Scott Ritter: The Myth of the Iranian Sanctuary

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ritter.php?articleid=12837

The Myth of the Iranian Sanctuary
by Scott Ritter

snip//

There simply is no evidence provided to sustain the allegations that Iran is waging a proxy war against the United States in Iraq, and that Iran is providing so-called "sanctuaries" for the training and arming of these proxies. The United States has yet to be able to provide physical evidence of any large-scale cache of Iranian-produced weapons. Press releases do not count as evidence. Likewise, the alleged links between the Shi'a fighters in Iraq, and Iranian/Hezbollah sponsors in Iran, are illusory. American military briefers have referred to several captured fighters – all Iraqi – who they claimed provided testimony on the existence of such a link. First, in this day and age of torture, we must be wary of so-called "evidence" produced by a system which condones torture as a means of extracting confessions. As a former intelligence officer, I can state with absolute certainty that the norms and standards which dictated that any information so gathered must be treated as suspect, since anyone can be made to say anything under duress, have not been altered by any "new reality" imagined by the Bush administration post September 11, 2001. The only thing which remains constant is the moral depravity of torture and the unreliability of information so obtained.

Another problem facing the "Iran as sanctuary" argument is that we haven't a clue what we would be striking to begin with. Alleged camps may exist as physical points on a map, but have nothing to do with what we allege to be taking place there. The Hezbollah connection is most disturbing, not because it reinforces what we already know to be true – that Iran supports Hezbollah – but rather is underscores what we don't understand. Moqtada al-Sadr comes from a family with long-standing historical ties with both Iran and Lebanon. Indeed, the al-Sadr family is directly linked to Lebanese Shi'a who created the Amal movement in Lebanon. It was a radicalized faction of this Amal movement, having broken away in 1985, which became Hezbollah.

The mixing of family and politics is always a complicated affair, and can only be interpreted by those who take the time to navigate the complex layers of intrigue thus created. It is not something condusive to haphazard analysis from people ill-equipped to study the problem. For military analysts in Iraq, the capture of a person carrying a Lebanese passport with Iranian immigration stamps becomes defacto evidence of an Iranian-Hezbollah conspiracy, when in fact all it might represent is the simple traveling of a family member from Lebanon, through Iran, and into Iraq – by far the safest route. And to think that the Iranian "Quds Force" would not exploit family connections in an effort to moderate the stance taken by Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army is to fail to understand the commitment of Iran for a peaceful outcome to the violence in Iraq.

The fact of the matter is, there is no "sanctuary" problem in Iran worthy of American military action. These illusory "sanctuaries" are but a myth propagated by those elements within the Bush administration, namely the Office of the Vice President, which are desirous of seeing American policy toward Iran shaped by the reality of war, no matter how artificially and fraudulently justified. These elements are fearful of a legitimate debate on the merits of military action against Iran, because they know that from such a debate the emptiness of their cause, logically and morally, will be exposed for all to see.

The worst course of action for those who seek to determine policy by exploiting the fears of a population operating in ignorance of the facts is to conduct open hearings which serve to expose bad policy to sunlight, and empower those present with knowledge and information so that their fears can be assuaged with enlightenment. The recent hearings held by the Chicago City Council on Iran are representative of this kind of "sunshine policy," which if our elected officials in Washington, DC cannot muster the courage to convene, must then be replicated throughout the United States in the councils of its cities, towns and villages so that the will of the people can be given voice. Hopefully, the will of the people, so empowered, can manifest itself in a manner which awakens the sleeping Tiger of American democracy, namely the Congress of the United States, so that irresponsible war on Iran, promoted by an illegitimate unitary executive operating void of constitutional checks and balances, can be stopped before it wreaks its devastation on the people of Iran, and by extension, the people of the United States.

