Big anti-Iran media campaign in September?

[disownedspirit]

Disowned: CIA man? Because he says so? Sure...No wonder you believe your positon. Cute. Scroll up and see how others agree.

of course you will post up a link to prove he is not who he says he is wont you?
you do know how to post up a link dont you?

 

[Andy the Don]

This is worrying, it appears Bush has been listening to the idiots who told him that invading Iraq would transform it into a modern pro-USA western style democracy in a matter of months..

One former defence official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government”. He added: “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’” …

 

[nino_savatte]

Nino: "creating conditions for war." Well, I guess that is fair enough but I am not so sure it would make sense. Look, if Israel attafcks I am sure Bush would be quite happy and might even add his 2 cents to it but in lieu of that i just do not see it. He knows anything he sets up will dissipate the minute he moves out of the Whitehouse. Not even his party wants to touch that pile with a ten foot pole.

There has been an anti-Iranian media campaign for some time. They haven't spent that much money on planted stories and sabre rattling articles for nothing.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Panda: " A turd..." Except that since we pulled out not a single Hezbolli attack has plagvued us so I would wager, that despite your snide attitude, we have accomplished our Objective.

It's not a "snide attitude", it's a statement of fact, as I'm sure you well know.

For someone who reached senior NCO/junior officer rank, you don't appear to have a grasp of either tactics or strategy, else you would have considered the possibility that hezbollah achieved its' own objective with far greater clarity and precision than the interminable clusterfuck the IDF participated in.
"Objectives" are building blocks toward coherent strategy, nothing more.

 

[ViolentPanda]

As for the article, it is written by a moron. War101 is to neutralise Infrastructure. Every IDF Command Sgt. knows this within 2 weks of entering Command School. It is utterly basic. Beirut was not targetted because of our inability to stroke at launchers, all you have to do is go to Youtube to see how many we did take out, despite them being ensconced in civilain apt. buildings. Beirut of course is home to Hezbollah HQ and is home to paramount Shikh Nasrallah. It is also where the nation's main port and airport are, as well as its communications and media array. All those elements of infrastructure had to be taken down..

"Neutralisation" of infrastructure is subject to certain rules. That's another thing you learn in "War 101" classes.
Railyards, docks, highways, airfields are all fair game, civilian buildings, power generation and water facilities are not. Even broadcast facilities are a grey area.

But hey, it's not like the state of Israel will be taken to task for transgressing its' international commitments and obligations while it continues to sell its' arse to the US, is it?

 

[invisibleplanet]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1-eyuFBrWHs

That's very well put together.

 

[agricola]

But hey, it's not like the state of Israel will be taken to task for transgressing its' international commitments and obligations while it continues to sell its' arse to the US, is it?

Not to suggest any kind of the usual conspiracy, but I hardly think the Israelis are the ones selling their behinds. What strategic resource / benefit does the US get from Israel again?

As for airstrikes, they probably could put a big dent in an Iranian nuclear programme - the things are not easy to hide, after all - but it would, amazing as it is, make things even worse in the whole of the ME.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not to suggest any kind of the usual conspiracy, but I hardly think the Israelis are the ones selling their behinds. What strategic resource / benefit does the US get from Israel again?

Besides the obvious benefit of keeping an important minority of Jewish and Christian voters back home happy? The same benefits that have pertained since the 1950s; a strategic strongpoint in "hostile territory" committed to similar socio-economic principles; a market and testbed for military technologies and tactics (not as prevalent as from the 70s to the 90s); a wedge against any resurgence of pan-Arabism, etc etc.

BTW, you'll note I mentioned "the state of Israel" selling its' arse, not "Israelis". The two are not synonymous.

As for airstrikes, they probably could put a big dent in an Iranian nuclear programme - the things are not easy to hide, after all - but it would, amazing as it is, make things even worse in the whole of the ME.

That rather, I fear, depends on your perspective.

 

[invisibleplanet]

CAVUTO: Pastor, what do you think of that? That, that as you indicated before -- it's -- this is just a teaser?

