If you support the Iraq war, here comes another one....

[monty of ll]

Patrick, you said: "Likely the ship shots would only come as retaliation for unprovoked attacks by the US and/or Israel. It would be tough to make a case for using nukes after the US throws the first punch."

However it starts, and make no mistake something will happen in Iran, it will be portrayed as the Iranians fault. There is already a buildup of sentiment against Iran in the U.S. because the majority are now convinced that Iran is attempting to possess their own nuclear deterrant. This alone is enough to justify in the minds of the people, anything that happens. Now whether or not it escalates to the point as laid out in the article is questionable. Just consider the U.S. losing a large ship and 500-600 men and how Americans would justify anything to win quickly. But having said that, I can't imagine any conceivable way that the Iranians wouldn't be compelled to act with everything they have.

As we speak, there is a battle being waged in Canada for joining in with the U.S. in Iraq. As you obviously realize that the same battle was waged in the U.K. for going to war. The only difference is that our government listened to the people while Blair didn't. There remains in Canada, a strong lobby that would still take us into the Iraq war, incredibly even after it has been completely proven to be wrong and for the wrong reasons. My purpose in saying this is to illustrate how easily the scales could be tipped in favour of going to war with the U.S. if it heated up with Iran. All that needs be done is to change the perceptions of the Canadian people into believing we would be fighting a legitimate war and that the other side was the aggressor.

There is much more to be said about the whole issue but I'll stop there for now. I'll include this article below because I think it expands on the possibilities and makes some good points.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/horton.php?articleid=6888 From this link:

"If the U.S. were to bomb the Bushehr reactor, not only would radioactive particles blast into the air to fall back down to earth and coat the local environment (think dirty bomb), but numerous Russians would also undoubtedly be killed. How might the U.S. react if the Russians were to bomb a reactor full of Americans in, say, India?

According to Newsweek's article from last September, "War Gaming the Mullahs":

"Newsweek has learned that the CIA and DIA have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, 'The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating.'"

[rmnunez]

So how about if the reactor is taken out along with the Iranian air force and navy (such as it is)? would the conflict still escalate?

[SteveA]

"Newsweek has learned that the CIA and DIA have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, 'The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating.'"

I think it's propoganda designed to intimidate other countries into pressuring Iran to back off nuclear power (or weapon) development.

[rmnunez]

I think Steve probably is right, the war gaming likely is just for show to make the Iranians think the alternative of using force is in the offing.

[Matt_the_poet]

I took part in both the London and Birmingham marches against the war and feel a great deal of frustration at the lack of attention paid to the vociferous voices of such a significant minority. I was determined to vote Conservative at the following election once the war was underway, but came to my senses by the time of going to the polls, realising that the Tories would have prosecuted the war with even more fervour than Mr Blair. They are, after all, the spiritual fathers of the Republican Party in America.

For anyone that doesn't know, Afganistan was invaded because the Taliban regime refused to allow the final section of an oil pipeline from the Black Sea to the burgeoning Indian market to be constructed through their territory, when avoidance of Iran for the pipeline's route necessited their co-operation. A pipeline that was, incidentally, opended this year, construction having been allowed by the regime that the US replaced the Taliban with.

Iraq was invaded to make money for the neo-conservative owners of defence, oil, engineering and construction companies in America, who of course control the Republican Party. Iraqi crude oil was on restricted sale due to UN sactions after the first Gulf war, but is now freely available for sale on the open market, with the money controlled by the UN at present. The massive increase in the availability of crude oil lowers the price worldwide, giving oil companies a greater profit-margin, unless of course they pass on the saving to us at the pumps, which they'll find vacuous justifications to avoid doing, such as "instability in the middle east". Hence the owners of oil companies, such as the one owned by the Bush oil family from Texas, make hundreds of millions of dollars.

They flatten Iraq, then award vitually all the contracts for reconstruction to American companies, such as Haliburton, of which Dick Cheyney, the American vice-president, was a board member until running for office. American neo-conservative owners of engineering and construction companies are making hundreds of millions of dollars out of the invasion of Iraq.

