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UK Govt Sources Confirm War With Iran Is On
Abookamongstthemany
Posts: 8,209
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14170.htm
UK Govt Sources Confirm War With Iran Is On
In the last few days, I learned from a credible and informed source that a former senior Labour government Minister, who continues to be well-connected to British military and security officials, confirms that Britain and the United States.
"... will go to war with Iran before the end of the year."
By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
07/24/06 "Information Clearing House" -- - As we now know from similar reporting prior to the invasion of Iraq, it's quite possible that the war planning may indeed change repeatedly, and the war may again be postponed. In any case, it's worth noting that the information from a former Labour Minister corroborates expert analyses suggesting that Israel, with US and British support, is deliberately escalating the cycle of retaliation to legitimize the imminent targeting of Iran before year's end. Let us remind ourselves, for instance, of US Vice President Cheney's assertions recorded on MSNBC over a year ago. He described Iran as being "right at the top of the list" of "rogue states". He continued: "One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked... Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."
But the emphasis on Israel's pre-eminent role in a prospective assault on Iran is not accurate. Israel would rather play the role of a regional proxy force in a US-led campaign. "Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East..." reports Seymour Hersh. He quotes a former high-level US intelligence official as follows:
"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah-we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."
Are these just the fanatical pipedreams of the neoconservative faction currently occupying (literally) the White House?
Unfortunately, no. The Iraq War was one such fanatical pipedream in the late 1990s, one that Bush administration officials were eagerly ruminating over when they were actively and directly involved in the Project for a New American Century. But that particular pipedream is now a terrible, gruelling reality for the Iraqi people. Despite the glaring failures of US efforts in that country, there appears to be a serious inability to recognize the futility of attempting the same in Iran.
The Monterey Institute for International Studies already showed nearly two years ago in a detailed analysis that the likely consequences of a strike on Iran by the US, Israel, or both, would be a regional conflagaration that could quickly turn nuclear, and spiral out of control. US and Israeli planners are no doubt aware of what could happen. Such a catastrophe would have irreversible ramifications for the global political economy. Energy security would be in tatters, precipitating the activation of long-standing contingency plans to invade and occupy all the major resource-rich areas of the Middle East and elsewhere (see my book published by Clairview, Behind the War on Terror for references and discussion). Such action could itself trigger responses from other major powers with fundamental interests in maintaining their own access to regional energy supplies, such as Russia and particularly China, which has huge interests in Iran. Simultaneously, the dollar-economy would be seriously undermined, most likely facing imminent collapse in the context of such crises.
Which raises pertinent questions about why Britain, the US and Israel are contemplating such a scenario as a viable way of securing their interests.
A glimpse of an answer lies in the fact that the post-9/11 military geostrategy of the "War on Terror" does not spring from a position of power, but rather from entirely the opposite. The global system has been crumbling under the weight of its own unsustainability for many years now, and we are fast approaching the convergence of multiple crises that are already interacting fatally as I write. The peak of world oil production, of which the Bush administration is well aware, either has already just happened, or is very close to happening. It is a pivotal event that signals the end of the Oil Age, for all intents and purposes, with escalating demand placing increasing pressure on dwindling supplies. Half the world's oil reserves are, more or less, depleted, which means that it will be technologically, geophysically, increasingly difficult to extract conventional oil. I had a chat last week with some scientists from the Omega Institute in Brighton, directed by my colleague and friend Graham Ennis, who told me eloquently and powerfully what I already knew, that while a number of climate "tipping-points" may or may not have yet been passed, we have about 10-15 years before the "tipping-point" is breached certainly and irreversibly. Breaching that point means plunging head-first into full-scale "climate catastrophe". Amidst this looming Armageddon of Nature, the dollar-denominated economy itself has been teetering on the edge of spiralling collapse for the last seven years or more. This is not idle speculation. A financial analyst as senior as Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan's immediate predecessor as chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently confessed "that he thought there was a 75% chance of a currency crisis in the United States within five years."
There appears to have been a cold calculation made at senior levels within the Anglo-American policymaking establishment: that the system is dying, but the last remaining viable means of sustaining it remains a fundamentally military solution designed to reconfigure and rehabilitate the system to continue to meet the requirements of the interlocking circuits of military-corporate power and profit.
The highly respected US whistleblower, former RAND strategic analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who was Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam conflict and became famous after leaking the Pentagon Papers, has already warned of his fears that in the event of "another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners and their quote 'sympathizers', critics of the President's policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."
