War-Pimp Watch: Musical Carriers In The Gulf

So…according to this new statement form the US Navy the Enterprise carrier group is deployed in the gulf but the Stennis and Nimitz groups have fallen back, hanging out in the Pacific. So the statement makes it look like the situation is stabilising, most other reports go with this as a scaling down of forces with the two groups returning home, but they mostly neglect to mention this-

Beginning Monday, the Stennis will participate in a weeklong exercise called Valiant Shield, the Navy told The Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Last summer’s war games involved more than 22,000 U.S. military personnel, 30 ships and 280 aircraft. The Navy said the numbers next week will be about the same. Three carrier strike groups — the Stennis, USS Nimitz and USS Kitty Hawk — will again be the focal point.

Before they reportedly head home-

The U.S. Navy, scaling back its force in the Gulf, said on Wednesday it had sent a fresh aircraft carrier to the region to replace two carriers deployed there since early this year amid tension with Iran. It said the USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, which includes accompanying destroyers and a submarine, was in the Red Sea and heading for the Gulf and the wider Gulf region.

Lt. John Gay of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquartered in Bahrain said the two other carrier groups, headed by the USS Stennis and the USS Nimitz, had moved out of the area in July and were now in the Pacific. The United States has been flexing its muscles in a standoff with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program. Washington also accuses Iran of meddling in Iraq and of fostering militant Islamic groups throughout the Middle East.

But the two old foes have begun tentative talks aimed initially at easing the conflict in Iraq and last month set up a security committee between officials of the three countries. The Navy said in a statement that the Enterprise would conduct security operations and provide air support for ground forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gay said the Stennis and Nimitz were unlikely to return to the Gulf although he could not rule it out. “World events are going to drive that — if there is a significant change in the security and stability in the region we would re-evaluate the number of ships we have in the area,” he said.

Then come Autumn apparently-

the ship group [Enterprise] will be the lone carrier for at least three months, until USS Harry S. Truman is deployed in the fall.

War Pimps Go On A Sailing Holiday

The USS Enterprise CVN 65-Big E Strike Group will join the USS Stennis and the USS Nimitz carriers, building up the largest sea, air, marine concentration the United States has ever deployed opposite Iran. This goes towards making good on the assurances of four carriers US Vice President Dick Cheney offered the Gulf and Middle East nations during his May tour of the region.
The “Big E” leads a strike group consisting of the guided-missile destroyers USS Arleigh Burke DDG 51, USS Stout DDG 55, Forrest Sherman DDG 98 and USS James E. Williams DDG 95, as well as the guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg CG 64, the SS Philadelphia SSN 690 nuclear submarine and the USNS Supply T-AOE 6>
On its decks are the Carrier Air Wing CVW 1, whose pilots fought combat missions in the Gulf and Arabian Sea during 2006. The Air Wing is made up of F/Q-18 Super Hornet strike craft, the Sidewinders Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-86, the 251st Marine Fighter Attack Squadron MFA, and the Electronic Attack Squadron VAQ 137.
The 32nd Sea Control Squadron VS consists of S-3B Vikings. The Airborne Early Warning Squadron VAQ 3 flies E-2C Hawkeye craft. The Fleet Logistics Support Squadron VRC is based on C-2A Greyhounds.

While Iran says it is open to talks to clarify its nuclear program, war pimps make hay with a speech by Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi where he claims Iran has 100kg of enriched uranium materials. Which is contradicted by a senior nuclear official who gives lie to the boast. But which story will make the big headlines? Carrier groups rattling sabres? Iran wanting talks and working with the IAEA, or …Run for you lives they’ve got tons of nukes and they want to kill us all!!!!!!Please big brave America save us with your swanky big warships.

Seymour Hersh Interview By Matt Taibbi

All of it at Information Clearing House but here are some excerpts:-

Bush is a true radical. He believes very avidly in executive power. And he also believes that he’s doing the right thing. I think he’s a revolutionary, a Trotsky. He’s a believer in permanent revolution. So therefore he’s very dangerous, because he’s an unguided missile, he’s a rocket with no ability to be educated.

