Bush-Cheney Really Are Planning to Attack Iran!

"Look out -- here they come again! Bush & Buckshot are riding their little stick horses, waving the bloody flag of 9/11, demonizing another Muslim nation, shouting warnings about weapons of mass destruction, bellowing for regime change, and generally trying to whoop up a new war." Bleck. Okay, maybe, just maybe, Iran has plans for nuclear weapons. The problem is that the current situation is an obvious retread of the leadup to the Iraq war, the same arguments being pushed forward etc. The administration has very little credibility, they lied through their teeth the last time so why should we trust them today?

Maybe the problem is that many people are still believing the lies told about Iraq and therefore aren't questioning the same sorts of statements being said about Iran.

In the article Jim Hightower considers and dashes these claims:-

• Claim: Iran is in cahoots with al Qaeda, the demons who crashbombed America on 9/11.
• Claim: WMDs! Iran is on the brink of making a nuclear bomb, thus posing an imminent threat to America and to our national interests.
• Claim: Those dastardly Iranians are meddling in our war in Iraq by supplying weapons to our enemies and by sending intelligence agents to undermine Iraq's government.

On the other hand consider ... Deception: British Reporter Adrian Levy on How the United States Secretly Helped Pakistan Build Its Nuclear Arsenal ...

The U.S. has been secretly helping Pakistan build their nuclear arsenal. Eek.. Uhm, first that Pakistan and India both have nuclear weapons is very troublesome because they are engaged in a long-running border feud, end have a couple times threatened to nuke each others countries. In any case the Democracy Now article is itself very alarming in what they say concerning proliferation.

Pakistan's nuclear program head, A.Q. Khan, has been actively pursuing sales of nuclear weapons materials to other countries including the ones which Pres. Bush labeled as the Axis of Terror. There was an orchestrated public pardoning of A.Q. Khan, even though he actively proliferated nuclear weapons technology. I suppose that behind the scenes it's possible that he has "told all" to U.S. Intelligence to give details about what materials were proliferated, and to whom they were provided. I suppose if so the U.S. has information it hasn't revealed about nuclear programs. And it is curious that Libya publicly abandoned their nuclear weapons program, in exchange for closer ties with "The West" around the same time as this public pardoning of Mr. Khan.

Article Reference: 

Bush-Cheney Really Are Planning to Attack Iran!

Deception: British Reporter Adrian Levy on How the United States Secretly Helped Pakistan Build Its Nuclear Arsenal

Crackdown On the Press: General Musharraf Shuts Down Two of Pakistan's Biggest Private Television News Channels

extvideo: 

PushmePullyouism with Iran

There's a lot of will-he-or-won't-he going on in terms of whether or not the U.S. and/or the world is being prepared to attack Iran. Here's two extremes ...

Why Bush won't attack Iran describes some of the inner dance going around the Administration -- and describes that Condoleeza Rice's job is to develop a third alternative between the bomb-or-do-not-bomb-Iran pair of options. Rather, that's what she has been doing, but the time has run out.

The article references a report by Joe Klein of a December 2006 meeting where they deeply discussed the possibility of successfully attacking Iran. The results showed it being very unsuccessful and that led them to begin covert actions to attempt destabilization Iran. Given the U.S. track record of destablizing countries I suppose we could expect a coup or revolt in Iran sooner or later.

On the other hand Bush setting America up for war with Iran describes how the Pentagon has drawn up lists of 2000+ targets in Iran and is making war plans.

Hmm... who to believe???

Article Reference: 

Bush setting America up for war with Iran

Why Bush won't attack Iran

extvideo: 

Rushing into war with Iran?

The threat of war in Iran is looming even larger than ever. For example, France warning of war with Iran is very interesting considering France's opposition role leading up to the Iraq invasion.

Bush setting America up for war with Iran ... in a way this is "DUH" because for well over a year the same script used on Iraq has been used on Iran. And don't forget that the Neocon plan cooked up in the 1990's was to take over the world starting by toppling the government in Iraq and then to move on to either Iran or Syria depending on the way things go.

...Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated programme of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran....In a chilling scenario of how war might come, a senior intelligence officer warned that public denunciation of Iranian meddling in Iraq - arming and training militants - would lead to cross border raids on Iranian training camps and bomb factories....Under the theory - which is gaining credence in Washington security circles - US action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities and even its armed forces....Senior officials believe Mr Bush's inner circle has decided he does not want to leave office without first ensuring that Iran is not capable of developing a nuclear weapon....The vice president is said to advocate the use of bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear sites...

Nukes?? And just what were they complaining about Iraq's possession of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" for if these jerks want to use nukes?? And also, nowhere in the article does it mention as justification the war on terrorism. Um, wait a minute, the war we're fighting is supposed to be about smashing the terrorist threat, right? So shouldn't that be what this is about? Or has the administration given up on hiding their true motives behind propping up the terrorism threat?

Rogue regulator or smooth operator? .. Drift into war with Iran out of control, says UN .. An Indispensable Irritant to Iran and Its Foes .. French-kissing the war on Iran .. Mohammed elBaradei, the chief of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently reminded "the world" that it's the United Nations who authorizes the use of force: "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons," ElBaradei said.

His statements a couple days ago raised strange ire among Washington officialdom. But he is playing the same role he played leading to the invasion of Iraq. In both Iraq and Iran the powers that be are stretching the truth, or perhaps lying, and acting in violation of International Law.

Links: 

Bush setting America up for war with Iran

External Media

War Protest Rally, San Francisco, March 19, 2007

It's four years almost to the day since the start of the illegal invasion of Iraq. The last war rally I attended, on March 15, 2003 was on the very eve of the launch of that war. If you read that report March 15, 2003 was a very exciting day for me, what with watching a cat-and-mouse game between police and an unofficial protest march I came across going down Market street that ended with a couple hundred arrests of people who had essentially been simply walking down the sidewalk and making a bit of noise.

As a measure of something related to the greater significance of the protest rally .. the march route four years ago went through some very non-mainstream areas of San Francisco, through neighborhoods with many surveillance cameras (can you cay 'high crime neighborhood'). The protesters I mentioned who had been arrested were trying to take the protest to Market street, because that's where the significance is if you can be visible in front of all the tourists etc. This year the protest rally started at The Embarcadero, went down Market Street, and ended in the Civic Center plaza across the street from City Hall. You couldn't have asked for a route with more significant visibility in San Francisco.

I took Caltrain up the Peninsula and it was more than exciting how jampacked the train was with war protesters. There were people handing out flyers, talking away with each other, a representative from Raging Grannies was teaching us some songs, etc. And .... that person remembered me from 2 1/2 years ago from the November 2004, San Francisco Autoshow when I accidentally bumped into a small scale protest staged by Medea Benjamin with Code Pink and Raging Grannies representatives who were climbing on top of Hummer's and chanting Hybrids not Hummers and calling into question the patrioticness of the HummerLovers ogling their dream vehicles.

StopIranWar.org

The Neocons who talked us into the Iraq war with their lies and deceit are preparing us for a war with Iran. The fools.

http://www.stopiranwar.com/ is about stopping this incipient war.

All Americans want to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons and interfering on the ground inside Iraq. Yet President Bush’s saber rattling gives the US little additional leverage to engage and dissuade Iran, and, more than likely, simply accelerates a dangerous slide into war. The United States can do better than this.

Whatever the pace of Iran’s nuclear efforts, in the give and take of the Administration’s rhetoric and accusations, we are approaching the last moments to head off looming conflict.

Cannot the world’s most powerful nation deign speak to the resentful and scheming regional power that is Iran? Can we not speak of the interests of others, work to establish a sustained dialogue, and seek to benefit the people of Iran and the region? Could not such a dialogue, properly conducted, begin a process that could, over time, help realign hardened attitudes and polarizing views within the region? And isn’t it easier to undertake such a dialogue now, before more die, and more martyrs are created to feed extremist passions?

So begins the war against Iran...?