So is that what all the "emergency preparedness" legislation, here in the UK as well as in the USA and in Europea, is all about? The US plans are bad enough, as Ellsberg notes, but the plans UK scene is hardly better, prompting The Guardian to describe the Civil Contingencies Bill (passed as an Act in 2004) as "the greatest threat to civil liberty that any parliament is ever likely to consider."
As global crises converge over the next few years, we the people are faced with an unprecedented opportunity to use the growing awareness of the inherent inhumanity and comprehensive destructiveness of the global imperial system to establish new, viable, sustainable and humane ways of living.
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (London: Duckworth, 2006). He teaches courses in International Relations at the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, where he is doing his PhD studying imperialism and genocide. Since 9/11, he has authored three other books revealing the realpolitik behind the rhetoric of the "War on Terror", The War on Freedom, Behind the War on Terror and The War on Truth. In summer 2005, he testified as an expert witness in US Congress about his research on international terrorism. Visit his website http://www.independentinquiry.co.uk/
UK Govt Sources Confirm War With Iran Is On
In the last few days, I learned from a credible and informed source that a former senior Labour government Minister, who continues to be well-connected to British military and security officials, confirms that Britain and the United States.
"... will go to war with Iran before the end of the year."
By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
07/24/06 "Information Clearing House" -- - As we now know from similar reporting prior to the invasion of Iraq, it's quite possible that the war planning may indeed change repeatedly, and the war may again be postponed. In any case, it's worth noting that the information from a former Labour Minister corroborates expert analyses suggesting that Israel, with US and British support, is deliberately escalating the cycle of retaliation to legitimize the imminent targeting of Iran before year's end. Let us remind ourselves, for instance, of US Vice President Cheney's assertions recorded on MSNBC over a year ago. He described Iran as being "right at the top of the list" of "rogue states". He continued: "One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked... Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."
But the emphasis on Israel's pre-eminent role in a prospective assault on Iran is not accurate. Israel would rather play the role of a regional proxy force in a US-led campaign. "Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East..." reports Seymour Hersh. He quotes a former high-level US intelligence official as follows:
"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah-we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."
Are these just the fanatical pipedreams of the neoconservative faction currently occupying (literally) the White House?
Unfortunately, no. The Iraq War was one such fanatical pipedream in the late 1990s, one that Bush administration officials were eagerly ruminating over when they were actively and directly involved in the Project for a New American Century. But that particular pipedream is now a terrible, gruelling reality for the Iraqi people. Despite the glaring failures of US efforts in that country, there appears to be a serious inability to recognize the futility of attempting the same in Iran.
The Monterey Institute for International Studies already showed nearly two years ago in a detailed analysis that the likely consequences of a strike on Iran by the US, Israel, or both, would be a regional conflagaration that could quickly turn nuclear, and spiral out of control. US and Israeli planners are no doubt aware of what could happen. Such a catastrophe would have irreversible ramifications for the global political economy. Energy security would be in tatters, precipitating the activation of long-standing contingency plans to invade and occupy all the major resource-rich areas of the Middle East and elsewhere (see my book published by Clairview, Behind the War on Terror for references and discussion). Such action could itself trigger responses from other major powers with fundamental interests in maintaining their own access to regional energy supplies, such as Russia and particularly China, which has huge interests in Iran. Simultaneously, the dollar-economy would be seriously undermined, most likely facing imminent collapse in the context of such crises.
Which raises pertinent questions about why Britain, the US and Israel are contemplating such a scenario as a viable way of securing their interests.
A glimpse of an answer lies in the fact that the post-9/11 military geostrategy of the "War on Terror" does not spring from a position of power, but rather from entirely the opposite. The global system has been crumbling under the weight of its own unsustainability for many years now, and we are fast approaching the convergence of multiple crises that are already interacting fatally as I write. The peak of world oil production, of which the Bush administration is well aware, either has already just happened, or is very close to happening. It is a pivotal event that signals the end of the Oil Age, for all intents and purposes, with escalating demand placing increasing pressure on dwindling supplies. Half the world's oil reserves are, more or less, depleted, which means that it will be technologically, geophysically, increasingly difficult to extract conventional oil. I had a chat last week with some scientists from the Omega Institute in Brighton, directed by my colleague and friend Graham Ennis, who told me eloquently and powerfully what I already knew, that while a number of climate "tipping-points" may or may not have yet been passed, we have about 10-15 years before the "tipping-point" is breached certainly and irreversibly. Breaching that point means plunging head-first into full-scale "climate catastrophe". Amidst this looming Armageddon of Nature, the dollar-denominated economy itself has been teetering on the edge of spiralling collapse for the last seven years or more. This is not idle speculation. A financial analyst as senior as Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan's immediate predecessor as chairman of the Federal Reserve, recently confessed "that he thought there was a 75% chance of a currency crisis in the United States within five years."