A lot of people interpreted your last article in “The New Yorker” as a prediction that we’re going into Iran. But you also make clear that the Saudis have reasons to keep us from attacking Iran.
I’ve never said we’re going to go — just that the planning is under way. Planning is planning, of course. But in the last couple of weeks, it has become nonstop. They’re in a position right now where the president could wake up and scratch his, uh —

His what?
His nose, and say, “Let’s go.” And they’d go. That’s new. We’ve made it closer. We’ve got carrier groups there. It’s not about going in on the ground. Although if we went in we’d have to send Marines into the coastal areas of Iran to knock out their Silkworm missile sites.

So the notion that it would just be a bombing campaign isn’t true at all?
Oh, no. Don’t forget, you’d have to take out a very sophisticated radar system, and a guidance system for their missiles. You’d have to knock out the ability of the Iranians to get our ships.

So this is the “fail forward” plan?
I think Bush wants to resolve the Iranian crisis. It may not be a crisis, but he wants to resolve it.

 This seems to be something that Bush has in common with Nixon: the White House ignoring everyone and seeking to become a government unto itself.
One of the things this administration has shown us is how fragile democracy is. All of the institutions we thought would protect us — particularly the press, but also the military, the bureaucracy, the Congress — they have failed. The courts . . . the jury’s not in yet on the courts. So all the things that we expect would normally carry us through didn’t. The biggest failure, I would argue, is the press, because that’s the most glaring.

I once had a friend — this was thirty years ago — from a major university. He studied the scientific problem the government had of detecting underground missile tests in Russia. It took him a couple of years, but he solved the problem. At that point the Joint Chiefs of Staff was against any treaty with the Russians on testing, because we couldn’t detect when they cheated. My friend attended a meeting of the Joint Chiefs and demonstrated conclusively that there was a technical way of monitoring missile explosions inside Russia, even without being on-site. But when the meeting was over, the Joint Chiefs just issued a sigh and said, “Well, we better go back to a political objection to the treaty now.” Where there had been a scientific objection to a treaty, now there was a political objection. So you begin to see that pushing for peace is very hard. There is safety in bombing, rather than negotiating. It’s very sad.

We know from the Pentagon Papers — and to me they were the most important documents ever written — that from 1963 on, Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon lied to us systematically about the war. I remember how shocked I was when I read them. So . . . duh! Nothing’s changed. They’ve just gotten better at dealing with the press. Nothing’s changed at all.-

Are The War Pimps Getting Lonely?

The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes, the Guardian has learned.In the first few days after the captives were seized and British diplomats were getting no news from Tehran on their whereabouts, Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want us to do? They offered a series of military options, a list which remains top secret given the mounting risk of war between the US and Iran. But one of the options was for US combat aircraft to mount aggressive patrols over Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, to underline the seriousness of the situation.

The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf. Three days before the capture of the 15 Britons , a second carrier group arrived having been ordered there by president George Bush in January. The aim was to add to pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme and alleged operations inside Iraq against coalition forces.

At the request of the British, the two US carrier groups, totalling 40 ships plus aircraft, modified their exercises to make them less confrontational.

The British government also asked the US administration from Mr Bush down to be cautious in its use of rhetoric-

Read another way this shows the only people who want war is the Bush crime family (corporate & political), a few ambitious loyalist military officers and Blair (& his hack friends in the MSM) if he’s told to. The majority of the British state and military don’t, the US military is less than keen, they actually demurred to UK requests. This is an optimistic reading, the other reading is to assume propaganda- show how reasonable we are so war looks like a last ‘regretful’ option. They offer the toning down of US military to gain our credence then hit us with how diplomatic we are being. All depends on how trusting you want to be of the piece and the motives of the sources.

Bad Biology & Its Adherents

Worth a read, how neoliberals’ ignorance of science allows them to wilfully misinterpret it to support their selfish pathologies, how social Darwinists are a fraud and chimps like to hug, (the author is rather too rosy in his views of some historic leaders but those are tangental items anyway to his main points). (ht2 James)

How bad biology killed the economy

An unnatural culture of greed and fear has brought the global economy to its knees. We need to start playing to our pro-social strengths, says Frans de Waal

The CEO of Enron – now in prison – happily applied ‘selfish gene’ logic to his human capital, thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Assuming that the human species is driven purely by greed and fear, Jeffrey Skilling produced employees driven by the same motives. Enron imploded under the mean-spirited weight of his policies, offering a preview of what was in store for the world economy as a whole.

