Dying Iraq vet's letter to Bush-Cheney

Tomas Young's letter deserves to be posted in full.  Read it and support our troops.

P.S. -- My opposition to the Iraq occupation was the main reason I started this blog over six years ago. One of my first posts was a revenge fantasy written in sickened response to a brief, barely noticed AP article about how Dubya was "moved" during his annual pre-Christmas visit to wounded soldiers. When it dawned on me that this had already become a kind of holiday tradition for him and his wife, I knew the occupation was too old and institutionalized.  I don't know if Dubya still visits wounded Iraq vets; but he will certainly have the opportunity to continue visiting them until his dying day, even if he lives another 80 years, the smug fucker.

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

March 18, 2013 | Truthdig

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness. 

Wisdom, not weakness

I hate to direct anybody to V.D. Hanson's stupid commentary on U.S. foreign policy, yet he represents the highest grade of right-wing garbage out there, so I might as well take him down.

It's hard to understand what he is criticizing Obama for, exactly.  For being too soft, certainly.  But on whom?  On Qaddafi?  Oops.  On Syria's Bashar Assad?  Well, they won't come out and say we should start a war with Syria, so what then?  Arm Assad's opponents?  Oops: blowback from angry students is one thing; blowback from armed militants is another.  So that leave us only with more finger-wagging in Assad's general direction.

Or is Obama being too soft on mobs of Arab street protesters?  If so, how could he "get tough" on them?  By bombing them?  By infiltrating them with our spies?  By arming police with tear gas and riot gear?  I'm sure that would calm them down; no blowback potential there, oops.  Then what should Obama do?  More finger-wagging again?

Or, take the recent brutal murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya.  Obama said he would track down the killers and bring them to justice, which sounds pretty tough to me.  (And this President actually tracks down killers.)  Hanson and others criticize Obama for an "absence of adequate military security" in Benghazi.  Fair enough.  But isn't that a technical, not a policy, issue?  The U.S. had no diplomatic presence in Libya for years, and so our embassy outposts there have not yet been well-developed.  Moreover, being a diplomat in a war-torn country is a dangerous job; that's what they signed up for. Just like serving in Afghanistan and Iraq is a dangerous job, to which 6,611 U.S. military fatalities there to-date somberly attest.  (V.D. Hanson can claim his share of intellectual credit for putting them there.)

Here's how Obama explained, before the UN on September 25, why he did what he did:

We intervened in Libya alongside a broad coalition and with the mandate of the United Nations Security Council, because we had the ability to stop the slaughter of innocents and because we believed that the aspirations of the people were more powerful than a tyrant. 

And as we meet here, we again declare that the regime of Bashar al-Assad must come to an end so that the suffering of the Syrian people can stop and a new dawn can begin. 

We have taken these positions because we believe that freedom and self-determination are not unique to one culture. 

These are not simply American values or Western values; they are universal values. 

American values?  That kind of talk drives blood-and-guts neocons like Hanson to tears.  Values never gave anybody a hard-on.  

This is all child's play relative to deadly-serious nuclear tensions between the U.S. and Iran, yet Hanson and the Right's criticism of Obama is pretty much the same: Obama is too soft.  OK, what should Obama do then?  Start a third preemptive war in 10 years that would suck in the entire Middle East and send the price of gas sky-high?  Don't like that, you say?  OK, what then?  Yet more finger-wagging?  Oops, it sounds like Obama just did that at the UN:  

Make no mistake:  A nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained.  It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy.  It risks triggering a nuclear arms race in the region, and the unraveling of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. 

The simple truth is that Hanson and his fellow disgraced neocons have no new ideas, they blew their load in Iraq, and now they long for the good ole' days when our President was a gullible gorilla who liked to grunt and beat his chest, and who would ape whatever they whispered in his ear.  The days when a few craven and dependent dictators like Qaddafi and Mubarak might pay attention.

You see, America's super-muscular military might is only effective against regimes, not against oppressed people who have nothing to lose, and already live in privation and terror. U.S. military power cannot secure their health, their dignity, or a job.  Therefore, neocons like Hanson want America to maintain friendly but autocratic foreign regimes.  Without regimes to threaten or pay off, Hanson and Co. have nothing to offer. 

The more difficult truth is that there is nothing "weak" about America's reading the writing on the wall and adjusting.  Sooner or later, Qaddafi and Mubarak were going down.  Sooner or later, Assad will too.  Yes, these Devils We Knew provided some comfort and stability to us in a region we don't understand and don't really care to.  But as these devils come under attack by their own oppressed people, it would be stupid and pointless -- and contrary to our stated values -- for us to stand alone against a tide of self-determination.  Obama should be applauded for not standing behind dictators who were about to fall, vainly propping them up a bit longer.  That was not weakness on his part, it was wisdom.

Finally, the most difficult truth for some Americans is that we cannot direct world events like pieces on a chess board, especially and increasingly not by military means.  We can't (and don't want to, I hope) stop some moron for posting an amateurish film on YouTube; just like we can't stop street protests in more than 20 countries as a result of it.  We shouldn't try.  And we shouldn't wring our hands over our "powerlessness."  Only when all people enjoy liberty will the real work of U.S. diplomacy begin: then they, not their oppressors, will decide whether they stand with the United States.  Meanwhile, we must have faith that our cherished values will prevail, and speak with confidence and consistency about them to the ignorant and the skeptical.  The alternative has been tried... and failed.

President Ethelred 

By Victor Davis Hanson

September 25, 2012 | National Review

URL: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/328332/president-ethelred-victor-davis-hanson

Zakaria: A 'red line' for U.S. but not Israel?

Maybe this op-ed was copy-pasted by Zakaria's interns; nevertheless, it's worth reading.  Here's the key point: Netanyahu's hypocrisy:

Notice that while Netanyahu assails Obama for refusing to draw a clear line, he himself has not drawn such a line. Israel has not specified an activity or enrichment level it would consider a casus belli.The reason is obvious: Doing so would restrict Israel’s options and signal its actions and timetable to Iran. If it doesn’t make sense for Israel to do this, why would it make sense for the United States?

'Red line' folly

By Fareed Zakaria

September 13, 2012 | Washington Post

URL: http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-folly-over-red-lines-for-iran/2012/09/12/119a6a62-fd10-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html

FOX: Iran says...

