That excellent panel discussion about the Middle East with Chris
Hedges (which includes the question/comment about Mearsheimer/Walt
book - www.israellobbybook.com - in the 'Q & A') airs this Sunday (May
18th, 2008) on C-SPAN 2/Book TV:
http://www.booktv.org/schedule.aspx
The following will broadcast on C-SPAN 2/Book TV this weekend (see
www.booktv.org) as such can be viewed via the streaming video link for
C-SPAN 2 at www.c-span.org as well:
Sunday (May 18th, 2008)
9:00 AM ET (6 AM PT) 1 hr Politics
The Revolution: A Manifesto
Author: Ron Paul
11:00 PM ET (8 PM PT) 1 hr 2008 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books:
Contentious Ground: The Middle East (includes question/comment about
Mearsheimer/Walt book included in the 'Q & A'):
Authors: Reza Aslan; Chris Hedges; Moderator: Zachary Karabell; Amy
Wilentz
7:00 PM PT (4 PM PT) 1 hr, 56 min Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of
Rachel Corrie
Author: Rachel Corrie
10:00 PM (7 PM PT) 59 min 2008 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books:
Defining American Character
Authors: Howard Fineman; Amy Goodman; Tom Hayden; Hugh Hewitt;
Moderator: Jon Wiener
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM
> Why All of Our Efforts Won=92t Stop an Attack on Iran
>
> Gary Leupp
> Counterpunch
> May 12, 2008
>
> May 9. I read tonight a brief article by Philip Giraldi posted on the
> American Conservative website: =93War with Iran Might Be Closer than You
> Think.=94
>
> =93There is considerable speculation,=94 writes the former CIA officer,
> =93and buzz in Wa****ngton today suggesting that the National Security
> Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an
> Iranian al-Qods [Revolutionary Guards]-run camp that is believed to be
> training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of
> several located near Tehran.=94
>
> Giraldi provides details. He re****ts that the meeting came as =93the
> direct result=94 of Hizbollah advances in Lebanon in recent days.
> (Recall that the U.S. State Department lists the ****ite organization
> Hizbollah as =93terrorist=94 and as a tool of both Iran and Baathist
> Syria. In fact it is probably the country=92s largest and most popular
> political party and has built significant ties with some Christian and
> Sunni groups. Hizbollah=92s rapid seizure of the Muslim sections of
> Beirut, accomplished with little resistance, may have been
> deliberately provoked by the U.S.-backed quasi-government of Lebanon
> when the latter shut down the party=92s private communications network.)
>
> Defense Secretary Robert Gates, according to Giraldi, was the only
> senior official present urging delay. That suggests that the military
> is not enthusiastic about a widened war in Southwest Asia, but that
> the other regular members of the NSC (Secretary of State Condoleezza
> Rice, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, National Security Advisor
> Stephen Hadley as well as President Bush and Vice President Cheney)
> are willing to provoke just that.
>
> They will do what they do with the solid backing of Congress, the
> presidential candidates, and the mainstream press which if history is
> our guide will for a time shape shockingly malleable public opinion.
> Yes, I fear that we (most of us) will be fooled again.
>
> The Congress has passed near-unanimous resolutions against Iran,
> endorsing the administration=92s unprecedented designation of a
> component of a nation=92s military as a =93terrorist organization.=94
Hous=
e
> Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be on board the program. Recall how after
> the Democratic victory two years ago she capitulated to AIPAC by
> stripping from a military spending bill the requirement that Bush seek
> Congressional approval before attacking Iran. (That was after she=92d
> pointedly declared that Bush-Cheney impeachment hearings were =93off the
> table.=94 And after Rep. John Conyers, head of the House Judiciary
> Committee and sometimes maverick, bitterly disappointed those pinning
> their hopes on him by going along with the Democratic leader****p=92s
> line. And after the Democrats had made it clear they weren=92t serious
> about ending the war they=92d been elected to end=97showing us how very
> well the democratic system works in this country.)
>
> John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton (all of whom agree that
> an attack on Iran is =93on the table=94) will publicly approve. The
media
> will call upon the same =93military analysts=94/military industry
> consultants who have been disseminating Pentagon propaganda for pay
> since 2002 to explain why the attack is justified and necessary. The
> main talking-point has been decided: =93Iran is killing American
> soldiers in Iraq.=94 Public opinion polls will show the public divided,
> but a majority in sup****t of the action because, regardless of their
> feelings about the war in Iraq, they want to =93sup****t our troops=94
and
> after all, Iran was asking for it by interfering in Iraq and attacking
> us.
>
> All the =93exposure=94 that so many journalists and academics have tried
> to provide for years will have failed to prevent another illegal
> attack on a sovereign nation based on lies and bound to produce more
> outrage against the U.S. throughout the world. A cruise missile strike
> on an alleged training camp site won=92t end there. It will be designed
> to provoke an Iranian response and legitimate further U.S. attacks,
> not only on Iran but Syria and Lebanon, probably in coordination with
> Israel. Some in Israel badly want the U.S. to behead all their main
> enemies in the region before their good friend George Bush leaves the
> White House. If that means regional chaos=97clashes between Iranian and
> U.S. forces, the fall of the Maliki puppet regime in Baghdad (which
> actually is friendly with Tehran and says it=92s playing a positive role
> in Iraq), the collapse of ****ite cooperation with the U.S. occupation,
> Iran-Iraq border clashes, U.S. forays into Iranian territory, the
> closing of ranks in fractious Iran against the imperialist assault on
> their country=97so be it!
>
> If it means renewed war in Lebanon including Israeli invasion, an
> Iranian ****ft from sup****ting U.S. puppet Karzai to Iran=92s longtime
> enemy the Taliban in Afghanistan, active Syrian sup****t for Sunni
> forces in Iraq, the disintegration of the fragile Sunni-=93Coalition=94
> alliance against al-Qaeda in western Iraq as the region descends into
> a ****ite-Sunni war=97so be it! If it means the use of nuclear weapons
> against Iran to try to cow its leaders and people into accepting a
> U.S.-Israeli blueprint for the region=97so be it! If it means the
> unthinkable in the U.S.=97a return to the draft=97so be it! All of this
> will at least have prevented the =93nuclear holocaust=94 that the
neocons,=
> Cheney and Bush have been insisting the Iranians plan to inflict on
> the Jewish state unless they are stopped now. (No matter that all the
> U.S. intelligence agencies in their National Intelligence Estimate on
> Iran published late last year agreed that Iran does not now have a
> nuclear weapons program. And no matter that the Ahmadinejad quote
> about =93wiping Israel off the map=94 has been exposed as a lie by Juan
> Cole and others.)
>
> If Benjamin Netanyahu is Israeli prime minister at the time of the
> planned attack on Iran, a time of apocalyptic confusion might be the
> perfect op****tunity to empty the West Bank of its Palestinians. This
> NSC agreement =93in principle=94 to attack Iran is an agreement to risk
> all these ramifications, confident that the press and politicians will
> cooperate.
>
> So often in recent months I=92ve started to write a column exposing some
> recent lie (or at least some re****t pertaining to Iran or Syria that
> strikes me as obvious neocon-generated disinformation) only to give up
> midway through. Not because of writer=92s block, fatigue, or even the
> thought that =93Someone else has already written this, or someone like
> Alex Cockburn or Justin Raimondo or Scott Ritter or Gordon Prather
> will in the next day or so.=94 It=92s more a matter of despairing at how
> much exposure can accomplish.
>
> A friend of mine was saying last month, =93People are =91exposured=92
out.=
> They=92re =93Chomskyed=94 out.=94 He was speaking about young antiwar
> activists mainly, but his point was that people who know what=92s going
> on are eager to act on the knowledge. To paraphrase Marx, the point is
> not to expose the world, or have it further exposed to you, but to
> change it.
>
> The reader****p of sites like Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, and
> Antiwar.com know the main points. They know that Dick Cheney, the most
> powerful vice president in history (and the most secrecy-obsessed
> among powerful figures in U.S. history), has made his office the hub
> of a cabal of neocons hell-bent of effecting =93regime change=94
> throughout Southwest Asia by the end of Bush=92s second term. They know
> that the Office of Special Plans fabricated =93intelligence=94 to
terrify
> the masses and gain sup****t for the invasion of Iraq. They know that
> U.S. intelligence has actually concluded that Iran has no nuclear
> weapons program, and that the UN=92s IAEA scientists have found no
> evidence for one. But they also know that Cheney insists that he knows
> there=92s one, just as the neocons such as Norman Podhoretz and Michael
> Ledeen know there=92s one. Just as top Israeli officials know there=92s
> one as they demand U.S. action against Iran. They know there=92s a huge
> anti-Iran propaganda campaign underway very similar to the one that
> preceded the lie campaign leading up to the Iraq War now in its
> disastrous sixth year. They know that the U.S. is funding terrorist
> groups to carry out attacks in Iran. They know that the
> administration=92s allegations about a Syrian nuclear program are highly
> dubious.
>
> They know that there are conflicts between the traditional
> intelligence community and the neocons, and that the latter draw upon
> a coherent (Straussian) philosophy that justifies the =93noble lie=94 in
> order to induce the foolish masses to sup****t what the =93wise=94=97who
mu=
st
> conceal their real objectives=97want them to sup****t. They distrust
> anything the administration says about Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan=85
>
> Yes, they=92re =93Chomskyed out.=94
>
> Maybe we need to ****ft the focus of exposure a bit. From the
> particular to the general. From nasty individuals to nasty
> institutions. From the symptoms to the system.
>
> What=92s worse? Cheney and his attorney David Addington crafting a
> document in November 2001, bypassing routine staff review before
> receiving Bush=92s signature, which denied =93foreign terrorist=94
suspect=
s
> in the U.S. access to any courts and allowing for their indefinite
> detention? (This was exposed by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker in the
> Wa****ngton Post last summer.) Or the failure of the elected officials
> in Congress to even start impeachment proceedings against Cheney and
> Bush?
>
> What=92s worse? John Yoo writing up his torture memos in 2002 as a
> Justice Department employee, as eventually exposed in the mainstream
> press? Or the decision of the trustees of the University of
> California, Berkeley to hire him as a law professor in 2003?
>
> What=92s worse? Judith Miller=92s willingness to funnel disinformation
to
> the American people through her NYT articles before and after the Iraq
> invasion? Or the Time=92s willingness to publish them, and now those of
> her sometimes co-author Michael Gordon, cheerleading the coming Iran
> attack?
>
> The Congress, the Justice Department, academia, and the press are all
> complicit in imperialist war and attacks on the Constitution. Does
> this mean the system isn=92t working, or that it=92s working all too
well?=
>
> Is the system supposed to expose itself, through congressional
> hearings, investigative re****ting, war crimes trials? Or is it,
> serving the small minority it=92s designed to serve, supposed to simply
> tolerate exposure (in the name of freedom of the press) while
> saturating citizens with propaganda? (If the exposure ever gets widely
> enough disseminated, and threatens to undermine its objectives, it can
> always =93kill the messenger=94=97or at least accuse the writer of
> undermining national security, abetting terrorism, etc.)
>
> Voting for =93antiwar=94 Democrats two years ago didn=92t end the war.
Eve=
n
> millions in the streets, peacefully demonstrating as the system
> encourages, didn=92t prevent the assault on Iraq over five years ago.
> Now there=92s no feasible political recourse to stop an attack on Iran.
> And little time to mobilize mass demonstrations against it. It will
> come as a thief in the night, presented to the American people as a
> fait accompli. As the Bush-Cheney cowboys ride off into the sunset,
> smirkin=92 and grinnin=92 and slapping each other=92s backs, the people
wi=
ll
> start to pay.
>
> A character in Bertolt Brecht=92s The Beggar=92s Opera asks what=92s
worse=
=97
> robbing a bank, or owning a bank? The system itself, that is to say,
> is the criminal product of wrongly acquired wealth, much of it
> obtained through imperialist war. Exposure alone, no matter how
> voluminous, eloquent and persuasive, will not change it.
>
> http://www.infowars.com/?p=3D2090
|