An avowed admirer of Richard Dawkins’ gene-centric view of evolution, Skilling mimicked natural selection by ranking his employees on a one-to-five scale representing the best (one) to the worst (five). Anyone with a ranking of five got axed, but not without first having been humiliated on a website featuring his or her portrait. Under this so-called ‘Rank & Yank’ policy, people proved perfectly willing to slit one another’s throats, resulting in a corporate atmosphere marked by appalling dishonesty within and ruthless exploitation outside the company.

The deeper problem, however, was Skilling’s view of human nature. The book of nature is like the Bible: everyone reads into it what they like, from tolerance to intolerance and from altruism to greed. But it’s good to realise that, if biologists never stop talking about competition, this doesn’t mean that they advocate it, and if they call genes selfish, this doesn’t mean that genes actually are. Genes can’t be any more ‘selfish’ than a river can be ‘angry’ or sun rays ‘loving’. Genes are little chunks of DNA. At most, they are self-promoting, because successful genes help their carriers spread more copies of themselves.

Like many before him, Skilling had fallen hook, line and sinker for the selfish-gene metaphor, thinking that if our genes are selfish, then we must be selfish, too. He can be forgiven, however, because even if this is not what Dawkins meant, it is hard to separate the world of genes from the world of human psychology if our terminology deliberately conflates them.

8 Years Ago Today

“A US military attack would be another catastrophe for Afghanistan”
Behjat, RAWA spokeswoman 25th September 2001

Sunday October 7th 2001

US President George W Bush has addressed the nation to announce the start of attacks on Afghanistan…
“On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan.”

Monday October 8th 2001

The first sign that Enduring Freedom, the US-led retaliation for last month’s terrorist attacks, had begun would have been visible from the cornfields of the American Midwest, where black, bat-winged stealth bombers took to the air with a full load of bombs. The B2 bombers, first used extensively in the Kosovo conflict, took off from the Whiteman air force base in Missouri and flew 17 hours to Afghanistan, arriving at about 9pm local time, just as cruise missiles launched from the Arabian sea were hitting their targets.

For all the talk of this being a new form of warfare, the first few hours followed a classic pattern of US military doctrine: destroy as much as possible of the enemy’s ability to fight back in a coordinated and overwhelming burst of violence.

The Taliban did not have much of an air force and its anti-aircraft defences were rudimentary, but the US air force does not take chances. One of the first reported tar gets to be destroyed was a radar command centre at the military air base outside Kabul.

The Pentagon had not issued “battle damage assessment” reports by late last night, but it is likely that the initial strikes also destroyed the few dozen Mig and Sukhoi Soviet-era fighters the Taliban has managed to maintain with Pakistani help over the years.

A total of 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles, costing $1m (£670,000) apiece, were used in the assault. According to the Pentagon, they were launched from four US surface ships and a submarine which make up the battle groups surrounding the USS Carl Vinson and USS Enterprise carriers in the Arabian sea. Some were also fired from HMS Triumph and HMS Trafalgar, two submarines in the naval taskforce accompanying HMS Illustrious.

Once launched, the cruise missiles flew low over the water at just below the speed of sound. They crossed Pakistani air space, as agreed previously with the government in Islamabad, and then over the border into Afghanistan, hugging the terrain on the way to their targets to avoid radar detection.

By that time, there would have been many other warplanes in the air. Swing-wing B1 bombers and huge lumbering B52 Stratofortresses, the same giants which carried out the blanket bombing of Cambodia and Vietnam 30 years ago, took off from the British-run island of Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean. In the month since September 11, the island has witnessed a steady build-up of aerial firepower, and it represents an important el ement of the British contribution to Enduring Freedom.

At about the same time as the bombers were launched, bulky C17 military transport planes took off from the Ramstein US air force base in Germany, laden with 37,000 bags of subsistence rations to be dropped for Afghan refugees and impoverished civilians. In view of the size of the humanitarian problems facing the country, it was a token effort, but the symbolism of dropping food alongside bombs was thought to be central to the Bush administration’s war strategy.

To press home the point, leaflets were also dropped, explaining that the military strikes were directed only at the Arabs of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida organisation and the Taliban leaders who had led Afghanistan into the firing line by agreeing to offer shelter to foreign terrorists.