HAGEE: I think Bridget's [sic] right on target. Hezbollah has every reason to feel that they've won. They have a new-found confidence. They have faced the mighty IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] and have survived for more than 30 days, and they now have the right to feel that they're the kingpins of terrorism. Iran will re-supply them through Syria. Whenever they're rested, whenever they have new supplies, they will re-attack Israel. Israel will come back, and I believe that this next round will be more severe, more aggressive, and the moment that Israel determines that Iran has nuclear capability or buys a nuclear weapon from North Korea that they will bomb the nuclear facilities in Iran or go after Iran. And then it is really going to become intense in the Middle East.

[...]

CAVUTO: Pastor, what do we do if that is the case? If we know something big is afoot, if we suspect that Syria and Iran will cheat and funnel weapons to a still-armed but less-armed Hezbollah, then what do we do?

HAGEE: I think the United States and Israel should keep their ear to the ground, and the moment that they feel that Iran has a nuclear device that they need to take out the nuclear capabilities of that country. Make no mistake, Iran will use nuclear weapons against Israel and use nuclear weapons against the United States of America. Even if it's a nuclear suitcase bomb, they will do everything in their power to get it in the hands of sleeper cells that are already in the United States of America.

CAVUTO: Let me raise that point, Brigitte. [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, in an interview with [CBS correspondent] Mike Wallace, and I'm paraphrasing here, had said to the effect: "Even with this nuclear capability, if we were to get it" -- and he argued that they don't have it -- "it would be self-destructive for us to use it." What do you make of that, Brigitte?

HAGEE: The reason I --

GABRIEL: That is absolute nonsense.

HAGEE: Nonsense.

GABRIEL: He is speaking to the West, trying to earn brownie points with the West. If he got -- the minute he gets his hand on the nuclear bomb, he will use it and he will become the hero of the Islamic world.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200608170002

Note Brigitte Gabriel's appearance - apparently she's a firm favourite on Cavuto's programme, often appearing in tandem with another apocalyptic evangelist and 'End Times' promoter, Mike Evans.

Profile of Brigitte Gabriel: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/4493

 

[TAE]

... xxx.com ...

That's disgusting.

 

[TAE]

The Ayn Rand Institute may be one step short of the Lyndon Larouche nutjobs in the right-of-sensible league - but they're getting in early with the media campaign.

The following was sent to letters editors last week. It's not on www. aynrand. org

Interesting that they are describing it as self defence.

 

[invisibleplanet]

On the heels of President George W. Bush’s latest threats against Iran for its “murderous activities” in Iraq, the Weekly Standard has obligingly published a 30-page report by Kimberly Kagan, spouse of Surge co-architect and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Frederick Kagan and director of an entity called The Institute for the Study of War, entitled “Iran’s Proxy War Against the United States and the Iraqi Government” . The report seems intended to back up a series of Bush’s assertions from his American Legion speech in Reno Wednesday about alleged Iranian support for and arming of “Shia extremists.” The coincidence of the speech and the report suggests some co-ordination between the White House and the Standard since the report itself would be the kind of product that would normally be put out by the State Department and/or the Pentagon. It would not be surprising if Cheney alludes to it in his next public appearance or media interview.

Unlike the breathless disclosures of Stephen Hayes, the Standard’s correspondent who was used by Cheney’s office and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as a conduit for “authorized” leaks regarding the alleged relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, Kagan’s report, the sixth in a series of monthly analyses defending the “Surge” strategy, appears to be based primarily on published sources and Pentagon briefings, although its factual assertions often go beyond those of the sources on which she relies. (“The government of Iran has also exported rockets, sniper rifles and mortars to enemy groups in Iraq.”) Unsurprisingly, her conclusions imply that diplomatic engagement with Iran is counter-productive. (“These negotiations with Iran, including the establishment of a tripartite sub-ambassadorial level coordinating committee on security in Iraq, have coincided with a significant increase in Iranian support for violence in Iraq.”)


The main thrust of the report is stated by its title, and it presages a major push by the U.S. military against Iranian-backed forces in Iraq. While it stresses that it does “not offer policy recommendations,” it also concludes that, with Sunni insurgents supposedly increasingly under control, “Iranian intervention is the next major problem the Coalition must tackle.”