Flattening Iraq and maintaining something resembling peace in the country in the face of those of its inhabitants who realise what is happening and seek to resist of course involves the use of a huge magnitude of military equipment in dessert conditions, causing it to have to be replaced even if it is not destroyed by a helpless enemy. Hence the $80 billion of Defence spending asked for by George W and sanctioned this year by Congress, making tens of millions of dollars per year for the duration of the war for the owners of defence contractors, such as the one that manufactures the amoured personel carrier used by the US Army, a company that comes under the ownership of the Carlisle Group, principal shareholders of which are the Bush family and the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia.

Which leads nicely onto the fact that 9/11 was a set-up, perpetrated by muslims who believed they were dying in the name of a Jihad against the western superpower that is mercilessly imposing capitalism onto their muslim brother nations, under the guise of capitalism's political wing - democracy.

9/11 was funded and organised by Osama Bin Laden who acquires status as a world figure and hero to militant muslims across the world in the process, but was conceived by the neo-cons in order to justify their pre-planned agenda of regime changes in Afganistan and Iraq, with the Bin Laden family also financially benefitting massively from both invasions, although they have now had to relinquish their shareholding in the Carlisle Group because of their involvment being uncovered and made public.

The right-wing neo-conservatives tried to destroy Clinton over the blow-job and the Whitewater Valley property deal that turned out to be completely above board because they needed to create the impression that Democrats can't be trusted to run the country, in order to ensure that a Republican followed him into the Whitehouse because 9.11 and the invasions of Afganistan and Iraq were already planned and they couldn't risk Al Gore succeeding Clinton and delaying their plans indefinately. The other 75% of the oil pipeline has been complete for years but the Taliban regime in Afganistan were having none of it!

I realise that all of this is so unappealling a prospect, that the 3000 American lives that were lost on 9.11 as well as everyone on both sides who has died since were sacrificed by the American President and the neo-conservatives who put him in the White House and therefore control him, that the vast majority of you will instinctively reject it as a wild conspiracy theory, because the human mind believes what it WANTS to believe, and no one could ever want to believe the facts I have presented here are true. To conceive of a family or group from a country in some other part of the world behaving in such a way for profit is much easier than to even contemplate the possibilty that it could happen in this country or America, but I'm afraid that is for you to think about. Someone who does not want to see the wood for the trees will genuinely believe he is standing in a field, and claim he doesn't even know what a tree is, as he has never seen one.

All I say to you my friends is, DO NOT take MY word for it. Be curious, be genuinely engaged on the issue, and find out for yourselves! It isn't difficult, the information is in the public domain for anyone to uncover. It is simply not presented by the western media in the way that it should be, and why is that?

Because these already phenominally wealthy descendants of the founding fathers of the land of freedom, a country built upon the genocide of its native inhabitants and the slavery of millions of Africans, realised long ago that if they wished to continue to exploit the masses of their own country as well as others for their own profit, in an era when the behaviour of all is open to scrutiny by the media, there was only ONE way to continue to get away with it, and utilise the media as their tool rather than fear it - OWN THE MEDIA!!!

Which is why virtually all the newspapers, commercial tv stations, and most importantly, news agencies, are owned and controlled from the top through the appoinment of Editors who serve their interests, by phenominally wealthy right-wing, neo-con type media moguls, many of whom have specialized in media these days, but who still have all the connections they could ever need amonst the types of people that I have been talking about. We read, what they want us to read. The tv news tells us what they want it to tell us. It's infinitely more cleverly done than in the old Soviet Union, control and manipulation of the masses by clandestine means for commercial gain. Never forget, it's money that makes the world go round!

Peace and Love to you all.

[Nono]

Quote by: Matt_the_poet For anyone that doesn't know, Afganistan was invaded because the Taliban regime refused to allow the final section of an oil pipeline from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean to be constructed through their territory, when avoidance of Iran for the pipeline's route necessited their co-operation.

