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Recent Stories
March 24, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood for Oil:
the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
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Paint Them
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Brian J. Foley
Patriotic Protest
for Professors
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Inventing Demons
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On the Current Experience of Terror
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Blitz-Coup
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See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
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March 20, 2003
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Nomadic
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Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
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Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen
Myths and
Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
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Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come On Democrats,
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War is Theft
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Dispatch from
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March
24, 2003
Crusaders Readying
for 2004 Invasion?
US Bombs Iran
By JOHN STANTON
While
the slaughter continues in Iraq, the United States has its sights set
on the real prize: the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Even though Syria
is next on the chopping block according to the authors of A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm--chief among them Richard Perle
and Douglas Feith--it is Iran that they covet. In their view, it's payback
time for the 1970's overthrow of the Shah and subsequent takeover by
Khomeni (then exiled in France), the occupation of the US Embassy, the
ensuing hostage crisis, the botched rescue attempt that sullied America's
military reputation, and tit-for-tat terrorist actions over the years
between the US and Iran (US Navy shoot down of Iranian airliner, Iranian
backed terrorist attacks on US troops, etc).
Nevermind that in
1953, the US, UK and Israeli intelligence were responsible for a coup
which ousted the nationalistic Iranian prime minister Mossadegh and
would ultimately lead to regional conflict with Iraq and hatred of the
US to this day. The same stupidity was repeated in 1963 in Iraq, when
US, UK and Israeli intelligence whipped up a coup decapitating prime
minister Assem (a 25 year-old named Saddam Hussein played a key role
in that effort) which would ultimately lead to regional conflict with
Iran and Kuwait and hatred of the US to this day.
The bottom line
has not changed in 2003. It is all about economics. In the 1950's and
1960's, the US and UK were worried about the nationalization of oil
production by Iran and Iraq. In 2003 it is the same. The US consumes
roughly 30 percent of the world's energy production (as measured in
British Thermal Units) yet has only 5 percent of its population.
"We have 50
percent of the world's wealth but only 6.3 percent of its population.
In this situation, our real job...is to devise a series of relationships
which permit us to maintain this position of disparity. To do so we
have to dispense with sentimentality...we should cease thinking about
human rights, the raising of living standards and democratization."
That according to George Kennan in 1948 (see Richard Heinberg's fine
article at www.onlinejournal.com
for more on US and Eurasia).
The United States
and Western Europe have unwaveringly adhered to Kennan's advice and
have only themselves to blame for the madness currently underway in
Middle East and Persian Gulf. For over 50 years, through coups, preemptive
airstrikes and vicious propaganda, the US, UK, France, Israel and other
European nations have long been engaged in "preemption" by
attacking and decapitating the legitimate leaders of the nations that
makeup that region.
And so many still
ask the silly question, "Why do they hate us?"
US
War Criminals in Action
Dick Cheney, Paul
Wolfowitz, Donnie Rumsfeld, Richard Armitage, Elliot Abrams, Zalmay
Khalilzad and other up and coming War Criminals are anxious to set things
right with Iran. It is Iran's turn to be subjected to the 21st Century
version of Nazi Germany's Blitzkrieg, that being the murderous American
Shock and Awe campaign created by leading War Criminal Harlan Ullman.
Ullman writes a column for the Reverend Moon's Washington Times and
is a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, in which the Department of Homeland Security was initially
conceived.
From March 21 to
March 24, 2003, Iranian air-space had been violated with impunity by
US aircraft. The US attacked the oil-industry communities of Khorramshahr,
Abadan and Manyuhi in Iran not far from the US-UK-Kuwaiti controlled
Faw Peninsula and Umm al Qasr--control points for the Shatt al Arb through
which billions of gallons of crude oil have passed to the US, UK and
Japan. The oil refinery and depots in Abadan were the primary targets.
The were casualties but no deaths. US and UK bombers have also circled
over Arvand-Kenar in Iran on their way into Iraq. Iranian officials
have protested these violations of International Law, but to no avail.
