And who can blame these war hawks for being overly anxious? War is an exciting endeavor if you're not actually getting killed in any of the fighting. Hell, my feeling about the whole fucking situation is . . let's get this over with already! You want more innocent blood on your hands, Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Blair, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton, and you hidden masters of war? Fine. But do it quickly, and painlessly, with the least numbers of lives suffered. You want another world war to close the book on this age of modern mayhem? Okay. But let's have it sooner rather than later. As Napoleon told General Hedouville in 1799: "If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter, and consequently less inhuman." Or, to put it in modern terms, BOMB the shit out of them! Shock and Awe! Put enough terror into their hearts that they'll be afraid to even move a muscle after all the bombing. Nuke them back to the Stone Age. Make them learn to crawl again. Show the Iranians who's the boss, and who's the fool.
Once again, Napoleon:
When things come to this point, when all the springs are thus strained, war becomes desirable in order to bring about a release. Thus, in the physical world, at the approach of a storm, nature is in a state of tension so painful that the outbreak of the storm is desirable because it relaxes the exacerbated nerves and restores heaven and earth to peaceful serenity. And acute but short pain is preferable to prolonged suffering. (From Napoleon's address to the Austrian government in 1808, delivered by the French ambassador in Vienna. On page 207 in "The Mind of Napoleon")But ask yourself one question before you begin this new war. Is it justified? Are the Persians the greatest threat to Jewish existence since Hitler? Has an honest diplomatic approach reached its end? If not, and clearly all options have not been exhausted, then the journalists who are helping to sell this war, and the government officials who are giving their consent and helping to bankroll it, will have hell to pay. Absolute hell. This isn't the Napoleonic age. The thirst for war and the quest for world dominion is not glorious anymore. It is pathetic. Especially when it's clowns and crooks like Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rove and Rumsfeld who are leading the charge, and not someone like Napoleon.
And we don't need to ask Mr. Obama if war with Iran is justified or not. We know it's not. America and Israel are clearly the aggressors in the Middle East. We know 9/11 is not what we've been told it is. We know the US government consciously lied about the presence of WMDs in Iraq. We're not fools. Those who pledge their support for a war with Iran are fools. And those who make it happen are war criminals. And we all know what happens to war criminals. "Criminal," wrote Napoleon, "is what I call a sovereign who, for a whim, undertakes a war which the policy of his country does not justify."
If you're unconvinced that war with Iran is unjustifiable, then the following three passages from articles by Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, Glenn Greenwald, and Steve Hynd, may make you rethink your previous assumptions about the "Iranian threat."
First, read "The Iran Threat: more of the same," by Dr. Nafeez Ahmed. Dr. Ahmed points out that Iran does not have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon within the time-frame that has been claimed by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), and others:
“The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year,” said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. “We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.” Indeed, production at the Natanz plant has been notoriously beset with technical difficulties leading experts to believe that Iran will not be able to increase its enrichment capacity. Despite these findings, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) insisted on the imminent danger that Iran would embark on a breakout programme capable of producing weapons-grade uranium in six months.
Yet the speculation that Iran could achieve this feat, despite the fact that its “centrifuges appear to be breaking down at a faster rate than expected” according to US and European officials, is difficult to take seriously. Indeed, the notion that Iran currently has enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb, promoted even by purported expert groups such as ISIS (and first hyped in inaccurate media reporting about February 2009’s IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear programme) is simply a myth.
Clearly, Iran does not pose an imminent threat to the United States, or Israel. Its military has not intruded on American land, the country who is doing that is Mexico. So what does America have to worry about? It is Iran that should be tense, and acting irrationally. On both sides of its borders are battle-hardened American troops, bored and ready for war. As Glenn Greenwald says in his piece "Reporting" on Iran should seem familiar, it would be ridiculous and surprising if Iran was not trying to acquire nuclear weapons:
As I've noted before, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Iran wanted a nuclear weapons capability. If anything, it would be irrational for them not to want one. What else would a rational Iranian leader conclude as they look at the U.S. military's having destructively invaded and continuing to occupy two of its neighboring, non-nuclear countries (i.e., being surrounded by an invading American army on both its Eastern and Western borders)? Add to that the fact that barely a day goes by without Western media outlets and various Western elites threatening them with a bombing attack by the U.S. or the Israel (which itself has a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and categorically refuses any inspections or other monitoring). If our goal were to create a world where Iran was incentivized to obtain nuclear weapons, we couldn't do a better job than we're doing now.
What do you expect Iran to do? Sit still, and rely on the praying powers of its grand Mullahs and Allah to rescue them from an impeding American/Israeli attack? That's ludicrous. They have a right to defend themselves and their country. Are they not humans? Does America think it can wage war on a population, and then declare opposing fighters within that population as terrorists? Were the American marines who fought on Japanese islands terrorists too? If we go by this logic, then anyone who fights back against an invading and occupying army is a terrorist. How insane is that? According to America's current rulers, the country's first president was a terrorist.
It would be one thing if America was the shining city on the hill, but it's not. It is the captured city on the hill. Financial con-men and militaristic monopoly men have long taken over the country's affairs. It is a country that is led by liars and deceivers. It has no right to make any assertions about Iran's nuclear hardware. The burden of proof lies with America, not Iran.
Below, Steven Hynd highlights the fact that the United States government has acted covertly for years in Iran, secretly hiring agents and sending in spies to disrupt Iran's nuclear facilities from the inside. Such activity is considered war-making. And it is outrageous. Imagine if the United States of America was surrounded by a nuclear-armed Russia in Mexico, Alaska, and Cuba, and American scientists were working around the clock to develop a nuclear weapon system to defend themselves against a probable attack, and it was found out that one of its scientists was a Russian spy, who was working to prolong technical advancements. How would Americans react? They would be pissed.
Such a hypothetical scenario as I have described is happening to Iran. Recently, it was found out that one of Iran's nuclear scientists was recruited by the C.I.A. Regardless of how much he actually knows, and what his role was in the Iranian nuclear program, it is an act of war to disrupt the defense capabilities of foreign nations. America is bringing war to the Iranian people, its not the other way around.
Steve Hynd, "Hyping The Evil Iranian Empire":
A quick side note: there's news today that a missing Iranian nuclear scientist who disappeared from Saudi Arabia months ago is indeed in CIA hands. That means that Iranian claims of American involvement in his disappearance were correct and official U.S. denials at the time were outright lies. Hmmmm. I take this as proof the U.S. government is more than capable of lying about matters Iranian, but I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell me how Iran is always the liar and the U.S. always the truth-teller, because we're the good guys or something.The shocking aspect about this whole build-up to an attack on Iran is that the same people who raised "warnings" about the imminent threat posed by Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion are raising the same "warnings" about Iran.
After selling a war based on lies and fabrications to the American people, the blood stains on the American corporate media still hasn't been scraped off so it takes a lot of nerves for CNN, Fox News, and The New York Times to hype yet another war. I wonder if some of these hack reporters and so-called "journalists" will be as courageous when they're forced to testify in front of a truth and reconciliation commission. If they decline to testify and clear the air, then charges will come their way, and they'll come harder than the lies they're currently directing at us. Much harder.
Alexandria's Link.
