I would like to compare the current drum-beating for war against Iran, based on fake “nuclear threat”, with the manufacture of a sense of false crisis that led to invasion of Iraq and the deaths of 1.5 million people.
I would like to compare the current drum-beating for war against Iran, based on fake “nuclear threat”, with the manufacture of a sense of false crisis that led to invasion of Iraq and the deaths of 1.5 million people.
In 2001, the Observer in London published a series of reports that claimed an “Iraqi connection” to al-Qaeda, even describing the base in Iraq where the training of terrorists took place and a facility where anthrax was being manufactured as a weapon of mass destruction. It was all false. Supplied by the US intelligence Iraqi exiles, planted stories in the British and US media helped George W. Bush and Tony Blair to launch an illegal invasion which caused, according to the most recent study, 1.5 million deaths.
Something similar is happening now over Iran: the same syncopation of government and media “revelations”, the same manufacture of sense of crisis. “Showdown” looms with Iran over secret nuclear”, declared the Guardian on 26 September 2009, “Showdown” is the theme, high noon. The clock is ticking. Good versus evil. Add a smooth new US president who has “put paid to the Bush years”. An immediate echo is the notorious Guardian front page of 22 May 2007: “Iran` s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq”, Based on unsubstantiated claims by the Pentagon, the writer Simon Tisdall presented as fact an Iranian “plan” to wage war on, and defeat, US forces in Iraq by September of that year-a demonstrable falsehood for which there has been no retraction.
The official jargon for this kind of propaganda is “psy-ops”, the military term for psychological operations. In the Pentagon and Whitehall, it has become a critical component of a diplomatic and military campaign to blockade, isolate and weaken Iran by hyping its “nuclear threat”: a phrase now used incessantly by Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, and parroted by the BBC and other broadcasters as objective news, and it is all fake.
On 16 September, Newsweek disclosed that the major US intelligence agencies had reported to the White House that Iran` s “nuclear status” had not changed since the National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007, which stated with “high confidence” that Iran had halted in 2003 the programme it was alleged to have developed. The International Atomic Energy Agency has backed this, time and again.
The current propaganda as-news derives from Obama` s announcement that the US is scrapping missiles stationed on Russia` s border. This serves to cover the fact that the number of US missiles sites is actually expanding in Europe and the “redundant2 missiles are being redeployed on ships. The game is to mollify Russia into joining, or not obstructing, the US campaign against Iran. “President Bush was right,” said Obama, “Iran` s ballistic missiles programme poses a significant threat [to Europe and the US].” That Iran would contemplate a suicidal attack on the US is preposterous.
The threat, as ever, is one way, with the world` s superpower virtually ensconced on Iran` s borders.
Iran` s crimes its independence. Having thrown out America` s favourite tyrant, Shah Reza Pahlavi, Iran remains the only resource-rich Muslim state beyond US control. As only Israel has a “right to exist” in the Middle East, the US goal is to cripple the Islamic Republic. This will allow Israel to divide and dominate the region on Washington` s behalf, undeterred by a confident neighbour. If any country in the world has been handed urgent cause to develop a nuclear “deterrence”, it is Iran.
As one of the original signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has been a consistent advocate of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. In contrast, Israel has never agreed to an IAEA inspection, and its nuclear weapons plant at DIMONA remains an open secret. Armed with as many as 200 active nuclear warheads, Israel “deplores” UN resolutions calling on it to sign the NPT, just as it deplored the recent UN report charging it with crimes against humanity in Gaza, just as it maintains a world record for violations of international law and of course UN resolutions. It gets away with this because great power grants immunity.
Obama` s “Showdown” with Iran has another agenda. On both sides of the Atlantic the media have been tasked with preparing the public for endless war. The US/NATO commander General Stanley Mc Crystal says 500,000 troops will be required in Afghanistan over five years, according to America` s NBC. The goal is control of the “strategic prize” of the gas and oilfields of the Caspian Sea, central Asia, the Gulf and Iran- in other words, Eurasia. But the war is opposed by 69 per cent of the British public, 57 per cent of the US public and almost every other human being. Convincing “us” that Iran is the new demon will not be easy. Mc Crystal` s spurious claim that Iran “is reportedly training fighters for certain Taliban groups” is as desperate as Brown` s pathetic echo of “a line in the sand”.
“Part of US government and Congress lied” about 9/11. “there is a war in Afghanistan going on, and if what I believe in is true, [it] has been created artificially, like the war in Iraq: as consequences of the lie [about 9/11]”, says Giulietto Chiesa, an EU MEP, 2004-2009.
Colin Powell was lied to about the reason for the war in Iraq, says Lawrence Wilkerson, Former Chief of Staff to the US Secretary of State, in a an exclusive interview with RT (Russia Today, a 24/7 TV news station, similar to CNN).
During the Bush years, according to the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a military coup took place in the US, and the Pentagon is now ascendant in every area of American foreign policy. A measure of its control is the number of wars of aggression being waged simultaneously and the adoption of a “first-strike” doctrine that has lowered the threshold on nuclear weapons, together with the blurring of the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons.
All this mocks Obama` s media rhetoric about “a world without nuclear weapons”. In fact, he is the Pentagon` s most important acquisition. His acquiescence with its demand that he keep on Bush` s secretary of “defence” and arch war-maker, Robert Gates (just the same as his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld, other war-mongers and blood thirsty gang are: Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney), are unique in US history. He has proved his worth with escalated wars from south Asia to the Horn of Africa. Like Bush` s America, Obama` s America is run (in respective of which party is in power) by some very dangerous people (coalition of: AIPAC, Christian fundamentalists/extremists and the Neo-Cons). We have a right to be warned. When will those paid keep the record straight do their job?
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });