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May 13, 2008 at 09:21:13

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What Will We Do Then? The day After We Strike Iran

by chris rice     Page 1 of 2 page(s)

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What Will We Do Then? The Day After We Strike Iran By Gary Leupp  "Counterpunch"

Let us suppose that the Bush-Cheney administration answers the neocons’ prayer and does indeed bomb Iran sometime soon. The plan apparently involves more than the destruction of nuclear facilities, replicating Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981. (That attack, by the way was condemned by the whole world, including a furious President Ronald Reagan).

It includes an all-out assault on the Iranian political and religious leadership. Government buildings and officials’ residences will be targeted, guaranteeing collateral damage. Since Iran is a highly complex society, and its government widely unpopular, there may well be some local support for a “shock and awe” campaign.

We know that the administration has cultivated ties with the Mujahadeen Khalq (even though they remain on the State Department’s terrorist list) and the Pakistan-based Balochi separatist group Jundallah (the Party of God). These among other organizations will get their marching orders amid the “creative chaos” produced by the attack.

There can be no large deployment of U.S. troops in Iran, unless they evacuate from Afghanistan and Iraq, which is unlikely. I doubt that administration plans for the construction of a post-attack Iranian polity are any more sophisticated than their plans for post-Taliban Afghanistan or occupied Iraq.

Some have suggested that the neocons’ goal is actually to plunge the Muslim Middle East into prolonged pandemonium, insuring that all foes of Israel are off-balance and terrorized by the might of Israel’s protector for generations to come.

“Neocons,” writes Paul Craig Roberts, “have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government.”

They are “total Islamophobes” who believe that “Islam must be deracinated and the religion destroyed. . .” Others note that Cheney is obsessed with the imagined threat of a rising China and the need to establish permanent U.S. bases in Central and Southwest Asia to “contain” the world’s most populous nation.

The desire to control the flow of oil, the urge to check China, the passionate drive to destroy Israel’s enemies (alongside this neocon Islamophobia) are all reflected in U.S. foreign policy since 9-11. Surely a lot of Iranians know this. And they can look over their northern border into Afghanistan and their western border into Iraq and see what disaster U.S. imperialism has wrought in these neighboring countries.

Bush calls them “democracies” and boasts of having gifted them with the universally applicable model pioneered by America’s founding fathers. But I’d imagine Iranians seeing in Afghanistan a regime dominated by warlords more reactionary than their own mullahs, resisted by an equally reactionary resurgent Taliban.

In Iraq they find an emerging regime under the strong influence of conservative Shiite Muslim clerics in an unusual alliance with U.S. occupation forces. Many young Iranians chafing under Islamic law might consider this a step backwards for Iraq, which under the despised Saddam had at least been a secular society. The Iraqi puppet government is of course far weaker than the one in Tehran, and humiliatingly dependent upon the invaders who cannot provide a modicum of security while they demand oil concessions.

So I would think that the Iranian survivors of this planned criminal assault would not appreciate it. Rather, they will resent it deeply, especially if it produces numerous civilian casualties.

As Roberts suggests, the neocons believe that the Iranian people and Muslims around the world will be so terrified that they will capitulate to all U.S. demands and the U.S. will be better able to attain its geopolitical objectives without the use of unacceptable numbers of ground troops.

I have to wonder about this. Perhaps the neocons suppose that there will be no resistance from a shocked and awed Iranian population as America’s Iranian allies---a mix of quasi-left guerrillas, terrorist separatists, monarchists and exiles---create a provisional government.

They may underestimate the social base of the present Iranian government, the sincerity of popular opposition to U.S. policy in the world, the depth of Iranian nationalism and national pride at the accomplishments of the nuclear power program. They probably underestimate the outrage an attack will cause, in Iran and everywhere. Perhaps they overestimate the power of their weapons. The neocons know that nuclear weapons (even dire predictions about nuclear attack) produce fear---and that frightened people may voluntarily give up much of their freedom.

They saw that happen here in the USA between 9-11 and the attack on Iraq. All that talk by Bush, Cheney and Rice about mushroom clouds over New York City got the masses scared, got them to support a war. The neocons may assume that this frightening thing they hold in their hand---that they can deliver (intoning with John McCain, “Bomb bomb bomb Iran”) as soon as Bush (after prayerful deliberation) gives his okay---can fix the Middle East.

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Strike!