Number of casualties- unknown, and after the Iraq war began nobody bothered trying to count for all of 2004, see Marc Herold or the wiki page, or this at Unknown News. Starts at 7,589 civilians and goes to 28,028 or more.

The US has spent at least $223 Billion, the UK at least £12 Billion. Afghansitan GDP for 2008 $22.27 billion. Overall costs of the injured, dead, mentally damaged, homeless, the spousal abuse, the child abuse, drug abuse, medical services, prison service, police… is incalculable at this point, war does not end in a field somewhere over there. Children as yet unborn will be affected by it, that is a truth our militaries and governments will never admit, a bitter harvest for the homeland. When you look at how our governments treat their own citizens, be it welfare cuts or denial of basic healthcare ask yourself why they are spending our money in a country they could buy and sell several times over, where they care so little about the people they do not even count how many they have killed.

Malalai Joya–

On behalf of the long-suffering people of my country, I offer my heartfelt condolences to all in the UK who have lost their loved ones on the soil of Afghanistan. We share the grief of the mothers, fathers, wives, sons and daughters of the fallen. It is my view that these British casualties, like the many thousands of Afghan civilian dead, are victims of the unjust policies that the Nato countries have pursued under the leadership of the US government.

Almost eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled, our hopes for a truly democratic and independent Afghanistan have been betrayed by the continued domination of fundamentalists and by a brutal occupation that ultimately serves only American strategic interests in the region.

You must understand that the government headed by Hamid Karzai is full of warlords and extremists who are brothers in creed of the Taliban. Many of these men committed terrible crimes against the Afghan people during the civil war of the 1990s.

So far, Obama has pursued the same policy as Bush in Afghanistan. Sending more troops and expanding the war into Pakistan will only add fuel to the fire. Like many other Afghans, I risked my life during the dark years of Taliban rule to teach at underground schools for girls. Today the situation of women is as bad as ever. Victims of abuse and rape find no justice because the judiciary is dominated by fundamentalists. A growing number of women, seeing no way out of the suffering in their lives, have taken to suicide by self-immolation.

… US vice-president Joe Biden asserted that “more loss of life [is] inevitable” in Afghanistan, and that the ongoing occupation is in the “national interests” of both the US and the UK.

I have a different message to the people of Britain. I don’t believe it is in your interests to see more young people sent off to war, and to have more of your taxpayers’ money going to fund an occupation that keeps a gang of corrupt warlords and drug lords in power in Kabul.

What’s more, I don’t believe it is inevitable that this bloodshed continues forever. Some say that if foreign troops leave Afghanistan will descend into civil war. But what about the civil war and catastrophe of today? The longer this occupation continues, the worse the civil war will be.

The Afghan people want peace, and history teaches that we always reject occupation and foreign domination. We want a helping hand through international solidarity, but we know that values like human rights must be fought for and won by Afghans themselves.

I know there are millions of British people who want to see an end to this conflict as soon as possible. Together we can raise our voice for peace and justice.

Relentless

The Presidential race/soap opera is a gaudy distraction, not much talk of impeachment anymore, Bush admits to torture on tv *crickets*, an election has more importance if you do not perceive the true state of your nation, when your nation is an Empire.

The notions that within the body of empire lurks the heart of an egalitarian, constitutional republic, or a libertarian minarchy, or a parliamentary social democracy are the purest forms of political self-flattery.

The media have helped to turn the race into a millionaires playground where the currency seems to be who has the greatest capacity for genocide and noticing the underclass is pejoratively labelled Marxism by people who daily call for slaughter as a solution to any imperial problem. In the meantime the Bush Whitehouse has been pushing even further into its realm of Royal decree and manifest legal exceptionalism, in the meantime it has continued its secret torture gulag and enacting the steps necessary to attack Iran, while the electoral show filled the mediasphere, while you were sleeping the relentless death machine has continued its plotting, killing and torturing. And now grows the fear again it is close to having all its pieces in position, its ducks in a row for the assault on Iran.

Is it the fact that the largest economy of the world, which is driven by the military industrial complex and uses 25% of the planets oil, has concluded that only Iran stands in its way to controlling 60% of the globe’s known petrochemical reserves?

The imperial logic of the politician’s will be weighing- if the attack is under Bush and in time for the election that will favour a continuation of the neocon dominated GOP war party, if it is firmly resisted by the establishment , but the signs are key figures of antipathy towards the plan have and are being removed. Even with resistance the Bush cabal have the chance in the dying weeks of their administration to launch a series of strikes and leave the incomer to clean up the political mess while they profit via their corporate ties in the clean up, disaster capitalism is so very versatile. And then there is the dark reasoning, attacking demonised Middle East states is by and large good for the President who does it, such is the conditioning of an imperial populace, such is patriotism. So an attack is political currency, so why give an opponent the chance to use it? If Clinton steals the nomination this calculation would become more acute, while his rhetoric and charisma may represent a wild card, Obama’s stated policies are not anti-imperial. So both could use that currency, although Clinton may enjoy it more.

The corporatist elite then largely would favour attacking, timing dependent on political calculations once logistical issues are resolved, these issues now look suspiciously as if they are close to operational readiness, ByTheWay– none of this would even happening if impeachment had been used as framers of the constitution intended, not rejected by a political class comfortable in their imperial senate. Ducks in a row?-

• The March 11 resignation of CENTCOM Commander Admiral William Fallon
  
• The recent removal of Vice Admiral John Stufflebeem, Commander of the 6th Fleet (Mediterranean Sea), also known to be a critic of the administration’s war plans.
  
• Two U.S. warships took up positions off Lebanon last month. According to US News & World Report, “The United States would want its warships in the eastern Mediterranean in the event of a military action against Iran.”
  
• The Israeli air strike against Syria last September was advertised as an attack on a nuclear facility. Current speculation is that the real purpose of the raid was to “force Syria to switch on the targeting electronics for newly received Russian anti-aircraft defenses.” Knowing the electronic signatures of these systems would reduce the risks for U.S. and Israeli warplanes heading to Iranian targets.
  
• Israel conducted its largest military exercises ever beginning the week of April 6. This exercise simulated missile strikes from Iran, Lebanon, and Syria.
  One day after a March visit from Vice President Cheney, the Saudi government announced “national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom.”
  
• According to former U.N. chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter, the Pentagon has contracted for additional bunker-buster bombs and planes that carry them. Delivery is due this month.
• As you might observe in our latest Order of Battle, the US Navy is currently operating two Carrier Strike Groups in the Middle East. Additionally, we are observing two Expeditionary Strike Groups and a British Carrier Strike Group in the region as well. As we read the events as they are disclosed in public sources, we believe the United States is on the verge of major offensive operations in the Middle East.
  

War pimps remain in lucrative employment and spewing forth propaganda-

There are two stories in the London Times which have rightwing “War party” pundits frothed up today. One alledges that British hostages taken in Iraq are being held in Iran by the Revolutionary Guard. The other says that North Korea has built a James-Bond-Villain supersecret base under a mountain as protection against US airstrikes which might be launched in the aftermath of the White House’s allegations about Nork co-operation on a reactor in Syria. The main body of the story, oddly, is more about Syria’s alleged perfidy than the alleged Nork’s base.

Both stories come from the typewriter of Uzi Mahnaimiin, a yellow journalism reporter who always relies – as these stories do – on anonymous “leaks” as his authority. The trouble is that Mahnaimiin is a “serial liar”, as Pajamas Media’s Meryl Yourish has described him. In a race crowded with Mike Ledeens and Amir Taheris, he may be the biggest war-shill in Middle east journalism.

And let’s be straight about Israel’s motivations-

Israel’s military leaders and their political yes-men don’t believe, and never have believed, that Iran, if it possessed nuclear weapons, would unleash them in a first strike against the Zionist state. The real problem for its leaders is that the moment Israel ceased to be the only nuclear-armed power in the region, would be the moment it lost its ability to impose its will on the region. And actually the world.

Understanding of the power games of our ruling elites neutralises their use of propaganda to whip up ‘righteous’ anger against countries on simple right and wrong patrio-porn set ups that enable our corporatist elites to achieve greater private profit via our labour and our publicly financed wars. Saddam Hussein killed hundreds of thousands and tortured people in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison!!!!! All that changed were the names in charge. Of course there is a proportion of people who do not care about that, they are filled with fear and hate and bigotry and any chance to kill and dominate ‘others’ is good news. They are the pro-war right & left, the left ones often engage in fantastical imaginings of how this time contrary to all human history, this time western military action really is about humane goals, what was that you said about oil reserves and spheer of influence? Bah cynic!