The Summary reads as follows:

“Iran, and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, have been actively involved in supporting Shia militias and encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq since the invasion of 2003 – and Iranian planning and preparation for that effort began as early as 2002. The precise purposes of this support are unclear and may have changed over time. But one thing is very clear: Iran has consistently supplied weapons, its own advisors, and Lebanese Hezbollah advisors to multiple resistance groups in Iraq, both Sunni and Shia, and has supported these groups as they have targeted Sunni Arabs, Coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces, and the Iraqi Government itself. Their influence runs from Kurdistan to Basrah, and Coalition forces, a dramatic change from previous periods that had seen the overwhelming majority of attacks coming from the Sunni Arab insurgency and al Qaeda.

“The Coalition has stepped-up [sic] its efforts to combat Iranian intervention in Iraq in recent months both because the Iranians have increased their support for violence in Iraq since the start of the surge and because Coalition successes against al Qaeda in Iraq and the larger Sunni insurgency have permitted the re-allocation of resources and effort against a problem that has plagued attempts to establish a stable government in Iraq from the outset. With those problems increasingly under control, Iranian intervention is the next major problem the Coalition must tackle.”

K. Kagan, who has accompanied her husband on some of his guided tours of Iraq (and indeed helped escort Bill Kristol on his trip there last month), is, like her husband, a military historian who, according to her bio, has taught at the U.S. Military Academy, Yale University, Georgetown University and American University and is currently an affiliate of Harvard’s John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, a department founded by Samuel Huntington is now headed by Steve Rosen. Rosen, as I noted in a recent post, is a prominent neo-conservative who is a member of Rudy Giuliani’s heavily Likudnik foreign policy advisory team and who also contributed to “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the 2000 guide by Kristol’s Project for the New American Century (PNAC) to ensuring U.S. military dominance of much of the planet. Rosen, I understand, is not shy about granting affiliate status to like-minded scholars; he appointed Martin Kramer, another Giuliani adviser based in Israel, to a fellowship there.

Kagan’s Institute is something of a mystery. Its website, www. understandingwar.org, includes very little information about the organization, if that’s what it can be called. No mention of a board of directors or other associates or fellows besides Kagan herself. Only Kagan’s Iraq reports, her “courses, seminars, and lectures” and her “battlefield staff rides” which, so far as I can tell, have only to do with specific battles from classical Greek warfare through Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars, the Napoleonic Wars (minus Spain, the most relevant campaign to the Iraq war), the wars of German Unification, and World Wars I and II. How this establishes her expertise for assessing the Iraq war or the extent of Iranian involvement in that war is quite beyond me, but then Frederick Kagan’s expertise is in 19th century Germany military history whose relevance to counter-insurgency warfare in the post-colonial period is also unclear.

This is just a snippet from a HUGE article from Jim Lobe: http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=60#more-60 - be sure to read it all!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Interesting that they are describing it as self defence.

If you promulgate the views of Ayn Rand (philosophy being too kind a word for her dreck), then the mental gymnastics required to turn offensive action into "self-defence" will come naturally, I'm afraid.

 

[invisibleplanet]

Netanyahu wants Iran president tried for genocide at The Hague:

Likud chairman MK Benjamin Netanyahu has summoned about 70 foreign diplomats stationed in Israel to a meeting next Tuesday, at which he will urge them to end their complacency and join Israel in an effort to halt Iran's nuclear program, which he says is aimed at genocide of the Jews.

The meeting is to be the first event in an international public relations campaign. It will include a proposal to file a complaint in the International Court of Justice against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for war crimes, and his plans to commit genocide will be presented.

The initiative will be presented by MK Danny Naveh (Likud) and Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, both of whom flew to the U.S. this week for a series of meetings to promote the idea.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/800870.html

Dore Gold is a big pal of the anti-semite, Pastor Hagee, and a stauch supporter of the apocalyptic Christian organisation CUFI, who've also been pushing hard for US or Israel to nuke Iran - Max Blumenthal reported Gold's promotion of his new book through Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind Prophecy" website. http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach.../date/2007/02/+max+blumenthal+dore+gold&hl=en

 

[nino_savatte]

Dore Gold is a big pal of the anti-semite, Pastor Hagee, and a stauch supporter of the apocalyptic Christian organisation CUFI, who've also been pushing hard for US or Israel to nuke Iran - Max Blumenthal reported Gold's promotion of his new book through Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind Prophecy" website. http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach.../date/2007/02/+max+blumenthal+dore+gold&hl=en

Rabid Zionists and Xtian fundies: what curious bedfellows.