In Background material for the second Gulf "War" and Is Syria (or Iran) next? and Next: Iran? and Er... What's this about threatening Syria? I long ago noted that the launch of the Iraq invasion was exactly in line with the strategy outlined by the Project for a New American Century way back in the mid 1990's. All through the invasion of Iraq the administration has been demonizing both Syria and Iran, making not-so-idle threats, etc. The pattern of the administration in the past has, before launching a war, to demonize the designated target so that by the time you're ready to launch the war your populace already has a dim view of the target.

This: US to target anti-Iraq activity: "US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned that the US will take action against countries destabilising Iraq." ..and.. War With Syria and Iran = Peace With Iraq?

Paired with: U.S. forces raid Iranian office in Iraq ..and.. Iranians detained in raid on consulate in Iraq ..and.. U.S.-Led Forces Detain 6 Iranian Workers

Well, that makes for a dangerous combination. Attacking a consulate? Don't consulates get diplomatic immunity? In any case this warning shot of smacking at Iranian presence in Iraq, while on the same day raising the threats against Iran even further, just strikes me as being the opening salvo to a full attack or war against Iran.

Don’t Get Too Excited about the President’s Warning to Iran and Syria has Andrew McCarthy saying don't worry, "he"'s not saying we're getting ready to attack Iran for real. It's only about shoring up the territorial integrity of Iraq.

Hmmmph... Maybe so, but this administration has proved over and over that their statements have hidden agenda's drawn from the NeoCon plan proposed during the 1990's. The essence of the plan was to reestablish western supremacy over the Middle East and to do so by "installing" moderate democracies beginning with Iraq. Phase two was to be an invasion of either Iran or Syria. The supposed plan was that the effect of moderate democracies in the middle of the Middle East would influence neighboring countries away from radical Islamic thinking.

But we've seen so far in Iraq that it's done the opposite. That our very presence there has led the people to rise up against the intruders, namely us, filling the ranks of the forces that are fighting against the West. The war we launched to squash this movement towards radical Islam has turned into the biggest recruiting tool for those radical Islamic forces.

Iran Nuclear threat a hoax? Or not?

Iran. Nuclear weapons. Sigh. Iran is part of the so-called axis of evil, which included Iraq and North Korea. North Korea has been pronounced to be a threat, they recently set off a small nuclear weapon of some kind, and this week Pres. George W. Bush was reported to have repeated the statement that growth of nuclear capabilities in North Korea is a major problem. Ditto the growth of nuclear capabilities in Iran.

Yet, the same week Congress finally voted approval for a deal Pres. Bush made with India to provide them with some nuclear technology. It's funny how India has nuclear weapons, is not a signatory to the non-proliferation treaties, and the U.S. is providing them with nuclear technology. It's especially funny how Iran is a signatory to the non-proliferation treaties, has not yet created nuclear weapons, yet the U.S. is threatening to invade Iran. Oh, and Pakistan, the country that was the worst proliferator of nuclear technology, without whom North Korea would not have gotten anywhere, is a partner to the U.S.

Very strange.

The process with Iran is seemingly the same as it was for Iraq leading up to the 2003 invasion of that country. There are shady exile groups making bold claims against the Iranian leadership, just as there were for Iraqi leadership. There are pronouncements and demonization by the U.S. leadership, just as there was for Iraq. etc. Yet we learned later that the whole story spun about Iraq was a total fabrication, and that seemingly the U.S. leadership knew they were lying while they were spinning their web of lies. The question is, how truthful are they being about Iran, or is this story just another big web of lies?

Hersh: CIA Analysis Finds Iran Not Developing Nuclear Weapons Reports that a classified CIA document finds there is no developing nuclear threat in Iran. Further, the Bush Administration realized before the election that it's likely they would lose, and that Cheney threatened that their loss "would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran" that "the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions" preventing Congress from getting in their way.

Hurm.. sounds like a constitutional crisis brewing here.

The system of checks and balances are supposed to keep one branch of U.S. government from riding roughshod over the others. But the last few years we've had a Congress that rubber stamped everything the administration told them to do. And among those things were suspensions or deletions of some of the checks and balances.

The Next Act is a New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh that was used as the source for the above article.

35-nations meet on denying Iran nuclear assistance "A push by Western nations to deny Iran technical help in building a plutonium-producing reactor has gathered enough support to be approved by the 35-nation board of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, diplomats said. Still, differences both within the Western camp and more broadly among different factions on the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on how harshly to punish Iran for its nuclear defiance persisted on the eve of the opening meeting Monday, the diplomats said. "

IAEA likely to block Iran atom aid at meeting "The U.N. nuclear watchdog is likely at a politically charged meeting this week to put on ice Iran's request for help with a heavy-water plant due to fears it could yield plutonium for atom bombs, diplomats say. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board urged Iran in February to "reconsider" the Arak reactor project. But Tehran vows to complete it and applied for IAEA technical expertise to ensure the plant meets safety standards. Although IAEA approval of such requests is usually routine, Western board members say the Arak case must be rejected given Iran's record of evading IAEA non-proliferation inspections and its defiance of U.N. demands to stop enriching uranium. "

Zbig Brzezinski: Israel's Actions in Lebanon Essentially Amount to "the Killing of Hostages"

Zbig Brzezinski: Israel's Actions in Lebanon Essentially Amount to "the Killing of Hostages" is a partial transcript of a talk given by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski about the current mess. The most interesting part is this: Brzezinski stated: "I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect -- maybe not in intent -- the killing of hostages. The killing of hostages. ... Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you're killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You'll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing."

Yup, he's implying that Israel is perhaps taking actions they know will have collateral damage, and using the innocents being killed as a wedge to get the Hezbollah fighters to stop fighting. However I completely understand his contention that it's more likely to cause Hezbollah fighters to be outraged, to cause more people to join Hezbollah, just like has happened in Iraq where the U.S. led invasion has simply been the biggest recruiting vehicle for the other side. In both cases it leads people who might remain innocent bystanders to seek revenge or to seek to throw out an invading and occupying force.

I think the technical term for this is blowback, which is the unintended negative consequences of covert actions taken by a country's intelligence or military services.

For example, the September 11, 2001 attack was blowback for all the years of Western meddling in Middle East affairs, and more specifically for the presence of U.S. military in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait following the first Iraq war.

FOX News Deliberately Hides Fact That "Middle East Analyst" Is Apocalyptic Christian Preacher

FOX News Deliberately Hides Fact That "Middle East Analyst" Is Apocalyptic Christian Preacher: Was posted by the FOX News watchers at www.newshounds.us. The newshounds.us project was launched by Robert Greenwald as part of the team that built the evidence presented in OUTFOXED.

The blog posting is about the appearance of author Michael D. Evans as a "Middle East Analyst" on the FOX & Friends hosted by Mike Jerrick. The problem is, Evans is also an evangelical preacher who specializes in "End Of Days Christianity". His world view is based on, we're in Armageddon, and the musty old writings in the Book of Revelations should be our guide post.

Yet, he was presented on the news program as a serious "Middle East Analyst". And this isn't the only time christian fundamentalists have been aired on FOX, presented as serious middle east analysts, without also disclosing their background in fundamentalism.

If you didn't already know it, FOX News is lying.

Notice Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Iran

If you're like me, you probably didn't even know there was any special status between the U.S. and Iran.

According to Notice Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Iran (A White House press release), in 1995 President Clinton declared a state of National Emergency towards Iran. And, on March 16, 2006, that order was extended.

The coming world oil disruptions

I was in my young teens in the early 1970's when the oil embargo was used against the U.S. In the second oil embargo I was in college. Those two events really affected me and is what's driving me today to study energy supplies.

Stanford EMF: 80% Probability of Major Oil Disruption in Next Ten Years covers a study done by Hillard Huntington, Executive Director Energy Modeling Forum (EMF), Stanford University, which discusses the probabilities of another oil disruption.

Thinking about it now, this shouldn't be surprising. For example we are threatening Iran right now which could easily turn into a major oil disruption. And generally speaking, OPEC did it before (staging oil disruptions) so why wouldn't they do it again?

The thing that's really alarming is what the effect would be.

In the 1970's the recessions we had then were likely triggered by the oil embargo's. Those oil embargo's caused the price of oil to rise pretty high. Remember Carter's Windfall Profits Tax? President Enron nor Vice President Halliburton nor Secretary of State Chevron are likely to push for such a tax, but we have the same conditions today that occurred in the 1970's that prompted that tax.

