Cranks, Kleptocrats and Killers: The "Good War" on the Ground

While dozens of innocent people continue to die each week in the political and sectarian violence unleashed in Iraq by America's invasion and continuing occupation, the main attention of the bipartisan Terror Warriors in Washington – and their sycophantic outriders in the corporate media – continues to be what they call, in the imperial jargonizing that lumps the vast complexities of myriad human communities into reductive, thought-killing soundbites, the "Af-Pak" front.

This, as we all know, is the "good war," the one that most "serious" progressives touted for years as the healthy alternative to the "bad war" that George W. Bush got us into in Iraq, where his "incompetence" and "failures" tarnished the exalted ideal of "humanitarian intervention." (Known in the trade by the acronym "KTC-STC" – "Kill the Children to Save the Children.") . If only we could get out the quagmire in Iraq, cried the serious progs, and do the Terror War "right" in Afghanistan! Well, their wish has come true (except of course for the 130,000 American troops and equal number of mercenaries still prowling around in Iraq; but that's OK, because Obama is in charge now, and what ser-progs once vehemently denounced as a blatant, bloody war crime can now be described, in the immortal words of the president himself, as "an extraordinary achievement"). The Obama Administration is throwing billions of new dollars and thousands of more troops into the eight-year-old conflict, while greatly expanding the cross-border attacks on the sovereign soil of America's ally, Pakistan. And while Obama has retained the core of the Terror War directorate that Bush installed – notably Pentagon warlord Robert Gates and the surgin' general, David Petraeus – he has now put his own man in charge of the "good war": longtime "dirty war" and death squad maven Stanley McChrystal. (Expertise in rubouts, snatches and "strenuous interrogation" is obviously what you need to win "hearts and minds" in humanitarian interventions.)

So here we are, with the imperial mind bent at last on the "Af-Pak" front. But where, exactly, are we? What is the real situation on the "Af-Pak" ground? Two natives of the Terror War targets give us a view from the ground. First, Malalai Joya, from Afghanistan:

In 2005, I was the youngest person elected to the new Afghan parliament. Women like me, running for office, were held up as an example of how the war in Afghanistan had liberated women. But this democracy was a facade, and the so-called liberation a big lie....

Almost eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled, our hopes for a truly democratic and independent Afghanistan have been betrayed by the continued domination of fundamentalists and by a brutal occupation that ultimately serves only American strategic interests in the region.

You must understand that the government headed by Hamid Karzai is full of warlords and extremists who are brothers in creed of the Taliban. Many of these men committed terrible crimes against the Afghan people during the civil war of the 1990s.

For expressing my views I have been expelled from my seat in parliament, and I have survived numerous assassination attempts. The fact that I was kicked out of office while brutal warlords enjoyed immunity from prosecution for their crimes should tell you all you need to know about the "democracy" backed by Nato troops....

So far, Obama has pursued the same policy as Bush in Afghanistan. Sending more troops and expanding the war into Pakistan will only add fuel to the fire. Like many other Afghans, I risked my life during the dark years of Taliban rule to teach at underground schools for girls. Today the situation of women is as bad as ever. Victims of abuse and rape find no justice because the judiciary is dominated by fundamentalists. A growing number of women, seeing no way out of the suffering in their lives, have taken to suicide by self-immolation.

This week, US vice-president Joe Biden asserted that "more loss of life [is] inevitable" in Afghanistan, and that the ongoing occupation is in the "national interests" of both the US and the UK.

I have a different message to the people of Britain. I don't believe it is in your interests to see more young people sent off to war, and to have more of your taxpayers' money going to fund an occupation that keeps a gang of corrupt warlords and drug lords in power in Kabul.

What's more, I don't believe it is inevitable that this bloodshed continues forever. Some say that if foreign troops leave Afghanistan will descend into civil war. But what about the civil war and catastrophe of today? The longer this occupation continues, the worse the civil war will be.

Next, Tariq Ali reports from Pakistan:

This is a country whose fate is no longer in its own hands. I have never known things so bad. The chief problems are the United States and its requirements, the religious extremists, the military high command, and corruption, not just on the part of President Zardari and his main rivals, but spreading well beyond them.

This is now Obama’s war. He campaigned to send more troops into Afghanistan and to extend the war, if necessary, into Pakistan. These pledges are now being fulfilled. On the day he publicly expressed his sadness at the death of a young Iranian woman caught up in the repression in Tehran, US drones killed 60 people in Pakistan. The dead included women and children, whom even the BBC would find it difficult to describe as ‘militants’. Their names mean nothing to the world; their images will not be seen on TV networks. Their deaths are in a ‘good cause’....

In May this year, Graham Fuller, a former CIA station chief in Kabul, published an assessment of the crisis in the region in the Huffington Post. Ignored by the White House, since he was challenging most of the assumptions on which the escalation of the war was based, Fuller was speaking for many in the intelligence community in his own country as well as in Europe. It’s not often that I can agree with a recently retired CIA man, but not only did Fuller say that Obama was ‘pressing down the same path of failure in Pakistan marked out by George Bush’ and that military force would not win the day, he also explained to readers of the Huffington Post that the Taliban are all ethnic Pashtuns, that the Pashtuns ‘are among the most fiercely nationalist, tribalised and xenophobic peoples of the world, united only against the foreign invader’ and ‘in the end probably more Pashtun than they are Islamist’. ‘It is a fantasy,’ he said, ‘to think of ever sealing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.’ And I don’t imagine he is the only retired CIA man to refer back to the days when Cambodia was invaded ‘to save Vietnam’....

[U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne] Patterson can be disarmingly frank. Earlier this year, she offered a mid-term assessment to a visiting Euro-intelligence chief. While Musharraf had been unreliable, saying one thing in Washington and doing its opposite back home, Zardari was perfect: ‘He does everything we ask.’ What is disturbing here is not Patterson’s candour, but her total lack of judgment. Zardari may be a willing creature of Washington, but the intense hatred for him in Pakistan is not confined to his political opponents. He is despised principally because of his venality. He has carried on from where he left off as minister of investment in his late wife’s second government. Within weeks of occupying President’s House, his minions were ringing the country’s top businessmen, demanding a share of their profits.

Take the case of Mr X, who owns one of the country’s largest banks. He got a call. Apparently the president wanted to know why his bank had sacked a PPP member soon after Benazir Bhutto’s fall in the late 1990s. X said he would find out and let them know. It emerged that the sacked clerk had been caught with his fingers literally in the till. President’s House was informed. The explanation was rejected. The banker was told that the clerk had been victimised for political reasons. The man had to be reinstated and his salary over the last 18 years paid in full together with the interest due. The PPP had also to be compensated and would expect a cheque (the sum was specified) soon. Where the president leads, his retainers follow. Many members of the cabinet and their progeny are busy milking businessmen and foreign companies. ‘If they can do it, so can we’ is a widely expressed view in Karachi, the country’s largest city. Muggings, burglaries, murders, many of them part of protection rackets linked to politicians, have made it the Naples of the East....

