Forumers,
Remember Bulletin of Atomic Scientists nexus couple of weeks back between
nuclear weapons and climate change?
Here further symptoms of the enveloping crisis of the 2ist century as
unravelled thanks to Anthony Rudolf,
mark
----------
From: "Anthony Rudolf" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 00:12:06 -0000
To: "Anthony Rudolf" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: {Fraud?} {Disarmed} CRY HAVOC: SPECIAL IRAN BULLETIN FEB 2007
The evidence is mounting up that the USA will attack Iran this
year, sooner rather than later, and with Israel and the UK in full support.
Why is the world standing by for what could be a world war? Why aren't we
all screaming? Never, but never, has a President been so irresponsible in
his failure to go down the road of dialogue, diplomacy and negotiation.
On every front, George Bush is a disaster: he talks rubbish about
climate change; his gung ho bellicosity risks what remains of stability in
the world order; his neo-conservative and religious coalition fights class
(and other) wars at home, in order to make America "safe" for large
corporations, for the wealthy and for the bigoted. He lies and lies and
lies.
Whether in terms of casualties or taxation, the war in Iraq does not
touch the middle class, hence protest is muted. America sleeps, while Bush
fights wars abroad and reduces civil liberties at home.
In 6) below, Howard Zinn and Robert Sheer discuss the possible
impeachment of the President. It is justified. Was Bill Clinton's behaviour
so much worse? But it appears that he won't be stopped, if it's what he
wants to do. My mother was born during World War One. I was born during
World War Two. My grandchildren are arriving in time for World War Three.
MENU
Prologue: Robert Parry
1) Scott Ritter
2) Other Truthout Dispatches:
including Dennis Kucinich, Rivers Pitt, Robert Sheer, Robert Parry
3) Dan Plesch
4) Chalmers Johnson TomDispatch
5) Max Kampelman
6) Zinn and Sheer
PROLOGUE
Robert Parry | Iran Clock Is Ticking
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020107C.shtml
Robert Parry writes: "One well-informed US military source called me in a
fury after consulting with Pentagon associates and discovering how far along
the war preparations are. He said the plans call for extensive aerial
attacks on Iran, including use of powerful bunker-busting ordnance."
1)
Scott Ritter | Stop the Iran War Before It Starts
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012907B.shtml
"In his recent State of the Union address, Bush spent a great deal of time
speaking about Iraq and his plans for how to achieve 'victory,'" writes
Scott Ritter. "The Democrats, in their various responses, rightly criticized
the president and his plans as unrealistic and insupportable. The stage has
been set for an old-fashioned showdown between executive and legislative
power, where the advantages are stacked in favor of those who control the
power of the purse."
2)
Senators Warn Against War With Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013107M.shtml
Republican and Democratic senators warned Tuesday against a drift toward war
with an emboldened Iran and suggested the Bush administration was missing a
chance to engage its longtime adversary in potentially helpful talks over
next-door Iraq.
Iran, Bush Faces Haunting Echoes of Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012807C.shtml
As President Bush and his aides calibrate how directly to confront Iran,
they are discovering that both their words and their strategy are haunted by
the echoes of four years ago - when their warnings of terrorist activity and
nuclear ambitions were clearly a prelude to war. This time, they insist, it
is different
President's Actions Could Lead to Impeachment
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012707G.shtml
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) accused the White House of mounting a
media blitz to prepare the US public for an eventual attack on Iran. "The
White House is up to its old tricks again: Providing information by
anonymous sources and portraying Iran as an aggressor in Iraq," Kucinich
said.
William Rivers Pitt | A Cornered Animal
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012607A.shtml
Wariness over a potential American attack on Iran has been on the rise for
months. This wariness became outright fear in certain circles as last
November's midterms approached. Concerns rose again over the last several
weeks after Bush's poorly-received speech justifying the "surge" of US
troops into Iraq. A centerpiece of that speech was his blunt threat to the
government in Tehran about any meddling with the situation in Baghdad.
Astute observers of the Iraq situation found this threat both odd and
disturbing.
