Sy Hersh's interview on Democracy Now regarding Iran--REALLY SCARY!!!

And be sure to watch/listen/or read transcript of Sy Hersh's interview on Democracy Now. He pretty much says that baring unforeseen events a major attack on Iran is almost certainly going to happen in the not too distant future:

link to listen/watch/or read transcript:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/12/1359254

snip: "Everybody I talk to, the hawks I talk to, the neoconservatives, the people who are very tough absolutely say there's no way the U.N. is going to work, and we're just going to have to assume it doesn’t in any way. Iran, by going along with the U.N., what they're really doing is rushing their nuclear program. And so, the skepticism -- there's no belief, faith here, ultimately, in this White House, in the extent of the talk, so you've got a parallel situation. The President could then say, ‘We've explored all options. We've done it.’ I could add, if you want to get even more scared, some of our closest allies in this process -- we deal with the Germans, the French and the Brits -- they're secretly very worried, not only what Bush wants to do, but they're also worried that -- for example, the British Foreign Officer, Jack Straw, is vehemently against any military action, of course also nuclear action, and so is the Foreign Office, as I said, but nobody knows what will happen if Bush calls Blair. Blair's the wild card in this. He and Bush both have this sense, this messianic sense, I believe, about what they've done and what's needed to be done in the Middle East. I think Bush is every bit as committed into this world of rapture, as is the president.”
______________________________

and be sure to read this article too:

Fishing for a Pretext in Iran

by Juan Cole; March 18, 2006

link: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929

snip:"Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms and committed Iran to remaining a nonnuclear weapons state.

In fact, the Iranian regime has gone further, calling for the Middle East to be a nuclear-weapons-free zone. On Feb. 26, Ahmadinejad said:
“We too demand that the Middle East be free of nuclear weapons; not only the Middle East, but the whole world should be free of nuclear weapons.”
Only Israel among the states of the Middle East has the bomb, and its stockpile provoked the arms race with Iraq that in some ways led to the U.S. invasion of 2003. The U.S. has also moved nukes into the Middle East at some points, either on bases in Turkey or on submarines.

Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect and monitor its nuclear energy research program, as required by the treaty. It raised profound suspicions, however, with its one infraction against the treaty--which was to conduct some secret civilian research that it should have reported and did not, and which was discovered by inspectors. Tehran denies having military labs aiming for a bomb, and in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program."

snip:"it is often alleged that since Iran harbors the desire to “destroy” Israel, it must not be allowed to have the bomb. Ahmadinejad has gone blue in the face denouncing the immorality of any mass extermination of innocent civilians, but has been unable to get a hearing in the English-language press. Moreover, the presidency is a very weak post in Iran, and the president is not commander of the armed forces and has no control over nuclear policy. Ahmadinejad’s election is not relevant to the nuclear issue, and neither is the question of whether he is, as Liz Cheney is reported to have said, “a madman.” Iran has not behaved in a militarily aggressive way since its 1979 revolution, having invaded no other countries, unlike Iraq, Israel or the U.S. Washington has nevertheless succeeded in depicting Iran as a rogue state"


snip"Bush’s allegations about the Iranians providing improvised explosive devices to the Iraqi guerrilla insurgency are bizarre. The British military looked into charges of improvised explosive devices coming from Iran, and actually came out this past January and apologized to Tehran when no evidence pointed to Iranian government involvement. The guerrillas in Iraq are militant Sunnis who hate Shiites, and it is wholly implausible that the Iranian regime would supply bombs to the enemies of its Iraqi allies."

link to full article: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929

I'm reading "Chain of Command" now.

read up on bombs or Iran. I just can't do it.

I officially decided this week not to go to grad school in International Relations. Just sick of all of it.

exactly what we need. The academics are just waking up and beginning to "hit back" at the bow ties. Would be a curious time to be in international relations. And whatever the neocons try to say - international relations in not an "old industry". It is a new one. One so new, the "establishment of the USA" doesn't want to hear about it. I would think the pendulum would be about to swing back. If I had the brains.. I would take that road.

But really - lots of reasons for you to make your decision. I'm sure they don't all have to do with the "times" we are in. And sick of it all - yes - it is sickening. You gotta be human. Be sure you grieve the loss of what you give up and go through that before you decide anything. Cause when you let go of "the world you knew" and "see a new day" you are so much stronger. But - yes - exhausting to be hit from all sides. The only way to survive the death of one thousand knives is to die that death and live the new life that comes after. If you have two feet and a brain.. you walk like a man (if you were a woman) or you walk like a saint (if you were human). How else to explain the huge testing "the greatest generation" went through and came out the other side.. they tried to build a better world. Thing is - when you've done all the work and let go.. not of your values.. but your assumptions about how safe or honorable your world should be.. you don't sweat the small stuff. Frees you up quite a bit. So if you have really permanently given up on international relations.. may be good. But don't forget to go through the whole process of loss and anger and frustration and "break on through to the other side". Millions did it in the 1930s and then that horrid WWII right after. What the hell gave them a motor? Half of the boys on the front were fucking starving in the decade before they went to war? What is up with that?