These rumours came into the open at the end of June, when the head of the Bhutto clan, Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, chairman of the Sind National Front, publicly accused Zardari at a press conference, alleging that ‘the killer of Murtaza Bhutto had also murdered Benazir . . . Now I am his target. A hefty amount has been paid to mercenaries to kill me.’ (Zardari is generally regarded as having ordered his brother-in-law Murtaza’s death. Shoaib Suddle, the police chief in Karachi, who organised the operation that led to Murtaza Bhutto’s death, has now been promoted and is head of the Intelligence Bureau.)

You should read both pieces in their entirety to get the bigger, grimmer picture. So here we are -- in bed with extremists, misogynists, kleptocrats and killers.

But wait a minute: isn't this where we came in?

Moloch's Altar: Child Sacrifice and the War on Terror

"Tell me yourself, I challenge you—answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature....and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears: would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.” -- Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [For a recent American answer to this challenge, see The Karamazov Question.]

AP tells the harrowing story of the hundreds of children who have been slaughtered -- and the hundreds of thousands more who have been terrorized and traumatized -- by Israel's "war of choice" on Palestinians in Gaza. From AP:

Tiny bodies lying side by side wrapped in white burial shrouds. The cherubic face of a dead preschooler sticking up from the rubble of her home. A man cradling a wounded boy in a chaotic emergency room after Israel shelled a U.N. school.

Children, who make up more than half of crowded Gaza's 1.4 million people, are the most defenseless victims of the war between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli army has unleashed unprecedented force in its campaign against Hamas militants, who have been taking cover among civilians.

"Taking cover among civilians." This is a curious locution. When you launch missiles to kill the democratically elected officials of a government -- especially when you target their private homes -- where else do you expect to find them? Gaza is a giant, open-air prison which no one can leave and where, as the story notes, 1.4 million people live in densely-packed urban areas and refugee camps. Where else are the "Hamas militants" supposed to exist in this seething sardine tin except "among civilians"? Naturally, it would be far more convenient if every member of Hamas -- including, again, the democratically elected officials of the government -- painted themselves bright red and gathered in, say, a soccer stadium, where Israel could then drop bombs on them with no muss, no fuss. But we are dealing with the real world, where human beings of every description, profession, ideology and belief must of necessity live and work in close proximity to one another -- especially in the reconstruction of the Warsaw Ghetto that is Gaza today.

But of course, in order to smuggle the smallest nugget of truth about Gaza into the American media, it must first be larded with huge dollops of mitigating "context" to mask the horrific brutality and naked aggression of the Israeli campaign. And the "human shield" gambit is the probably the most frequently employed fig leaf by the apologists of oppression.

Curiously enough, I did see a shocking example of the use of human shields in Gaza just the other day, on BBC News. One of their reporters was "embedded" with a squadron of plucky Israeli soldiers as they made their way through a Gaza neighborhood. The report showed our heroes taking over the home of a Palestinian family, shunting the house's large number of refugees -- including several children and infants, crying from hunger -- to a cramped space on the bottom floor, while the Israeli soldiers took up residence on the top floor, where they could rain sniper fire on any nearby "militants" and help coordinate air strikes and missile fire on "militant" hotbeds like schools, ambulances, UN relief trucks -- and other houses packed with refugees who had been directed there by the Israelis themselves.

Naturally, if anyone fired back at the Israelis in the house commandeered in the BBC report, they would hit the civilians who were being held prisoner in their own home. This use of human shields seems like a highly criminal and deeply immoral act to me; but then, I'm not a "serious" person, not like the wise and savvy statesmen and stateswomen of the U.S. Senate, who this week declared their unflagging, uncritical, unquestioning support for Israel's attack in tones so slavish they would have made Stalin's Politburo blush.

In any case, after its ritual dip in the cleansing context pool, the AP story marshals fact after fact to hammer home the relentless torture of children in the "shock and awe" operation:

A photo of 4-year-old Kaukab Al Dayah, just her bloodied head sticking out from the rubble of her home, covered many front pages in the Arab world Wednesday. "This is Israel," read the headline in the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. The preschooler was killed early Tuesday when an F-16 attacked her family's four-story home in Gaza City. Four adults also died.

As many as 257 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded — about a third of the total casualties since Dec. 27, according to U.N. figures released Thursday.

Hardest on the children is the sense that nowhere is safe and adults can't protect them, said Iyad Sarraj, a psychologist hunkering down in his Gaza City apartment with his four stepchildren, ages 3-17. His 10-year-old, Adam, is terrified during bombing raids and has developed asthma attacks, Sarraj said....

Children have been killed in strikes on their houses, while riding in cars with their parents, while playing in the streets, walking to a grocery and even at U.N. shelters.

Sayed, Mohammed and Raida Abu Aisheh — ages 12, 8 and 7 — were at home with their parents when they were all killed in an Israeli airstrike before dawn Monday. The family had remained in the ground floor apartment of their three-story building, while the rest of the extended clan sought refuge in the basement from heavy bombardment of nearby Hamas installations.

Those in the basement survived. The children's uncle, Saber Abu Aisheh, 49, searched Thursday through the rubble, a heap of cement blocks, mattresses, scorched furniture and smashed TVs.

He said Israel gave no warning, unlike two years earlier when he received repeated calls from the Israeli military, including on his cell phone, that a nearby house was going to get hit and that he should evacuate.

"What's going on is not a war, it's a mass killing," said Abu Aisheh, still wearing the blood-splattered olive-colored sweater he wore the night of the airstrike.

Then there is the now-infamous case of the Zeitoun house where four young children were found beside their dead mothers. They had been there for days while Israeli forces prevented Red Cross workers from reaching them. As Haaretz reports:

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday accused Israel of delaying ambulance access to the Gaza Strip and demanded it grant safe access for Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to return to evacuate more wounded.

Relief workers said they found four starving children sitting next to their dead mothers and other corpses in a house in a part of Gaza City bombed by Israeli forces, the Red Cross said on Thursday.

"This is a shocking incident," said Pierre Wettach, ICRC chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories. "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestinian Red Crescent to assist the wounded." The agency said it believed Israel had breached international humanitarian law in the incident...

Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances and ICRC officials managed to reach several houses in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City on Wednesday after seeking access from Israeli military forces since last weekend, the ICRC statement said.

