appeal to us:
But I suspect it makes Clover’s panties moist.
Truth can be stranger than fiction. It is funny until I remember the things that happened while GWB was the president.
The more time passes the less respect and more disappointment I have in GWB.
Truth can be stranger than fiction. It is funny until I remember the things that happened while GWB was the president.
The more time passes the less respect and more disappointment I have in GWB.
For a very brief while (the first few months of his presidency) I saw him as a kind of affable dunce; essentially harmless. Or at least, less harmful than Al Gore. Then came 911 and his small-minded thuggery became obvious, at least to me. What he did – establishing the Fear State – and setting numerous odious precedents that have now been routinized and greatly expanded upon – is unforgivable.
Thanks Doug. I really appreciate being put in the same class as Eric, but I’m just an Instrument Tech, he’s actually a journalist. As far as left-wing, bleeding heart, Godless European goes…naw…libertarian Native American and I only kick ass if kicked first. 😉
@Bill Porter:
If they’re so blood-thirsty, and fiendishly psychotic (apt descriptions for our neoconned brave leaders)–where’s the evidence besides mistranslated speeches?
Where are the bombs? Where are the attacks?
How’s that global caliphate coming along?
I’ll give you an example of a global movement that REALLY IS threatening…central banking.
Or had you not noticed the giant fiat-dollar dick in your ass giving you the ride of your life?
And while you’re whining about that scary global caliphate, did you not notice your own country being transformed into a hellish police state…to “protect” you from the scary caliphate?
I object to being lumped in with liberals. We’re mostly libertarians on this site, and stand above the petty brain-washed left/right false debate.
Here are some of Bill’s friends and fellow Faux News viewers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
It’s about having the ability to see something from another person’s point of view. It’s a higher order ability of thought, a trait of a more developed person.
The everyday Iranian has about as much say in the government that attempts to rule over him as the average American does, which is approximately… ZERO.
Bill, I’ve met people from Iran and Iraq. Guess what, they are people. Really, they are people, just like any other people. They don’t want you dead, well unless they have been programmed to by the government that runs the territory where they live like many Americans have been programmed to hate and fear by the US government. But I wouldn’t blame an Iranian for having a problem with the US government. Do you know why Iran has the government it has today?
In the early 1950s Iran was getting on its way to being a first world world country. It had an elected government. That elected government was aiming just to keep a little more of the nation’s wealth for the people or maybe itself or both but I digress, the point is that big anglo-american banks and oil companies would get less. So the CIA came up with operation Ajax (you can look that up on your own time). The result was the overthrow of that elected government and the tyranny of the shah which lasted until 1979. Did you ever learn in school why the revolutionaries took the US embassy? I didn’t either, I had to learn this on my own. They took it because they feared the USA would overthrow their government. A very rational move on the chess board *if* you know the history.
If operation Ajax had not gone forward for the benefit of the corporate interests, Iran would by now be fully a first world nation. Did you know the people of Iran don’t really like the government they have to live under? They don’t, because just about nobody would. If the Iranian people get a more moderate government they’ll restart their progress to first world status. The control freaks in the USA can’t have that. This is a primary reason for the sanctions and warmongering. It’s to get the Iranian clovers to rally around the government.
You know what would render those Ayatollahs you fear entirely powerless? Selling the Iranian people stuff… stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI548dDWOYo
That’s a video of Pontiac Trans Am and Corvette drag racing in Iran.
There are many videos of the car culture in Iran online. I can’t tell them from americans if it wasn’t for the language and different road signs and license plates. Videos of burn outs, car shows, dyno runs, working on cars… lots of old american iron.
It’s up to you Bill, what do you want? Dead americans who go to fight for the “country” or employed americans building cars. We can be rich from making and selling stuff to willing buyers or we can be poor from murdering people. Your choice. Where do you stand?
A long time ago, “conservatives” recognized the danger that the warfare state posed to liberty and reviled it as much as the welfare state. But then came Bill Buckley who – so he said, anyhow – believed it was necessary to accept and even defend the warfare state in order to (yep) “defend freedom.” That cliche is much older than The Chimp.
