The
US Congress, the US media, the American people,
and the United Nations, are looking the other
way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran.
If only America had an independent media and
an opposition party. If there were a shred of
integrity left in American political life, perhaps
a third act of naked aggression--a third war crime
under the Nuremberg standard--by the Bush Regime
could be prevented.
On March 30, the Russian News & Information
Agency, Novosti, cited "a high-ranking security
source: "The latest military intelligence
data point to heightened US military preparations
for both an air and ground operation against Iran."
According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General
Leonid Ivashov said "that the Pentagon is
planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's
military infrastructure in the near future."
The chief of Russia's general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky,
said last November that Russia was beefing up
its military in response to US aggression, but
that the Russian military is not "obliged
to defend the world from the evil Americans."
On March 29, OpEdNews cited a report by the Saudi
Arabian newspaper Okaz, which was picked up by
the German news service, DPA. The Saudi newspaper
reported on March 22, the day following Cheney's
visit with the kingdom's rulers, that the Saudi
Shura Council 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."
And Admiral William "there will be no attack
on Iran on my watch" Fallon has been removed
as US chief of Central Command, thus clearing
the way for Cheney's planned attack on Iran.
The Iranians don't seem to believe it, despite
the dispatch of US nuclear submarines and another
aircraft carrier attack group to the Persian Gulf.
To counter any Iranian missiles launched in response
to an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile
defenses to protect US bases and Saudi oil fields.
Two massive failures by the American media, the
Democratic Party, and the American people have
paved the way for Cheney's long planned attack
on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism
about the US government's explanation of 9/11.
The other failure is the Democrats' refusal to
begin impeachment proceedings against President
Bush for lying to the Congress, the American people,
and the world and launching an invasion of Iraq
based on deception and fabricated evidence.
If an American president can start a war exactly
as Adolf Hitler did with pure lies and not be
held accountable, he can get away with anything.
And Bush and his evil regime have.
Hitler launched World War II with his invasion
of Poland after staging a "Polish attack"
on a German radio station. On the night of August
31, 1939, a group of Nazis disguised in Polish
uniforms seized a radio station in Germany. Hitler
announced that "last night Polish troops
crossed the frontier and attacked Germany,"
a claim no more true than the Bush Regime's claim
that "Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction." Hitler's lie failed, because
his invasion of Poland, which began the next day
allegedly in reprisal for the Polish attack, had
obviously been planned for many months.
Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It
is an ancient civilization. It has attacked no
one. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation
Treaty. Iran is permitted by the treaty to have
a nuclear energy program. The Bush Regime's case
against Iran is based on the Bush Regime's desire
to deny Iran its rights under the treaty.
The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors
have repeatedly reported that they have found
no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Despite all the disinformation from US Gen. Petraeus
and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is
not arming the Iraqis who are resisting the American
occupation.
If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents
would have two weapons that would neutralize the
US advantage in the Iraqi conflict: missiles to
knock down US helicopter gunships and rocket-propelled
grenades that knock out American tanks. The insurgents
do not have these weapons and must construct clumsy
anti-tank weapons out of artillery shells. The
insurgents are helpless against US air power and
cannot mass forces to take on the American troops.
Indiscriminate American violence has reduced
Iraq to rubble. The civilian infrastructure is
essentially destroyed--electricity, water and
sewer systems, medical care and schools. Depleted
uranium is everywhere poisoning everyone, including
US troops. There is no economy, and half or more
of Iraqis are unemployed. Literally no Iraqi family
has escaped an injury or a death as a consequence
of the US invasion. Millions of Iraqis have become
displaced persons. A developed country with a
professional middle class has been destroyed because
of lies told by the President and Vice President
of the US. The Bush Regime's lies are echoed by
a neoconservative media, and have gone unchallenged
by the opposition party and an indifferent American
public.
In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on
even the smallest village from the air. America's
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars against
the civilian populations.
Just as the world could not believe Hitler's
next horror and thus was always unprepared, the
Iranians despite all the evidence cannot believe
that even the Great Satan would gratuitously attack
Iran based on nothing but lies about non-existent
nuclear weapons.
Iran's only chance would be to strike before
the US delivers the first blow. Instead of using
its missiles to take out the Saudi oil fields
and to sink the US aircraft carriers, instead
of closing the Strait of Hormuz, instead of arming
the Iraqi Shi'ites and moving them to insurgency,
Iran is perched like a sitting duck in denial
even as the US and its Iraqi puppet Maliki move
to eliminate Al Sadr's Iraqi Shi'ite militia in
order to avoid supply disruptions and a Shi'ite
rebellion in Iraq when the US attack on Iran comes.
It is important to emphasize that Iran is making
no moves toward war. Having tamed, blackmailed,
and purchased Congress, the US media, and US allies
and puppets, Cheney might delight in the arrogance
with which he can now attack Iran free of any
restraint or fabricated provocation. On the other
hand, he might cover himself by orchestrating
an "Iranian provocation" to justify
his attack as a response. But like Hitler's planned
attack against Poland, Cheney's attack on Iran
has long been in the works.
On March 29 the Associated Press reported that
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi "poured contempt
on fellow Arab leaders" at the Arab summit
that day. Gadhafi told the Arab "leaders,"
many of whom are on the American payroll, that
their American masters would turn on them all,
just as America turned on Saddam Hussein after
using him to fight a proxy war against Iran.
Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, Gadhafi
reminded the Arabs, "but they sold him out."
Gadhafi told the American puppets, "Your
turn is next."
Gadhafi asked, "Where is the Arabs' dignity,
their future, their very existence?" If Arabs
remain disunited, he predicted, "they will
turn themselves into protectorates. They will
be marginalized and turn into garbage dumps."
Indeed, it is this disunity that permits the
US to bomb and murder at will in the Middle East.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He
was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal
editorial page and Contributing Editor of National
Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good
Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
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