The rescue team "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses," the ICRC said. "They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses," it said.

In another house, the team found 15 survivors of Israeli shelling including several wounded, it said. Three corpses were found in another home. Israeli soldiers posted some 80 meters (yards) away ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do, it said.

Back to AP:

Medic Mohammed Azayzeh said he retrieved the bodies of a man and his two young sons from central Gaza on Wednesday. One of the boys, a 1-year-old, was cradled in his father's arms.

In the Jebaliya refugee camp, five sisters from the Balousha family, ages 4, 8, 11, 14 and 17, were buried together in white shrouds on Dec. 29. An Israeli airstrike on a mosque, presumably a Hamas target, had destroyed their adjacent house. Only their parents and a baby girl survived....

In the ongoing chaos of Gaza, it's difficult to get exact casualty figures. Since Dec. 27, at least 750 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moawiya Hassanain.

Of those, 257 were children, according to the U.N.'s top humanitarian official, John Holmes, citing Health Ministry figures that he called credible and deeply disturbing.

"We are talking about urban war," said Abdel-Rahman Ghandour, the Jordan-based spokesman for UNICEF in the Middle East and North Africa. "The density of the population is so high, it's bound to hurt children ... This is a unique conflict, where there is nowhere to go."

...Sarraj, the psychologist, said he fears for this generation: Having experienced trauma and their parents' helplessness, they may be more vulnerable to recruitment by militants.

Of course the survivors of the current bloodbath will be more vulnerable to recruitment by militants. Like all of the acts of state terror falsely called "counterterrorism," the Israeli attacks will breed much more of the very thing they are purporting to combat. But as we noted the other day, the Israelis know this very well -- and they don't care. As with all the other practitioners of state terror -- in Washington, London, Moscow, and elsewhere -- their goal is not "fighting terrorism" but imposing domination, and perpetuating their militarist power structures.

The international Terror Warriors, and their multitude of sycophants, worship war: it thrills them, it arouses them, it imbues them with a sense of power and purpose and righteousness and superiority. Whatever their professed faith -- and almost all of them make a great show of their devotion to a great benevolent deity in the sky -- their true god is Moloch: earthbound, blood-steeped, ravenous for sacrifice. And his devotees -- our elites, our "leading citizens," our "great and good" -- are happy to obey, eagerly offering up their god's favorite dish -- innocent flesh -- on his blazing altars.

Surging Into Syria: American Incursion Opens New Front in Quagmire

Taking a page from the new bipartisan strategy now being employed in Afghanistan -- waging cross-border military raids into sovereign countries in order to protect a failing military occupation in a neighboring country -- the United States has apparently launched its first known incursion into Syria: the usual assault from on high with the usual tally of children as "collateral damage."

The BBC reports that American forces launched a small ground-air attack on the border village of Sukkiraya on Sunday, with military helicopters disgorging a squad of troops who attacked a building and killed "a man, his four children and a married couple."

Officially, the Pentagon has neither confirmed nor denied the attack, but the brass leaked word to the Associated Press that the shiv-stab into Syrian territory did indeed take place, and that it was aimed at -- wait for it -- "foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda." As the leaky Pentagon mouthpiece told AP: "We are taking matters into our own hands."

(And isn't it remarkable how every single person killed by American forces in the global War on Terror is somehow "linked to al-Qaeda"? Even the children. I guess American bullets and bombs have some kind of super-secret al-Qaeda sorting software embedded in them, guiding the munitions directly to the evil ones -- including the little evil ones: the doctrine of "pre-emption" in its purest form -- and sparing everyone else.)

Why has the Bush Administration raided Syria now, after years of accusing Damascus of aiding and abetting "al Qaeda-linked terrorist" funneling into Iraq? Well, most beserker militarist regimes have myriad reasons behind their various lashings-out, so there is probably a number of different factors invovled.

One might be the recent moves that Syria has made toward trying to end its pariah status, as the Guardian notes:

The attack comes as Syria takes another step in from the cold today when its foreign minister, Walid al-Mualim, visits London to hear praise for its newly conciliatory policies in Lebanon...

In recent months Syria has established diplomatic relations with Lebanon and held several rounds of indirect talks with Israel, with Turkey acting as broker. In July, President Assad was invited to an EU summit in Paris.

The BBC report also touches on this theme:

[The attack's] timing is curious, coming right at the end of the Bush administration's period of office and at a moment when many of America's European allies - like Britain and France - are trying to broaden their ties with Damascus, our correspondent adds.

As we have often seen, whenever one of the American elite's designated demons starts trying to make nice and act moderate, they are generally poked with a sharp stick in hopes of making them snarl again -- thereby continuing their highly useful function as bogey-men to keep scaring the American people into giving trillions of dollars (and the blood of their children) to the Pentagon and its corporate associates in the war profiteering industry.

Of course, petty murderous spite can never be overlooked in anything the Bushists do. From the Guardian:

Joshua Landis, an American expert on Syria, commented last night: "The Bush administration must assume that an Obama victory will force Syria to behave nicely in order to win favour with the new administration. Thus White House analysts may assume that it can have a "freebee" - taking a bit of personal revenge on Syria without the US paying a price."

Some have also offered the idea that Bush is trying to make sure that Barack Obama is thoroughly tied down in the region when he takes office, forced to contend with a newly enraged Syria on the Iraq border, which the Bushists obviously hope will spur more terrorist attacks in Iraq -- on American forces and civilians -- thereby creating the "dangerous conditions" that will "justify" a continuing U.S. presence in the conquered land. (Yes, Virginia, fomenting terrorist attacks has long been a strategy of the American government, as we noted here -- and here -- years ago.)

It's unlikely that Obama will need much encouragement to keep a substantial U.S. military force in Iraq; that's been his plan all along. And as he has also advocated "carefully targeted" cross-border strikes into Pakistan, he can hardly object to the same tactic in Iraq. What's more, Joe Biden has already warned us that he and Obama are going to plunge head-first into an unspecified "foreign crisis" sometime next year, adopting highly unpopular policies that the poor, dumb benighted citizenry are just not going to be able to understand at first. A major incursion into Syria would certainly fit that bill -- although, admittedly, the venues and opportunities for Barry and Joe to prove their "toughness" are legion, given the vast and goading scope of America's military empire.

II.
Of course, one can speculate on motives until the cows come home. (Or rather, until the chickens come home to roost, in the form of revengeful blowback against Americans. But none of the well-wadded, well-protected bipartisan Beltway barons are worried about that. After all, the more blowback, the more "emergency powers" they accrue.) But we should remember that Syria has been in the cross-hairs of several powerful factions in our militarist empire for years. The same gang that brought you the Iraq war -- and would love to bring you the Iran war -- have long been howling to put tanks on the road to Damascus.