In the 1970's the U.S. imported 35% of its' oil needs. Today we import 70% of our oil needs. If there were another oil disruption today, the effect on the U.S. would be far more dramatic than the effect in the 1970's.

Should Donald Rumsfeld be charged with Genocide alongside Saddam Hussein?

Will Any Americans Be Charged As Accomplices in Saddam's Genocide Trial? raises an interesting point. Saddam Hussein has been charged for Genocide based on stuff done in the early 1980's. At that time the U.S. government was actively supporting the Iraq government, U.S. officials knew all about the Iraqi use of chemical weapons, the U.S. officials knew Iraq was violating the treaty against chemical weapon use, and despite that those same U.S. officials continued supplying money, armaments, intelligence, etc in Iraq's war against Iran.

That makes Rumsfeld just as culpable in the "Genocide" as is Hussein.

Or, that's what the article says. Like I said, that's an interesting thought.

Inside the US's regime-change school

For a couple years the Bush Administration has been rattling war against Iran (and Syria). (see here, here, here, and background material for the Iraq war for some of my previous coverage).

The justification is said to be Iran's plan to build out nuclear weapons ability. Except Iran says their plans are for peaceful nuclear power production, just for electricity. And, in any case, Iran is a Non Proliferation Treaty signatory and apparently they haven't done anything to violate that treaty. It's more than a little contradictory that on the one hand we are threatening Iran, who has yet to violate the NPT, while we are making a broad deal with India to support their nuclear power program, and India has never signed on to the NPT and is known to have (today) nuclear weapons.

Logic has never been a strong suit of the Bush Administration. And given their clear goal of toppling Iran after toppling Iraq we shouldn't be surprised to have them invent some kind of justification for launching a new war.

Inside the US's regime-change school offers an interesting glimpse into a "regime change school". It's clear to me the article isn't highly verifiable, instead it's an account of one person who "accidentally" attended a secretive U.S. backed program to train activists in methods that can be used to topple a government.

The "school" was a week-long session held at a Holiday Inn in Dubai. Sessions were led by members of the Otpor democratic movement that overthrew the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. And, given the secretive nature of the "school" the hotel advertised them as "Griffin Hospital".

In class, the Serbian instructors organized role-playing games in which the participants would assume the personas of characters such an Iranian woman or a Shi'ite cleric. Throughout these exercises in empathy and psychology, stress was laid on the importance of ridiculing the political elite as an effective tool of demythologizing them in the eyes of the people.

"They taught us what methods they used in Serbia to bring down Milosevic," Nilofar said. "They taught us some of them so we could choose the best one to bring down the regime, but they didn't mention directly bringing down the regime - they just taught us what they had done in their own country."

Hurm... your tax dollars at work, I suppose.

Later in the article Nilofar described the activists as mahrum, a Farsi word for deprived. Apparently the ones inside Iran most clamoring for change are "lower-class families who have been deprived of everything and now they've decided to overthrow the government".

Asia Times Online :: India to join Turkmenistan gas pipeline

Hopefully you saw Fahrenheit 9/11, the movie by Michael Moore that was prominent in 2004. His main topic throughout the movie was to explore cronyism and how that created the war in Iraq. The main example is the laundry list of business ties between the Administration, the Saudi royalty and even to the bin Laden family. That most of the Administration has ties to the Oil Industry (both GW and GHW Bush owned oil companies, VP Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton, Chevron named an oil tanker for Condoleeza Rice, etc) figured heavily in this movie.

In one segment Moore talked about the oil in Central Asia and the U.S. plan for bringing that oil to market. The Central Asia oil has been a matter of power play for several years, and it's land-locked position that isn't easily accessible makes it difficult to "extract" and sell on the market. Taking it in one direction, you'd be going through Russia. Another direction and you're going across Siberia and then the port is in the arctic and probably locked in by ice. And to the south are steep mountains, some of the highest in the world. Also to the south is Iran, a sworn enemy of the U.S.