All the rest followed and today, “conservatives” are often among the most belligerent, violence-lusting people you’ll encounter. Ron Paul’s sort of conservatism is kind of like gnostic Christianity – a heresy that has been systematically persecuted and stomped. He’s the inheritor of a tradition to goes back to Robert Taft and from him, all the way back to the “nullies” and state’s rights men of the mid 19th century and from them back to Jefferson and then farther back still.
A striking thing about the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights (and even the Constitution, though less so) is the absence of aggressive violence; the entreaties to reason and the desire to have peaceful interaction with the world and one’s fellow man.
Compare the language to the typical political speech of today.
The average American strikes me as callous and cruel as well as intellectually lazy and often downright vacuous. He’s been engineered to be this way, of course. And bred, too.
I’m sympathetic to an extent to Neon’s view, in that I agree there are millions of people who just don’t get it – or just don’t care, even if they do. People who glibly endorse murderous violence against “foreigners” (as well as their fellow citizens) and who support – no, demand – that their neighbor be threatened with chains, or have a gun shoved under his chin, to compel his “help” or to make him behave as they see fit. The Clover (and Gil) archetypes. Such people are the set pieces of a future Nuremburg Parteitag. They will cheer it when it comes and provide the helping hands to build it – on a pile of bones.
Eric you probably know this, but for anyone who doesn’t–Bill Buckley was a CIA asset, and the National Review was controlled opposition from the start…
…a prototype for Operation Mockingbird, and a highly effective distraction for honest conservatives back in the day when they resembled classical liberals–or what we call libertarian today.
Bill Buckley’s not-so-subtle warmongering was a masterful sales job for neoconism.
May he rest in Hell.
Yes, I do know Buckley’s history.
And I’ll always remember him for what he did to Joe Sobran (among others). For those who don’t know Joe’s work, check into it. The guy was a marvelous writer and (unlike Buckley) a decent human being.
I agree we need to carefully weigh any decision to use war as a solution, but hindsight is 20/20. What if the US did not enter WWII? Applying the logic we are proposing for present conflicts, we might not have entered WWII (granted Pearl Harbor left us with little choice).
Maybe Europe would resolve the conflict itself? Doubtful, but who would have thought a band of colonists could outwit the world’s most powerful country/military in the late 1700’s. And we could have left Japan to control Asia.
We all agree that the decision to use force should be carefully considered and used as a last resort. I agree it seems to be used too often as a distraction or a disturbing economic stimulus.
The fact is we are armchair quaterbacks here, and that is frustrating. Our vote is powerful, but it seems to get overshadowed by Big Media imposing their view of world order. They know if subtle enough the masses will naively follow.
With regard to ‘cleaning house’, the best solution is to limit terms in Congress. That is a step in the right direction albeit maybe only the first baby step. Any thoughts on how we can get going on that one? Simply electing one of the ‘lesser of the two evils’ offered by our political parties most likely will not do it. It must be a more grass roots effort…
Well, had the (note, not our) government not interfered in WWI, which, by 1917, had reached a stalemate, it is likely the opposing forces would have reached a just or at least reasonable peace. Instead, we jumped in on the side of Britain and France (because Wall Street shysters stood to make a fortune by the U.S. entering and stood to lose a great deal if Britain and France had to reach an agreement with Germany) and tilted the balance in favor of Britain and France, who imposed a vicious regime of reparations on Germany that crippled her economically and humiliated her people – resulting in … wait for it now… Adolf Hitler and WWII.
Now we’re fucking with the countries of the Middle East who have done nothing to “threaten our freedoms,” inviting the same sort of blowback. Pushing Iran into a corner, surrounding it with hostile military forces, overflying its sovereign airpspace, sending in covert teams to blow up facilities and commit murder… how should Iran react to such provocations? How would we react to such provocations?
We had no more business assaulting Iraq than Nazi Germany had assaulting Poland; no more justification for invading Afghanistan than the Soviets did back in the ’80s.
And we have no business fucking with Iran, either.
I expect the god-damned chickenhawk psychopaths who run the government will, though, nonetheless.
And it’s us who will pay the price when blowback arrives.