Below is a piece that I wrote for the Moscow Times back in April 2003. Although a few details have changed since then, the column is still depressingly apt as an example of the imperial mindset that animates both parties in the corridors of Beltway power.

Some cynics claim that George W. Bush and his closest advisors -- whom cynics cynically refer to as "bloodthirsty corporate pimps" -- are just a bunch of vicious, shifty liars. But this column takes enormous umbrage at the heaping of such unsupported calumny upon the good names of these great leaders. They have been maligned, slandered, falsely accused. For when it comes to their plans for world conquest, these so-called "pimps" are as honest as the day is long.

As we all know, the rape of Iraq (or as future historians will doubtless call it, "The Dawn of the Shiite Empire") was planned openly several years ago by a hard-right agitprop cell led by Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. Now it turns out that the recent big-monkey chest-beating aimed at Syria -- threats of sanctions, "surgical" strikes, and "regime change" -- was also carefully planned, by many of the same people, long before the Bush Regime seized power.

As we've often reported here, in September 2000 the Cheney-Rumsfeld outfit, Project for the New American Century, proudly published their blueprint for the direct imposition of U.S. "forward bases" throughout Central Asia and the Middle East. They even foresaw the need for what they called a "Pearl Harbor-type event" to galvanize the American public into supporting their ambitious program. Their reasons for this program were also stated quite openly: to ensure U.S. political and economic domination of the world, while strangling any potential "rival" or any viable alternative to the rapacious crony capitalism favored by the PNAC extremists. This dominance would be enforced by the ever-present threat -- and frequent application -- of violence. (A tactic known elsewhere as "terrorism.")

PNAC was also very honest about the role of Iraq in this crusade for empire, stating plainly that the need for a U.S. military presence in the area "superseded" the "issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." There was no sanctimonious posturing about "liberation," weapons of mass destruction or terrorist connections. To dominate the oil wealth centered in that region -- and hence the economic/political development of the world in the coming decades -- they needed a military presence in Iraq; it's as simple as that.

....A few months before PNAC's prophetic 2000 report, an allied group with an overlapping membership published a similar document outlining steps to be taken against Syria: first "tightening the screws" with denunciations and economic sanctions, then escalating to military action, as Jim Lobe of Inter-Press Agency reports. The architects of this document included Elliot Abrams, the convicted perjurer now running Bush's Middle East policy; Douglas Feith, one of [Don Rumsfelds'] top aides; Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary to Colin Powell; and influential Pentagon advisors such as David Wurmser, Michael Leeden and everyone's sweetheart, Richard "Influence-Peddler" Perle.

The report sprang largely from the loins of the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, a curious grouping of right-wing American Christians, right-wing American Jews, and a sprinkling of Lebanese exiles. They object -- rightly -- to the fact that Syria has maintained "long-term access to major military bases" in Lebanon, using this minatory presence to exercise undue sway over Lebanon's political and economic life. Of course, some cynics would say this situation is remarkably akin to Israel's own 18-year occupation of, er, Lebanon, or the United States' decades-long -- and still-continuing -- military presence in Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Panama, etc. But you know what cynics are like.

The USCFL also provides highly insightful and very nearly literate analyses of vital regional issues, such as its seminal paper, "Even Arabs Don't Like Arabs." But the mindset of the group -- whose members now stalk the corridors of power in Imperial Washington -- is perhaps best displayed in its thoughtful 2001 treatise, "A Petition Demanding War Against Governments That Sponsor Terrorism" (Except, of course, for governments who enforce their will by the ever-present threat and use of violence -- i.e. terrorism -- but are run by nice white men educated at Yale and Oxford.)

Here, the proto-Bushist group demands that six "rogue nations" -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya and Sudan -- "turn over their governments to the United States" on pain of massive military response. The United States will then "occupy these territories until proper governments" -- ones that allow "long-term access" to major military bases, no doubt -- "can be established." And just how massive should that threatened U.S. military response be? The USCFL is, as always, admirably -- and brutally -- forthright: "America must set a clear example-identical to that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you tread on me, I will wipe you off the face of the earth."

Is this what the Bushists are really talking about in their fear-mongering diatribes about seeing "terrorism's smoking gun in a mushroom cloud"?

Disorderly Conduct: Subverting the Bipartisan Paradigm on Iraq

William Pfaff is one of the sanest writers in the mainstream media, and in his latest piece in the International Herald Tribune, he succinctly subverts the arguments for a continuing American presence in Iraq.

There are basically three main rationales for keeping the imperial adventure in Mesopotamia going in one form or another. First, that it is a fight against terrorism, a battle to uphold the values of civilization against the evil Islamofascist hordes. (This is the argument always offered for public consumption, and it may well be that a few of its champions actually believe it.) Second, that the United States must dominate this all-important oil region as a matter of vital national interest, regardless of the "legality" or "morality" of the project. (This is the "savvy" insider view, the realpolitik of the Cheney Faction and "gritty realist" commentators.) Third, that U.S. forces must remain in Iraq until the country is stable enough to ensure an "orderly" withdrawal. (This is Barack Obama's public stance -- one which, as we noted the other day, virtually guarantees many more years of occupation. Not to mention Obama's plan to leave behind a "residual" force -- of up to 80,000 troops -- even after his "orderly" withdrawal.)

Pfaff upends each of these arguments -- counterterrorism, realpolitik and caution -- and calls instead for the only course that has ever made sense, once this criminal action had been launched: immediate withdrawal, orderly or not. Perpend:

The New York Times published an editorial last week demanding that the American presidential candidates debate what they intend to do about “a swift and orderly withdrawal from Iraq.” Such a withdrawal surely is desirable, and is what Barack Obama has promised, but is it feasible?

What about a disorderly withdrawal? What if that is the only available withdrawal? In that case, is it the larger American interest to stay indefinitely in Iraq, fighting on for the sake of staying, or to leave in disorder?

The Defense Department and this administration are ferociously committed to staying in Iraq, in order to hold onto the huge military bases constructed there, and for Iraq’s oil. They will pay a lot for that...But actually how important are the U.S. bases? Edward Luttwak, an astute and unsentimental commentator, recently wrote in Britain’s Prospect magazine that the Middle East is no longer important enough to fight over. He said the Arab-Israel conflict has been largely irrelevant strategically since the Cold War ended, and “global dependence on Middle Eastern oil is declining”—which despite the speculation-driven run-up in the oil price is still true.

