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06.14 Public Can Make Summer 'Historical' at “Chautauqua 2007: Food for Thought”
06.01 Fixing Our Broken Food System
Ref. : Environmental Health News
Ref. : What is Global Warming, and what can citizens do about it?
Ref. : Global Warming Links
Ref. : Health & Nutrition Links
Ref. : Letters to the editor
07.02 Will the Press Idiocy Ever Stop?
07.02 Blacked Out by the Corporate Media, Impeachment Advances
06.30 USA Today's 'Sicko' Debate
06.28 Slandering the Dead: The American Massacre at al-Khalis
06.25 The Iraq-gate Cover-up Continues
06.19 Sunday Sun Hits New Low
06.19 Alliance With Atrocity: Bush's Terror War Partners in Ethiopia
06.12 Things Your Media Mama Didn't Tell You
06.12 Incendiary Weapons Are No 'Allegation'
06.11 Powell Belies 'Commander Guy' Bush
06.11 THINKING FLUFF
06.09 Romney's Iraq Gaffe Ignored
06.08 GOP/Media Rewrite Iraq War History
06.05 The New Assault on Al Gore
06.02 Bush's Global Warming Foot-Dragging
06.02 Can Democrats End the Iraq War?
06.01 Treated Like a Democrat
06.01 Journalists' Group Unmasks Sen. Jon Kyl as “Senator Secrecy”
07.03 Terrorism As a Virus: Baudrillard's Post-2001 Significance
07.03 "Justice for All": Just a Sop for the Masses
07.03 Pelosi on Impeachment and Defending the Constitution: It's Just Not Worth It
06.28 Congress Needs to Stop Playing in Bush's Court
06.28 Next Generation of 'Family Jewels'?
06.28 Why They Hate Us
06.28 One More Good Reason Why Rupert Murdoch Should Not Get Dow Jones
06.26 Research on Human Nature is Cause for Optimism
06.16 Dare We Call It Tyranny?
06.14 Unintended Uighurs
06.12 War Foretold
06.08 Impeachment on a Roll
06.01 The Hariri Case & Double Standards
07.03 The Libby Cover-up Completed
07.03 Beyond Recklessness
06.26 Nancy & Harry: Bringing Down the House (and Senate)
06.26 Thinking About Baggage
06.25 Goodbye to the city upon a hill and to its fabled economy
06.25 Is Obama Getting 'Colin-ized'?
06.22 Sen. Levin's False History & Logic
06.22 Which Candidate Do You Support?
06.21 Slap Doesn't Stick: Corrupted Congress Will Help Bush Escape Court Ruling
06.20 Bush's Mafia Whacks the Republic
06.20 Iraqi Labor Leaders Blame US for the Bloodshed in Iraq and say Get Out!
06.19 The Reign of the Tyrants is at Hand
06.19 Democrats in Congress: The Wheels are Coming Off
06.13 America's Fragile Republic
06.12 Congressional Failure and the Democrats' Last Chance
06.12 The Neocon Threat to World Peace and American Freedom
06.12 Sic Semper Tyrannis: A Slap in the Face of the Crawford Caligula
06.11 Everything They Say About Promoting Democracy Is, And Always Has Been, A Damnable Lie
06.09 Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran
06.07 Last Plamegate Worry for Bush-Cheney
06.06 Some democracy, America
07.02 Thinking Upside Down
06.20 Reader response: Inflation? You'd Better Believe It!
06.18 THINKING INFLATION
06.11 Losing the Economy to Mythology
06.04 Thinking About Budgets—the “La-La” Land of Governmental Accounting
06.13 'Kill Anyone Still Alive': American Special Ops in Somalia
07.02 Killing Time: Countdown Quickens for Bush War on Iran
06.30 The New Bush-Blair Vanity Play
06.19 Newly Discovered Nuances to the Camp David Accords
06.19 Crocodile Tears
06.07 Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal
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.