The chosen U.S. route was through Afghanistan. The U.S. has pushed for this route since the 1990's. The problem was, neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan were terribly friendly to the U.S. The Taliban was in control, and Pakistan was very friendly with the Taliban. It didn't make any difference that during the 1980's the U.S. worked closely with Pakistan and the people who became the Taliban. In the 1980's the menace was Russia's invasion of Afghanistan, and the U.S. effort to drive Russia out, which meant a secret operation supplying the mujahadeen (as they were known then) with arms and training. By the 1990's that was long in the past, and U.S. policy had shifted away. Even so the Taliban government visited the U.S., as Michael Moore documented, working to negotiate both the opium poppy eradication as well as the pipeline deal.

BTW, since the toppling of the Taliban government, opium poppy production has sprung back to pre-Taliban levels.

In any case there was an existing plan to run an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. And you can imagine the big question in U.S. and oil industry planning -- how the heck do we get access to Afghanistan? Essentially that country had become enemy territory.

Conveniently the September 11, 2001 attack provided the needed excuse. The culprits were in Afghanistan, which gave us all the excuse in the world to invade that country, topple its government, etc.

And, now, conveniently the path was clear. Afghanistan was no longer essentially enemy territory. Further, in the process of making war on Afghanistan the U.S. established bases and cooperation with several Central Asian countries. These countries had been carved out of the former Soviet Union after its collapse in the early 1990's.

A nagging question is whether the September 11, 2001 attack was merely a coincidence, or whether some behind the scenes conspiracy created it? There's enough connections there to make one ponder. The Bush family had ties with the bin Laden family, to the point that one of the bin Laden cousins bailed George W Bush out of at least one of his failed businesses. And there was the pre-existing plan for a pipeline through Afghanistan, and coincidentally the major players in creating that plan are now major players in both the Afghanistan government and the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan.

But there isn't enough proven data to truly connect the attack to any behind the scenes conspiracy. So we'll just leave that question dangling out there.

What's of interest now is this article: India to join Turkmenistan gas pipeline

It discusses two different pipeline projects to bring Natural Gas to "market". One is the US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) while the other is the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI).

This appears to be part of the larger geopolitics power struggle. The different sources of these two pipelines is interesting. Iran being an U.S. enemy at this moment makes this statement interesting:

Moreover, unlike IPI, the project does not run the risk of being blacklisted for participation by US and European financiers and companies. The US has been encouraging Pakistan to abandon the IPI project and consider TAP for meeting its gas needs.

Blacklisted?? This isn't explained, but clearly the official relationship with Iran is problematic for many countries. But Pakistan probably has a lot of cooperation with Iran, given they share a long border and probably have common cultural elements. But to the U.S. and the "west" Iran is a pariah, being controlled by fundamentalists who are opposed to the western powers.

Iraq, Vietnam all over again?

In Permanent bases in Iraq? Tom Engelhardt suggests we interpret Iraq as Vietnam.  Iraq is a worsening situation, where it's hard to see any face-saving exit from the country and where the population is increasingly rising up against the American presence.  Plus, at home there's a growing anger over this war.  I don't know what's taken the American people so long, the war is clearly illegal and immoral.

Engelhardt's main point of discussion is to contrast the plan for troop reductions with a fact "on the ground".  Namely the presence of the permanent bases that have been constructed, which cost several billion dollars.  An army engineer tasked with facilities development described them in an engineering magazine article with "staggering" cost.  If the plan is to withdraw, then why spend billions of dollars on bases?

One of the bases has finally been discussed in the mainstream press as having a "small town feel".  It has all the comforts of home, extensive telecom and other infrastructure, etc.  And in the London Telegraph is another covering the still-under-construction al-Asad airbase.  Apparently each of these bases cover 15-20 square miles of land.  There are at least four of these bases in Iraq and the fact we're stating this as "at least" is a symptom of the secrecy.

Re: The price of gasoline could get ugly in 2006

The "Hybrid Cars Blog" suggests that in 2006, the price of gasoline could get ugly. That is, the high gas prices seen in the U.S. last year could be as bad, or worse. See: The price of gasoline could get ugly in 2006

The story seems to be that the cause for last years oil price surge can be found in the gap between China having increasing oil use and weather related outages in oil delivery. This year China's surging oil demand is still there, plus we have several possible outages in oil delivery such as "rebels" in Nigeria attacking oil platforms, and the situation in Iran from which there could be several ways oil delivery could be blocked.