In any case, oil’s availability does not, and never has, depended on military domination of the region. Oil sells on an international market to those who can buy it, and no significant producer can afford to boycott the biggest purchasers, the U.S., Japan and Western Europe. As Charles Glass (a former prisoner of Hezbollah in Lebanon) comments, Luttwak’s conclusion logically should be that the U.S. stop giving $5.5 billion in aid annually to Israel and selling billions of dollars worth of jet aircraft, heavy armor and other weapons to Saudi Arabia, a country that has never fought a war.

It should also get out of Iraq, whether in orderly or disorderly fashion, since what happens afterward is surely the business of the Iraqis, who in the past—before the 2003 invasion—have always managed in one way or another to settle their own affairs. What happens to Iraq now can pose no serious threat to the United States.

“It could become a terrorist training ground” is the witless objection usually heard regarding a departure in disorder. But surely the terrorists have no need of even more “training grounds” than they already have. An isolated farm or ranch in Utah could serve just as well as a training ground, and the training comes without cost via the Internet.

Pfaff also takes on Obama's version of the Terror War, that nightmarish engine of destruction, blowback and war profits which the Democratic nominee has pledged to continue:

The New York Times editorial congratulated Obama on his intention to have the U.S. “withdraw from Iraq so it can finish the fight in Afghanistan,” where the Allies’ situation is deteriorating and more U.S soldiers are being killed than in Iraq. But just how will President Obama (or President McCain) “finish off” the Taliban?

Early in the election campaign, Obama suggested doing it by invading Pakistan, an American ally, where al-Qaida and the Taliban take refuge. Then the United States could simultaneously fight the Pakistan army, the Taliban, al-Qaida and the tribal warriors of Waziristan. Where’s the vital American interest in that?

There is no vital American interest in any of this, of course. That is to say, nothing about the Terror War and its many offshoots benefits the American people in any way. It does, however, greatly benefit a bipartisan clot of special interests and ideologues that has a stranglehold on the American power structure. A withdrawal of these forces from the land they occupy would also be welcome. But that seems even less likely than a genuine pullout from Iraq.

Big Dog, Little Tail: The American Elite Resolves for War on Iran

I.
Let's be clear about one thing: Israel will not attack Iran without the full knowledge and approval of the United States government. The trigger of the "warning shot" of Israel's long-range air-strike exercise last week was actually pulled in Washington. The Israelis will not force or deceive the U.S. government into an attack on Iran; that attack – which grows more certain by the hour – will take place because America's bipartisan foreign policy establishment and military-industrial complex (to the extent that there is any real difference between the two) want it to happen, or are willing to let it happen.

It is of course an article of faith for some people that the Israeli tails wags the big American dog. This rather ludicrous assertion is nothing more than the pernicious doctrine of "American exceptionalism" tricked out in "dissident" drag. For its underlying assumption is that good ole true-blue American elites would never commit war crimes or seek empire and geopolitical dominion unless they had somehow been tricked into it by those wily Jews. This is exactly backwards. If Israel was of no use to the American elite's domination agenda, then it would be discarded, or at least downgraded in terms of military, economic and diplomatic support.

When a nation serves the American elite's interests well, it is rewarded, and its various shortcomings are overlooked, however egregious they might be. Saudi Arabia is a prime example. Egypt is another. Iraq is a negative example. When Saddam's regime was thought useful, it was supported, copiously. When Saddam was no longer useful – especially when he threatened the Bush Family's long-time business partners in Kuwait – then he became "a new Hitler." When Iran was governed by a tyrant friendly to Washington, it was lauded – and larded with the usual military support and diplomatic muscle. When unfriendly tyrants took over, Iran became a land of Persian devils. The list of such examples from American history goes on and on.

If Israel had, say, opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it would have found itself shorn of much of its American largess very quickly. Israel is in fact almost entirely dependent on the United States for its military and economic well-being; in return it gives unstinting support to the interests of the American elite. It is in many ways one of the most abject client states in the world today, outside of Iraq or Afghanistan. The fact that there is a convergence of interests and ideology between militarist elites in the United States and Israel is hardly surprising. It would only be surprising if this were not the case. And so we see a cross-pollination of ideas, strategies, techniques, technologies – and even, in some cases, personnel (e.g. the "Clean Break" group) – between these elites.

For the same reasons, we also see a strong "Jewish Lobby" in the United States. For although those lobbying organizations do not actually represent the viewpoint of the majority of American Jews, they do offer unwavering support to the American elite's domination agenda. These organizations – like Israel itself – also serve as useful stalking horses and lightning rods. In the first instance, they can stake out radical positions which would be too impolitic for America's governing elite to espouse too openly. In the second instance, they can always be conveniently blamed for "radicalizing" or "duping" the American elite if one of the latter's schemes for loot and dominion go wrong. And of course they can be used to punish domestic politicians who fail to hew slavishly enough to the elite's imperial line. But if AIPAC came out tomorrow with, say, a demand that America dismantle its worldwide empire of military bases, or condemned the invasion of Iraq as a war crime, we would see its influence decline almost instantly. Again, it is the convergence of interests with the American elite, and their willingness to serve those interests, that give the government of Israel and non-representative organizations like AIPAC such a prominent role.

For example, AIPAC has played the stalking horse in helping push Resolution 362, the "Iran War Resolution," toward its virtually guaranteed passage by the House. The bill – supported by the usual broad spectrum of the "bipartisan foreign policy establishment" – calls for, among other things, a full blockade of Iran. This is of course an outright act of war, and one aimed directly and purposely at the Iranian people, who would be subjected to the same kind of treatment that left at least a million Iraqis dead during the many years of American-led, bipartisan sanctions against Saddam's regime. This fact – an impending act of war that could inflict untold suffering upon millions of innocent people, even before the first shot is fired – does not seem to trouble anyone in the American establishment, nor in the "progressive blogosphere."

Arthur Silber has a few choice words on this situation here, including:

In the fearsome, awful, terrifying wake of an attack on Iran, as the economy crumbles, as violence spreads throughout the Middle East, Asia and possibly elsewhere, as life falls apart in the United States, do you think anyone will give a damn about FISA? Do you think anyone will even remember FISA? Do you doubt that the government will seize and utilize powers that will make FISA look like child's play? Do you doubt that the government will do all this with the active, eager participation of the Democrats?

II.
The stated casus belli in the "Iran War Resolution" – which replicates exactly the bellicose intentions and deceptions of the Bush Administration – is Iran's "nuclear enrichment activities." This is presented as an unmitigated evil worthy of the most severe measures, including an act of war like a blockade. The truth, of course, is that these enrichment activities are entirely legal under international treaties governing nuclear proliferation, and are being carried out under the most extensive and stringent international supervision ever imposed on a nation, as Kaveh Afrasiabi notes in the Asia Times. Afrasiabi also details the rank falsehoods about Iran's nuclear programme, and the international inspection program overseeing it, that permeate the American media:

...in an article in The Wall Street Journal, US Congresswoman Jane Harman, who chairs the powerful Homeland Security Intelligence Committee, cites Iran's steady progress in installing new centrifuges and the dangers posed by "unsupervised, weapons-grade material" in Tehran's hands.