 

[TAE]

Netanyahu wants Iran president tried for genocide at The Hague:

14/12/2006. That plan went well then.

 

[invisibleplanet]

14/12/2006. That plan went well then.

Absolutely. As you can see from that news report, Iran completely obliterated every last Israeli using it's secret nukes at the close of 2006, with Netanyahu and Dore Gold being the only survivors. They only survived because they had teamed up with Pastor 'Armageddon' Hagee and Tim 'Apocalyptic' LeHaye, who were correct about the Rapture and the return of the Messiah all along. Ahmadinjad's trial for genocide is due to be heard at The Hague this Fall. (Judge Judy presiding)

 

[TomUS]

"The week after Labor day."- Not sure if that means 9/4-9/8 or 9/9-9/15. But I haven't seen any increase in attacking Iran propaganda yet. Just the usual Bush sabre ratling, the usual right wing raido "what do we do about Iran" talk & I suppose Fox News is beating the drums like they always do. But then perhaps it will start gradually & build to a crescendo befor the bombing starts, if it's going to start.

But this coming week is the Gen. Petraeus "report" on the surge so I doubt there will be much talk of Iran.

 

[TAE]

In the opening post there is a link to an article saying:

the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11.

 

[TAE]

Enjoy

Not exactly calling for B52s, but interesting:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II12Ak01.html
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1660500,00.html?imw=Y
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118947926846623540.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

[TAE]

Today's digest

President Bush has upped the ante rhetorically about Iran. He has said outright that the United States will confront Iran “before it’s too late.”

Americans have heard such rhetoric before — aimed against the Iraqi regime in the lead-up to the 2002 Iraq invasion.
http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/271135.html

Political and military officers, as well as weapons of mass destruction specialists at the State Department, are now advising Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the diplomatic approach favored by Burns has failed and the administration must actively prepare for military intervention of some kind.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296450,00.html

A US administration official said Israeli officials believe that North Korea might be unloading some of its nuclear material on Syria, the newspaper said. "The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left," the unidentified official was quoted as saying.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gM4eQSY4r2aqoKqeK3M8io5yc9zw

Iran's nuclear transparency deal with U.N. inspectors could be a recipe for delay and the lack of provision for suspending Tehran's uranium enrichment is unacceptable, European Union powers said on Wednesday.
http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/ne...ST_0_NEWS-NUCLEAR-IAEA-COL.XML&archived=False

 

[newharper]

Obama Warns Bush Over Iran War

Obama's been reading the blogs.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is set to deliver a "major policy speech" on Iraq today in Clinton, Iowa. Below, an excerpt of the speech obtained by the Huffington Post:

We hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. They conflate Iran and al Qaeda. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven't even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear - loud and clear - from the American people and the Congress: you don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/12/exclusive-speech-excerpt_n_64115.html

 

[paimei01]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6992249.stm

Gen David Petraeus, top US commander in Iraq, and US envoy to Baghdad Ryan Crocker both cited evidence of Iranian involvement in attacks on US troops.

 

[TAE]

Iran Linked to Iraq Rocket Attack

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3593296&page=1

 

[Kaka Tim]

Proxy war could soon turn to direct conflict, analysts warn
The growing US focus on confronting Iran in a proxy war inside Iraq risks triggering a direct conflict in the next few months, regional analysts are warning.

from here -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2169798,00.html

As Ive said before - They're trying to provoke a war with Iran. They haven't got the political strength to authorise an attack on Iran, so they're going for deliberately escalating the situation on the ground to the point where war is a fati-compli.

 

[TAE]

If that is the case, would you expect similar stuff on afghani border?

 

[TAE]

Now the French are joining in.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6998602.stm

 

[Dillinger4]

Who else finds this slow build up absolutely terrifying?

 

[jæd]

Who else finds this slow build up absolutely terrifying?

Not me... The only thing you'd get is a military strike on the nuclear programme location once the Yanks work out where it is... And that's assuming that Iran actually has one...

 

[Dillinger4]

I don't know whether it would be that simple.