There appears to have been a cold calculation made at senior levels within the Anglo-American policymaking establishment: that the system is dying, but the last remaining viable means of sustaining it remains a fundamentally military solution designed to reconfigure and rehabilitate the system to continue to meet the requirements of the interlocking circuits of military-corporate power and profit.
The highly respected US whistleblower, former RAND strategic analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who was Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam conflict and became famous after leaking the Pentagon Papers, has already warned of his fears that in the event of "another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners and their quote 'sympathizers', critics of the President's policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."
So is that what all the "emergency preparedness" legislation, here in the UK as well as in the USA and in Europea, is all about? The US plans are bad enough, as Ellsberg notes, but the plans UK scene is hardly better, prompting The Guardian to describe the Civil Contingencies Bill (passed as an Act in 2004) as "the greatest threat to civil liberty that any parliament is ever likely to consider."
As global crises converge over the next few years, we the people are faced with an unprecedented opportunity to use the growing awareness of the inherent inhumanity and comprehensive destructiveness of the global imperial system to establish new, viable, sustainable and humane ways of living.
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (London: Duckworth, 2006). He teaches courses in International Relations at the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, where he is doing his PhD studying imperialism and genocide. Since 9/11, he has authored three other books revealing the realpolitik behind the rhetoric of the "War on Terror", The War on Freedom, Behind the War on Terror and The War on Truth. In summer 2005, he testified as an expert witness in US Congress about his research on international terrorism. Visit his website http://www.independentinquiry.co.uk/
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
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Comments
Ya snooze ya lose.
and man are we in for some rough times ahead.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Yea man, keep your eyes open for nukes.
Thanks for scarying the hell out of me lol...
Secondly to mess with Iran (under a ridiculous reason as was done with Iraq) will bring in China/Russia....especially if we see a three-peat of the same excuse..."we must invade...to kill the terrorists that hunt us down in our sleep"
I certainly hope the world forgives Canada for electing Harper and I hope he doesn't do something fucking stupid.
Time will tell my friend...time will tell...as anyone who has posted here in the last 1.5 years they know my feelings on this guy...as of right now I having positive/negative to say about him...of course I could blame him for our escalating role in Afghanistan but the Liberals got that ball rolling before he came to power...however I am still disgruntled that he agrees 100% with Israeli strikes....but if he was to push us in a Middle Eastern war based on pre-texts from Iraq....then my "old" feelings would come back a 100 fold..
June 3, 1997
American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century.
We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.
As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?
We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.
We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.
Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.
Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:
• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.
Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.
Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle
Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz
Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
Who knows anything for sure? I'm not gambling with you over it. I don't see the point. It seems likely to me that this might happen but I would be winning with something I hope never happens. So for now, I'll just hold on to hope, thanks
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
i don't think it'll happen. It's not beyond the realm of possiblity, but I just can't see this happening.
edit: the above situation only applies if they dont' attack us at home first...that happens all bets are off.
I would bet you, however like Abook said, it's against my morals to bet on war. Also, it may not happen by the end of this year. I would say probably around september, but who knows a number of events could delay it.
How about you save this page and use it against me in January when it doesn't happen.
Bush administration numb-nut shit set aside... the real threat to Middle East stability has always been Iran. Ever since the Islamic Revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeni to power, Iran's main objective has been the destruction of Israel.
Iraq is strategically located and the perfect place for a forward base of operation. Afghanistan is too sparse and supply lines can be tough, at best (just ask the Soviets about that). Iraq splits Syria and Iran and the terrain is perfect for a large military base, well protected and out of range, to act as a staging area for large scale military operations. Add the huge local oil assets to fuel the machinery needed to conduct operations in a major theater... and there you have it.
I can picture the Rumsfeld crew selling this off. Afghanistan to the East, Iraq to the West could apply heavy diplomatic pressure on Tehran with heavy miltary firepower to back it up. I can see them drafting up plans to execute this strategy... except they forgot a couple of details... like a contingency plan if we were not met as liberators and seen as an occupational force. minor detail.
