Preparing the Battlefield

[KenH]

A very, very interesting article for those interested in the situation between the Bush administration and Iran.

www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?printable=true

 

[abcgrad94]

Interesting, but do you really think the US will go to war with Iran right now? I don't see Bush (or congress) doing it before the elections, and I don't think Obama is tough enough to fight Iran. So, why are we concerned about this? Is it because Israel might declare war and Iran would retaliate against the US?

 

[KenH]

I have no doubt that President Bush might indeed start a war with Iran either before the election or between the election and inauguration day if Senator Obama wins.

I have no doubt that Israel might indeed start a war with Iran if it decides that President Bush will not do so. And the United States would obviously end up in the middle of it.

I also have no doubt that starting a war with Iran by either country above will result in gasoline rising to at least $7.00 per gallon.

In addition, I have no doubt that a President Obama will be tough enough do whatever is necessary to defend the United States without starting an unnecessary war as President Bush did in Iraq and may yet do in Iran.

 

[abcgrad94]

In addition, I have no doubt that a President Obama will be tough enough do whatever is necessary to defend the United States without starting an unnecessary war as President Bush did in Iraq and may yet do in Iran.

I hope you're right, Ken. But Obama's "I have a dream" persona and that fact that his own brother is muslim makes me worry that he'll be reluctant to do anything to defend the US against a muslim nation.

 

[KenH]

his own brother is muslim makes me worry that he'll be reluctant to do anything to defend the US against a muslim nation.

I do not share your concern. I doubt that Kenya(where his brother lives) will be a threat to the United States any time in the next eight years.

 

[poncho]

Bush will need another pretext in order to get congress and the people behind a war with Iran...call it "emphasis" or a false flag attack it'll work out the same. The neocons aren't going to just go away without trying to jump start their insane agenda of "remaking the middle east".

The pattern is clear - each time a new President takes office they have a mandate to act as a torch bearer for the same agenda - domestic repression and foreign invasion. A terror attack provides the perfect pretext to realize those goals.
Whether it be Barack Obama or John McCain, we can expect a new crisis to conveniently arrive shortly after they take office, enabling them to pursue the same tyrannical blueprint followed by their predecessors. SOURCE...​

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] Iraq is a small country compared with Iran. Iran has about 70 million people. Its western mountains border the Persian Gulf. In other words, its missiles and guns look down on the U.S. ships below it. And it has lots of missiles, from short-range to intermediate-range (around 2,200 kilometers).[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] More to the point, it has been equipped by Russia with the fastest anti-ship missile on the planet. The SS-N-22 Sunburn can travel at Mach 3 at high altitude and at Mach 2.2 at low altitude. That is faster than anything in our arsenal.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] Iran's conventional forces include an army of 540,000 men and 300,000 reserves, including 120,000 Iranian Guards especially trained in unconventional warfare. It has more than 1,600 main battle tanks and 21,000 other armored combat vehicles. It has 3,200 artillery pieces, three submarines, 59 surface warships and 10 amphibious ships.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] It's been receiving help in arming itself from China, North Korea and Russia. Unlike Iraq, Iran's forces have not been worn down with bombing, wars and sanctions. It also has a new anti-aircraft defense system from Russia that I've heard is pretty snazzy.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif] So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I'd have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I'd have to promote you to idiot.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]SOURCE...[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Not only that but we're broke and heavily in debt as a nation. We'd have to borrow money from a tiny island nation like Japan to go to war with Iran.

What kind of "superpower" has to borrow money to wage war?
[/FONT]

 

[poncho]

Doesn't it bother anyone that our government is funding terrorist groups while it claims to be fighting a "war on terror"?

One of the operational assets being used by the Defense Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being “run” in two southern regional areas of Iran. They are Baluchistan, a Sunni stronghold, and Khuzestan, a Shia region where a series of recent attacks has left many dead and hundreds injured in the last three months.

One former counterintelligence official, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the information, describes the Pentagon as pushing MEK shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The drive to use the insurgent group was said to have been advanced by the Pentagon under the influence of the Vice President’s office and opposed by the State Department, National Security Council and then-National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice.

<snip>

“We disarmed [the MEK] of major weapons but not small arms. [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld was pushing to use them as a military special ops team, but policy infighting between their camp and Condi, but she was able to fight them off for a while,” said the intelligence official. According to still another intelligence source, the policy infighting ended last year when Donald Rumsfeld, under pressure from Vice President Cheney, came up with a plan to “convert” the MEK by having them simply quit their organization.

