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08.30 Casinos and Today’s Scam Artists
Ref.: Civic Events
Ref.: Arts & Education Events
Ref.: Public Service Notices
Ref. : Letters to the editor
09.04 Here We Go Again: Another Rig Explosion
08.31 Legislation for Greater Agribusiness Empowerment
08.25 America's Gulf: Updating the Greatest Ever Environmental Crime
08.16 Obama's Gulf Swim Was Fake
08.11 America's Gulf: A Toxic Crime Scene
Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries
09.02 How the Right Still Frames Iraq
08.26 The Israeli Lobby: Declassified Documents Expose Its Influence
08.18 Tell NBC: Sunday Morning Needs a Real War Debate
08.12 Who Gets to Review and Be Reviewed?
08.12 Net Neutrality Threatened
08.11 Situation Room Scaremongering
Ref. : The Daily Howler
09.05 Ripping Off Dead War Vets' Beneficiaries
09.01 Continuity of Government: Coup d'Etat Authority in America
08.31 Lawsuit Challenges Obama Administration's Targeted Assassination Policy
08.28 Ramsey Muniz - Guilty of Being Latino and Activist in America
08.17 Gender-Based Violence in Haiti
08.16 The Scott Sisters: Victimized by American Injustice
08.15 Universal Jurisdiction to Hold Israel Accountable
08.13 From Goldstone to Uribe
09.05 The True Cost of the War
09.03 Reflections on Jack Kennedy
09.02 The Dishonor of Militarism
09.02 Katrina's Destructive Aftermath
08.30 Persecuting a Conciliator
08.29 Yale University's Pro-Israeli, Anti-Islamic Conference
08.27 Hawks Box in Obama on Afghan War
08.24 Iraq Pullout: Mission Accomplished or Strategic Retreat?
08.23 Thinking About Lying
08.23 America Knows How to Do Xenophobia
08.20 Spinning the US Failure in Iraq
08.19 Part Tinker Bell, Part Predator Drone: The Fantasy of the Presidency as Deus ex Machina
08.16 Thinking About Rainbows
08.16 In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
08.12 A Neocon Preps US for War with Iran
08.31 America's Holy Crusade against the Muslim World
08.23 The Laureate and the Leaker: Swedish Warrant a Salvo in Team Obama's War on Wikileaks
08.18 Impact of Israeli Military Order No. 1650
08.14 Gaza's Poisoned Water
08.13 Timebends: The Further Fruits of Wikileaks' Revelation
08.12 Don't Try These GOP Alibis at Home
08.10 The Charade Begins: Netanyahu's Flotilla Massacre Probe Testimony
09.06 Thinking About Labor
08.30 Thinking About Fear
08.27 America Facing Depression and Bankruptcy
08.19 Homeowners' Rebellion: Could 62 Million Homes be Foreclosure-proof?
09.06 Honduran Repression Continues Unabated
09.05 Sanctions kill innocent civilians: Who pays for the loss of life in Iran?
08.30 Israel will not choose to attack Iran: Harun Yahya
08.30 Israel Threatens War with Lebanon
08.24 Notes from Besieged Gaza
08.23 Washington Orders Shahbaz Airbase Saved, not Pakistan's Flood Victims
08.23 Political Killings in Colombia
08.23 A united Iran against a collapsing Israel
08.22 The Charade Announced: Latest Israeli No-Peace Peace Talks for September
08.21 Israeli Academic Freedom at Risk
08.20 Israel's Bogus Construction Moratorium
08.19 We hear "Israel will attack Iran!" and "America will Israel attack Iran!" over and over
08.19 Palestine: Occupied, Divided, Isolated, Oppressed and Unaided
08.15 Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan: Diplomacy of Brotherhood
COMMENTARY:
Killing Time: Countdown Quickens for Bush War on Iran
U.S. Ties Iranians to Iraq Attack That Killed G.I.’s (NY Times)
The countdown to war with Iran has entered its final stages now. Citing testimony elicited – by one means or another – from two Iraqi Shiite captives and a Lebanese man who has been held in one of Bush's secret prisons, U.S. military officials are now formally charging that Iranian government officials directly planned operations that killed American soldiers in Iraq.