At this point awareness of the real venal motives behind the pro-occupation pro-attack bloc is unlikely to be achieved via corporate owned media, people will as before -maybe grumbling- but they will not oppose the warfare state enough to make this violent manner of pursuing business untenable. Most work too hard just to get by to have time to search for better information sources in order to make informed judgements, assuming they have that instinct in the first place. Our politician’s supposedly do a lot of that work for us…stop laughing.

Our ruling classes tend towards war not peace, when the exploitation of the domestic populace no longer provides enough profit for their growing debauched tastes they jump in boats, planes and find new ‘markets’. Waiting for the moment some war pimping news story explodes- innocent soldiers (oxy meet moron), western women and children and kittens and puppies tortured and killed by eveel Iranians or some such it will be too late to derail the plans being worked on right now.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a “limited” nuclear attack on the main Iranian underground site in Esfahan would result in three million people killed by radiation within two weeks and 35 million people exposed to dangerous levels of radiation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

War Pimps Sailing Holiday 2

Remember it’s Impeachment Tuesday tomorrow!

(Reuters) – The U.S. Navy began a series of exercises in the Gulf and wider Gulf waters on Friday involving a U.S aircraft carrier and two expeditionary assault ships. The five-day crisis response exercise involved amphibious, air and medical forces, the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, said in a statement. “The scenario is challenging but prepares us for a real-world event,” Commander Jay Chambers, of Combined Task Force 59, said.

The start of the exercises coincided with world powers agreeing at talks in London to push ahead with a third round of sanctions against Iran, unless reports indicate Tehran has tried to address their concerns about its nuclear programme. Washington has not ruled out military action against Iran, which lies on the Gulf. Tehran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons.

Fifth Fleet spokesman Lieutenant John Gay said the exercises had been planned for months and were not related to specific events, instead outlining only humanitarian assistance and natural disaster scenarios for the manoeuvres. “Our primary goal is to enforce maritime security including the free flow of commerce through the Gulf for all regional partners … We are committed to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to ensure that there is a free flow of commerce throughout the region,” Gay said.

Cheney Has Bent Bush To His Will On Iran

Previously we had the information Bush was undecided on Iran, the State dept. and most others favouring negotiation,while Cheney was busy trying to destroy that option and channel Bush into his route of military action. This report in the Guardian says Cheney has succeeded in manouvering Bush to his approach:-

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. “The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,” the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

“The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action,” Mr Cronin said. “The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself.” Almost half of the US’s 277 warships are stationed close to Iran,

So there you have it, Cheney and Israel driving the attack agenda which is now their preferred option. MOA reiterates Cheney’s role in supplying Iran with nuclear components via Halliburton in the 90’s, so once again all roads lead to Dick. How in supposed democracies can one evil man wield so much power over 4 decades? Oh right Republican voters, pig shit ignorant and soaked in blood. This is yet another reason to impeach Cheney, not just his past crimes but the ones he has been planning on committing. Time is running out.

War Pimping In The Empire

“And no mention of Iran, which makes me a little worried like in bad jungle adventure movie, “it’s quiet, too quiet.”

Dammit, I hate being right. Okay first up guess what’s sailing into the sea off Iran?

The USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz aircraft carriers and their strike groups entered Gulf waters to support troops in Iraq and conduct training exercises, the US Navy said Wednesday.

“The carriers and amphibious strike groups and their associated forces will conduct missions in direct support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and will also perform Expeditionary Strike Force training,” the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet said.

Because there is a war in the White House, Cheney is trying to box Bush into a corner so the only option is an attack, kind of like making sure a dim child doesn’t get lost and wander off the path you have determined for them.

The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well — as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging.

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney’s national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush’s tack towards Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

Of course the pressure on Iran is also being leveraged in the global finance markets.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is being briefed monthly by the Central Intelligence Agency about terrorists and other criminals active in global stock markets, Barron’s said in its latest edition.
Barron’s said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox told the publication he and four other commissioners are briefed each month and that the CIA reports offer the SEC a “somewhat sharper focus” to an “underworld of murky, illegal dealings that threaten the world capital markets.” They are the first regular intelligence briefings for the SEC in history.