“These guys are nuts,” this intelligence source said. “Cambone and those guys made MEK members swear an oath to Democracy and resign from the MEK and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them.”

SOURCE...

 

[Magnetic Poles]

Doesn't it bother anyone that our government is funding terrorist groups while it claims to be fighting a "war on terror"?

You mean like the IRS? :laugh:

 

[Timsings]

Interesting, but do you really think the US will go to war with Iran right now? . . .

I heard an interview with Seymour Hersh, the author of the article, today on Fresh Air on NPR. He made a couple of disturbing observations. First, he thinks that it is very possible that the $ 400 million will be used to "aggravate" Iran, in a clandestine manner, to the point that they take some action that could be used as a pretext for invading Iran. Second, he thinks that Bush will be pushing his agenda right up to the end of his term ("11:59 and 59 seconds on January 19") regardless of its effects on John McCain's candidacy ("Bush doesn't care about McCain."). Third, Hersh was concerned about the "lack of political will" among the Congress. They signed the Presidential Finding about the $ 400 Million without raising one objection. :BangHead:

Tim Reynolds

 

[Doubting Thomas]

Doesn't it bother anyone that our government is funding terrorist groups while it claims to be fighting a "war on terror"?

It bothers me...and it bothers me that most Americans seem oblivious to the hypocrisy of our nation's foreign policy.

 

[Crabtownboy]

I heard an interview with Seymour Hersh, the author of the article, today on Fresh Air on NPR. He made a couple of disturbing observations. First, he thinks that it is very possible that the $ 400 million will be used to "aggravate" Iran, in a clandestine manner, to the point that they take some action that could be used as a pretext for invading Iran. Second, he thinks that Bush will be pushing his agenda right up to the end of his term ("11:59 and 59 seconds on January 19") regardless of its effects on John McCain's candidacy ("Bush doesn't care about McCain."). Third, Hersh was concerned about the "lack of political will" among the Congress. They signed the Presidential Finding about the $ 400 Million without raising one objection. :BangHead:

Tim Reynolds

I heard the same report and it was just plain scary. I believe Bush may well start a war to saddle the next president with even more problems. Good grief, he is leaving a big enough mess now. He does not care what the people think or what Congress wills ... of course Congress has no political backbone. He ask for 400 million to cause trouble and they handed it to him with practially no questions ask. We are in deep trouble with this man.

Here is the link to the Hersh interview:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92025860

 

[carpro]

A very, very interesting article for those interested in the situation between the Bush administration and Iran.

www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?printable=true

Hersh has been beating this drum for a long time.

You've been marching to the sound of that drum for just about as long.

This is just more of the same.

Keep marching.:wavey:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/7658/digging_into_seymour_hersh.html

Digging Into Seymour Hersh
Author: Max Boot, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies

January 27, 2005
Los Angeles Times

It has become a cliche to call Bob Woodward and Seymour Hersh the greatest investigative reporters of their generation — Woodward the consummate insider, Hersh the ultimate outsider. In truth the differences outweigh the similarities.
Though he achieved fame by bringing down a Republican administration, Woodward is no ideologue. His only bias, as far as I can tell, is in favor of his sources. Within those parameters he produces invaluable, if incomplete, accounts of government deliberations.

Hersh, on the other hand, is the journalistic equivalent of Oliver Stone: a hard-left zealot who subscribes to the old counterculture conceit that a deep, dark conspiracy is running the U.S. government. In the 1960s the boogeyman was the "military- industrial complex." Now it's the "neoconservatives." "They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military!" Hersh ranted at UC Berkeley on Oct. 8, 2004.

SNIP

But how good is Hersh's word? His record doesn't inspire confidence.

SNIP

OK, anyone can make a mistake, but all of Hersh's errors run in one direction: toward making the U.S. government look bad.

SNIP

It's hard to know why anyone would take seriously a "reporter" whose writings are so full of, in Ted Kennedy's words, "maliciousness and innuendo."



Keep marching, Ken!