I would hope that Alderman Balcer would reconsider his opposition to the resolution being heard by the City Council of Chicago, and understand that the best policy direction that can be taken today vis-à-vis Iraq and Iran is not to embrace policies which create the inevitability of new "Operation Dewey Canyons," but rather ensure that Americans are never again called upon to sacrifice their lives in vain for wars which are not only avoidable, but serve no purpose in promoting either the legitimate defense of the United States or the greater good.

"These illusory 'sanctuaries' are but a myth propagated by those elements within the Bush administration, namely the Office of the Vice President, which are desirous of seeing American policy toward Iran shaped by the reality of war, no matter how artificially and fraudulently justified. These elements are fearful of a legitimate debate on the merits of military action against Iran, because they know that from such a debate the emptiness of their cause, logically and morally, will be exposed for all to see." --Scot Ritter

Bush's tool in Colombia, Alvaro Uribe (former Medellin Cartel, now Bush Cartel), has been trying to paint the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED, PEACE-LOVING, SOCIAL JUSTICE-LOVING, GOOD LEFTIST presidents of Venezuela and Ecuador as "terrorist lovers." After inviting Hugo Chavez of Venezuela to negotiate with the FARC (leftist guerrilla group in Colombia) for the release of hostages--which Chavez jumped at, for the chance to help negotiate a peace settlement for Colombia's 40+ year civil war--and after KILLING the chief FARC hostage negotiator in a U.S. "smart bomb" attack on Reyes' camp just inside Ecuador's border--Uribe is now claiming that Chavez and Correa coddle "terrorists" (based on evidence about as good as the Niger/Iraq nuke forgeries). Colombia has one of the worst human rights records on earth. Uribe's pals chainsaw union leaders, while alive, and throw their body parts into mass graves, and slit children's throats on suspicion that their parents are leftists. 50 of Uribe's political cohorts are under investigation, indicted or in jail for this sort of activity. Uribe himself is under investigation for it. He is a terrorist himself.

Replace South America for the Middle East, in Ritter's paragraph, and it fits quite well...

"These illusory charges against South American presidents are but a myth propagated by those elements within the Uribe cabal and its Bush Junta backers, namely the retired Donald Rumsfeld's private 'Office of Special Plans,' which are desirous of seeing American policy toward South America and its oil-rich leftist democracies shaped by the reality of war, no matter how artificially and fraudulently justified. These elements are fearful of a legitimate debate on the merits of military action against South American democracies, because they know that from such a debate the emptiness of their cause, logically and morally, will be exposed for all to see."

Best to just name-call over and over--"those terrorists in Iran," "those democratically elected terrorists in South America," "Chavez the dictator, Chavez the tyrant"...

"The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez," by Donald Rumsfeld, 12/1/07*
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html

-------------------

*The date is significant because it was the very weekend that the first two hostages were to be released, as the result of Chavez's efforts and Uribe's request to him to undertake the task. Rumsfeld lies about it in his first paragraph. He says that Chavez's efforts were "not welcome in Colombia," when they were just days before. Uribe then abruptly withdrew his support and BOMBED the hostages' location as they were in route to Caracas, forcing them on a 20 mile hike back into the jungle, into captivity. (Chavez later got them out safely, and four others.) Pretty clearly, Rumsfeld and Uribe had designed a diplomatic disaster for Chavez, with dead hostages. When Chavez was successful anyway, in getting a total of six hostages safely released, and when Ecuador's president started to work on getting Ingrid Betancourt released (with involvement also by the presidents of France and probably Argentina), Uribe (his strings pulled in Washington--by Rumsfeld himself?) then bombed Raul Ryes, the FARC hostage negotiator, ending all further hostage releases and the hopes for peace. Note: Colombia gets $5.5 BILLION in U.S. military aid, through Bushite fingers, to do this sort of crap in South America--slander good leaders, try to entrap them, hatch assassination plots against them, torture and kill union leaders and other innocents, and generally provide a staging area for Oil War II: South America. Venezuela and Ecuador, of course, have the biggest oil reserves in the western hemisphere, with the profits currently being used to bootstrap the vast poor majority--something that the murderous, greedy Bushites want to put to an end.