Thanks for the information. I didn't realize that Afghanistan lies between Saudi Arabia and the Med. Hafta be gettin me a new map.

The reality is that the oil companies (especially UNOCAL) were interested in this project, and since their creature (Boy George) is US president, it isn't unreasonable to suppose that this made the US particularly interested in string-pulling in Afghanistan.

But there's also the fact that the Taliban are a gang of wild-eyed bumpkins who absolutely did harbour all manner of evil-doers. I didn't mourn their eviction, just the vacuum that has followed.

Anyway, I could never understand this doubtful-sounding Afghan pipeline thing (which, Matt, was to go from "the Stans" to the burgeoning Indian market, thus -- precisely -- avoiding the Gulf and Iran). Would you invest good money building a pipeline across a rugged, lunatic-filled country like Afghanistan? Man, I sure wouldn't.

[Matt_the_poet]

Would you invade a country and change the regime to complete the pipeline, that's the pertinent question.

[YourTokah]

I would if I were George dubya.

[Caduceus]

*shrug*

I fully support having plans in place to disarm a mad, brittle dictatorship that has for years professed its naked military hostility to us, should the need arise. Seems sensible to me. You can argue over the specifics but not against the planning.

[Caduceus]

Afganistan was invaded because the Taliban regime refused to allow the final section of an oil pipeline from the Black Sea to the burgeoning Indian market to be constructed through their territory, when avoidance of Iran for the pipeline's route necessited their co-operation.

You present this is as fact when it is only highly spurious opinion, especially since, as I understood it, the original plan called for circumvention of Afghanistan via the Caspian Sea out of fear that Afghan terrorists would be able to easily sabotage the pipeline.

[Matt_the_poet]

To run the pipeline under the Caspian Sea would have been too costly, whereas the expense of changing the regime in Afghanistan is bourne by the American taxpayer.

[mcslew]

Quote by: Osborn F Enready August 1, 2005 Issue The American Conservative Deep Background In Washington it is hardly a secret that the same people in and around the administration who brought you Iraq are preparing to do the same for Iran. The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections. A CIA internal review of the agency’s performance prior to 9/11 is harshly critical of former CIA Director George Tenet, former Director of Operations James Pavitt, and the former chief of the Counterterrorist Center, Cofer Black, for not doing everything possible to confront terrorism. Pavitt, who was reluctant to take on risky missions against bin Laden encouraged by the National Security Council during the second term of President Bill Clinton, is particularly criticized. The report, completed by CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, is especially acerbic regarding the failure of the agency to stop two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, as they entered the United States. Black did not share information on the two men with the FBI agents assigned to the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA and also turned down a request for a formal memorandum to be sent to FBI Headquarters. The report will be finalized and given to Congress after those criticized in it add their own comments. Pavitt, as head of the Operations Directorate, has publicly accepted full responsibility for the agency’s failure, but Black has not acknowledged any deficiencies in his performance. Tenet has not yet responded. There is increasing evidence that the Iraqi police forces, now under Shi’ite control, are carrying out systematic revenge killings against Sunnis in Baghdad. The bodies now showing up at the morgue have obvious signs of handcuffing and blindfolding and evidence of being tortured before death. U.S. sources indicate that the suspicious killings have reached the rate of almost 700 per month. The police are supervised by the Shi’ite-run Ministry of Interior, which claims that the killings are being carried out by insurgents wearing stolen police uniforms. But American intelligence sources disagree, noting that many of the killers appear to be actual policemen carrying the expensive standard-issue Glock automatics and driving official Toyota Land Cruisers. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is a partner in Cannistraro Associates. http://amconmag.com/2005_08_01/article3.html (Thanks for looking out for our best intrests Bush administration.)