I didn't know Iran could talk!  That's amazing.  Regardless, what Iran said was wrong. Iran should apologize.  

Iran calls Israel's existence an 'insult,' as prominent rabbi warns it's more than rhetoric

August 17, 2012 | FoxNews

URL: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/17/iran-calls-israel-existence-insult-to-all-humanity/#ixzz23s5jCu6j

What are Iran's motives?

A better understanding of Iran might save us from catastrophe
As Israel plays up the country's nuclear threat, the west should be seeking active dialogue with Tehran
By Peter Beaumont
March 11, 2012 | Observer

"Actions," said Samuel Johnson in his life of the English poet Abraham Cowley, "are visible." What are secret, Johnson added pointedly, are "motives".
In the case of Iran's nuclear programme what we know of Tehran's actions and motives are the following.

With some degree of "overall credibility" – according to the 2011 board of governors' report from the International Atomic Energy Agency – we know that Tehran, in all likelihood, made active studies of technologies associated with nuclear weapon design and payload design. By and large, the report believes, that activity ceased in 2003, coincident with the US-led invasion of Iraq.


We know, too, because it has been even more visible, that Iran has come close to mastering the nuclear fuel cycle as well, including enrichment of uranium up to 20%.

The problem with the present dangerous debate, as it has been framed ever-more closely through the exclusive prism of Israel's security concerns and its ever-louder threats to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, is that far from illuminating what actually motivates Iran in its nuclear ambitions, it has tended to obscure Tehran's motives instead.


So what does Iran really want?

Writing in 2009, Kayhan Barzegar, an expert on Iran who has taught both in Tehran and in the US, described what he called the "paradox of Iran's nuclear consensus". He was attempting to lay bare the complex and competing historical, political and strategic considerations behind the theocratic regime's nuclear decision-making processes.


Referencing two centuries of internal criticism of Iran's failure "to acquire substantial power, influence and wealth", Barzegar cites more recent history that has persuaded many Iranians, not least in the country's elites, that the west, and Britain and America in particular, have long conspired to throw obstacles in the way of Iran's development both economically and as a major regional player.


From an Iranian point of view, there is ample evidence of this: from the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh's government in a CIA and MI6-led coup in 1953, after he nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, to western resistance to the shah's Esfahan steel manufacturing project to President Clinton's killing off a $1bn deal for the US energy company Conoco to develop offshore oil fields. It is a suspicion that has been amplified by the country's post-Islamic revolution politics.


Indeed, one of the bleakest of historical ironies is that the early revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini actually halted the western-supported civil nuclear programme in place under the shah and it was only persuaded that it needed to acquire nuclear weapons technology because of Iran's massive losses in the war with Iraq, then supported by the US, which saw Iran targeted with chemical weapons.


It is these twin considerations – a combination of desire for deterrence in a neighbourhood where there are five nuclear powers and a sense of frustrated regional ambitions – that have long driven Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology, summed up in its 20-year strategic plan, ratified by its powerful expediency council, which calls for Iran to "rank first in the region".


Iran's decision-making over its nuclear programme, not least its pursuit of weapons technology, is complicated by a number of other factors. Indeed, the 2010 US National Intelligence Estimate, in agreement with other analysts, argued that far from having already concluded it would build a bomb at any cost, Tehran is more flexible on the issue, "guided by a cost-benefit approach", a judgment recently endorsed by 16 US agencies that have studied the issue and concluded there is no evidence Iran is actively trying to build a bomb.


Indeed, as Barzegar argued: "There are quite a number of reasons why, from the perspective of the Iranian leadership, weaponisation is untenable, unnecessary and unwise."

If Iran's deliberate policy of ambiguity is one complicating factor, a second and equally important issue is how the nuclear programme, and the consequent international pressure on Tehran, has become ever more politicised in both the factional wrangling within the regime and the country's wider politics.


That has meant, counterintuitively perhaps, that as international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions has increased, it has made it harder, not easier, for the regime to come to an accommodation as even some leading members of the Green opposition have criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for any perceived concessions.


If the motivation of Iran is far more complex than that described by the present, simplistic debate, a question needs to be asked, too, about the motivation of Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and those of his Israeli allies who have been pushing most vigorously for military action.


With not even 20% of Israelis believing that Israel should launch a unilateral attack against Iran, according to one poll, and the country divided over how effective a joint Israeli-US strike would be (Israel is not in a position to act alone), Netanyahu, even as he lectured American supporters, has failed to convince his own public.


More cynically, as a recent column in the Economist argued, Netanyahu's promotion of the threat posed by Iran, described in evermore apocalyptic terms, has been a convenient piece of "displacement" by an Israeli leader absolutely determined to avoid any meaningful engagement with the Palestinian peace process or bring an end to the occupation of the West Bank.


Because of this, a debate that should be about Iran's real nuclear ambitions and motives, and about how to engage with the regime constructively to prevent further proliferation, has been hijacked by a largely false premise.


For those of us who were intimate observers of the headlong charge to war against Iraq, it seems nothing more than a dispiriting rerun, not least in David Cameron's hyperbolic claim – counter to the weight of all current available evidence – that Iran is actively pursuing the construction of a intercontinental ballistic missile that could threaten the west, an assertion eerily reminiscent of Tony Blair's untrue claim that Iraq could strike British interests within "45 minutes".


A war with Iran is not inevitable, but it might yet become so if the debate does not become both more honest and realistic. Indeed, the west has misread Iran for the best part of a century and more, not least since the country's revolution.


To go to war twice in the Gulf within the space of a decade based on rhetoric, lies and misunderstanding would not simply be a tragedy but an utter catastrophe that would shame the west.

Chomsky: The truth of attack on Iran

As always, we can't overlook the learned Noamster (an American Jew) when it comes to U.S. policy on the Mideast, Iran, and Israel.

Noam Chomsky agrees that the real solution is, as Obama stated as America's vision in April 2009, a "world without nuclear weapons"... starting with the Middle East!

What Are Iran's Intentions?

By Noam Chomsky

March 2, 2012 | In These Times

The January/February issue of Foreign Affairs featured the article "Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option," by Matthew Kroenig, along with commentary about other ways to contain the Iranian threat.

The media resound with warnings about a likely Israeli attack on Iran while the U.S. hesitates, keeping open the option of aggression—thus again routinely violating the U.N. Charter, the foundation of international law.