Never mind that IAEA reports clearly confirm that all of Iran's enrichment-related facilities are under the agency's "containment and monitoring", or that IAEA inspectors have had nine "unannounced visits" at the enrichment facility in Natanz since March 2007.

Thus, for instance, in a front-page article in the New York Times, dated June 20, Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt break the sensational news about Israel's extensive maneuvers in preparation for an attack on Iran, indirectly rationalizing Israel's belligerency by omitting any mention of the IAEA's latest report confirming the absence of any evidence of military nuclear diversion and, instead, confining themselves to the following comment: "In late May, the IAEA reported that Iran's suspected work on nuclear matters was a 'matter of serious concern' and that the Iranians owed the agency 'substantial explanation'."

What ought to have been added was that the same IAEA report states unequivocally that it had received "no credible information" regarding the alleged "weaponization studies", nor has the agency detected any nuclear activity connected to those alleged studies. Besides, the same IAEA report more than a dozen times stresses the evidence of peacefulness of Iran's nuclear program...

To turn to another example of flawed coverage of Iran by the US media, a recent editorial in the Dallas News states categorically that the IAEA "has recently accused Iran of developing its program of enriching uranium". The editors appear unaware that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran is a signatory, does not prohibit Iran's uranium-enrichment program.

The IAEA has never declared Iran in material breach of its obligations and, certainly, has never "accused" Iran of pursuing a program sanctioned under the NPT. Rather, the governing board of the IAEA has simply requested from Iran to suspend its sensitive nuclear program as a "confidence-building measure", that is, as a time-bound and thus temporary "legally non-binding" step.

As Sam Gardiner notes, Bush and his minions are now pounding the "enrichment" theme as their chief drumbeat for war with Iran. And they have obviously succeeded in demonizing the entirely legal and carefully supervised process of enrichment, as demonstrated by the Congressional resolution and the press coverage, both of which also take up "enrichment" as an evil that must be stopped at all costs.

No doubt this is in response to the IAEA reports noted by Afrasiabi, which have found no credible information about "weaponization studies." (And those are just studies, mind you, not actual weaponization programs.) This is of course not the first time that the Bush Administration has moved the goalposts in its fearmongering campaign. As we noted here last December, just after the Administration's own intelligence agencies declared that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program, Bush announced that

Iran will not be "allowed" to acquire even the "scientific knowledge" required to build a nuclear weapon. Previous "red lines" which could trigger an attack had been based on Iran actually building a weapon; now even nibbling at the forbidden fruit of nuclear knowledge could serve as "justification" for a "pre-emptive strike" to quell the "danger." After all, as Bush rather illiterately told reporters, "What's to say they couldn't start another covert nuclear weapons program?" Better safe than sorry, right?

And at the very least, moving the goalposts in this manner will allow the Bush Regime to portray Iran as a dangerous, defiant menace for merely carrying on with its fully legal nuclear power program, as authorized by international treaty and monitored by the IAEA. Thus no matter what Iran actually does – or doesn't do – the Bushists will continue to use the "Persian menace" as fodder for the imperial war machine.

We see this playing out again today, in the scary talk – and Congressional resolutions – damning Iran's "enrichment activities." What was true then is true now: there is literally nothing that Iran can do – or not do – to divert the American elite's desire to strike at their land and bring it under domination. And apparently there is nothing that anyone in America with any power or a major platform will do to stop it either.

Arthur Silber concludes his damning analysis of our unforced march to new horror with a heartbreaking quote from Martin Luther King Jr. Let it serve as the last word here as well; no one will put it better:

There is such a thing as being too late.... Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with lost opportunity.... Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late."

Torturegate: Truth, But No Consequences

This has been one of the most extraordinary weeks in modern American history. The many isolated streams of evidence about the Bush Administration's torture system – and the direct responsibility of the Administration's highest officials for this vast crime – have now converged into a mighty flood: undeniable, unignorable, pouring through the halls of Congress and media newsrooms, lashing at the walls of the White House itself. In the course of the past few days, a series of events has laid bare the stinking sepsis at the heart of the Bush Regime for all to see.

It began last Sunday with the launch of a remarkable series by McClatchy Newspapers, detailing the torture, brutality, injustice and murder that has riddled the Bush gulag from top to bottom. Then came fiery Senate hearings, in which long-somnolent legislators finally bestirred themselves to confront and denounce some of the torture system's architects, including Dick Cheney pointman William Haynes III, who was left reeling, shuffling, dissembling – and bracing for perjury charges after his blatantly mendacious testimony.

Companion hearings in the House produced stunning confirmation of mass murder in the Bush gulag – a bare minimum of 27 killings, among the 108 known cases of death among Terror War captives. This evidence came from rock-solid Establishment figure Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell. (Of course, as many captives have been and are being held in "secret prisons," and an untold number of others have been hidden from the Red Cross, there is no way of knowing at this point how many prisoners have actually died or been murdered – or even how many prisoners there are in the gulag.)

And while the McClatchy series and Congressional hearings were going forward, a retired major general of the United States Army directly and openly accused the commander-in-chief of committing a war crime: authorizing "a systematic regime of torture." Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba – forced out of the service in 2006 for trying to honestly investigate the atrocities at Abu Ghraib – was unequivocal in his statement in a new report by Physicians for Human Rights:

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account…The commander-in-chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture."

This shocking, perhaps unprecedented declaration by a senior military officer was just one of many instances during the week when Establishment figures – not just retired officials like Wilkerson and Taguba, but serving officers as well – confirmed and condemned the injustice and criminality of the Bush gulag system. Even corporate media types began openly using the "T" word, after years of ridiculing or marginalizing those who dare call the Administration's "harsh interrogation techniques" what they plainly are.

By week's end, the evidence that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other top government officials had deliberately created a system of torture which they knew was illegal – indeed, a capital crime – under U.S. law was so plain, so overwhelming, and so handily concentrated that it broke through the levees of institutional cover-up and media complicity that had held this clear truth at bay for so long. The grim facts had finally worked their way into "conventional wisdom." It was now permissible for good "centrist" folk to speak of such things, even condemn them, without being automatically relegated to ranks of "the haters," the "unserious," the "shrill partisans," etc.