Hmm because whatever the CIA says is bound to be true, anyone they say is a criminal terrorist type is sure to be. Especially after Bush signed the non-lethal directive to attack Iran by means other than killing people.

President Bush has signed a “nonlethal presidential finding” that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions.

And what the hell is happening in Lebanon? Well lots of things not least this-

Seymour Hersh explains that the current violence in Lebanon is the result of an attempt by the Lebanese government to crack down on a militant Sunni group, Fatah al-Islam, that it formerly supported. Last March, Hersh reported that American policy in the Middle East had shifted to opposing Iran, Syria, and their Shia allies at any cost, even if it meant backing hardline Sunni jihadists.

A key element of this policy shift was an agreement among Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, whereby the Saudis would covertly fund the Sunni Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon as a counterweight to the Shia Hezbollah.

Hersh points out that the current situation is much like that during the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980’s – which gave rise to al Qaeda – with the same people involved in both the US and Saudi Arabia and the “same pattern” of the US using jihadists that the Saudis assure us they can control.

When asked why the administration would be acting in a way that appears to run counter to US interests, Hersh says that, since the Israelis lost to them last summer, “the fear of Hezbollah in Washington, particularly in the White House, is acute.”

As a result, Hersh implies, the Bush administration is no longer acting rationally in its policy. “We’re in the business of supporting the Sunnis anywhere we can against the Shia. … “We’re in the business of creating … sectarian violence.” And he describes the scheme of funding Fatah al-Islam as “a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shia world, and it just simply — it bit us in the rear.”

There is also this translated article via Naj at Neo Resistance that talks about the racism against Palestinians among the Lebanese.

Naj- The Iraq model is being replicated in Lebanon. The Zionists are cheering on while the Lebanese raise arm on the Palestinians. Suddenly, the Palestinian problem has become just an Arab problem. Suddenly Apartheid is not something the Israeli state can be solely accused of.

Les Politiques- racist calls are routine for Palestinians, that many reports point to the responsibility of high level Lebanese Politicians in arming and financially supporting the Sunni extremists in and outside Palestinian camps. And none of those who are standing today, united in the discovery of their racial purity, accusing the Palestinians of all ills, can or would expose at lenght the notorious disengagement and the retreat of the state from whole regions in Lebanon which are maintained in a state of total dependancy and subjugation to some Politicians who would use them to their advantage during election time, monitoring them from some far luxurious hotels

And now the Iranian authorities are pulsing with paranoia, the latest arrest of a transnational intellectual affects Jadi, he was his sociology professor-

Kian Tajbakhsh (his website in English) was my Urban Sociology professor. He returned back from USA around 2 years ago and started teaching us “Urban Sociology” at the university of Allame. He has studied in Columbia University and worked at New School. I remember that during the class somebody asked him about the reasons for coming back to Iran. He said: “I returned back to show others that we can work here. We can promote the situation”.

Tajbakash has worked for the World bank and George Soros and with the US pursuing regime change by covert and overt means the IRI see him as suspect but I’d debate him, not arrest him. This is like the US detaining academics they disagree with or refusing visas, witch-hunts against ideas.

It strikes me there were a lot of people who were never more happy than when in the cold war we could all be atomised with hardly a by your leave or at best a four minute warning, I think they are getting happier again with every day that passes. Retards.

The Right Decision

First Ahmadinejad used the sailors for propaganda and now we are using them for propaganda, maybe it will deter other people from joining up and being the puppets for the elites. But the Royal Marine Captain in charge made the right decision, US hawks are saying their troops would have fought back at the merest sight of Iranians, idiots. British knobheads who lust for the old empire criticise them for being taken and appearing on Iranian TV, like they had choice. Now the press try and talk up their treatment as horrendous while even one photo from Abu Ghraib is several magnitudes worse. It’s interesting to note the sailors were reminded they were on duty and under orders before they stepped off the plane.

When the Iranian boats approached, the Navy helicopter mysteriously left (conspiracy theorists might interpret this as the sailors being hung out to dry to create an incident, of course more likely is the reality of military cockups as opposed to the myth of machine like efficiency), losing their air cover the marine Captain took a look at the firepower trained on them and ordered his group to stand down. The right decision because if they had been gung-ho fucknuts; Firstly they would all be dead by now, and secondly we would be in the second week of aerial bombardment of Iran. That’s what the hawks are angry about, they lost out on their war.