We are simply much deeper than our enemies. That is all I can say. So don't deny your deep end. There are fathoms and fathoms of you that the people you oppose have none of.

I was speaking to my state of mind this week. I was not making a long term committment to be a mole-person.

I'm sure I will wake up and start to weap very soon. Even a nuclear bomb the size of an avacado (which may be what Rummy has planned - as psychological optimism is his forte.. and "new assumptions" )- I would wail and cry. Just that this week - I cannot!

Very good interview!

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5338549>

parallels to the run up to war in Iraq, however I think even though Bolton is at the UN and Bushco still drumming up support for war, there will not be as much as a single bomb dropped on Iraq.

China, Russia, the EU as well as Middle East Arab nations will abandon America if there is any attack on Iran. The US military are against it. No one supports, or will support such a foolish exercise.

Even his best m8 Tony Blair will tell him the he must not attack Iran. The web of lies are being spun again but even the MSM in America is questioning the wisdom of an attack. It isn't 2003 anymore.

on edit: K&R'ed

not be factored into this decision. * knows he's "right", no matter what. You can't talk him out of anything. (I've seen it before with my father.) The only strategy is to just stop him cold, but as the story goes, "Who's going to 'bell' the cat"?

Bush is stretching way beyond breaking point support even from his own party is non-existant.

Why? It's impossible, that's why. There will not be as much as a firecracker dropped on Iran.

new light that I've never had to calculate problems. * is like a figure in a Wagner opera, where he sees himself as the classic hero, going against the odds, going against safety, going against other mythical figures that can destroy him. And when the dust settles after he goes to battle, "Twilight of the Gods" and unparalleled destruction due to hubris disguised as heroism.

China, Russia, whatever. You could have every country register its discontent and official protest against attacking Iran by any means via embassies and ambassadors. I fear that it wouldn't make a difference, save for emboldening * to go forward with his plans. His father, his mother, his wife, his daughters could beg him not to, and he'd do it anyway.

This is the scary part.

he gets to tell himself it is to go ahead with whatever he wants to do anyway. It's a terrible, disastrous kind of inescapable reverse psychology.


edit, clarity

but I do not have a lot of faith in the judgment of these people in power.

And I would not missunderestimate the ability of the domestic war-propaganda machine and their ever loyal lapdogs in the media. Nor would I missunderestimate the timidity of the loyal opposition in Congress.

I just think it is so very, very important

and why you are at it do read this article by Juan Cole:

Fishing for a Pretext in Iran

by Juan Cole; March 18, 2006

link: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929

This is important, thanks for posting...I'm about to read Juan Cole now.

I thought these comments were especially good. And scary. "Last resort" my ass. Bush doesn't know what "negotiation" means.

snip:"And that was the thought: Bomb them, and there will be an overthrow, and you'll have a democratic regime that, you know, can dance happily with the democratic regime the President thinks is going to emerge out of Iraq"

snip:"AMY GOODMAN: And you quote further this defense official, who talked about the belief that the Bush administration has of humiliating the religious leadership, as saying, “I was shocked when I heard it and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’”

SEYMOUR HERSH: That's what he said."

snip:" here we have a president that doesn't talk to people he disagrees with. And anybody who's been around little boys, big boys, knows that when they get out of control, you grab them. If you're a nursery school teacher, you grab the little four-year-olds by the scruff of the neck, and you pull them together, and you say, ‘You two guys, shake hands and make up, and go play in the sandbox.’

Bush doesn't talk to people he's mad at."

link:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/12/1359254

I agree. Bush displays the maturing level of a grade school boy. It appears that he is going to "act out" until someone calls him on it or he destroys everything around him. What an awful picture of a leader this presents. A twelve year old could do a better job!

We aren't going to invade, or nuke - or have Isreal invade or nuke Iran.

Ain't gonna happen.

It's sensationalist clap-trap.

I don't think that America and certainly not Israel has the logistical ability to launch a successful land invasion. And I doubt that either America or Israel would take the political fallout (much less nuclear) from using any form of nuclear weapons.

However, Mr. Hersh has a long distinguished record as a well connected journalist who is usually right. Both his sources and others make a sustained nonnuclear bombing campaign appear quite possible.

1) Agree that Hersh is a good great journalist.

2) It is logistically, politically, and economically impossible for the US to attack Iran right now.

This is not to say the BFEE doesn't want to; but I also want a winning lottery ticket and some quality time with the Bucci twins.

That ain't gonna happen either.

conference a couple of months ago that featured Scott Ritter as the speaker. He said the same thing. He said the speech bolton would deliver 2 the UN has been written.

I think Bush is every bit as committed into this world of rapture, as is the president.”