And yet, even as this new consensus was forming, you could see the sandbags piling up in the background to make sure that the water didn't reach too far. A line of defense was being laid that would allow the purveyors of conventional wisdom to vent a bit of righteous outrage at official wrongdoing without actually having to do anything about it or admitting of any flaws in their fundamentalist doctrine of American exceptionalism. No one need take any risks, make any effort, or discomfort themselves in any way to rectify the injustice; indeed, even the perpetrators should be left undisturbed. Instead, our uniquely good and smooth-running political system will magically make everything all better, and somehow prevent the bad things from happening again.

II.
This nascent coventional wisdom line was perfectly illustrated in a new piece by Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times. Rutten is a lifelong newsman, a liberal of the old school, whose columns have been scathing in their criticism of Bush and all his works. In his latest outing, Rutten doesn't flinch from telling it like it is on Bush's torture regime. Drawing on the Congressional hearings and other sources, Rutten gives chapter and verse on "how the White House forced the adoption of torture as state policy of the United States."

He notes also the highly significant fact that one major impetus behind the construction of the torture system was the Bush Faction's extremist "unitary executive" theory: the crank belief that a president can exercise unbridled, unaccountable authoritarian power in his role as "commander-in-chief." This includes the power to break the law -- and order others to break the law -- as he sees fit. As Rutten puts it:

The fact that these guys seem to have defined executive branch power as the ability to hold people in secret and torture them pushes the creepy quotient into areas that probably require psychoanalytic credentials.

In paragraph after paragraph, Rutten marshals the evidence that "has established definitively that the drive to make torture an instrument of U.S. policy originated at the highest levels of the Bush administration." He notes that the panicky reaction to these revelations in right-wing bastions like the Wall Street Journal "stems from an anxiety that congressional inquiries, like that of [the Senate] committee, will lead to indictments and possibly even war crimes trials for officials who participated in the administration's deliberations over torture and the treatment of prisoners."

In short, Rutten – an experienced, respected, liberal journalist writing for one of the largest newspapers in the land – lays out a compelling case that the President of the United States and his chief officers have committed capital crimes under American law. And what does he propose we do about it?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. In fact, he relegates all those who would seek redress of these high crimes to – where else? – the ranks of the unserious, the cranks, the effete whiners:

It's true that there are a handful of European rights activists and people on the lacy left fringe of American politics who would dearly like to see such trials, but actually pursuing them would be a profound -- even tragic -- mistake. Our political system works as smoothly as it does, in part, because we've never criminalized differences over policy. Since Andrew Jackson's time, our electoral victors celebrate by throwing the losers out of work -- not into jail cells.

The Andrew Jackson reference is puzzling. When did early (or late) American electoral victors ever throw the losers into jail cells? Did Thomas Jefferson clap John Adams in irons after besting him for the presidency? Did John Quincy Adams lock Jackson away after his disputed victory in their first contest? But Rutten's lack of historical clarity is nothing compared to the moral muddle that follows:

The Bush administration has been wretchedly mistaken in its conception of executive power, deceitful in its push for war with Iraq and appalling in its scheming to make torture an instrument of state power. But a healthy democracy punishes policy mistakes, however egregious, and seeks redress for its societal wounds, however deep, at the ballot box and not in the prisoner's dock.

The cognitive dissonance of this conclusion was so painful and severe that I had to read it several times to fully take in that it meant exactly what it said: Rutten believes with all his heart that the official practice of deliberate, systematic torture – a clear and unambiguous war crime which he himself has just outlined in careful detail – is ultimately nothing more than a “wretched mistake,” a “policy difference” that should not be “criminalized.” And how can this be? The answer is obvious, if unspoken: because it was done by the United States government – and nothing the United States government ever does can possibly be criminal, or evil. It can only be, at most, a mistake, a conceptual error, an ill-considered policy, a botched attempt at carrying out a noble intention.

If any other country had a policy “to make torture an instrument of state power, " Rutten would undoubtedly condemn it as a vicious evil. In fact, he might well bring out the quote from Thucydides that he used just a few weeks ago, in a piece lauding the stricken "Lion of the Senate," Ted Kennedy:

Kennedy's brother, Bobby, was fond of quoting the ancient Greeks. One of them, Thucydides, once was asked, "When will there be justice in Athens?" He replied, "There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are."

But it appears that Rutten's outrage at injustice has its limits. It does not extend to actually punishing those responsible for torture and murder – if those responsible are the leaders of the American government. They are to be allowed to finish their terms, then live out their lives in wealth, privilege, comfort and safety. To otherwise, says Rutten – to insist that no one is above the law – "risks the stability of our own electoral politics."

(This is a point that I've never quite understood about American exceptionalists. On the one hand, they say the system is so strong and resilient that it can magically heal itself no matter what happens. On the other hand, it is apparently so weak and unstable that any attempt to actually apply its laws to the powerful could bring down the whole house of cards. A curious conundrum indeed; but then again, fundamentalisms invariably rest on such ineffable mysteries.)

Somehow, the "ballot box" will redress these "egregious mistakes," says Rutten. Yet surely the real lesson that future leaders (whatever side of the "ballot box" they are on) will take away from this shameful episode is that they will never be held legally accountable for any abuse of power, "however egregious," however clearly criminal it is. Sure, personal peccadilloes like financial chicanery or sexual hanky-panky might land you in hot water. But whatever you do as a matter of state – especially if it involves the infliction of suffering, ruin and death – will not be prosecuted.

This, to Rutten – and the conventional wisdom he represents here – is the mark of "a healthy democracy." Only weird foreigners and sissies ("the lacy fringe left") would wring their hands over bringing torturers and murderers to justice. Sure, mistakes have been made, but the system is strong, the system works smoothly, the system is self-correcting. All will be well, and all manner of things will be well. This is the quintessence of good "centrist" thought. This is the soft, fluffy quilt that will soon envelop the staggering revelations of capital crimes that we saw this week.

As we noted here a few weeks ago, Barack Obama – who has been busy this week bolstering supporters of executive tyranny and appointing a gaggle of dim warhawks, has-beens and imperial factotums as his national security team) – has given every indication he too sees the Administration's high crimes as "dumb policies" that don't require any legal redress:

Obama says that any decision to pursue "investigation" of "possibilities" of "genuine crimes" would be "an area where I would exercise judgment." He stressed the need to draw a distinction between "really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity." He said he would not want "my first term to be consumed by what would be perceived by Republicans as a partisan witch hunt."

He then tied his thinking on torture, illegal wiretapping, aggressive war and all the other depredations of the Bush Regime to his stance on impeachment:

"I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings. And I've often said, I do not think that would be something that would be fruitful to pursue. I think impeachment should be reserved for exceptional circumstances."

