The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has received endless attention from the U.S. corporate media, and deservedly so, after all, it is the worst environmental crisis in American history, but there's another Gulf in the world that also needs the light of the press; the Persian Gulf. On Friday, June 18, 2010, the U.S. and Israel sent a massive military fleet across the Suez Canal, with the permission of Egypt. Kurt Nimmo writes:
More than twelve U.S. and Israeli warships, including an aircraft carrier, passed through the Suez Canal on Friday and are headed for the Red Sea. “According to eyewitnesses, the U.S. battleships were the largest to have crossed the Canal in many years,” reported the London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi on Saturday.This show of force by the U.S. and Israel was preceded by a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran's theocratic government for its alleged nuclear weapons programme , which was passed by a 12-2 vote on June 9, 2010.
Military activity near Iran has never receded. Israeli and US aggression has continually intensified. Last month, The Times reported that: "Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline." On June 12, The Times reported: "Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal."
In a visit to Israel in February, Admiral Mike Mullen, who is The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military, told Israeli military leaders that an attack on Iran is not off the table. Mullen: "We will operate all our forces to have a stable and secure Israel and for the people of Israel.”
An attack on Iran would trigger World War III and cast the world into a deeper darkness. But it is too soon to contemplate all the economic, political, psychological, social, and environmental consequences for everybody in the world. Peter Eyre speculates in his article "Israel, US and Iran: an environmental perspective," that all countries will be affected by the fallout "from any damaged Iranian nuclear facilities and also the contamination from the radioactive aerosols released from the weapons used by both Israel and the US," including Israel. Eyre:
The world must never allow this insanity by the US and Israel and must fully understand the implications if this attack goes ahead. The spreading of the radioactive nanoparticles will cause a massive rise in many forms of cancers; a big hike in diabetes, the contamination will directly attack the human DNA resulting in a total breakdown in our genetic code. This contamination also as the ability to enter the brain barrier with a multitude of mental health problems as well as tumors. There will be a sharp rise in still born babies and grossly disfigured babies. In Iraq the women in such places as Faluja and Basra are now frightened to have babies. Finally we will have a huge increase in infertility amongst both men and women.A full-scale war in the Middle East will uproot the lives of people everywhere. The environmental legacy alone will be devastating. But the bankrupt U.S. media doesn't want Americans to keep these deadly implications in mind as they get indoctrinated to support an attack on Iran.
The Subpress Crisis
It is shameful that the American press is being employed as a distraction brigade in the propaganda war against the American people. In the past two months, almost all prime-time coverage has been dedicated to the BP oil sill, while news that the U.S. and Israel are escalating tensions in the Middle East is being suppressed.
The active suppression of information in our knowledge-dependent age should be considered a war crime. World peace is threatened because the majority of Americans are kept ignorant by the corporate media about what their government is doing with billions and billions of the people's money.
If the U.S. media constantly reported on the gallons of blood that have spilled in Iraq and Afghanistan, the diabolical "War on Terror" would've been terminated in its infancy. The media shield around the war's consequences has allowed the "War on Terror" to mature to a War on Humanity, a War on Freedom, a War on Civilization.
Not enough is known about the leakage of blood in the Middle East. We do know that innocent blood gushes almost every day, but video footage of it have to be leaked by whistleblowers, or else it is not seen.
But the media beast does not deserve the whole blame. The greatest suppression of evil deeds by the U.S. government are psychologically-based. Some people repress government crimes, and cover-ups like 9/11, because by admitting that your leaders are responsible for murder, you tread into a different space of history, where the primitive fear of the unknown takes a hold of you. And some people just can't enter into that state of mind. That is why footage of massacres are not enough to persuade brainwashed people that their leaders are committing unforgivable crimes. Any implications of guilt are automatically denied. It is a reflex of the slave's mind. The "government" can do no wrong.
Once people believe that evil is only a possibility outside of their own kingdom, evil-doers within their reach can then get away with anything imaginable. In such a mentally enslaved kingdom, vampires can crawl out of their graves, declare darkness as the light, and be hailed as the sons of God. Taking evil for good, and good for evil, is what happens under propaganda regimes.