Are you serious!!!!!!!!! Your comprehension and understanding of history comes right out of the leftist liberal revisionist playbook.!! The idea that iran is not a threat to anyone is an idea that comes from a clueless mind or a pacifist!!!! I guess all the suicide bombings that have been going on all over the world for decades have been figments of peoples imagination instead of islamic nutjobs that have told the world to submit to islam or die ,and when leaders of iran say they are going to drive Israel into the sea we should just pass it off as idle talk and nothing serious! Or when Iran says when they get the bomb they will use it against us, we shouldnt take the threat seriously ??!!!
Er… uh.. yeah.
Except Iran has in fact attacked no one, certainly not the United States.
In fact, it is the United States that is attacking Iran.
Are the Iranians sending drones over our airpsace? Teams of assassins to the US? Organizing world boycotts intended to cripple our economy?
And let’s not forget that Iran has a government that its people chose – as opposed to the one the US government forced upon it for decades (Shah) after getting rid of its elected leader (Mossadegh). Have the Iranians ever tried to interfere with U.S. domestic politics?
Ever wonder why the Iranians might be a little distrustful of the US… ?
That’s the factual history, hombre. Go read up sometime.
In any case, and all the foregoing notwithstanding, the most relevant fact is these people – this country – poses no threat to the United States other than as the latest prop to arouse the febrile idiots – narcissistic nationalists – into another bible-thumping, flag waving war of choice. To gratuitously slaughter more innocent people (abstract ragheads) in a far-away land, on the basis of crude, childish propaganda – in order to further by proxy the local interests of (yes) Israel.
It’s positively demented to suggest that a small, second-tier country like Iran – which might possess a single crude nuclear bomb and few means of delivering it – poses a “threat” to a country that possesses (literally) thousands of nukes and the latest, state of the art delivery systems, carrier battle groups… bases all around the world, fleets of nuclear-armed submarines and aircraft… etc.
I expect the Iranians want the bomb for the same reason we do – that Israel does. As a deterrent. As a checkmate.
So they can’t be fucked with anymore. Had Iraq had a bomb, Iraq would not have been “regime changed” and occupied and turned into a puppet satrap of the U.S. Can you blame the Iranians for wanting to avoid that fate? Really? Are you that solipsistic?
And what of Israel? Poor, poor helpless, defenseless Israel? Israel with its several hundred nukes and state-of-the-art military?
Please.
What Israel wants is regional dominance. The ability to strike at will. If the Iranians get the bomb, the Israelis are shit out of luck. So are we. No more “pre-emptive wars.” It can’t come soon enough.
Meanwhile, we reap what we sow. A government that projects tyranny abroad will be tyrannical at home.
The Iranians (and the Iraqis) and yes, even al Qeda, did not give us Homeland Security and the Patriot act and the shredding of due process and the Bill of Rights. That was done by the government of this country. It took “our freedoms.” Not the ragheads.
Oh yes, I know. We have to worry about “mushroom clouds” on the horizon, and so must accept the surrender of our liberties in order to keep us free.
Sorry man. I’m just not quite that stupid. Or afraid.
Unfortunately, I know that many millions of “freedom loving” Americans are both.
Instead of emoting and pretending we’re idiots for missing some obvious Iranian threat–
Why don’t you educate us in EXACTLY WHAT that Iranian threat is?
1) Have they attacked anyone?
2) Whom could they attack? With what? With what consequences?
3) Do they have a nuke?
4) If not can they make one?
5) If they do where can they deliver it?
6) If they deliver it what will the consequences be?
7) Who have we attacked in the last 70 years?
@dave: I read your response again and I have another question:
What are you afraid of? Are you really so chickenshit that you’ll cheer like moron when we kill more innocent brown people 10,000 miles away, because of your 1/10million chance of being killed by a terrorist?
You must buy many lottery tickets because your conception of statistics is bovine.
P.S. The family of the newly-dead brown people remain plenty pissed after the bombing…and THAT’S where terrorism comes from, amigo. Not from “hating our freedoms”
P.P.S. Turn off Faux News. Turn off CNN. Read a history book, get some perspective.
