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A third American war crime
in the making
Paul Craig Roberts
Online
Journal
Monday, March 31, 2008
The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the
United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his
attack on Iran.
If only America had an independent media and an opposition party.
If there were a shred of integrity left in American political
life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression -- a third war crime
under the Nuremberg standard -- by the Bush Regime could be prevented.
On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti,
cited “a high-ranking security source: 'The latest military
intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations
for both an air and ground operation against Iran.'”
According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov
said “that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive
air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure in the near
future.”
(Article continues below)
The chief of Russia’s general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said
last November that Russia was beefing up its military in response
to US aggression, but that the Russian military is not “obliged
to defend the world from the evil Americans.”
On March 29, Chris Floyd cited a report by the Saudi Arabian
newspaper Okaz, which was picked up by the German news service,
DPA. The Saudi newspaper reported on March 22, the day following
Cheney’s visit with the kingdom’s rulers, that the
Saudi Shura Council is preparing “national plans to deal
with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect
the kingdom following experts’ warnings of possible attacks
on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactors.”
And Admiral William “there will be no attack on Iran on
my watch” Fallon has been removed as US chief of Central
Command, thus clearing the way for Cheney’s planned attack
on Iran.
The Iranians don’t seem to believe it, despite the dispatch
of US nuclear submarines and another aircraft carrier attack group
to the Persian Gulf. To counter any Iranian missiles launched
in response to an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile defenses
to protect US bases and Saudi oil fields.
Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party,
and the American people have paved the way for Cheney’s
long planned attack on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism
about the US government’s explanation of 9/11. The other
failure is the Democrats’ refusal to begin impeachment proceedings
against President Bush for lying to the Congress, the American
people, and the world and launching an invasion of Iraq based
on deception and fabricated evidence.
If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler
did with pure lies and not be held accountable, he can get away
with anything. And Bush and his evil regime have.
Hitler launched World War II with his invasion of Poland after
staging a “Polish attack” on a German radio station.
On the night of August 31, 1939, a group of Nazis disguised in
Polish uniforms seized a radio station in Germany. Hitler announced
that “last night Polish troops crossed the frontier and
attacked Germany,” a claim no more true than the Bush Regime’s
claim that “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.”
Hitler’s lie failed, because his invasion of Poland, which
began the next day allegedly in reprisal for the Polish attack,
had obviously been planned for many months.
Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It is an ancient civilization.
It has attacked no one. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation
Treaty. Iran is permitted by the treaty to have a nuclear energy
program. The Bush Regime’s case against Iran is based on
the Bush Regime’s desire to deny Iran its rights under the
treaty.
The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have repeatedly
reported that they have found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear
weapons program. Despite all the disinformation from US Gen. Petraeus
and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is not arming the
Iraqis who are resisting the American occupation.
If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents would have two
weapons that would neutralize the US advantage in the Iraqi conflict:
missiles to knock down US helicopter gunships and rocket-propelled
grenades that knock out American tanks. The insurgents do not
have these weapons and must construct clumsy anti-tank weapons
out of artillery shells. The insurgents are helpless against US
air power and cannot mass forces to take on the American troops.
Indiscriminate American violence has reduced Iraq to rubble.
The civilian infrastructure is essentially destroyed -- electricity,
water and sewer systems, medical care and schools. Depleted uranium
is everywhere poisoning everyone, including US troops. There is
no economy, and half or more of Iraqis are unemployed. Literally
no Iraqi family has escaped an injury or a death as a consequence
of the US invasion. Millions of Iraqis have become displaced persons.
A developed country with a professional middle class has been
destroyed because of lies told by the president and vice president
of the US. The Bush Regime’s lies are echoed by a neoconservative
media, and have gone unchallenged by the opposition party and
an indifferent American public.
In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on even the smallest
village from the air. America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
are wars against the civilian populations.
Just as the world could not believe Hitler’s next horror
and thus was always unprepared, the Iranians despite all the evidence
cannot believe that even the Great Satan would gratuitously attack
Iran based on nothing but lies about nonexistent nuclear weapons.
Iran’s only chance would be to strike before the US delivers
the first blow. Instead of using its missiles to take out the
Saudi oil fields and to sink the US aircraft carriers, instead
of closing the Strait of Hormuz, instead of arming the Iraqi Shi’ites
and moving them to insurgency, Iran is perched like a sitting
duck in denial even as the US and its Iraqi puppet, Maliki, move
to eliminate Al Sadr’s Iraqi Shi’ite militia in order
to avoid supply disruptions and a Shi’ite rebellion in Iraq
when the US attack on Iran comes.
It is important to emphasize that Iran is making no moves toward
war. Having tamed, blackmailed, and purchased Congress, the US
media, and US allies and puppets, Cheney might delight in the
arrogance with which he can now attack Iran free of any restraint
or fabricated provocation. On the other hand, he might cover himself
by orchestrating an “Iranian provocation” to justify
his attack as a response. But like Hitler’s planned attack
against Poland, Cheney’s attack on Iran has long been in
the works.
On March 29 the Associated Press reported that Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi “poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders”
at the Arab summit that day. Gadhafi told the Arab “leaders,”
many of whom are on the American payroll, that their American
masters would turn on them all, just as America turned on Saddam
Hussein after using him to fight a proxy war against Iran.
Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, Gadhafi reminded
the Arabs, “but they sold him out.” Gadhafi told the
American puppets, “Your turn is next.”
Gadhafi asked, “Where is the Arabs’ dignity, their
future, their very existence?” If Arabs remain disunited,
he predicted, “they will turn themselves into protectorates.
They will be marginalized and turn into garbage dumps.”
Indeed, it is this disunity that permits the US to bomb and murder
at will in the Middle East.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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