So according to General Bergner, the Iranians are arming Shiite groups to overthrow the government made up of Shiite groups they previously armed, in order to...uh...install a government made up Shiite groups armed by Iran. Well, who knows? Maybe it's true. Maybe the Iranians are as stupid as the Bushists, who have been arming various violent, extremist factions in Iraq for years now, in what a cynical observer might be forgiven for thinking was a deliberate policy of setting Iraqis at each other's throats, the better to destroy the country and reduce it to a more easily dominated ruin (or grab-bag of rump states). But if so, it would be the first known instance of the Iranian regime arming groups to attack its own allies.
Of course, Iran probably is playing many deep and deadly games in next-door Iraq. In this, they would only be following the example of the Anglo-American defenders of civilization, whose deep and deadly games in far-away Iraq have thus far killed upwards of a million innocent people and driven some four million more from their homes. But the idea that the Iranians are knee-capping their own proteges, to whom Bush has gifted the government of Iraq on a bloodstained silver platter, is patenly ludicrous.
But the actual substance of General Bergner's charges – involving an attack that occurred back in January -- matter little. Their importance lies in the way they advance the long, elaborate campaign to manipulate America into war with Iran. Little by little, Bush minions have been racheting up the charges of direct Iranian involvement in killing American soldiers in Iraq. It has mostly been a process of two steps forward, one step back. It usually works like this. A Pentagon man in Baghdad will announce findings of Iranian involvement in smuggling arms to Iraq, training militias, planning operations, providing intelligence, etc. Headlines will flare for a couple of days; then an Administration spokesman, often Pentagon honcho Bob Gates, will dial back a bit on the certainty of the original charges. A few weeks later, the cycle will be repeated, with the charges more detailed this time, coming closer to "proving" direct involvement of the Iranian government. Again, lurid headlines, followed by a slight demural (usually buried in the inside pages). But each time, the line is moved a little closer toward a flagrant casus belli that will be able to inflame even a jaded, war-weary public.
We will probably see the same pattern this time around as well. Despite the bristling brass on his shoulders, Bergner is still fairly small fry. The certainty of his assertions can be moved back a peg or two without any bigwigs losing face. But meanwhile, we have these glaring headlines in the New York Times, bellwether of the corporate media, and a front-page report by the ever-reliable Michael Gordon – former writing partner of Judy "Curveball" Miller – uncritically relaying confessions extracted by "enhanced interrogation" into the public mind.
The next set of charges will move ever closer to the heart of Iran's government, and will probably deal with an even worse attack than the January incident cited by Bergner, in which five U.S. soldiers were killed. (Perhaps one of the many sectarian Iraqi militias now swimming in American guns and money will be helpful enough to supply such an incident – after which a bit of "enhanced interrogation" can steer the story in the direction desired by the White House.) Inexorably, remorselessly, the Bush Administration is moving toward its desired war with Iran, abetted, as before, by compliant corporate reporters, and by the entire Washington political establishment – especially the Democrats, who not only have been even more bloodthirsty than the White House in their public rhetoric toward Iran, but have also done yeoman service in escalating war fever with their overwhelming support for a measure urging the UN to file genocide charges against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, based largely on a garbled translation of a single passage from a single speech.
So this is where we are now. The Democratic-led House has now officially declared that Iran is led by a genocidist like Hitler, the embodiment of human evil. The Pentagon is repeatedly charging that Hitler is now killing Americans in Iraq. The American Establishment has committed itself to this scenario. Only the American people are lagging somewhat behind – but when push finally comes to shove, how many will oppose "defending our troops" against the aggression of the Persian "Hitler"?
UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has more on "stenographer" Gordon and the context of the story ..
This column originally appeared on Chris Floyd's site, and is republished here with the permission of the author.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on July 2, 2007.