The general ignorance of U.S. “involvement” (read: interference and overt violence) in the Middle East is both appalling and depressing. Worse, when you inform the typical turgid flag-waving warmonger supporter of, say, the US removal of Iranian leader Mossadegh in favor of our hand-picked puppet, the Shah (who spent decades oppressing, torturing and killing Iranians) they just don’t care. Point out to them that our invasion of Iraq has killed literally (at minimum) tens of thousands of innocent people – women and children; old people. People who did nothing to us, nothing to deserve their fate. Many times more victims than the victims of 911.
Who cares… just ragheads… dispensable, disposable, expendable. Let’s go kill some more. Just to safe.
Yet these same people rouse to spittle-spewing fury at the most imbecilic, abstract, implausible “enemies of our freedoms” scenarios trotted out for their delectation by chickenhawk warmongers such as Newtie, or his amen chorus over at Faux News.
This nation showed its true face when it cheered The Chimp.
Apres moi, le deluge
Even after you know these inner workings, what can you do about it. Truly power corrupts.
Well, the first step is spreading awareness; getting as many people as possible attuned to what’s happening. That’s my job description, anyhow. The more we can get people discussing these things, the more likely it is that positive action will result.
Anyone who does not KNOW that the U.S. is going to pay a huge price for its vanity and hubris is
naive. I live in Europe a great deal where the attitude toward the U.S. is love-hate. The love part
comes from WWII when the Yanks chased out the Nazis. Ever since hate has been gaining. Now
that the U.S. goverment has destroyed our right to habeas corpus the on-going history of fascist
America suggests that our near future will be very dark indeed. However, the majority of INFORMED
Americas will rise up against this stupidity and tyranny, but it’s going to be messy. Got to clean these
bastards out of Congress – and the mainstream media didn’t say a mumblin’ word either – You can
only shake your head and say Sic Transit Gloria Mundi – Thus Passes the Glory of the World
Agree.
Many Americans are good people who are appalled by the actions taken in their name by the (note, not our) government. It does not speak for me, nor for millions of others. We are disgusted by the death and devastation it visits on others whose only sin was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who are pawns in some sick “grand game” of geopolitical maneuvering. I and millions of others are not infected with the disease of wanting to control others, let alone the world. But we are like people trapped in a runaway train, with a bunch of maniacs at the controls.
People should have learned fom Iran-Contra. The reason we’ve been in Afghanistan so long is not only the arms dealers like Lockheed, but also, the drug trade. When the Taliban collapsed, drug production skyrocketed. The CIA has been into this thing since before Bush the 1st was it’s director.
Yep. And remember the same teary-eyed treacly appeals to “patriotism” then, too?
The government’s heroin operation in Afghanistan is the tip of the iceberg. Drugs are a $500 Billion/year operation, and the TBTF banks in cahoots with the government moves the vast majority of product.
The DEA et al. are there to mop up the small competitors, and keep the prices high by enforcing the “laws”.
It’s one of the best cons they’ve got running.
Ask Pat Tillman what happens when you question why the military is guarding poppy fields…Oh, wait, you can’t. He’s dead.
I lived in Europe for 10 years. Even in the west, Germany, France, England, the people resent the U.S. The military in those countries are loud, arrogant and beligerent. U.S. military are banned from most bars and night-clubs in Germany because they go in, get drunk and start fights. The German people resented Bush invading Iraq. They told me so and it was the first time in my life I felt discriminated against.
It’s just common sense.
Imagine if we saw a map of the U.S. with Russian or Chinese military bases throughout Canada and Mexico along with their warships just off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The American people would be going ballistic. But when we do it to others, no one even blinks an eye.
But we’re Americans. We are different from everyone else.
==========================================================
The world’s policeman is an expensive and thankless job.
People in other countries eventually resent US interference. This interference can lead to bad feelings towards the US.
Police (military) actions cost money. Someone has to pay for the US bases and military activities around the world. Unfortunately, the US tax payers get stuck with the bill. Often there is little benefit for the average tax payer for this military activity. Usually only a select few benefit from US military activity around the world.
The money spent for US military activity is money that could be put to better use in the US. At the least, the US could spend less money and not increase the amount of debt. The debt is a drag on the economy. The debt limits the options that are available to the US government and economy today and in the future.