This plan could have worked if we had secured Afghanistan to at least 80% to 95%, instead of leaving it as an unfinished work in progress. I also think we could have brought about a regime change in Iraq by applying the same economic sanctions and U.N. weapons inspections while convincing the Arab neighbors that we would help them rid their neighborhood of this menace. The U.S. military presense would appear to be a security force, not an occupational force, since the main emphasis would have been on the Arab nations ganging up on the neighborhood bully. Of course, this would still be a lie... our military would have still been the command and control and the heavy hitter in the deal, but we could have left the P.R. stuff... like the destruction of the Hussein statues and policing of the streets to the Arab forces. And hell, had the 4th I.D. turn over the capture of Hussein himself to Iraqi forces and lie by letting them have the credit for it.
But, that's all just fantasy now. Having Iraq as an allied base to pressure Iran is a pretty good plan. Too bad we had civilian politicians in charge of it, instead of military and covert operations in charge.
Hail, Hail!!!
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Hmmm...I tend to agree with you. I even stated pretty much the exact same thing on this board before. I've always thought that Iran was the real target in all of this. Iraq on one side, Afghanistan on the other. I made a thread about it once or twice a long time ago. Well said.
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I'll toast to hope.
You have weird morals. It's uncool to bet on war, cool to refer to every human on the planet as "parasites". Interesting. But hey, that's all good.
That's no fun...I'll forget by then
The terrible thing is:
There are those who will toast to "hope," that we will go to war. They're called "government."
They like war - they get off on death. They'll watch all flags burning until the last one is burned down, as long as that last one is not their own. It's war, it sucks - and hope has nothing to do with it.
Dissent is the hope of civilized masses.
Dissent against anarchic warmongers.
Dissent against the anarchy of war, will get your "hope" back.
It's a metaphor
Parasite
Biology. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism [earth] while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
We basically destroy the planet in which we live, while all other species do not. Other mammals hibernate or migrate during different seasons, we do not. We build huge concrete kingdoms, destroying forever the nature that would have existed, then we bring all the needed resources to us. We don't contribute at all the the survival of the planet, we contribute to it's destruction.
No, they're called warmakers. But government and warmaking does often go hand in hand, particularly in a world where men believe they have the right to own one another.
Hope says that a world exists where such men have no power to make their war.
Honest dissent stems from the hope of something better.
Honest anarchy stems from a hope for freedom, the opposite of war.
I need not dissent against war, though I often choose to do so. I simply must refuse to make it. There's much hope in that.
It's a metaphor
Parasite
Biology. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism [earth] while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
We basically destroy the planet in which we live, while all other species do not. Other mammals hibernate or migrate during different seasons, we do not. We build huge concrete kingdoms, destroying forever the nature that would have existed, then we bring all the needed resources to us. We don't contribute at all to the survival of the planet, we contribute to it's destruction.
And a faulty one.
Ok.
How so?
How does a chicken contribute to the "survival of the planet"?
By providing food to the food chain. The Ecosystem involves a bunch of prey and predators. Predators are also prey for another predator. We have taken ourselves out of the food chain, which was the only thing we had ever contributed.
Chickenshit....... fertilizes the soil.
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Human beings do this as well. Dead human beings are eaten by millions of different species.
Many animals have few natural predators, similar to humans.
Human beings cannot extract themselves from the food chain short of self-annihilation. But that is an option available to every species.
As does humanshit. My septic field attests to that.
Ok, true enough, we still provide to bacteria and insects, vultures, etc..
But still what sets us apart is our ability to create buttons, buttons that could anihilate the entire planet if pushed. Or just the production of plastic itself. Which arguably damages the environment. Arguably recycling also damages the environment. I know cows farts damage the environment, but I think we are worse.
Cool.
We're not alone in that either, necessarily. Plenty of other natural products other than humans can destroy this earth. Our uniqueness is found within the fact that an asteroid cannot decide to change course. We can.
That's all fair.
It would have worked if there wasn't a bunch of fucking civilian politicians running the show. All they thought about was guns and bombs (a.k.a. Shock And Awe)... the easy way... and banked on it being Kuwait 1991 all over again.
And Afghanistan could have been a suitable location, albeit, not as open and well protected as Iraq. It was doable, but not within the timeframe the Bush administration wanted. I believe that they wanted it all wrapped up prior to the 2004 elections.. thus, the photo op on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
Military strategy is all about contingency planning and best case/worst case scenarios... there are never any gimmes. And since they waited so long... increasing the number of troops to provide security is no longer an option. There's no way I would trust some of the Iraqi forces we have trainned... who knows where their true alliance is. I would never let them stand sentry around my guys or allow them to manage an ammo depot. Republican Guard and Fedayen soldiers never fought and simply shed their uniforms and blended into the population... who knows who those recruits are?
Hail, Hail!!!