What is going on is very dishonest indeed, the US and Britain are swamping the area with naval forces, helicopters and jets, the Shatt al Arab waterway is not that big. This of course plays into the hands of the war pimps. Like observing Brownian motion, with that many objects in the area sooner or later they collide and bingo! The monsters get their casus belli for war. Exacerbated by military raids and terrorist attacks happening in Iran caused by US/UK forces and the kidnapping of senior Iranian figures this is the powder keg plan. When the British sailors failed to provide the spark all sane people were pleased, all war pimps were not.

Which leaves us in no better a situation, the US/UK are now even more itchy and although the naval procedure is ‘being reviewed’ what should be done is to withdraw the 2 huge carrier strike groups from the Gulf , oh yeah you know what they are:-

a carrier – The carrier provides a wide range of options to the U.S. government from simply showing the flag to attacks on airborne, afloat and ashore targets. Because carriers operate in international waters, its aircraft do not need to secure landing rights on foreign soil. These ships also engage in sustained operations in support of other forces.
two guided missile cruisers – multi-mission surface combatants. Equipped with Tomahawks for long-range strike capability.
a guided missile destroyer – multi-mission suface combatant, used primarily for anti-air warfare (AAW)
a destroyer – primarily for anti-submarine warfare (ASW)
a frigate – primarily for anti-submarine warfare (ASW)
two attack submarines – in a direct support role seeking out and destroying hostile surface ships and submarines
a combined ammunition, oiler, and supply ship – provides logistic support enabling the Navy’s forward presence: on station, ready to respond

And that’s a minimum and there are two of them, a third hanging around plus all the Brit stuff. We need to stop pretending Iraqi water is owned by the invaders and is clearly defined (eejits pointing at maps as if some arbitrary lines justify WWIII). Of course the US/UK are still saying they are wanted in Iraq because the govt. invited them- that would be the puppet govt. installed by them. It’s like a murderous ventriloquist acting all innocent and claiming the reason for his crimes was his dummy told him to do it.

So every minute of every day another chance for an incident and all the MSM will go into patriotism mode and profits will jump as people are killed. Like the man said the one thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history. Is there anything we can do to stop it?

War Pimps- Rumour & Gossip

And some more crystal balls, Russian military reckons summats up:-

Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran’s borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.
“The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran,” the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched.
He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran “that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost.”
He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure in the near future.
A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.
The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006.
The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.-

And these war games. There is this crazy rumour that Bush will attack on Good Friday to please his Christinaist base, but I think it’s a bit conspiracrazy-ish (see I’m being optimistic and uncynical, get me). Only a small number of completely insane people want to attack Iran, unfortunately rather than being kept in secure health centers they are running governments, so this small crowd could wreck everything. I can’t remember who said it (possibly a ‘repentant’ neo-con) but it was remarked that the invasion of Iraq was the work of only about 100 people, without their fanatical zeal it would not of happened. Unfortunately there are always enough sheeple to follow these messianic douchebags and make their fevered dreams a reality, here’s hoping for a peaceful easter and passover.

HAL’s Links

Look Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

War pimping in the sand House of Saud (who supported the Bush escalation) are apparently thinking of sending forces into Iraq to fight for their Sunni friends. As the BAE scandal here and Cheney visiting them (note, they don’t come to the US they summon Cheney who has to travel to them) show they have great influence, they are also brutal and corrupt.

John Scarlett, invasion enabler and chief MI6 spook grows tired of the taste of Anthony’s cock.

Stupid ignorant racists, reality TV actually shows some reality. PS. I told you so.

UN lo-balls Iraqi dead as 60+ more join the list in sickening double bombing on Mustansiriyah university.

Stop the next Matt Drudge before he grows at Bloggerheads.

Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner at Danny Schechter’s site– “The pieces are moving. They’ll be in place by the end of February. The United States will be able to escalate military operations against Iran. The second carrier strike group leaves the U.S. west coast on Tuesday. It will be joined by naval mine clearing assets from both the United States and the UK. Patriot missile defense systems have also been ordered to deploy to the Gulf…”

Active duty US military appeal for withdrawal, will this be reported in the mainstream?