And I don't buy it. Blair has religious belief, but it's a wishy-washy British style of Christianity: that Rapture nonsense thankfully has little traction over here. I can imagine Blair believing he's doing God's work, but not as far as bringing about the End Times. And "the British Foreign Officer, Jack Straw"? No such thing: you could say "foreign secretary", "foreign minister", or (to be formal) "secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs", but "foreign officer" is meaningless. I have huge respect for Hersh when he's writing about Washington, but I think his writing about British politics should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Your perspective is most valuable.

bombing Iran, then it's bombs away! I don't buy the messianic claptrap. It's about keeping power plain and simple.

w is no more a conservative fundie than I am. Hell with my upbringing I'm probably closer to it that he is. He's just using Iran to stay in power. This rapture and bringing about the end times warms the hearts of his base but they're just tools to him.

These soldiers are just kids.....:cry:

Kerry rattled sabres at Iran in the 2004 race, and Lieberman's protege, Barack Obama, favored "surgical" missile strikes if Iran developed nukes:

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan05/Frank0120.htm

.. one or maybe two if Blair rapturizes with Bush.

Prodi already said he's pulling Italy out of Iraq.

The willing are getting fewer and fewer...

I'm saying war on Iran will never happen...
not in a rational world anyway...

...but of course Bush has never been in any
sense rational.

Sue

I suspect there will be the usual gang that doesn't want to appear "weak on defense".

If * decides to go into Iran, we are gonna be so screwed...

Really, truly, honestly SCARED. :scared:
Bush has gone from blowing up frogs as a kid to blowing up countries as an adult (by age, anyway).
He is not in touch with reality, doesn't want the facts, just wants to blow stuff up, apparently.
:hide:

TIMES/BLOOMBERG POLL
Doubts About Taking On Tehran
About half those polled support military action if Iran continues its nuclear activity but don't trust President Bush to make the call.
By Doyle McManus, Times Staff Writer
April 13, 2006

"WASHINGTON — Americans are divided over the prospect of U.S. military action against Iran if the government in Tehran continues to pursue nuclear technology — and a majority do not trust President Bush to make the "right decision" on that issue, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

Asked whether they would support military action if Iran continued to produce material that could be used to develop nuclear weapons, 48% of the poll's respondents, or almost half, said yes; 40% said no.

If Bush were to order military action, most respondents said they would support airstrikes against Iranian targets, and about one in four said they would support the use of American ground troops in Iran."

Link:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-iranpoll13apr13,0,7195484.story?coll=la-home-headlines

that's it. we're going to go to war.

if * is saying enrichment is the red line, well he's got enough of a warrant to indulge his messianic fantasies now.

and once the bombs start dropping, who will stop him? Our congressional Democrats? Fat chance. They'll be cowed into showing their "support for the troops" while ensuring that tens of thousands more of our troops will come home killed or wounded. I'lll have my barf bag handy for the first time I see one of these assholes on the news with their little flag pin on their lapels after the bombing begins.

believe that the Bush Administration, from among choices of 1- attack 2- sanctions or 3-live with it as to what to do about Iran, will choose the option of "live with it". I believe that is what they will do.

link: http://www.juancole.com/

"Kiriyenko: Iran's Method "Unfeasible" for Fissionable Material

Here is what a nuclear official who has no interest in getting up a war on Iran says about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claims earlier this week to have slightly enriched a small quantity of uranium:
link: http://www.kyivpost.com/bn/24251/
MOSCOW (AP): Russia's nuclear chief on Thursday said Iran is far from being capable of industrial-scale uranium enrichment, the Interfax news agency reported. Russian Federal Nuclear Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko said the enrichment facility in the Iranian city of Natanz, equipped with 164 gas centrifuges, could not produce any significant amount of enriched uranium, which can be used to fuel power plants or produce atomic weapons. "These centrifuges allow Iran to conduct laboratory uranium enrichment to a low level in insignificant amounts," Kiriyenko was quoted as saying. "The acquisition of highly enriched uranium is unfeasible today using this method."

How refreshing, a high government official who isn't LWB (lying while breathing)."

link: http://www.juancole.com/

More from Juan Coles'article:

Fishing for a Pretext in Iran

by Juan Cole; March 18, 2006

link: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9929

snip:"Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms and committed Iran to remaining a nonnuclear weapons state."

snip:"Tehran denies having military labs aiming for a bomb, and in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program."

snip:"it is often alleged that since Iran harbors the desire to “destroy” Israel, it must not be allowed to have the bomb. Ahmadinejad has gone blue in the face denouncing the immorality of any mass extermination of innocent civilians, but has been unable to get a hearing in the English-language press. Moreover, the presidency is a very weak post in Iran, and the president is not commander of the armed forces and has no control over nuclear policy"

snip: "in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program. The U.S. reaction was a blustery incredulity, which is not actually an argument or proof in its own right, however good U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is at bunching his eyebrows and glaring."