While that story is very true, it is also an example of short term thinking.

In the long term picture the price for oil can only go up. In the short term there will be fluctuations, but long term is a different story. Why? It's because the demand continues to go up in an unabated curve, and the Peak Oil scenario is looming out there.

The Peak Oil scenario is a model developed by oil company scientists that describes production capacity over time. The model shows that the world oil production capability will peak. Already discoveries of new oil fields has dried up with discoveries not at all meeting the growth in demand for oil.

UPDATE in December 2006 ... the price for oil and gasoline did get very high up until September. Then it curiously dropped just before the election, and then has curiously risen a little since the election. Makes one wonder if some kind of price manipulation was being tried by the oil industry to prop up the Republicans? If so, it didn't work.

Public meeting on Iraq, Iraq policy, Rep. Murtha, and the possibilities to impeach the President

I just watched a 2 1/2 hour long meeeting recorded from C-SPAN, which I learned about from here: American Foreign Policy, Part Deux. It was an opportunity for Representative Murtha to explain and discuss a proposal he's made to withdraw from Iraq. The Republicans and Neocons have been jumping all over him, calling him a coward, unpatriotic, etc (note: he served in two wars, in the Marines, and has a ream of medals to show for his service). The action towards Rep. Murtha is just following the prior pattern when anybody dares to say the slightest thing against the Administration, that out of the woodwork comes various kinds of attacks and most especially to question the patriotism of the person who made the criticism.

Are so insecure that they can't stand a little scrutiny and criticism ...??

Anyway, here is what Karen Kwiatkowski has to say about the C-SPAN show:

A lot of Americans are waking up to this Part One, as the recent standing room only town meeting co-hosted by Virginia Democrat Jim Moran and Pennsylvania Republican Jack Murtha. Watch the video. It is shock television at its best, courtesy C-span. Murtha and Moran say they want troops out soonest, and both insist we are not building permanent military bases in Iraq. Like I say, it's shock TV - see for yourself!

(The video is linked above -- you will need the Real Video player to view it)

They held a "town hall" meeting that was jam-packed, where they turned away more people than could actually attend the event, etc. It was a very spirited event from what I can tell via the recording.

Rep. Murtha's suggestion is that we should withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq NOW. That we should let the Iraq government take over. That we should keep U.S. troops in the vicinity (e.g. Kuwait), I suppose so that troops are easily redeployed if the situation were to flare up.

I'm not so sure that's a good idea. Much as I am angry over the war in the first place, at how unnecessary it is, how it is a distraction from the real problem, how the administration lied to the world and the American people in order to launch the war, that withdrawing would leave a power vacuum that would simply result in a civil war as the different factions compete with each other to grab all the power. At least, that's what I am afraid of. Which just leaves me highly conflicted because we have no ethical, legal, or moral right to be in Iraq doing what we are doing.

Rep. Murtha also talked at length on the corruption (e.g. "no-bid" contracts which simply means the U.S. is being ripped off by defense contractors) and the horribly underfunded Veterans Administration (paid for by the tax cuts).

Many times the questions were "When are we going to Impeach the President". It was enlightening to hear both Rep. Murtha and Morin basically agree with the sentiment. It's basically been proved that the President and all the Presidents People lied us into this war, that it was premeditated back to 1992 (at least), that it has been horribly mismanaged, that the insurgency that is killing so many U.S. and Iraq people is directly attributable to the mismanagement, that the administration is criminally culpable in this, and that it is a reprehensible situation. Both of the Representatives basically agreed with this, but they kept saying how Impeachment was basically impossible.

They pointed to an investigatory hearing held by Rep. Conyers meant to explore the same issue. He just barely got approval to hold that hearing, in the first place, and the space he was given to hold it was in the basement. Relegated to the basement. See, the practical fact is that the Administrations party controls the Congress, and so long as the leadership is as it is, there is practically zero chance of Impeachment.

