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Tag(s): Activism Anti-War; Courage; Foreign Policy Failure Iran; Impeachment; Iran; Iran War
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August 31, 2007 at 12:20:27

Do We Have The Courage To Stop War With Iran?

by Ray McGovern Page 1 of 4 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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Why do I feel like the proverbial skunk at a Labor Day picnic? Sorry; but I thought you might want to know that this time next year there will probably be more skunks than we can handle. I fear our country is likely to be at war with Iran—and with the thousands of real terrorists Iran can field around the globe.

It is going to happen, folks, unless we put our lawn chairs away on Tuesday, take part in some serious grass-roots organizing, and take action to prevent a wider war—while we still can.

President George W. Bush’s speech Tuesday lays out the Bush/Cheney plan to attack Iran and how the intelligence is being “fixed around the policy,” as was the case before the attack on Iraq.

It’s not about putative Iranian “weapons of mass destruction”—not even ostensibly. It is about the requirement for a scapegoat for U.S. reverses in Iraq, and the White House’s felt need to create a casus belli by provoking Iran in such a way as to “justify” armed retaliation—eventually including air strikes on its nuclear-related facilities.

Bush’s Aug. 28 speech to the American Legion comes five years after a very similar presentation by Vice President Dick Cheney. Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Aug. 26, 2002, Cheney set the meretricious terms of reference for war on Iraq.

Sitting on the same stage that evening was former CENTCOM commander Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who was being honored at the VFW convention. Zinni later said he was shocked to hear a depiction of intelligence (Iraq has WMD and is amassing them to use against us) that did not square with what he knew. Although Zinni had retired two years before, his role as consultant had enabled him to stay up to date on key intelligence findings.

“There was no solid proof that Saddam had WMD...I heard a case being made to go to war,” Zinni told Meet the Press three and a half years later.

(Zinni is a straight shooter with considerable courage, and so the question lingers: why did he not go public? It is all too familiar a conundrum at senior levels; top officials can seldom find their voices. My hunch is that Zinni regrets letting himself be guided by a misplaced professional courtesy and/or slavish adherence to classification restrictions, when he might have prevented our country from starting the kind of war of aggression branded at Nuremberg the “supreme international crime.”)

Cheney: Dean of Preemption

Zinni was not the only one taken aback by Cheney’s words. Then-CIA director George Tenet says Cheney’s speech took him completely by surprise. In his memoir Tenet wrote, “I had the impression that the president wasn’t any more aware than we were of what his number-two was going to say to the VFW until he said it.”

Yet, it could have been anticipated. Just five weeks before, Tenet himself had told his British counterpart that the president had decided to make war on Iraq for regime change and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

When Bush’s senior advisers came back to town after Labor Day, 2002, the next five weeks (and by now, the next five years) were devoted to selling a new product—war on Iraq. The actual decision to attack Iraq, we now know, was made several months earlier but, as then-White House chief of staff Andy Card explained, no sensible salesperson would launch a major new product during the month of August—Cheney’s preemptive strike notwithstanding. Yes, that’s what Card called the coming war; a “new product.”

After assuring themselves that Tenet was a reliable salesman, Cheney and then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld dispatched him and the pliant Powell at State to play supporting roles in the advertising campaign: bogus yellowcake uranium from Niger, aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment, and mobile trailers for manufacturing biological warfare agent—the whole nine yards. The objective was to scare or intimidate Congress into voting for war, and, thanks largely to a robust cheering section in the corporate-controlled media, Congress did so on October 10 and 11, 2002.

This past week saw the president himself, with that same kind of support, pushing a new product—war with Iran. And in the process, he made clear how intelligence is being fixed to “justify” war this time around. The case is too clever by half, but it will be hard for Americans to understand that. Indeed, the Bush/Cheney team expects that the product will sell easily—the more so, since the administration has been able once again to enlist the usual cheerleaders in the media to “catapult the propaganda,” as Bush once put it.