As tensions escalate, eerie echoes of the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are in the air. Feverish U.S. primary campaign rhetoric adds to the drumbeat.

Concerns about "the imminent threat" of Iran are often attributed to the "international community"—code language for U.S. allies. The people of the world, however, tend to see matters rather differently.

The nonaligned countries, a movement with 120 member nations, has vigorously supported Iran's right to enrich uranium—an opinion shared by the majority of Americans (as surveyed by WorldPublicOpinion.org) before the massive propaganda onslaught of the past two years.

China and Russia oppose U.S. policy on Iran, as does India, which announced that it would disregard U.S. sanctions and increase trade with Iran. Turkey has followed a similar course.

Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. In the Arab world, Iran is disliked but seen as a threat only by a very small minority. Rather, Israel and the U.S. are regarded as the pre-eminent threat. A majority think that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons: In Egypt on the eve of the Arab Spring, 90 percent held this opinion, according to Brookings Institution/Zogby International polls.

Western commentary has made much of how the Arab dictators allegedly support the U.S. position on Iran, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the population opposes it—a stance too revealing to require comment.

Concerns about Israel's nuclear arsenal have long been expressed by some observers in the United States as well. Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command, described Israel's nuclear weapons as "dangerous in the extreme." In a U.S. Army journal, Lt. Col. Warner Farr wrote that one "purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is their `use' on the United States"—presumably to ensure consistent U.S. support for Israeli policies.

A prime concern right now is that Israel will seek to provoke some Iranian action that will incite a U.S. attack.

One of Israel's leading strategic analysts, Zeev Maoz, in "Defending the Holy Land," his comprehensive analysis of Israeli security and foreign policy, concludes that "the balance sheet of Israel's nuclear policy is decidedly negative"—harmful to the state's security. He urges instead that Israel should seek a regional agreement to ban weapons of mass destruction: a WMD-free zone, called for by a 1974 U.N. General Assembly resolution.

Meanwhile, the West's sanctions on Iran are having their usual effect, causing shortages of basic food supplies—not for the ruling clerics but for the population. Small wonder that the sanctions are condemned by Iran's courageous opposition.

[ This is the same Iranian internal opposition that Romney, McCain and other neocons wish to rally to the U.S. cause of freedom for Iran ... while we starve and deprive it. Wake up, Amurika! - J ]

The sanctions against Iran may have the same effect as their predecessors against Iraq, which were condemned as "genocidal" by the respected U.N. diplomats who administered them before finally resigning in protest.

The Iraq sanctions devastated the population and strengthened Saddam Hussein, probably saving him from the fate of a rogues' gallery of other tyrants supported by the U.S.-U.K.—tyrants who prospered virtually to the day when various internal revolts overthrew them.

There is little credible discussion of just what constitutes the Iranian threat, though we do have an authoritative answer, provided by U.S. military and intelligence. Their presentations to Congress make it clear that Iran doesn't pose a military threat.

Iran has very limited capacity to deploy force, and its strategic doctrine is defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to take effect. If Iran is developing nuclear weapons (which is still undetermined), that would be part of its deterrent strategy.

[ Gee, why in the world would Iran want to deter anybody? Cough! Iraq! Afghanistan! Cough! Cough! - J ]

The understanding of serious Israeli and U.S. analysts is expressed clearly by 30-year CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, who said in January, "If I was an Iranian national security planner, I would want nuclear weapons" as a deterrent.

An additional charge the West levels against Iran is that it is seeking to expand its influence in neighboring countries attacked and occupied by the U.S. and Britain, and is supporting resistance to the U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in Lebanon and illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Like its deterrence of possible violence by Western countries, Iran's actions are said to be intolerable threats to "global order."

Global opinion agrees with Maoz. Support is overwhelming for a WMDFZ [WMD Free Zone] in the Middle East; this zone would include Iran, Israel and preferably the other two nuclear powers that have refused to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: India and Pakistan, who, along with Israel, developed their programs with U.S. aid.

Support for this policy at the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 was so strong that Washington was forced to agree formally, but with conditions: The zone could not take effect until a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors was in place; Israel's nuclear weapons programs must be exempted from international inspection; and no country (meaning the U.S.) must be obliged to provide information about "Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel."

The 2010 conference called for a session in May 2012 to move toward establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.

With all the furor about Iran, however, there is scant attention to that option, which would be the most constructive way of dealing with the nuclear threats in the region: for the "international community," the threat that Iran might gain nuclear capability; for most of the world, the threat posed by the only state in the region with nuclear weapons and a long record of aggression, and its superpower patron.

One can find no mention at all of the fact that the U.S. and Britain have a unique responsibility to dedicate their efforts to this goal. In seeking to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq, they invoked U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), which they claimed Iraq was violating by developing WMD.

We may ignore the claim, but not the fact that the resolution explicitly commits signers to establishing a WMDFZ in the Middle East.

58% of Israelis opposed to strike on Iran without U.S. backing

What does this poll tell us, folks? That any decision Israel takes will depend on President Obama's orders.

America is in control of this situation, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. So take the opportunity now to tell Obama and your Congressmen "NO" to preemptive war on Iran!

Haaretz poll: Most of the public opposes an Israeli strike on Iran

Support for Netanyahu's Likud party is at all-time high, but Israelis still skeptical regarding attack on Iran's nuclear facilities without U.S. backing.

By Yossi Verter

March 8, 2012 | Ha'aretz

URL: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/haaretz-poll-most-of-the-public-opposes-an-israeli-strike-on-iran-1.417282

Dire results of a preemptive attack on Iran

You all remember Richard Clarke, right? He the guy from the Reagan and Bush Admin.'s who criticized the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He's now cautioning against war with Iran.

There could be many very bad consequences. But here's the real strategy behind a preemptive Israeli strike on Iran [emphasis mine]:

Israel can't do long-term, severe damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, so its chief purpose in bombing Iran would be to trigger Iranian retaliation and draw the U.S. into the war to defend Israel, and to finish off what Israel started.

Therefore, the U.S. cannot allow Israel to attack Iran unilaterally and preemptively, because as Israel's best ally the United States would get sucked into a war with Iran.

Alternatively, we could tell Israel and the rest of the world that Israel would be on its own if it attacked Iran without international support. But with the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., and American sentiment being the way it is, such a scenario is almost impossible to imagine.