What Rep. Morin kept returning to is that we, the people, the ones for whom this most perfect union of a government exists, it is we who need to organize. The solution is in the ballot box, and it is in organizing the democracy for which we stand to stand up and take back the reins of government.

U.S. DoD planning to invade Iran, regardless of truth?

There's a continuing story going around Iran. e.g. are they developing nuclear weapons, or is their nuclear program peaceful? But, wait, the nuclear techniques they're following do produce weapons grade plution, oh, and they were working with Pakistan's nuclear program on some things, and it's known that the Pakistani nuclear program was busily spreading nuclear technology to the various "rogue states". But, my oh my, Pakistan is our friend, they can't be bad!

What if the neocon's are so dead set on their agenda that they're willing to invade a country even when there's no legitimate reason to do so? They did it once (Iraq) so what's to stop them from doing it again (Iran)???

In Washington it is hardly a secret that the same people in and around the administration who brought you Iraq are preparing to do the same for Iran. The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

From Deep Background by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, published The American Conservative magazine.

Yup, that's what the article says alright. If there's any kinda large terror attack, the plan is for the U.S. to invade Iran next. That the plan includes use of nuclear weapons. And "the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism", so the burden of proof is off.

Um, I dunno about you, but I think these people are dangerous. They need to be out of power NOW. And, I'm talking about the neocons running the U.S. government, not the Iranians. The Iranians might be dangerous, or they might be simply trying to defend themselves, that's remaining to be seen. It's the neocons that are running amok killing tens of thousands of people on flimsy evidence, and threatening to kill even more.

Powell may be lying, or not

Following the release of claims that Iran has yet more secret uranium enrichment facilities than have previously been disclosed - Colin Powell (at this point still U.S. Secretary of State) was quoted as saying he'd seen similar "intelligence" and that he believed the report. Despite it coming from an Iranian dissident group which the U.S. lists as a terrorist group.

This CNN article documents a little firestorm around his comments:


Source of Powell's Iran intelligence under scrutiny

Friday, November 19, 2004 Posted: 4:15 PM EST (2115 GMT) CNN.COM

"This allegation is timed to coincide with the next meeting of the board of governors of the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]," Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hussein Moussavian, said. "And every time just before the meeting there are these kind of allegations either from the United States or terrorist groups. And every time these allegations have proven to be false."

Now, this is much as I said a couple days ago. Curious timing this is. The denial is a little hollow, though, coming from an Iranian. Just as Powell's claim of having seen evidence is a little hollow, given his past performance at truthfulness (can you say 26 lies in the U.N. Security Council presentation in Feb 2003 to justify the Iraq invasion?).

So what we're left with is some he-said-he-said games and we can't really trust any of the speakers. Powell lied to the U.N. already, the dissident group is on the State Department terrorist list, and the Iranians may simply be covering their ass with public denials. What's the truth?

This is the problem with having lied in the past, Secretary Powell. We don't trust you any longer. If you hadn't lied to the U.N. then you would still have credibility and your claim today would hold water. While you will be gone soon, your designated successor has even less credibility.

Iran negotiations proceeding, having success

'Progress' at Iran nuclear talks (BBC)

The EU and various european countries are continuing their negotiations with Iran. The sword over their head is that if the negotiations fail, the EU will agree with U.S. to "refer" the Iran situation to the UN Security Council.

China is involved, having recently veto'd something that came to the UN Security Council. China is also in deep cahoots on a business level with Iran, being a big customer of Iran's oil. Iran is offering China that Iran would be their "gateway" to the Middle East, whatever that means. And the payback is obviously that China would do something to cover for them in the UN.

Iran Reaches Preliminary Nuclear Accord With Europe, IRNA Says


(Bloomberg) Nov. 7

"All four delegations are supposed to go to their capitals and if the capitals agree with the agreement, it will be officially announced in the next few days," Hossein Mousavian, the head of the Iran's delegation in the French capital told state television, IRNA reported.

Iran reached preliminary nuclear agreement with EU

11/7/2004 7:00:00 PM GMT (aljazeera.com)

Iran asks Bush to “change behavior