We need to destroy and occupy another country like we need another hole in the head.Our soldiers are in the midst of an undeclared civil war in Iraq.Let's face it we invaded the wrong country there were no weapons of mass destruction,the secular Iraqui state did not contribute hijackers for 911.It was the madrass schools funded by GW's friends of the saudi royals that contributed to the schools of hate the west and western culture.










i

[mcslew]

We need to destroy and occupy another country like we need another hole in the head.Our soldiers are in the midst of an undeclared civil war in Iraq.Let's face it we invaded the wrong country there were no weapons of mass destruction,the secular Iraqui state did not contribute hijackers for 911.It was the madrass schools funded by GW's friends of the saudi royals that contributed to the schools of hate the west and western culture.










i

[Osborn F Enready]

McSlew, if you read any of my other posts on this forum, you would know I agree with you a 100%.

Welcome to Volconvo.

[Liminus]

Quoting Cadeucus:
"I fully support having plans in place to disarm a mad, brittle dictatorship that has for years professed its naked military hostility to us, should the need arise. Seems sensible to me. You can argue over the specifics but not against the planning."

There is no way in 1000 years that a country like Iran will have the capability to threaten a country like the US. Even if they did develop nuclear weapons (which is not likely to be for at least 10 years according to the IAEA) it would only be as a deterrent to stop the US, or more likely, Israel, from nuking them first.
The real threat, as should be obvious by now after the London (my home town) bombings, comes from small groups of people with no link to national governments or even to the original al-quaeda. These small cells are made up of disaffected young men who are enraged at the West's foreign policy and decide to do something about it.
Before you start thinking "he's justifying terrorism" all I am doing is stating a fact. And another fact is that by invading countries in the Muslim heartland all we do is foster more hatred among the very people we should be converting to democratic values.
If we (ie the so called coalition of US and UK) were to invade Iran, never mind the logistics of it, it would spark a worldwide revoltion of extremist Islamicism, not just in Islamic states but on our own soil. You would see individuals commiting suicide bombings in every major Western city.
We simply do not need to interfere with these countries. Even from a Conservative/Republican point of view, it makes much more sense to just sit back and dominate them economically. This still creates inter-cultural tension but does not create the inextinguishable hatred that the deaths of thousands of muslims at the hands of our armies does.
I visited Israel and Palestine in 2001, and while I was in Bethlehem there happened to be a funeral procession for a member of one of the Palestinian resistance groups, and there were several men there who were obviously also members, judging from their kheffiyah covered faces and rather obvious weaponry. I asked one of them why he had taken the decision to join such a movement. He told me that his parents had been killed by a rocket attack from an Israeli helicopter and later his family home was bulldozed along with many others because of suspected terrorist activity in the area.
While the Israelis have their own grievances, and rightly so, this is not the point. My point is that waging war kills people. Innocent people who have families. Members of those families will then give up their lives to get revenge.
We cannot go around sending our armies in all over the place, and not expect retaliation, however delayed and indirect. We have a vast superiority over countries like Iran, and we do not need to prove it. We need to look within our own borders, try to solve the tensions that have been created, and that is what will ensure our security.
With my own city having been attacked with the deaths of over 50 people, and the possibility of it happening again pretty high, I know that we must root out the poison in our society. But we must do it by using our most powerful weapon, our ability to sort out domestic problems relatively peacefully, without resorting to war abroad. These countries pose NO THREAT to us.

[monty of ll]

Thanks for the informative firsthand report from the M.E. Liminus. And BTW, IMO you are absolutely right about Iran not wanting to nuke the U.S. or Israel. But I do believe they want the nuclear deterrant in order to prevent attacks against them. In some ways it could be the best thing that ever happened in the M.E. to prevent more future wars.

[Hermes]

>> The Bushistas have so degraded the U.S. military through their Iraq fiasco that they cannot seriously consider a land invasion of Iran, so they're talking about massive air campaigns, including the use of nukes.

A hundred thousand combat hardened troops, and a military that has actually deployed munitions in combat and seen live fire are not a "degraded" force.

A weak military is one that has never been on the recieving end of a shot fired in anger.

We are better, stronger and faster than we were before Iraq.

America lost 6,825 (25,851 total US killed or wounded) in 36 days on Iwo Jima. Iraq is a cake walk considering what was accomplished. We did free 21 million people in Iraq at the cost of http://icasualties.org/oif/