What Will Happen to the US If Israel Attacks Iran?

By Brian Ross

March 5, 2012 | ABC News

President Obama is meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel at the White House today, and will try to talk him out of an immediate strike on Iran's nuclear sites.

If Israel does decide to bomb Iran, however, what will it mean for the United States? According to former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, Americans should brace for a painful impact. Within a week of the first Israeli attack, says Clarke, a worst case scenario would bring soaring gas prices, terror attacks in U.S. cities, worldwide cyberwar, dead and wounded U.S. sailors, and the real possibility of broad American military involvement.

WATCH An Interview with Richard Clarke: If Israel Attacks Iran

Gas Prices Could Double

According to U.S. government estimates, about 20 percent of the oil traded worldwide passes through the Persian Gulf, bordered by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. If Israel were to bomb Iran, oil prices would immediately go up. If Iran responded by attacking oil tankers going through the Persian Gulf, says Clarke, gasoline prices for U.S. consumers could double.

"You could see very quickly Iranian commandos and their small boats attacking tankers, attacking oil platforms," said Clarke. "You could see mines being laid in the Gulf."

The result, said Clarke, "would be a huge crisis in energy." President Obama would tap the U.S.'s strategic petroleum reserve, alleviating some of the price rise. The spike in prices "might not last long if the U.S. and its allies are able to take control of the Gulf," said Clarke. "But that could take more than a week and under some scenarios it could take almost a month."

Terror Threat Against Americans

If Israel were to bomb Iran, American officials fear there could be a new wave of terrorism directed by Tehran, especially if the U.S. gets pulled in to the conflict.

"If we, the United States, we're bombing Iran, then I think they'd certainly want to try to do something on our homeland because we were bombing their homeland," said Clarke.

Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah have already shown a willingness to act outside their own borders, both with deadly attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina in the 1990s and the apparent attempted hits on Israeli targets in a number of countries earlier this year.

"Both have strong inroads in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, where they could strike Israeli, Jewish, and U.S. targets," said Clarke.

Israeli embassies and consulates and Jewish places of worship in the U.S. have been put on alert.

The World's First International Cyberwar

An Israeli attack on Iran would likely set off the world's first international cyber war. Before striking, Israel will try to blind the air defenses of Iran and its neighbors with cyber warfare. And the U.S. might end up using capabilities it has kept secret until now.

"The United States has a very powerful ability to cause this sort of disruption to electric power grids, communications networks," said Clarke. "It hasn't done it because it doesn't like to expose its tricks as it's afraid once it does it, people will figure out how the United States does it. But in a war with Iran, they would be willing to run that risk."

Iran would also attempt to hit back. Said Clarke, "Iran also has a cyber command, which might try to retaliate by attacking U.S infrastructure such as the power grid, trains, airlines, refineries."

U.S. Navy Casualties in the Gulf

Should the U.S. become involved in the Israeli-Iran conflict militarily, says Clarke, it will be impossible to avoid American casualties.

"The Iranians have hundreds if not thousands of small boats, armed small boats, commando small boats, that will operate in the Gulf," said Clarke. "They can get in, they can swarm a U.S. destroyer. The Iranians now also have cruise missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles."

Clarke said there is a potential for the U.S. to sustain significant damage to a few ships and lose some sailors, just as it did during the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. Two U.S. ships were hit during that conflict, with a loss of nearly 40 American lives.

The U.S. Enters the War

According to Clarke, Israel can't do long-term, severe damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, so its chief purpose in bombing Iran would be to trigger Iranian retaliation and draw the U.S. into the war to defend Israel, and to finish off what Israel started.

If Israel bombs Iran, Clarke says the cascade of events will lead to attacks on Israeli cities. "Advisors to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak are saying that if Israel bombed Iran, the retaliation on Israel would be tolerable," said Clarke. "But if Hezbollah in Lebanon launched thousands of extended range, improved accuracy rockets on Israel, hundreds of Israelis would die. In such a small country, that would be devastating."

The casualties, in turn, would bring the inevitable call to Washington for help.

"You will very quickly see a phone call from Prime Minister Netanyahu to the President," said Clarke, "and he will say to him, 'Only the United States, Mr. President, can find and destroy these mobile missile launchers. Only you can save the lives of Israelis who are dying as I speak in our cities."

Clarke said that message would probably spur any U.S. president into action -- but especially one who is up for reelection within months. "It's likely to get a yes answer from the president," predicts Clarke, "and bring the U.S. into the war."

Israeli spy chiefs: Stop drumbeat of war against Iran

Said Efraim Halevy, director of Israel's Mossad in the early 2000s and later the head of Israel's National Security Council, to Huffington Post:

"If I'm sitting here in the month of March 2012 reading [Romney's latest op-ed on Iran], and I'm an Iranian leader, what do I understand? I have nine more months to run as fast as I can because this is going to be terrible if the other guys get in."

Another ex-director of Israeli intelligence, Meir Dagan, had this to say to 60 Minutes:

"The regime in Iran is a very rational one," says the former top Israeli spymaster. And President Ahmadinejad? "The answer is yes," he replies, but "Not exactly our rational, but I think he is rational. [...] An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way."

'Mowing the lawn' in Iran won't work; we must invade

Just be aware that if you vote Romney, you're voting for another preemptive war and occupation -- this time in Iran. Unlike Ron Paul or perhaps even Newt Gingrich, Romney has no real thoughts of his own on foreign policy; all his advisers are neocons. Penned Romney's advisers in 2009: "The Iranian regime threatens not only Israel, but also every other nation in the region, and ultimately the world." That's right, the world. Iran threatens the world. You heard it from Team Romney first.

The only way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, (and threatening the world), if it really intends to get one, is to invade and occupy Iran. Are you ready for that? Is the android candidate?

Why Bombing Iran Would Mean Invading Iran

By Robert Wright

March 1, 2012 | The Atlantic

Mitt Romney is tired of hearing President Obama threaten Iran in only vague terms. Enough of this "all options are on the table" stuff. Obama, Romney says, should declare that "we are considering military options" and "they're not just on the table--they are in our hand."

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Romney will get some support next week when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington: Netanyahu will ask Obama to say publicly that "the United States is preparing for a military operation in the event that Iran crosses certain 'red lines'."

Before signing on to this mission, could we get some clarity on what exactly this "military operation" will ultimately entail?

There are two main schools of thought about how air strikes on Iran would work out. Most Americans seem to envision something cleanly surgical--a few days of bombing runs and then we get that "mission accomplished" banner out of the closet. A smaller number of Americans--notably including a lot of national security experts--realize that Iran would probably retaliate, possibly in ways that drew America into a sustained and even far-flung conflict.

What too few people emphasize, it seems to me, is that these two scenarios don't exhaust the possibilities. Even if air strikes don't draw us into an instant conflagration, they could drag us into a long-term conflict with Iran that winds up with American boots on the ground. In fact, when you think about the military and political logic of the situation, the invasion and occupation of Iran is the most likely long-term outcome of bombing regardless of what happens in the short term.

Among national security experts there is nearly universal agreement on the following: Bombing could set Iran's nuclear program back by one or two years, maybe even several, but it would also (1) remove any doubt in the minds of Iranian leaders about whether to pursue nuclear weapons; and (2) ensure that the Iranian nuclear program was revamped to resist future air strikes.

And the new, more entrenched Iranian nuclear program wouldn't be the kind of thing that could be undone by a new generation of bunker-buster bombs. According to experts I've talked to, Iran would probably react to bombing not by burying its nuclear facilities deeper, but by dispersing them much more widely. They would be impossible to identify from the air and for that matter not readily identifiable from the street. Meanwhile, the international inspectors who now keep us apprised of Iran's nuclear status would be banned in the wake of air strikes. So even if we were willing to make additional bombing runs on an annual basis ("mowing the lawn," as some call it), we could never be confident that Iran wasn't producing a nuclear weapon. The only path to such confidence would be to invade the country and seize the instruments of state.

Would we actually do that? Probably. In justifying the initial bombing, President Obama will have driven home how unacceptable an Iran with nuclear weapons is, thus establishing as a kind of doctrine that America will never let Iran acquire them. (The "Obama doctrine" has never acquired a clear meaning, and I'm sure some hawks would be happy to assign it this new one as a way of gluing Obama to his commitment.)

Doctrines can be abandoned, of course, but only at some political cost. And this one would be an especially unlikely orphan when you have a president who (being a Democrat) is insecure about his national security credentials and, on top of that, is insecure about his pro-Israel credentials. Of course, if Obama loses in November, then, one or two years down the road, it won't be the creator of this doctrine who is in the White House. But in the event of a Republican presidency, adherence to such a doctrine is pretty much assured anyway. (See first paragraph, above.)

But why take my word for any of this? I'll close with the judgment of now-retired four-star Marine Gen. James Cartwright. Two years ago, when he was Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had this exchange with Sen. Jack Reed during Senate hearings:

Senator Reed: I presume that [a bombing campaign] would not be 100 percent effective in terms of knocking them out. It would probably delay them, but that if they're persistent enough they could at some point succeed. Is that a fair judgment from your position?

General Cartwright: That's a fair judgment.

Senator Reed: So that the only absolutely dispositive way to end any potential would be to physically occupy their country and to disestablish their nuclear facilities. Is that a fair, logical conclusion?

General Cartwright: Absent some other unknown calculus that would go on, it's a fair conclusion.

CIA backs up my years-old warning on Iranian terror response

I've been saying this since Dubya-Cheney-Bolton were threatening to attack Iran preemptively. You don't need an intelligence report to figure this out, it's just logical: Iran can't beat the U.S. in a stand-up fight, so it will resort to terror tactics on American soil if the U.S. attacks them first.

My sad prediction is that U.S. neocons and Congressional chickenhawks will cite the CIA's recent testimony, perversely, as evidence that Iran is a clear and present danger to the U.S. and hence there is yet more reason to attack them preemptively. Mark my words.

Iran, perceiving threat from West, willing to attack on U.S. soil, U.S. intelligence report finds

By Greg Miller

January 31, 2012 | Washington Post

An assessment by U.S. spy agencies concludes that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States, highlighting new risks as the Obama administration escalates pressure on Tehran to halt its alleged pursuit of an atomic bomb.

In congressional testimony Tuesday, U.S. intelligence officials indicated that Iran has crossed a threshold in its adversarial relationship with the United States. While Iran has long been linked to attacks on American targets overseas, U.S. officials said they see troubling significance in Tehran's alleged role in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington last year.

U.S. officials said they have seen no intelligence to indicate that Iran is actively plotting attacks on U.S. soil. But Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said the thwarted plot "shows that some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

[...]

He and others testifying Tuesday indicated that their assessment of Iran's willingness to launch attacks in the United States stems mainly from a more-detailed understanding of the country's role in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.

As described by U.S. officials in October, the convoluted scheme was to rely on assassins from a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the killing at a restaurant in Washington.

U.S. officials said the plot was devised by an Iranian American with ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. But the plan was foiled when the would-be operative mistakenly hired a paid informant of the Drug Enforcement Administration to carry it out. Iranian officials have denied any role in the plot.

It was "so unusual and amateurish that many initially doubted that Iran was responsible," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in Tuesday's hearing. "Well, let me state for the record, I have no such a doubt."

Experts said Iran's willingness to back such a scheme may reflect a sense among Iran's leadership that prevailing against the United States and Israel may require adopting new, lower-percentage means of carrying out attacks.

"I see the Iranians feeling that they are under siege," said Daniel Byman, an Iran expert at Georgetown University and a former CIA analyst. Given Iran's resources and ties to terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Byman said that it is "plausible" that Iran already has agents inside the United States.

[...]

Attack-Iran propaganda from coastal liberal media

Greenwald alerts us to another Israeli plant in the U.S. media, an IDF soldier, writing in The Atlantic a supposedly objective case for Israel's unprovoked bombing of Iran.

This same journalist urged us to attack Saddam in 2002.

You folks who believe the myth of the lib'rul media are the most susceptible to this propaganda. You read something like this and think, "Well, if that liberal magazine The Atlantic believes that bombing Iran is OK, then heck, that's really saying something!"

You folks forget that supposed bastions of the lib'rul media, the New York Times and Washington Post, were out in front of everyone in agitating for the invasion of Iraq.

How propagandists function: Exhibit A
By Glenn Greenwald
August 12, 2010 | Salon.com

URL: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/12/goldberg

Obama got more from Iran in 7.5 hrs. than Bush-Cheney in 8 yrs.

Yeah, right, talking never yields any results. Sure. Especially when you never try it.

Obama should just quit right here because all this talking is just going to delay the war effort. Iraq -- check. Afghanistan -- check. Iran -- still negotiating?!? What the...?! Come on, we've got a schedule to keep here, people! The Middle East isn't going to democratize itself, you know!


Obama owns Bush-Cheney on Iran
October 2, 2009 JuanCole.com


Delegates of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany met with representatives of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for 7 and a half hours on Thursday for talks on Iran's nuclear research program.

Amazingly, there were signs of significant progress even on the first day, which most seasoned observers had not expected.

1. Iran agreed to allow inspectors from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the newly announced facility near Qom within the next two months.

2. Iran agreed to meet again at the end of October.

3. Iran agreed to send "most" of its stock of low enriched uranium (3.5%) to Russia for processing to the roughly 20% degree of enrichment needed to run its small reactor producing medical isotopes. Iran has about 3200 pounds of low-enriched uranium, and is willing to send 2600 to Russia. That is a little over a ton, or about what a single Ford Focus weighs.

U.S.-Israel deal: Palestinian state in exchange for attack on Iran?

See, Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself – and its neighbors – against Iran. Why is the U.S. getting involved?

This terms of this rumored deal between the West and Israel imply that the real impediment to a Palestinian state is Israel: It will happen whenever Israel allows it to happen. Actually, this means it will happen whenever the U.S. pressures Israel to allow it to happen. Hence, the U.S. is the real impediment to the formation of a Palestinian state: It will happen whenever we want it to happen.

I'm not so sure I buy it though. The sides in this deal could be reversed: Israel would use America's "permission" to attack Iran as a face-saving reason to back down to the Palestinians; and the U.S. would use Israel as a proxy to attack its enemy Iran. Israel is probably happy to attack Iran, too, but they wouldn't dare do so on their own without U.S. diplomatic cover in the UN Security Council.

Israeli navy in Suez Canal prepares for potential attack on Iran

By Sheera Frenkel

July 16, 2009 | The Times Online

Two Israeli missile class warships have sailed through the Suez Canal ten days after a submarine capable of launching a nuclear missile strike, in preparation for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The deployment into the Red Sea, confirmed by Israeli officials, was a clear signal that Israel was able to put its strike force within range of Iran at short notice. It came before long-range exercises by the Israeli air force in America later this month and the test of a missile defence shield at a US missile range in the Pacific Ocean.

Israel has strengthened ties with Arab nations who also fear a nuclear-armed Iran. In particular, relations with Egypt have grown increasingly strong this year over the "shared mutual distrust of Iran", according to one Israeli diplomat. Israeli naval vessels would likely pass through the Suez Canal for an Iranian strike.

"This is preparation that should be taken seriously. Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran. These manoeuvres are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats," an Israeli defence official said.

It is believed that Israel's missile-equipped submarines, and its fleet of advanced aircraft, could be used to strike at in excess of a dozen nuclear-related targets more than 800 miles from Israel.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, said that his Government explicitly allowed passage of Israeli vessels, and an Israeli admiral said that the drills were "run regularly with the full co-operation of the Egyptians."

Two Israeli Saar class missile boats and a Dolphin class submarine have passed through Suez. Israel has six Dolphin-class submarines, three of which are widely believed to carry nuclear missiles.

Israel will also soon test an Arrow interceptor missile on a US missile range in the Pacific Ocean. The system is designed to defend Israel from ballistic missile attacks by Iran and Syria. Lieutenant-General Patrick O'Reilly, the director of the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency, said that Israel would test against a target with a range of more than 630 miles (1,000km) — too long for previous Arrow test sites in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Israeli air force, meanwhile, will send F16C fighter jets to participate in exercises at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada this month. Israeli C130 Hercules transport aircraft will also compete in the Rodeo 2009 competition at McChord Air Force base in Washington.

"It is not by chance that Israel is drilling long-range manoeuvres in a public way. This is not a secret operation. This is something that has been published and which will showcase Israel's abilities," said an Israeli defence official.

He added that in the past, Israel had run a number of covert long-range drills. A year ago, Israeli jets flew over Greece in one such drill, while in May, reports surfaced that Israeli air force aircraft were staging exercises over Gibraltar. An Israeli attack on a weapons convoy in Sudan bound for militants in the Gaza Strip earlier this year was also seen as a rehearsal for hitting moving convoys.

The exercises come at a time when Western diplomats are offering support for an Israeli strike on Iran in return for Israeli concessions on the formation of a Palestinian state.

If agreed it would make an Israeli strike on Iran realistic "within the year" said one British official.

Diplomats said that Israel had offered concessions on settlement policy, Palestinian land claims and issues with neighboring Arab states, to facilitate a possible strike on Iran.

"Israel has chosen to place the Iranian threat over its settlements," said a senior European diplomat.

Bush gives Israel 'amber light' to attack Iran

This is serious, scary stuff. And it's all intertwined with domestic politics in the U.S., Israel, and even Iran: a change of leadership looms in all three countries. (Olmert and Ahmadinejad are both unpopular at home and likely to be unelected; and rattling the saber is often a good way to hang onto power a little longer).

The problem for America is that, even if we don't aid the Israelis with our air bases or satellite intelligence, nobody will clear us of complicity in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran. Everybody knows that Israel won't act without Bush's go-ahead.

Even worse, as this article concludes, even if Israel does decide to "act alone," it may not be capable of wiping out all of Iran's possible nuclear sites without U.S. help. Then Bush-Cheney would be sorely tempted to step in and finish the job.

I see one possible way around this problem, and it would be a real re-making of the Mideast: a complete halt to all U.S. military aid to Israel. The first message of such a step would be: "Israel, you're on your own now." For Israel is certainly capable of defending itself without U.S. help. At the very least, it's capable of buying U.S.-made weapons on the open market at market prices. The second message of a cut-off of U.S. aid would be: "America takes no responsibility for Israel's military actions against Iran, or in the Palestinian territories." As a strong, democratic, sovereign nation, it would finally be Israel's prerogative to decide for itself issues related to its own safety. Israel would probably do some unsavory things that we wouldn't agree with, but... don't they already? For instance, when Condoleeza Rice called for temporary cessation of hostilities during U.S.-initiated Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Olmert ignored her, terribly hurting U.S. credibility.

For sure, America couldn't disentangle itself from Israel overnight, but halting the $ billions of military aid that we send every year to Israel would be a good start. It would also bolster our credibility as an "honest broker" in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, should we choose to continue pushing for peace.

Finally, this is not to say that America couldn't or shouldn't come to Israel's aid if Israel faced an existential crisis. Indeed, America would probably come to the aid of any democratic, Western-oriented country if it faced annihilation from an aggressor.


President George W Bush Backs Israeli Plan for Strike on Iran
By Uzi Mahnaimi
July 13, 2008 | The Times Online

[Excerpts:]

'Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an "amber light" to an Israeli plan to attack Iran's main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.'

'"It's really all down to the Israelis," the Pentagon official added. "This administration will not attack Iran. This has already been decided. But the president is really preoccupied with the nuclear threat against Israel and I know he doesn't believe that anything but force will deter Iran."'

'Senator Barack Obama's previous opposition to the war in Iraq, and his apparent doubts about the urgency of the Iranian threat, have intensified pressure on the Israeli hawks to act before November's US presidential election. "If I were an Israeli I wouldn't wait," the Pentagon official added.'

'Yet US officials acknowledge that no American president can afford to remain idle if Israel is threatened. How genuine the Iranian threat is was the subject of intense debate last week, with some analysts arguing that Iran might have a useable nuclear weapon by next spring and others convinced that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is engaged in a dangerous game of bluffing — mainly to impress a domestic Iranian audience that is struggling with economic setbacks and beginning to question his leadership.'

'"Maybe the Israelis could start off the attack and have us finish it off," Katzman added. "And maybe that has been their intention all along. But in terms of the long-term military campaign that would be needed to permanently suppress Iran's nuclear programme, only the US is perceived as having that capability right now."'

Neocon's scary predictions on Iran attacks & U.S. election

Predictions and predilections from neocon insiders John Bolton and Bill Kristol, respectively:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/22/bolton-arabs-delighted/

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/22/kristol-bush-iran/

Kosovo, 'humanitarian hawks,' and Iraq

Kosovo and the Rise of the Humanitarian Hawks
Matthew Yglesias
February 21, 2008 | Prospect.org


With Kosovo's formal declaration of independence from Serbia on Monday, and the United States' decision to extend recognition to the planet's newest country, the time has come for a look back on the approximately 10 years of intense U.S. involvement in that conflict. Kosovo is a tiny, seemingly worthless patch of land lacking in all natural resources, but it plays a strangely large role in our foreign-policy debates. During arguments about the Iraq War, in particular, liberal hawks had a habit of wielding the poor Kosovar Albanians as a cudgel: If you supported Bill Clinton's 1999 bombing campaign, the argument went, then surely you could support a war against Saddam Hussein.

Then and now, many pro-Kosovo, anti-Iraq liberals could persuasively (Kenneth Roth's 2004 "War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention" is my personal favorite) argue that various factors distinguish the two cases. Still, the argument was never about a strict Kosovo-implies-Iraq logic. Rather, first Bosnia and then Kosovo provided the impetus for an intellectually influential, humanitarian hawk movement aimed at advocating the use of military force to advance liberal values whose leaders, inspired by the success of Kosovo, saw Iraq as potentially continuing the momentum built up in the Balkans.

Today, there are few left-of-center defenders of the Iraq War as it actually exists, but there continues to be considerable concern about an "Iraq Syndrome" overreaction to the chaos that has followed the invasion. Kosovo, in this scheme, is supposed to be the "good war" that serves as a reminder of the positive potential of military force. Thus, even as center-left figures agree that the unilateralism of the Bush era must come to an end, there's a desperate search to find some new mechanism -- perhaps a Global NATO or perhaps a Concert of Democracies -- that could authorize a war that, like Kosovo, is fought neither in self-defense nor in defense of an ally nor with the approval of the U.N. Security Council.

In that light, it's worth taking full measure of how modest our accomplishments in Kosovo have been. The declaration of independence marks not the fulfillment of NATO's objectives in Kosovo, but something more like NATO accepting the fact that those objectives will not be achieved. Rather than a rights-respecting democratic government for an autonomous province, we have a ramshackle state dependent on external support dominated by a sectarian party and where the country's Serb minority rejects the legitimacy of the government and refuses to acknowledge the country's newfound independence. Our successful effort to halt and then reverse the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians was merely followed by a substantial counter-cleansing of Serbs. Human Rights Watch's memorandum on the occasion of Kosovo independence is a bleak reminder of what success has looked like:

Violence against minorities has been a persistent feature of Kosovo's post-war history. Minority communities, including Albanian-speaking Ashkali, were the primary target of the March 2004 riots in Kosovo. Today, with much of Kosovo's Albanian and Serb population separated geographically, there are fewer incidents. But security incidents continue in the remaining ethnically mixed areas, including physical assaults, theft, and violent property-related disputes. Acts of vandalism against Orthodox churches and monasteries continue, damaging confidence and undermining community relations.

Now that Kosovo is formally separate from Serbia, it seems overwhelmingly likely that protecting the rights of the country's geographically concentrated Serb minority will either require the indefinite presence of international troops or else a further round of secession in which Serb sections of Kosovo are carved out and allowed to re-integrate with Serbia. This still looks defensible compared to the alternative course of action of standing aside and letting Milosevic have his way with the province. But many hawks looked at Kosovo and saw not a boundary case for when the use of force might be legitimate, but a new baseline against which future interventions should be judged. If you were willing to use force against Milosevic, the thinking went, then why not Saddam? Why not Sudan? This line of thinking came to a bad end in Mesopotamia, but many harken back to the Balkans to try to make the case that Iraq should be considered an exception and not something that casts aspersions on the utility of unconstrained American power. In reality, Kosovo, though much less disastrous than Iraq, has, like Iraq, turned out to be more problematic than enthusiasts advertised and should, like Iraq, mostly inspire humility about what we can expect to achieve through force.

The truth, though disappointing from the point of view of journalism, is that the most promising humanitarian elements of foreign policy tend to be the boring ones. Timely and effective diplomacy can often avert humanitarian catastrophes before they break out at much lower cost than coercive force can end them once they've started. And the U.N.'s traditional peacekeeping operations, where parties to a conflict request third-party troops to help monitor and enforce a peace deal, have a solid track record of success but are perennially under-resourced by an indifferent United States. Greater commitment -- political, financial, and (when appropriate) military -- to these kinds of operations would bring much larger humanitarian benefits than would any hypothetic humanitarian wars.

Nevertheless, the debate in the United States remains oddly dominated by the specter of unilateral military coercion as a potential tool of humanitarianism, as if the only viable alternative to a callous indifference to the fate of foreigners is to have the Pentagon identify some "bad" foreigners and kill them. One doesn't need to regret the 1999 military operation itself to regret the ways in which hubristic overestimates of what's been achieved in the Balkans have fed into this mentality.

FOX/Heritage: Neocons' post-Bush agenda

In the following op-ed, the neocons (as represented by that right-wing think tank, Heritage Foundation) are pretty frank about their post-Bush agenda:

- Even more Pentagon spending, although we now spend as much on our army than the rest of the world combined;

- More offensive, preventive U.S. strikes (here re-branded as "damage-limitation strategy"), even if America is not threatened;

- Permanent war against Islamic radicals (as the new Cold War), no matter where or how weak that Islamic minority may be; and

- The U.S. guaranteeing, by means of military force, Western access to trade routes and natural resources (read: oil & gas).

None of the above is actually necessary, as Mr. Spring falsely concludes, "to protect the American people and their families." Rather, even more massive investment in America's Military-Industrial complex would shore up America's slipping hegemonic - "hyperpower" status, and (hopefully) give the U.S. outweighed international influence as its economic power declines relative to Asia, the EU, and Mideast's.

The neocons don't know much about economics. They are not even pro-globalization in the Tom Friedman sense. Rather, they have an outdated 19th century, zero-sum view of the world where guns and guts get the gold. All they know how to do is spend money on more and bigger weapons, recklessly pull the trigger, and hope that this will guarantee America's future.

But they are nutty, they are wrong, and they will bankrupt our treasury and our moral credibility if we let them.


Heritage Foundation: Laying the Groundwork for a Military Victory
By Baker Spring
January 25, 2008 | FoxNews

George W. Bush is in the last year of his presidency. Yet the greater war against terrorism will continue long after he's out of office.

So, as he prepares to deliver his final State of the Union address, he needs to address the requirements for national defense beyond Iraq.

This isn't to say he shouldn't mention Iraq. Our progress there in the last year remains a vital issue, and the American people deserve to hear about it. What President Bush must do, though, is tie his explanation of the progress in Iraq to the broader requirements for military preparedness.

First, Bush must remind us this isn't the time for a "peace dividend." Even if the U.S. achieves a swift military and political victory in Iraq, one that would allow tens of thousands of Americans to leave Iraq, the broader war will continue.

Our country can't afford to hollow out the military when we need it to win the war against Islamic extremists.

Unfortunately, we're still rebuilding from the "procurement holiday" forced on the military in the 1990s. Because we didn't purchase enough weapons systems during that decade, we're forced to spend more today to buy the equipment the military needs. [Like armored Humvees? -- J]

This increase must allow the military to recover from the shortfall and put it on the path to sustained investments for new weapons and equipment.

That leaves less available for buying current weapons systems. For example, the Navy has been forced to reduce construction of Virginia-class submarines to one per year — even though constructing two per year could have reduced the unit cost to $2 billion per boat.

The Air Force has been forced to scale back dramatically its purchasing of F-22 Raptor tactical fighters. It's slated to obtain just 183 F-22s despite its requirement for 381.

The Army has been forced to extend the production time for its Future Combat System by five years.

This president ought to leave a very different military to his successor than Bill Clinton left for him. That, of course, will cost money.

For example, it will cost $8 billion more than is currently planned per year for the Navy to buy the new ships it needs and $3 billion per year for the Marine Corps to recruit and train thousands of necessary new warriors.

How much will the total bill be? Well, military analysts at the American Legion suggest it would take a sustained investment of 5 percent of GDP each year. Experts at The Heritage Foundation think it can be done for 4 percent — slightly more than the 3.9 percent appropriated this year.

Bush should make it clear that our military spending is low compared to what it's been other times we've been at war. And he should point out that we need to invest today to have the military we'll require in the years ahead.

The president also needs to articulate a sound national security strategy. It ought to be called a "damage limitation" program. This would explain how he intends to protect the American people (as well as friends and allies around the world) from attack.
[Take note: They're saying it's America's responsibility to protect its friends and allies from attack. Boy, these neocons talk out of both sides of their mouths! On the one side, they half-heartedly complain that Europe and Asia don't spend enough on their own defense. But on the other, they admit they want our friends to be dependent on American power, since this guarantees America's influence. - J]

Such a pro-active stance would be a welcome change from our Cold War policy of accepting vulnerability by relying on a strategy of retaliation (mutually assured destruction) in case of attack.

A damage-limitation strategy would be designed to minimize the likelihood of a successful weapons of mass destruction attack on the U.S. and its friends and allies. After all, other nations are less likely to attempt to acquire nuclear, biological and chemical weapons — or attempt to use these weapons — if their attack is likely to fail.

Meanwhile, our military needs to field the correct mix of offensive and defensive forces. We must maintain the conventional forces necessary to go after Islamic extremists anywhere in the world, which is an essential component of the damage-limitation strategy's central goal of providing protection to the American people and allies.

America's general purpose forces, however, cannot focus on the threat of Islamic extremists alone. There are two other broad requirements of the damage-limitation strategy that can be met only through modernized general purposes forces possessing broader capabilities.

The first is to prevent a major power threat to Europe, eastern Asia or the Persian Gulf. This requires enough conventional military power to counter the organized armed forces of aggressive countries.

The second requirement is to maintain access to vital resources and conduits for global trade. In this case, U.S. general purpose forces must be capable of projecting power to distant regions in order to defend access to those resources.

America's military must also be capable of protecting vital trade routes, whether at sea, in the air, in space or in cyberspace.

Our recent focus on Iraq is understandable. But it's time to broaden the nation's perspective regarding national defense. That's where the State of the Union speech comes in.

Iraq is a critical battle in a long war, just as Korea and Vietnam were important battles in the Cold War. Sustained investments in the military are urgent and necessary to achieve ultimate victory.

Most importantly, President Bush should use the speech to make a solemn pledge to the American people that the military investments he is advocating are necessary to protect them and their families.