Iran’s Nuclear Plans

It has been like waiting for Godot...the endless wait for the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear plans. That NIE turns out to be the quintessential dog that didn’t bark. The most recent published NIE on the subject was issued two and a half years ago and concluded that Iran could not have a nuclear weapon until “early- to mid-next decade.” That estimate followed a string of NIEs dating back to 1995, which kept predicting, with embarrassing consistency, that Iran was “within five years” of having a nuclear weapon.

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3 comments

Student of history, religion, exoteric and esoteric, the Humanities in general and advocate for peace, justice and the unity of humankind, not through force, but through self-realization and mutual respect.
Mac McKinneyStudent of history, religion, exoteric and esoteric, the Humanities in general and advocate for peace, justice and the unity of humankind, not through force, but through self-realization and mutual respect.

It is Easier to be Courageous

It is easier to be courageous and confront an evil than it is to procrastinate and obfuscate, and ultimately have to live with yourself day in and day out as the evil you ignored wreaks havoc in your world and your conscience burns a hole in your psyche.

Moreover, your higher self will applaud you for any valiant effort.

by Mac McKinney (42 articles, 69 quicklinks, 164 diaries, 1064 comments) on Friday, August 31, 2007 at 2:55:43 PM

Brett Paatsch is an Australian born secular humanist with degrees in management and science and an interest in politics. He is a former pro-American that wishes to be pro-American again and thinks the impeachment and repudiation of President George W Bush for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 is necessary to reestablish trust in American signatures on international treaties and confidence in the global rule of law.
Brett PaatschBrett Paatsch is an Australian born secular humanist with degrees in management and science and an interest in politics. He is a former pro-American that wishes to be pro-American again and thinks the impeachment and repudiation of President George W Bush for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 is necessary to reestablish trust in American signatures on international treaties and confidence in the global rule of law.

Ray - Did Congress actually authorise the invasion of Iraq?

"The objective was to scare or intimidate Congress into voting for war, and, thanks largely to a robust cheering section in the corporate-controlled media, Congress did so on October 10 and 11, 2002."

I don't think Congress did !

Consider -

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

Please note that Congress's October 2002 authorisation was to ENFORCE and not to BREAK UN Security Council resolutions.

With Congress's authorisation giving the President a full range of options, Bush went to the UN and in November 2002 Resolution 1441 was unanimously agreed. 1441 stated, amongst other things, that Iraq was to be afforded a "final opportunity" and that the Security Council was "seized of the matter".

Bush was obliged by the terms of UN Charter not to unilaterally usurp the security council's call as to when the final opportunity was ended.

You will recall that many on the Security Council including permanent members France, China and Russia were for giving the weapons inspectors more time.

You will probably also recall that Bush with the support of Spain and the UK tried to get another resolution passed (and failed) , the operative text of which is merely that

See here: click here

The Security Council "Decides that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it resolution 1441 (2002)".

Ergo the termination of the final opportunity would have been the Security Councils call (as per the UN Charter's Security Council voting procedures which the US agreed to follow in ratifying the charter) and Bush would have avoided usurping that call.

Bush KNEW it was NOT his call to unilaterally invade. The UN Charter lays out a procedure for security council decisions and votes on both procedural and non-procedural matters and the US President doesn't get to speak for everyone on the security council just because he wants to.

By invading without the having the "final opportunity" terminated by the Security Council Bush was acting outside of Congress's authorisation to use force to ENFORCE security council resolutions and presuming to use force to actually break the terms of the Charter against using force on a matter that the Security Council was "seized of".

Congress did NOT authorise the invasion AGAINST the UN Charter. This is important to understand - perhaps even some Congress people don't understand it and they feel chagrinned that they gave Bush support.

Can you see that?

The UN Charter is a "treaty made" in the language of article 6 of the US Constitution and is accordingly part of "the supreme law of the land".

In breaking the UN Charter the President is failing to keep to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" (Article 2, section 3). Bush took a Presidential Oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution (all of it - not just the bits he likes). .

The death toll in Iraq (Americans as well as Iraqis) make, if anything ever does, the unconstitutional invasion of Iraq by Bush a "high crime".

Do you follow this argument ? Do you agree or disagree?

by Brett Paatsch (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 1010 comments) on Friday, August 31, 2007 at 7:56:46 PM