A general strike is called for September 11, 2008, the  anniversary of the 9/11/2001 attacks on New York City and Arlington, Virginia. 
General strikes shut down the normal operations of a city, state, or nation for a period of time. These strikes aim to force action on a single issue or broader set of concerns. The 9/11/08 General Strike has a central location - http://www.votestrike.org - on the Internet, which is linked to and reproduced on a variety of other internet sites. The site states the rationale for the effort:
The General Strike is a national call to action, from citizens to other citizens. It is not about a single issue. It is not an anti-war protest, a civil rights protest, an election fraud protest. It is not about torture, surveillance, corporate media, or the environment. This strike is about all these issues and more.
We all have different concerns, but we all have the same concern: we are being lied to and this government does not represent us. Join other Americans in demanding truth, justice, and accountability.
This is our country.
And our world.
A National Call to Action: Thursday, September 11th, 2008
No school. No work. Buy nothing. Hit the streets!
LOCK DOWN USA
The strike targets key issues facing the American public, issues that have not been addressed in any meaningful way by any branch of government. Unions, corporations & the major parties have failed to deal with pressing matters of war & peace, income inequality, crime & punishment & the meaning of citizenship itself. It has fallen to the American people to set things right!
Citizen discontent & other concerns of the strike include massive violations of civil rights.  
The strike campaign argues that in our system of checks & balances when the judiciary & the Congress have failed it falls to the American people to protect our Constitution, Bill of Rights & our way of life. 
Call to action:
No work, No school on September 11, 2008. It also includes “no shopping;” a suspension of all purchasing during the strike. 75% of our economy is consumer spending, when Bush says to shop, we must STOP! 
The general strike calls for participants to “Hit the Streets.”  But why spend our time protesting in DC to be ignored? Unless we get in the streets outside our rep.s personal residences- who is going to care?  
We need to mobilize locally- & demand national action. Few of us could go to Washington- but many of us- can go to our city halls or state legislatures- or local Congressional offices.
Tell the government that we're fed up with war, torture, corruption, & special interest funding our elections & our media.
Strikes have brought civil rights in the U.S. & around the world. Help make our voices louder than the mainstream media & corporate dollars. 
           
"It  is  not  the  function  of  our  Government  to  keep  the  citizen  from  falling  into  error;  it  is  the  function  of  the  citizen  to  keep  the  Government  from  falling  into  error".
U.S.  Supreme  Court,  in  American  Communication  Association  v.  Douds,  339  U.S.  382,  442
In order to get involved, here are the five best steps to take now:
 
1) Sign up with your email address HERE in order to get updates,
e-alerts@votestrike.com   
 
2) Mark the day on your calendar and plan to be at a protest in your community,
 
3) Send this URL to all your friends, post it to forums, put it on your personal pages, http://www.votestrike.org  
 
4) Take the time to help organize a protest. We'll send news on coordinators in your community,
 
5) Take the lead and help organize a protest on 9/11.
General Strike! No school, no work, no shopping, no life as usual... Not for today. Not for this week. Not until we've won!

by chris rice (111 articles, 144 quicklinks, 35 diaries, 233 comments) on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 10:13:13 AM

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I'll tell you what we'll do.

Not a damn thing...except submit to Martial Law.  I'm thinking the entire reason to attack Iran would be to finish up the Bush Coup here and keep power right where it is.  Invading a country of 70 million people is not going to be something we will be able to handle without a Draft which will be done pretty much in the way the Russians defended Stalingrad.  I'd place a large bet it will be Blackwater employees who man the machine guns behind our conscripts.

 Veteran '66-68

by Roger (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 465 comments [22 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 10:23:38 AM

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The Day After a strike on Iran

 Bush and Cheney are playing with DANGER. what do they expect that the rest of the world will just stand by and say who cares. these two are mental incompetent people have no idea what will take place. you want a nuclear war?? you probley will have one. what will people do here when a nuclear missle hits ?  better yet distroy Washington and all the imbecile politicans .marching and stricking dont accomplish anything. they will laugh at all of you. you need to organize and REBELL. SHOW YOUR TEETH . they pay american people to be idiots. most americans are idiots. they will not stand up on their own two feet. if a attack takes place we as americans are to blame. we let this government get away. we let this take place.

by vincent passiatore (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 185 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 11:30:46 PM

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The same thing

I'll keep doing the same thing I am doing now.  Talking to people as much as I can with a sence of humor and music about these troubled times we live in on a Beautifup Planet we are destroying.  As Yoko said to the U.N.  (on her Imagine Peace Tower site; which is a Tribute to Lennon, and shines a beam of light up into the sky over in Iceland.) "We must not waist another day build this machinary of destruction.  We can turn things around.  We must."-2005

by Michael Dewey (5 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 245 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 4:30:34 AM

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