Vincent Jauvert | Bush: After Iraq, Iran?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012607G.shtml
Intimidation or strike preparations? The American president has assured
Jacques Chirac that he still favors diplomacy with respect to Iran. Yet,
indicators of war preparations against the Islamic Republic are increasing.
Robert Scheer | The World Agrees: Stop Him
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012507F.shtml
"Stop him before he kills again. That is the judgment of the American
people, and indeed of the entire world, as to the performance of our
president, and no State of the Union address can erase that dismal verdict,"
writes Robert Scheer.
Robert Parry | Bush's War on the Republic
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012507L.shtml
Robert Parry writes, "From the beginning of the 'war on terror,' George W.
Bush has lied to the American people about the goals, motivation and even
the identity of the enemy - a propaganda exercise that continued through his
2007 State of the Union Address and that is sounding the death knell for the
Republic
Top Senate Democrat Concerned About Bush and Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012207T.shtml
The Democratic chairman of the Senate intelligence committee said on Monday
he is concerned President George W. Bush could act against Iran despite
uncertainties about Tehran's intentions in the Middle East. Senator John
Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) also said he believes Japan could become a nuclear
armed nation within the next six years in response to North Korea's test of
a nuclear weapon and an aggressive military buildup by China
US "Poised to Strike at Iran's Nuclear Sites" From Bulgaria and Romania
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012907C.shtml
President Bush is preparing to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before the
end of April, and the US Air Force's new bases in Bulgaria and Romania would
be used as back-up in the onslaught, according to an official report from
Sofia.
3)
Dan Plesch January 26, 2007 06:20 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dan_plesch/2007/01/post_1002.html
Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn and George Shultz
<http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467664236&pagename=JPost
%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull> , and Max Kampelman
<http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0424-21.htm> are all now working for a
world free of WMD. If Henry is so worried that he wants to Ban the Bomb,
then we should be in a panic. Sadly, the political and media elite drift
along. On Iran, Blair and Bush seem ready to start another war to, as they
see it, stop a new Holocaust. Opponents of a new war seem content to "Just
Say No", or comfort themselves with the thought that because they don't want
war, there won't be one. As diplomacy fails, those who want a peaceful
solution are offering little new. But we should follow Henry's logic and
free the Middle East from WMD; after all, at the UN, both Iran and Israel
vote in favour of such a zone, in principle.
At a meeting
<http://www.cisd.soas.ac.uk/index.asp-Q-Page-E-the-middle-east-weapons-of-ma
ss-destruction-free-zone--88061160> on the Middle East Weapons of Mass
Destruction Free Zone, which I organised recently, a senior Iranian outlined
one route to a WMD-free Middle East. In a recently released text and video,
Dr Hossein Mousavian said, "Iran may see a more active and forthcoming
stance in the process of establishing a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the
Middle East as at least a circumstantial way of proving its innocence and of
the peacefulness of its nuclear energy programme."
Mousavian joined ministers, ambassadors, academics and researchers from
Europe, Iran, Israel and the Arab world to discuss the UN Security Council
objective of a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. Hosted by the Pugwash
Conferences <http://www.pugwash.org/> and the School of Oriental and
African Studies <http://www.soas.ac.uk/> in November 2006, the conference
<http://www.cisd.soas.ac.uk/index.asp-Q-Page-E-the-middle-east-weapons-of-ma
ss-destruction-free-zone--88061160> brought EU and UN speakers together
with Arabs, Iranians and Israelis in a unique dialogue that showed what
might be achieved - if our political leaders were serious about peace in the
Middle East.
4)
Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis on the Imperial Premises The dream of the
Bush administration -– eternal global domination abroad with no other
superpower or bloc of powers on the military horizon and a Republican Party
dominant at home for at least a generation -- long ago evaporated in Iraq. A
midterm election and subsequent devastating polling figures tell the tale.
The days when neocons, their supporters, and attending pundits talked about
the U.S. as the "new Rome" of planet Earth now seem to exist on the other
side of some Startrekkian wormhole.