In other words, very strong, credible, evidence-based charges of launching a criminal war of aggression based on deception is not an "exceptional circumstance" worthy of the investigative and prosecutorial process of impeachment. It might just be a "very dumb policy." Very strong, credible, evidence-based charges of knowingly, deliberately creating a regimen of systematic torture is not an "exceptional circumstance" worthy of impeachment; it might not even be worth further investigation by the Justice Department. It too could just be a "dumb policy" that we should forget about – especially if Republicans are going to make a fuss about it.

In any case, it is obvious that to Obama, "what we already know" does not constitute "exceptional circumstances" – otherwise he would already be pressing for criminal investigation, via the impeachment process or by calling for a special prosecutor… He pretends that it is still an open question – "an exercise of judgment" – whether these crimes should even be investigated further, much less prosecuted. He pretends – or even worse, actually believes – that we are not in the grip of "exceptional circumstances," but are apparently just rolling along with business as usual, aside from a few "dumb policies" which he will tinker with and set right.

It has indeed been a remarkable week in American politics. But I fear that the most remarkable thing about it will turn out to be that it had no lasting effect at all.

Worried Yet? Saudis Prepare for "Sudden Nuclear Hazards" After Cheney Visit

I. One Tick Closer to Midnight
Last Friday, Dick Cheney was in Saudi Arabia for high-level meetings with the Saudi king and his ministers. On Saturday, it was revealed that the Saudi Shura Council -- the elite group that implements the decisions of the autocratic inner circle -- is preparing "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors," one of the kingdom's leading newspapers, Okaz, reports. The German-based dpa news service relayed the paper's story.

Simple prudence -- or ominous timing? We noted here last week that an American attack on Iran was far more likely -- and more imminent -- than most people suspect. We pointed to the mountain of evidence for this case gathered by scholar William R. Polk, one of the top aides to John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to other indicators of impending war. The story by Okaz -- which would not have appeared in the tightly controlled dictatorship without approval from the top -- is yet another, very weighty piece of evidence laid in the scales toward a new, horrendous conflict.

We don't know what the Saudis told Cheney in private -- or even more to the point, what he told them. But the release of this story now, just after his departure, would seem to be a clear indication that the Saudis have good reason to fear a looming attack on Iran's nuclear sites and are actively preparing for it.

II. A Nuclear Epiphany in Iran?
And they certainly should be bracing themselves. A U.S. attack on Iran will come suddenly, and if it is indeed aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities -- a "threat" being talked up again with new urgency by both Cheney and Bush lately -- it has the potential for unimaginable consequences. As we noted here in a previous piece:

Twelve hours. One circuit of the sun from horizon to horizon, one course of the moon from dusk to dawn. What was once a natural measurement for the daily round of human life is now a doom-laden interval between the voicing of an autocrat's brutal whim and the infliction of mass annihilation halfway around the world.

Twelve hours is the maximum time necessary for American bombers to gear up and launch an unprovoked sneak attack – a Pearl Harbor in reverse – against Iran, the Washington Post reports….And when this attack comes – either as a stand-alone "knock-out blow" or else as the precursor to a full-scale, regime-changing invasion, like the earlier aggression in Iraq – there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no hearings, no public debate. The already issued orders governing the operation put the decision solely in the hands of the president: he picks up the phone, he says, "Go" – and in twelve hours' time, up to a million Iranians could be dead.

This potential death toll is not pacifist hyperbole; it comes from a National Academy of Sciences study sponsored by the Pentagon itself, as The Progressive reports. (Although Bush's military brass like to peddle the public lie that "we don't do body counts" of the enemy, in reality, like all good businessmen they keep precise accounts of their production outputs: i.e., corpses.) The Pentagon's NAS study calibrated the kill-rate from "bunker-busting" tactical nukes used to take out underground facilities – such as those which house much of Iran's nuclear power program.

Another simulation by scientists, using Pentagon-devised software, was even more specific, measuring the aftermath of a "limited" nuclear attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan, the magazine reports. This small expansion of the Pentagon franchise would result in stellar production figures: three million people killed by radiation in just two weeks, and 35 million people exposed to dangerous levels of cancer-causing radiation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Bush has about 50 nuclear "earth-penetrating weapons" at his disposal, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Nor is the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran mere "liberal paranoia." Bush himself pointedly refused to take the nuclear option "off the table" this week. But what's more, Bush has made the use of nuclear weapons a centerpiece of his "National Security Strategy of the United States," issued last month, The Progressive notes. While reaffirming the criminal principle of "pre-emptive" attacks on perceived enemies which may or may not be threatening America with weapons they may or may not possess, Bush declared that "safe, credible and reliable nuclear forces continue to play a critical role" in the "offensive strike systems" that are now a key part of America's "deterrence."

In the depraved jargon of atomic warmongering, a "credible" nuclear force is one that can and will be used in the course of ordinary military operations. It is no longer to be regarded as a sacred taboo. This has long been the dream of the Pentagon's "nuclear priesthood" and its acolytes, going back to the days of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For decades, a strong faction within the American power structure has been afflicted with a perverted craving to unleash these weapons once more. An almost sexual frustration can be discerned in their laments as time and again, in crisis after crisis, their counsels for "going nuclear" were rejected – often at the very last moment. To justify their aberrant desire, they have relentlessly demonized an ever-changing array of "enemies," painting each one as an imminent, overwhelming threat, led by "madmen" in thrall to pure evil, impervious to reason, fit only for destruction. Evidence for the "threat" is invariably exaggerated, manipulated, even manufactured; this ritual cycle has been enacted over and over, leading to many wars – but never to that ultimate, orgasmic release.

Now this paranoid sect has at last seized the commanding heights of American power....

And they have found a most eager disciple in the peevish dullard strutting in the Oval Office. Under their sinister tutelage, Bush has eviscerated 40 years' worth of arms control treaties; officially "normalized" the use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear states; rewarded outlaw proliferators like India, Israel and Pakistan; and is now destroying the last and most effective restraint on the spread of nuclear weapons: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The treaty guarantees its signatories – such as Iran – the right to establish nuclear power programs in exchange for rigorous international inspections. But Bush has arbitrarily decided that Iran – whose nuclear program undergone perhaps the most extensive inspection process in history – must end its lawful activities. Why? Because the country is led by "madmen" in thrall to pure evil, impervious to reason, who one day may or may not threaten America with weapons they may or may not have.

So the NPT is dead. As with the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution, it now means only what Bush says it means. Force of arms, not rule of law, is the new world order. The attack on Iran is coming….

The nuclear sectarians have waited decades for this moment. Such a chance may never come again. Will they let it pass, when with just a word, in just twelve hours, they can see their god rising in a pillar of fire over Persia?