The president's pretense of bringing Americans and the Congress into the discussion of war escalation/expansion reached new lows for duplicity Wednesday and Thursday. He had already added additional troops, added a carrier group, and an admiral took charge of Centcom. Then, we learn the US attacked an Iranian consulate, sovereign space of a country. Read about it here and here.
In a thinly disguised attempt to produce pretext, the US raid of an Iranian consulate not only violates international law, but also is a clear provocation for war. This action fulfilled the joint purpose of 1) fishing for evidence, any scrap of paper usable for pretense (the US attackers hauled away documents and computers) and 2)provoking Iran into responding, so we have an even bigger excuse to widen an already dangerous war. The return shot may have already happened.
Today we hear on the Morning Edition at NPR that the US Embassy in Athens, Greece, has been attacked. Rather than bringing our invasion of Iraq to a constructive end, helping Iraq carry on by itself, and safely extracting our troops, Bush has entered the netherworld of the dangerous and senseless seeding of regional conflict.
In his Wednesday speech, Bush stated:
We will interupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seekout and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training t our enemies in Iraq.
And then this:
I recently ordered the deployment of a carrier strike group into the region.
Indeed, there is some talkof the possibility that Bush may have already signed a secret war order against Iran and Syria. Bush never had any intention of listening to anyone, not even the Iraq Study Group.
Americans who read between the lines of Bush's speech probably din't sleep well Wednesday night. Nor, apparently, did conservative MSNBC talk show host and former Republican congressman, Joe Scarborough; Joe Klein of Time Magazine, Ryan Lipps of The New Republic, or even right-wing talking head Pat Buchanan.
Discussion last night on MSNBC's Scarborough Country included Klein suggesting the inclusion of Iran and "networks" in the speech combined with our attacking the Iranian consulate, the aircraft carrier group, and the patriot missles means an effort to bate Iran into attacking US interests. Scarborough though that was possible.
Ryan Lizza said the words and action by Bush were reminiscent of "sweep it all up, things related and things not" (Donald Rumsfeld, shortly after Sept. 11, 2001). And Lizza saw the subtext of the speech itself as being about Iran.
Joe Klein said that this "was a whole diffrent order of magnitude than Viet Nam," and "This time the blunder has global implications."
Buchanan added that this would mean an Islamic world energized and "a debacle on a massive scale."
On Wednesday, I wrote here at RK about Robert Parry's column (here) which indicated John Negraponte was ousted as intelligance czar due to his telling Bush the truth Bush didn't want to hear: That Iran is at least 10 years away from a nuclear weapon. This morning's Roanoke Times reports that the UN's IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) is faced not just with finding whether Iran has nuclear weapons (it already concluded Iran had none). Now, we learn the IAEA has been tasked to investigate WHY Iran doesn't have them. This could be from an SNL rerun of "Bizzaroworld." But it's not, and it's not funny.
Why are Americans so slow out of this gate this time? Where is the outrage at Bush's unitary presidency, sending us ever closer to the brink? Where is Congress? Hearings are appropriate and nice, but it's too late for Congressional pretense. Contrary to the pervasive myth, Democrats had four different serious proposals for Iraq (more on this later). No one cared and the revisionists spun the myth that Dems "had no plan." Bush doesn't care what Congress, the Iraq Study Group, or the American people think anyway. He's too busy trying to show his inner macho, to all our detriment.
Americans face a character test of their own: Will we spend the time and effort to make a difference when the stakes are so high? It's time now for the people to send Congress a message to save us from the provacative actions of our president. Congress must intervene to stop this dangerous course. Non-binding resolutions won't cut it. Bush's actions endanger the US, Israel, Iraq, and the entire Middle East.
However, this particular installation is in question as a 'formal' embassy." This is not the same as raiding the Iranian embassy as London.
As an American, I do get tired of the attitude that all Americans are bad, and don't try and do constructive things, and all Arabs and Syrians and Persians are good. No ' good' person would use religion to kill their fellow citizen the way Sadar does. And I am tired of it even in the debate over Iraq as opposed as I was to us going in there, and as opposed as I am to everything Dubya stands for.
If national territory was violated, then its for the PM of Iraq that Iran needs to deal with, its HIS country and he is happy to have the US there, and keeping things exactly the way they are.
Personally I have no trouble cutting off the funding for our troops over there. That means they will come home. And its the ONLY way it will happen. Bush had better be sent that message now before he gets stupid over Iran.
Wooah! No one here, or anywhere I know of, thinks of our countrymen (persons), our friends and neighbors, as you seem to be suggesting.
But, personally I take offense your suggestion that I think all Americans are bad. If I did, which I certainly do not, I'd be a fool.
I believe that people are basically good. But it's not enough to feel good, and mean good. We have to do good. Our country needs us -- all of us.