And yet the imperial damage remains everywhere around us. Give the Bush
administration credit. They moved the goalposts. They created the sort of
dystopian imperial reality (as well as a mess of future-busting proportions)
that a generation of relative sanity might not be able to fully reverse. The
facts on the ground <http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=123690> --
the vastness of the Pentagon, the power of the military-industrial complex,
the inept but already bloated Homeland Security Department (and the vast
security interests coalescing around it), the staggering alphabet (or
acronym) soup <http://www.intelligence.gov/1-members.shtml> of the
"Intelligence Community" <http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=87452>
-- all of this mitigates against real change, which is why we need Chalmers
Johnson.
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, the final volume of his
Blowback Trilogy, is about to storm your local bookstore (and can be
pre-ordered at Amazon
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805079114/nationbooks08> now). It
is a reminder of just how far we've moved from the sort of democratic
America that the President is always holding up as a model to the rest of
the world. As with Blowback and The Sorrows of Empire before it, Nemesis,
Johnson's grand, if grim, conclusion to our American tragedy, is simply a
must-read. While you're waiting for the book to arrive in your hands, you
can get a little preview of its themes below. Tom
Empire v. Democracy Why Nemesis Is at Our Door By Chalmers Johnson
History tells us that one of the most unstable political combinations is a
country -- like the United States today -- that tries to be a domestic
democracy and a foreign imperialist. Why this is so can be a very abstract
subject. Perhaps the best way to offer my thoughts on this is to say a few
words about my new book, Nemesis
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805079114/nationbooks08> , and
explain why I gave it the subtitle, "The Last Days of the American
Republic." Nemesis is the third book to have grown out of my research over
the past eight years. I never set out to write a trilogy on our increasingly
endangered democracy, but as I kept stumbling on ever more evidence of the
legacy of the imperialist pressures we put on many other countries as well
as the nature and size of our military empire, one book led to another.
Professionally, I am a specialist in the history and politics of East Asia.
In 2000, I published Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805075593/nationbooks08> , because
my research on China, Japan, and the two Koreas persuaded me that our
policies there would have serious future consequences. The book was noticed
at the time, but only after 9/11 did the CIA term I adapted for the title --
"blowback" -- become a household word and my volume a bestseller. I had set
out to explain how exactly our government came to be so hated around the
world. As a CIA term of tradecraft, "blowback" does not just mean
retaliation for things our government has done to, and in, foreign
countries. It refers specifically to retaliation for illegal operations
carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public.
These operations have included the clandestine overthrow of governments
various administrations did not like, the training of foreign militaries in
the techniques of state terrorism, the rigging of elections in foreign
countries, interference with the economic viability of countries that seemed
to threaten the interests of influential American corporations, as well as
the torture or assassination of selected foreigners. The fact that these
actions were, at least originally, secret meant that when retaliation does
come -- as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 -- the American
public is incapable of putt! ing the events in context. Not surprisingly,
then, Americans tend to support speedy acts of revenge intended to punish
the actual, or alleged, perpetrators. These moments of lashing out, of
course, only prepare the ground for yet another cycle of blowback.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
<http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=160594
>
5)
We Should, So We Can: Life Without the Bomb
<http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0424-21.htm>
Published on Monday, April 24, 2006 by the International Herald Tribune. We
Should, So We Can: Life Without the Bomb. by Max M. Kampelman ...
www.commondreams.org/views06/0424-21.htm - 16k - MailScanner has detected a
possible fraud attempt from "64.233.183.104" claiming to be Cached
<http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:1vZXDzogRQ0J:www.commondreams.org/view
s06/0424-21.htm+%22max+kampelman%22&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=1
0> - Similar pages
<http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&lr=&q=related:www.commondreams
.org/views06/0424-21.htm>
6)
Howard Zinn | Impeachment by the People (and second dispatch by Robert Sheer
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020107N.shtml
"Courage is in short supply in Washington, DC. The realities of the Iraq War
cry out for the overthrow of a government that is criminally responsible for
death, mutilation, torture, humiliation, chaos. But all we hear in the
nation's capital, which is the source of those catastrophes, is a whimper
from the Democratic Party, muttering and nattering about 'unity' and
'bipartisanship,' in a situation that calls for bold action to immediately
reverse the present course," writes Howard Zinn.
