A third American war crime in the making
By Paul Craig Roberts
Mar 31, 2008, 00:20
The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United
Nations, are looking the
other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran.
If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there
were a shred of
integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of ****d
aggression -- a third
war crime under the Nuremberg standard -- by the Bush Regime could be
prevented.
On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited “a
high-ranking security
source: 'The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US
military preparations for
both an air and ground operation against Iran.'”
According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said “that
the Pentagon is
planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure
in the near future.”
The chief of Russia’s general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said last November
that Russia was
beefing up its military in response to US aggression, but that the Russian
military is not
“obliged to defend the world from the evil Americans.”
On March 29, Chris Floyd cited a re****t by the Saudi Arabian newspaper
Okaz, which was picked
up by the German news service, DPA. The Saudi newspaper re****ted on March
22, the day following
Cheney’s visit with the kingdom’s rulers, that the Saudi Shura Council is
preparing “national
plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may
affect the kingdom
following experts’ warnings of possible attacks on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear
reactors.”
And Admiral William “there will be no attack on Iran on my watch” Fallon
has been removed as US
chief of Central Command, thus clearing the way for Cheney’s planned
attack on Iran.
The Iranians don’t seem to believe it, despite the dispatch of US nuclear
submarines and
another aircraft carrier attack group to the Persian Gulf. To counter any
Iranian missiles
launched in response to an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile
defenses to protect US
bases and Saudi oil fields.
Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party, and the
American people have
paved the way for Cheney’s long planned attack on Iran. One failure is the
lack of skepticism
about the US government’s explanation of 9/11. The other failure is the
Democrats’ refusal to
begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush for lying to the
Congress, the American
people, and the world and launching an invasion of Iraq based on deception
and fabricated evidence.
If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler did with
pure lies and not be
held accountable, he can get away with anything. And Bush and his evil
regime have.
Hitler launched World War II with his invasion of Poland after staging a
“Polish attack” on a
German radio station. On the night of August 31, 1939, a group of Nazis
disguised in Polish
uniforms seized a radio station in Germany. Hitler announced that “last
night Polish troops
crossed the frontier and attacked Germany,” a claim no more true than the
Bush Regime’s claim
that “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.” Hitler’s lie
failed, because his
invasion of Poland, which began the next day allegedly in reprisal for the
Polish attack, had
obviously been planned for many months.
Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It is an ancient civilization.
It has attacked no
one. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran is
permitted by the
treaty to have a nuclear energy program. The Bush Regime’s case against
Iran is based on the
Bush Regime’s desire to deny Iran its rights under the treaty.
The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have repeatedly re****ted
that they have found
no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite all the
disinformation from US Gen.
Petraeus and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is not arming the
Iraqis who are
resisting the American occupation.
If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents would have two weapons that
would neutralize the
US advantage in the Iraqi conflict: missiles to knock down US helicopter
gun****ps and
rocket-propelled grenades that knock out American tanks. The insurgents do
not have these
weapons and must construct clumsy anti-tank weapons out of artillery
shells. The insurgents are
helpless against US air power and cannot mass forces to take on the
American troops.
Indiscriminate American violence has reduced Iraq to rubble. The civilian
infrastructure is
essentially destroyed -- electricity, water and sewer systems, medical
care and schools.
Depleted uranium is everywhere poisoning everyone, including US troops.
There is no economy,
and half or more of Iraqis are unemployed. Literally no Iraqi family has
escaped an injury or a
death as a consequence of the US invasion. Millions of Iraqis have become
displaced persons. A
developed country with a professional middle class has been destroyed
because of lies told by
the president and vice president of the US. The Bush Regime’s lies are
echoed by a
neoconservative media, and have gone unchallenged by the opposition party
and an indifferent
American public.
In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on even the smallest village
from the air.
America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars against the civilian
populations.
Just as the world could not believe Hitler’s next horror and thus was
always unprepared, the
Iranians despite all the evidence cannot believe that even the Great Satan
would gratuitously
attack Iran based on nothing but lies about nonexistent nuclear weapons.
Iran’s only chance would be to strike before the US delivers the first
blow. Instead of using
its missiles to take out the Saudi oil fields and to sink the US aircraft
carriers, instead of
closing the Strait of Hormuz, instead of arming the Iraqi ****’ites and
moving them to
insurgency, Iran is perched like a sitting duck in denial even as the US
and its Iraqi puppet,
Maliki, move to eliminate Al Sadr’s Iraqi ****’ite militia in order to
avoid supply disruptions
and a ****’ite rebellion in Iraq when the US attack on Iran comes.
It is im****tant to emphasize that Iran is making no moves toward war.
Having tamed,
blackmailed, and purchased Congress, the US media, and US allies and
puppets, Cheney might
delight in the arrogance with which he can now attack Iran free of any
restraint or fabricated
provocation. On the other hand, he might cover himself by orchestrating an
“Iranian
provocation” to justify his attack as a response. But like Hitler’s
planned attack against
Poland, Cheney’s attack on Iran has long been in the works.
On March 29 the Associated Press re****ted that Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi “poured contempt
on fellow Arab leaders” at the Arab summit that day. Gadhafi told the Arab
“leaders,” many of
whom are on the American payroll, that their American masters would turn
on them all, just as
America turned on Saddam Hussein after using him to fight a proxy war
against Iran.
Saddam had once been an ally of Wa****ngton, Gadhafi reminded the Arabs,
“but they sold him
out.” Gadhafi told the American puppets, “Your turn is next.”
Gadhafi asked, “Where is the Arabs’ dignity, their future, their very
existence?” If Arabs
remain disunited, he predicted, “they will turn themselves into
protectorates. They will be
marginalized and turn into garbage dumps.”
Indeed, it is this disunity that permits the US to bomb and murder at will
in the Middle East.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He
has held numerous academic professor****ps and appointments in the US
Congressional Staff. He
was an associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.
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