Pentagon officials declared the cause of the attacks to be "stray"
cruise missiles and bombs. That is improbable. These attacks (and overflights),
it seems, were part of the preprogrammed target packages planned early
on by US military commanders to test, or light up, Iranian air defenses
for the invasion of Iran which is likely to take place if George Bush
II takes the US presidency in 2004. They serve as a stark warning to
Iran not to meddle in what has now become the American, British and
Kuwaiti sphere-of-influence in the southeastern sector of Iraq.
Iran
Attack Plans
Between April of
2003 and November 2004, the US, UK and Israel will accelerate instability
operations in Iran and engage in global disinformation campaigns to
belittle the political and military leadership there. They will take
to the airwaves to portray to Americans a country beset by internal
strife and dissension. Corporate media will revisit the Iranian Hostage
Crisis and display for war-hungry Americans footage from the 1978-80
timeframe. That will include images of Khomeni's henchmen hanging and
executing the Shah's secret police. Movies such as Sally Field's Not
Without My Child portraying many Iranians as "evil doers"
will be broadcast by all the networks. Reza Pahlavi, son of the former
Shah of Iran, will be featured with greater frequency on CNN, Fox, ABC,
NBC, CBS and PBS.
Images from the
1983 bombing of the US Marine Barracks in Lebanon allegedly by Iranian
backed Hezbollah will be aired and printed. Coincidently, in Washington,
DC, on March 17, 2003, relatives of US Marines killed in Lebanon were
allowed to proceed with a lawsuit to collect $2 billion in damages from
the Iranian government. According to the sometimes reliable Washington
Post, "U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth has ruled that survivors
and family members can sue Iran under the provisions of a 1996 law that
allows U.S. citizens to take legal action against nations that sponsor
terrorism.'The U.S. military force . . . embodies everything that is
resented by the enemies of this country,' Lamberth wrote. 'Failure to
permit military service member [lawsuits] would create a perverse incentive
for state sponsors of terrorism to target noncombatant U.S. military
personnel.'
Hundreds of family
members turned out for the first day of what is expected to be two days
of testimony and evidence designed to document Iran's role in the bombing.
Iran did not send a representative to the trial." Once Iraq is
successfully occupied, the media will turn its attention to Iran and
that lawsuit.
No
Way Out
Already, sources
report that elements of the CIA are busy in and around Iran, and that
US-UK-Australian special operations teams operating out of Afghanistan
and Kuwait--and the US Province of Iraq--have been surreptitiously setting
up shop in Iran for months. Iran now finds itself pinned on all sides
by pro-US, UK forces. Operation Liberate Iran will take place using
the same strategy and tactics employed in the Massacre of Iraq. Iran
has few options. One, is the accelation of their nuclear program and
a successful test or demonstration of a nuclear device. That may slow
a US led invasion. A second option would be become part of a new counter-US
alliance that would include Russia, India, France, Germany and China.
The last, of course, is to "disarm" or go into "exile".
21st Century Crusader's
George Bush II and Michael Leedon (Benador Associates, AEI, Bush advisor)
believe in their Judeo-Christian quest to crush Islam as they view it
as an illegitimate and insidious religion that has gotten in the way
of oil extraction. The current campaign in the region is nothing less
than an extension of the Crusades dating back to 1096. Leeden played
his God card by indicating prior to the US assault on Iraq that, "God
willing, Judgment Day is coming to the Middle East and the long-suffering
people of Iraq, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia will get their chance to
be free." But as Ahmad Faruqui, writing in the Asia Times, pointed
out, this is just another replay of history.
"The Arab world
remembers well the words that British General Allenby, a descendent
of the English Crusaders, uttered when he entered Jerusalem on December
9, 1917, "The Crusades have ended now!" Similarly, it has
not forgotten either the content or the tone of the statements made
by French General Henri Gouraud when he entered Damascus in July 1920.
Striding to Saladin's tomb next to the Grand Mosque, Gouraud kicked
it and exclaimed, "Awake Saladin, we have returned. My presence
here consecrates the victory of the Cross over the Crescent."
Nor will it forget
the proclamations of George Bush II and Tony Blair 100 years hence.
John Stanton
is a Virginia Based writer specializing in national security matters.
cioran123@yahoo.com
Today's Features
Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
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