 

[poncho]

Seymour Hersh: US Training Jondollah and MEK for Bombing preparation

In an interview with NPR on his latest New Yorker Article, titled ‘Preparing the battlefield', the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals more striking details of his findings on the aim of the $400 million budgeted US covert operations inside Iran. He provides valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country, on the total expansion of the Bush Administration's executive power, about the US recognition of Iran's overall positive role in Iraq and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organisations Jondollah, PJAK and MEK.

Hersh explains that the aim of the US covert operations inside Iran is to create a pretext for attack with the goal of regime change. “The strategic thinking behind this covert operation is to provoke enough trouble and chaos so that the Iranian government makes the mistake of taking aggressive action which will give the impression of a country in acute turmoil”, he said. “Then you have what the White House calls the ‘casus belli', a reason to attack the country. That is the thinking and it is very crazy.”

On Iran's role in Iraq, Hersh points out: “There is absolutely no clear evidence known to the American government that the Iranian leadership has any interest in provoking trouble with the United States in Iraq by sending in people to cause mayhem or kill Americans. There is just no evidence for it.” He continues further on: “Frankly, the guys I know in the inside-- in the Special Forces, high up in DoD, high up in the intelligence community--if you push them hard enough, they tell you that Iran has been more of a force for stability in Iraq than negative”.


Full Article...


At least Ken isn't marching in step with the masters of terror...again, Carpro. He did a little research and you did a little dance. :laugh:

Ken looks at the facts and you look at ways to get around them.

 

[carpro]

At least Ken isn't marching in step with the masters of terror...again, Carpro. He did a little research and you did a little dance. :laugh:

Ken looks at the facts and you look at ways to get around them.

I just don't spend much time in your fantasy world where every goblin has a live shadow and the boogerman wears red white and blue with a UN flag in his pocket.:laugh:

Anyone that gives any credence to Hersch has a screw loose. He keeps making outlandish predictions in the hopes he can hit on one of them and be the center of attention again.

His 15 minutes were over long ago.

 

[KenH]

Seymour Hersh has more credibility in his little finger than you do in your whole body, carpro.

 

[Baptist in Richmond]

I have no doubt that President Bush might indeed start a war with Iran either before the election or between the election and inauguration day if Senator Obama wins.

Ever wonder why this was issued??

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

 

[poncho]

I just don't spend much time in your fantasy world where every goblin has a live shadow and the boogerman wears red white and blue with a UN flag in his pocket.:laugh:

Anyone that gives any credence to Hersch has a screw loose. He keeps making outlandish predictions in the hopes he can hit on one of them and be the center of attention again.

His 15 minutes were over long ago.

I'm sorry Carpro my old friend I don't really know how to respond to such total ignorance. What are you doing here anyway? I would have thought you'd be out celebrating the decider's victory over the fourth amendment instead of wasting time here among us lowly lovers of liberty.

Oh yeah, I noticed you didn't bring anything to the table but your bias and "opinion" again. Are you allergic to the use of facts or something? Nevermind, dumb question...facts are the last thing the lovers of the corruption state want to deal with, guess I forgot for a minute. My bad.

 

[carpro]

Seymour Hersh has more credibility in his little finger than you do in your whole body, carpro.

I hope so.

You have bitten hard enough on his "predictions" that he'd better have or you're going to continue to look very foolish. :tonofbricks:

And not everyone agrees with you:

"Whatever credibility Hersh may have had as an investigative journalist will have to be reassessed in the light of his undisciplined and irresponsible attack on President John F. Kennedy in The Dark Side of Camelot (New York: Little, Brown, 1997). Hersh clearly relishes the gossip, rumor, and unsupported speculation he passes off as "fact" in this work. In fact, it is difficult not to believe that he has deliberately arranged his "facts" in the fashion he felt would most likely boost book sales. This would partially explain his involvement with the fabricated "Kennedy Papers"; he wanted them to be valid so badly, all judgment and objectivity were shortcircuited. If such is his methodology, even his more acclaimed earlier works must be read differently than they have been heretofore."

He's not exactly on the friends of the Kennedys list after all the lies he promulgated about JFK.

 

[carpro]

Oh yeah, I noticed you didn't bring anything to the table but your bias and "opinion" again.

Could be. You seem to like it that way.

"Bias and opinion" is all Hersh has to offer.

 

[poncho]

Could be. You seem to like it that way.

"Bias and opinion" is all Hersh has to offer.

Of course this is just your opinion...again with only your own special brand of bias to back it up.

You have become that which you hate. :laugh: