| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Issac Goldberg" |
| Date: |
23 Nov 2004 12:56:36 AM |
| Object: |
Neocons seek pre-emptive attack on Iran |
On to Iran
Won't Get Fooled Again?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
It is not yet Bush's second term. All available US troops are tied
down in Iraq by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents. Go-it-alone
Bush has isolated America from her allies. And the neocons want to
spread their war to Iran.
The Bush administration is recycling the lies that it used to invade
Iraq: Iran is acquiring nuclear weapons that will be given to
terrorists. In a display of loyalty to a ruthless neocon
administration calculated to win him appointments to corporate boards,
outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters that Iran was
working on nuclear missiles.
The source for this effort to spread hysteria? One "walk-in" source
with unverified documents. Most likely, the source is a member of an
Iranian exile group given the assignment by neocons Richard Perle and
John Bolton.
One might think that Powell would be suffering shame enough for lying
to the UN about Iraq. Apparently not, as his last act against world
peace is to spread neocon propaganda that Iran is going nuke.
The US media, now a tamed propaganda organ for the White House,
dutifully repeated Powell's unverified claims, thus providing
"reports" for Bush to cite as evidence that Iran was rushing ahead
with the development of nuclear weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency conducts regular inspections in
Iran. The IAEA recently issued a report stating that it has found no
evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran.
Real evidence, however, is no match for neocon propaganda.
And the propaganda is pouring out of the well-oiled neocon machine.
French, German and British agreements that confine Iran to the
peaceful use of nuclear energy are in the way of the neoconservatives'
intention to spread the war to Iran and must be discredited.
On November 20, Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of the
Jerusalem Post hysterically accused Europe of defending "Iran's
ability to attain the wherewithal to destroy the Jewish state." Glick
"exposes" France's efforts to prevent the outbreak of wider war in the
Middle East as a trick: "France wishes only to box in the US to the
point that the Americans will not be able to continue to fight the war
against terrorism."
The neoconservative Heritage Foundation promptly broadcast Glick's
hysterical rants into the Republican noise machine, reviving talk
radio calls for nuking France, "America's oldest enemy."
Three years ago Ann Coulter was fired by National Review, a neocon
publication, when she declared: "We should invade [Muslim] countries,
kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Today such
violent words are common parlance.
There is no evidence whatsoever in behalf of the claims the Bush
administration is making about Iranian nukes. The purpose of these
false claims is to create fear that will breech the public's
opposition to a draft. The neocons are desperate for troops for their
Middle Eastern War.
For a decade or longer, the neocons who control the Bush
administration's foreign and military policies have been writing
papers advocating a US-Israeli conquest of the Middle East. A moronic
president has given them their chance.
Anxious to get their war underway, the neocons launched their invasion
before they had the necessary manpower for the task. Bogged down in
Iraq, the neocons are desperate to widen the war before the American
public has enough of the pointless carnage and forces a withdrawal.
Thus, before the Iraqi war is finished, the neocon propaganda machine
is at work creating fear that the US is in danger from Iranian nukes
unless America preemptively attacks Iran.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But Americans
are perfectly set up to be fooled twice. Right-wing talk radio has
conservative patriots absolutely demanding to be fooled. Christian
rapture propagandists have conservative congregations waiting to be
wafted up to heaven. The corporate media is with President Bush.
Military types are determined to avenge the Vietnam loss by winning
the war against Islam into which they have been conned.
Critics are dismissed as "enemies" who are "against us". Reason and
common sense are not features of the Bush administration. It is all
blind emotion, a replay of The Triumph of the Will.
[Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for
Economic Policy during 1981-82.]
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