Long-time journalist John Grant says that arguments that undermine the U.S. government's reasons and explanations for war are actively repressed by people in the press. The basic premises behind the "War on Terror" must be aggressively maintained, because unflattering revelations puts into question everything that Americans grew up believing about their government, and from that point on everything is thrown out of the psychological window. Grant:
Like the game of whack-a-mole, it’s all hands on deck to whack down inconvenient and dangerous ideas that call into question our endless state of war. Keep the ideas and the argument marginalized.Since January, 2009, the Obama administration has done even more than the previous administration to suppress information about US war crimes. Any news that relates to the crimes that are committed daily in the name of "National Security," is prevented from public discussion.
The administration's anti-transparency stance has gone to such an extreme that it has defended the "sincerity" of torturers and murderers. In a recent court ruling on the Maher Arar case, the Obama administration said that suppression of information about the U.S. role in Arar's forced departure to Syria, and subsequent torture in a Syrian prison, is justified because revealing critical information about the case would cast U.S. officials in a negative light. James Bovard points out that this argument by the Obama administration implies there will be "sovereign immunity" for torturers.
Only tyrants justify madness like kidnapping an innocent man from his home, shipping him to a secret prison, and then torturing him. The full evilness of the Obama administration cannot be ignored. His election into the White House pointed to a rising sun, but a hidden darkness has permeated his administration so far. And if Timothy Geithner, and Stanley A. McChrystal, as well as the other men that Obama has selected to serve below him, are representative of his own character, then he is not a promoter of peace, but a master of deceit.
The Military Crisis
There is a crisis of truth and accountability in America, and all institutions must claim some responsibility for what has become of American values, but none more so than the U.S. military because it has been used as the attack dog in the "War on Terror." The men and women in uniform that have quietly fought and died for their country deserve our greatest admiration, but how can their deeds be honored when they've killed a million of Iraqis without any true moral justifications? The people of Afghanistan and Iraq committed zero crimes against America, and that fact means that the military has participated in evil.
But it is not the military's fault. Military officers have been tricked and deceived just like the rest of the world. And their fate is significantly more tragic because they have suffered for the lies of Empire, the lies of Zionism, and the lies of the "War on Terror." The fault lies with the "dark side" that has taken hold of the U.S. military ever since the conclusion of the WWII, and the beginning of the Cold War.
Jeremy Scahill said on Democracy Now on June 17, 2010, that Obama's military escalation in Afghanistan is led by the man who "represents the rise of the dark side" in the U.S. military:
What’s happened is here is that McChrystal represents the rise of the dark side, and Obama has taken a man that was used to operating with no accountability on the dark side of the US national security apparatus and made him the commander of the entire war in Afghanistan with carte blanche to do what he wants in that region. The combination of him and David Petraeus, who’s Cheney’s general, means that you have the dark side now essentially running the US military.Petraeus's collapse during a Senate hearing on Afghanistan this past week could be a sign of things to come for America at large.
But I will not count America out. To me, the country still represents the "last, best hope of Mankind." I seriously hope that there are good men left in the U.S. military because America cannot be redeemed if its military leaders are not ready to follow their conscience, and restore America's moral standing in the world. I pray to God that US generals, who said that they would 'resign' if Bush ordered an attack on Iran in 2007, still stand by what they said today when Obama gives the order to strike.
Here is an excerpt from The Times article in February 2007 called "US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack":
In my eyes, a rebellion inside the military against the "dark side" led by moral, and patriotic American generals, commanders, marines, soldiers, sailors, and pilots, needs to happen if America is to survive as a nation. Such a rebellion is unlikely, and not preferable, if the American people don't wholeheartedly support the bravery of the patriotic men. And I believe the American people will not only support them, but take the lead. The recent political awakening of the American people suggests that they will encourage the efforts by enlightened members of the military to help renew American politics, help prosecute U.S. war criminals in American war tribunals, and help transition the country back to a constitutional republic.SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”
A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”
Am I too much of a dreamer? Maybe. Could this rebellion really happen? Maybe. But it is better to dream for a new world than live in the nightmare of an old one. A rebellion inside the military against the empire's wars is an outcome that we must all hope for, because without an enlightened and moral military, America is doomed as a nation.
May God Bless the men and women who serve in the U.S. military, and the many wounded veterans. May they act wisely, and boldly.