And as for our troops, all of here respect and support our brave men and women in uniform. America has a long history of doing many good things, and some HUGE mistakes. We have to accept (though not necessarily not approve of) our entire history. It is what it is, despite reviionist atempts to redraw it.
I do think Americans have a sense of hopelessness ("Learned Helplessness?) and are pretty deep into denial about all of this. Overwhelmingly, they say Bush is wrong.
And however painful or time-consuming, or frustrating, we all need to stay engaged. That's hard when life intervenes. But now it's really important to not life could our long-term vision here. Also many individuals are afraid tpeak out. However, what good is a Republic if we let it slip through our fingers by neglect? We were told we have a republic, "if you can keep it," there was an implicit message that we'd have to work to keep it. Spekaing out also becomes safer the more people do it. That's worth remembering.
It seems with an election every year (in Virginia) we are all tired. That's natural. I plead guilty to election fatigue. Many of us have taken breaks. But life goes on and so do the machinations of some politicians. We have to decide whether it's important enough to get involved.
On the subject of politicians, I think many of them are good and do good. I am not one of those who thinks politicians are corrupt by definition, though a few are. I've known a number of pols who are good, nice people to ever think or suggest such a thing.
I do think that some elected representatives aren't as courageous as they should be. Worrying about getting reelected needs to be secondary to doing what's really best for the nation. I think some representaives are a bit short on courage.
We all have our things to work on. I evidently set you off. And I need to reflect on that. However, the intent was to get people thinking and doing something constructive. And writing a tough commentary can irritate, even infuriate, some.
The questions Ii raise are: How many countries can Bush take on at once, and should he? We are already stretched thin. This is despite probably 100,00 mercenaries supplemnting our US forces. How can America take on one country after another. Bus is not proving how tough we are. He's acting more reckless by the day.
I think it is helpful once in a while to try to see the other person's point of view.
"He [Bush] is looking for an opportunity, and he may well be preparing the opportunity right now, Joe. I think that‘s very valid—that‘s not only valid speculation, I think it‘s pretty much what‘s planned. Why would you need Patriot missiles? Why would our allies need them? Who‘s going to fire rockets at our allies? Who‘s got ballistic missiles?"
Can the Senate and the House stop the President from escalating this over to Iran? Can the Iranians stop it? Somebody has to, what about the UN Security Council?
stated, but he chose to go to war. He could have chosen to increase or surge diplomacy with then Secretary of State Colin Powell or like President Ford said, talk to your enemies Syria and Iran. But no, this president chose to GO TO WAR. Why does one choose to go to war? Well, in his State of the Union address, he told us, we are going to war to wipe out those nations who were the Axis of Evil. OOOOH, that became clear or did it? So we attacked a sovereign nation, found nothing, hung a dictator and now it's 2007................and escalated the war.
So now we need the next Axis in this little game the president has us in, Axis II coming up. Iran though needs a little prodding to get them to do what is called preemptive attack [vs preemptive war]. Senator Webb tried to get Secretary of State Rice to discuss it yesterday here:
...And there is one pretty profound change since I was in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, and that is the notion that the executive branch has the power to conduct a preemptive war as opposed to a preemptive attack."
So what do we do Wednesday night, we bomb a little piece of Iran called an Iranian Liaison House in Erbil, Iraq,
and took information from said house at the very time President Bush stated he would do such things to disrupt Iranian involvement in the Iraq war. Is he trying his darnest to get Iran to cough up a few bombs so he can have an all out attack?
Not to sound the alarm bells, but I think blowing up Iran is where he wanted to take us all along. Remember this Iraq war was to take three weeks - 3 months according to Former Secretary of State Donald Goodbye Rumsfeld, so that would have taken us to Iran in 2004 maybe early 2005. Well it's 2007 and we still have a mess in Iraq and we are blaming whom? Iran! The WH is coming out with a story as we speak that we, the Administration is not interested in Iran, go here.
Fat chance! It's what they wanted all along only we were too stupid to see it. We were told we needed Iraq so we can have a better footing on Afghanistan. Nope! We need Iraq to have a better footing INTO Iran, and the Persian Gulf. Period. Just my thoughts, but it is Iran all along.
And by the way,see this from Keith Olbermann, the President Who Cried Wolf, here:
and thats just for starters...
accountability, transparency, and some truth.
In the case of the raid in Irbil my initial reaction after the speech was "Oh sh-t"--especially since some of the initial reports called this a consulate. It was not.
I also found the words from administration officials somewhat reassuring on Friday. Secretary of State Condelezza Rice pointed out that the U.S. released an Iranian with diplomatic status in an earlier raid in Baghdad.
My primary concern is with cross border raids--which would rally national support inside Iran for the government--something that we should avoid at all costs. I have no problem though with making the Iranians pay a cost inside Iraq for interference.