Who's Killing American Soldiers in Iraq? Iran or the White House?
- From: Raymond <Bluerhymer@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:24:42 -0700 (PDT)
Who's Killing American Soldiers in Iraq?
Iran or the White House?
Philip Giraldi
Anyone who doubts that the war party is firmly focused on Iran need
only take note of the Aug. 21 lead editorial in the Washington Post,
which had the heading "Tougher on Iran: The Revolutionary Guard is at
war with the United States. Why not fight back?" The Post, which
regularly features neocons like Charles Krauthammer on its editorial
page, was a principal cheerleader for the Iraq war. Its editorial
accepts at face value Pentagon claims that advanced munitions provided
by Iran killed one third of the U.S. troops who died in Iraq last
month and that 50 members of the Guard operating south of Baghdad are
"facilitating training of Shi'ite extremists." The Post concludes that
the Revolutionary Guard is "trying to kill as many American soldiers
as possible" and coyly recommends increasing military pressure while
labeling the Iranian group as a terrorist organization to facilitate
subjecting it to more economic pressure.
The Post's assertion that Iran is already at war with the U.S. has a
familiar ring to it. It has already been used by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-
Calif.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and was originally coined
by the Israel lobby. The big problem with the Washington Post is that
it, in knee-jerk fashion, is accepting any Pentagon attempt to
implicate Iran in Iraq as fact. It is also advancing the premise that
any time an improvised explosive device is used to kill an American
Iran must be behind the attempt. The Washington Post then uses its
extremely unreliable "fact" from the Pentagon to make a leap to the
premise that the Iranians are "trying to kill as many Americans" as
possible. This is dangerous language and may be total fiction, as one
might readily assume that if the Iranians and their allies were really
in earnest about wanting to kill even larger numbers of American
soldiers they most likely could do so.
What passes for thinking at the Post is ridiculous, but it serves the
purposes of an administration that appears to be paving the way for a
new war before President Bush leaves office. Successful military
action against an adversary who has been painted as yet another "new
Hitler" could be very useful for the Republicans in 2008 in order to
rally the public 'round the flag again. There's nothing like a war or
a terrorist attack to revive red-state fervor. Blaming Iran also
provides a convenient explanation why the U.S. military has done so
poorly in Iraq – someone else is "interfering."
The Post editorial demonstrates that it's not just Fox News beating
the drum for war with Iran. The belligerent posturing by the Pentagon
and its poodles in the media is all too familiar given the U.S.
experience in Iraq, and it is often the "liberal media" that takes the
lead in disseminating the propaganda. One of the more astonishing
claims that has surfaced from Pentagon sources in the past two weeks
is that the Iraqis have apparently learned to aim their mortars better
when they fire into the Green Zone, where the U.S. embassy is located.
That know-how must come from Iran, at least if one believes the logic
employed by the Department of Defense, ignoring the fact that Iraq had
a large army that included artillery and mortars prior to three years
ago. Where are all those mortarmen? They are now unemployed thanks to
the U.S. occupation. An independent source in Iraq suggests that the
explanation for the more accurate shooting is twofold. First, there
are numerous informants inside the Green Zone who are collaborating
with the insurgents and militias and who are helping direct the
shooting using cell phones, not unlike forward artillery observers.
Second, the insurgents are increasingly embedded in formerly secure
neighborhoods close to the Green Zone in spite of the "surge," making
the triangulation of the rounds a lot less complicated.
One last comment on the gullibility of Washington's self-styled
"newspaper of record" is necessary. If the Iranians are interfering
inside Iraq, and it is perfectly possible that they are, where is the
evidence? Doesn't the Washington Post editorial staff wonder what the
Pentagonese "facilitating training" actually means before using it in
a leading editorial advocating something close to war? If a large
group of 50 Guardsmen is operating south of Baghdad and supplying
Iraqis with advanced shaped-charge munitions, where is the evidence?
Why haven't the U.S. Army and the Iraqi security services caught one
of the Iranians? Where are the weapons?
The New York Times, former home of the redoubtable Judith Miller, is
not much better than the Post. Its recent coverage of Pentagon claims
that Iran is targeting U.S. troops was similarly accepting of the
official line. In response to numerous complaints about the poor
journalism, its public editor conceded that there should have been
"more context." Maybe he should have said "content." Nearly all of the
U.S. mainstream media has bought in to Sen. John McCain's line that
the only thing worse than going to war with Iran is a nuclear-armed
Iran. Such thinking, which results in only neither-nor scenarios,
eliminates all other options for resolution of the conflict and can
only lead to war.
Other evidence is also mounting that an attack on Iran is impending.
Former CIA officer Robert Baer, writing in the Aug. 18 issue of Time
magazine, notes that the current neocon line of thinking is that the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard constitutes the "one obstacle to a
democratic and friendly Iran." This is reminiscent of the assertion
that Saddam Hussein was the one obstacle to a friendly and democratic
Iraq. Baer regards the assertion as the latest neocon delusion, but he
also notes, unfortunately, that it informs the White House thinking.
When Baer suggested to his administration source that the opposite
might happen and a strike on Iran might unify the country behind the
clerical regime, he was told that the Revolutionary Guard's improvised
explosive devices are a "casus belli for this administration. There
will be an attack on Iran."
The facts don't seem to matter at all to the Bush White House and the
true believers still clustered around the mainmast as the ship of
state goes down. Iran is surely not a model that anyone would seek to
emulate, a fact that is confirmed by opinion polls conducted
worldwide. The polls, which rank countries based on "favorable
impressions," consistently place Iran at the bottom together with the
United States and Israel. But Iran's evident disagreeableness does not
mean that it is a threat to the United States or to anyone else that
would justify war. There is no actual hard intelligence confirming
that Iran has a nuclear weapons program or that it would even use such
a weapon if it acquired one. There is no solid evidence that Iran is
interfering in Iraq or Afghanistan, just essentially unsourced
comments from the Pentagon and the American media. On the contrary,
one might easily argue that it is the United States that is
interfering in both countries after having invaded them. Both the
Afghan and Iraqi governments claim to have good, positive
relationships with Iran, contradicting many of the American claims and
heightening the impression that the White House is seeking to create a
pretext for a new war in the Middle East.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=11509
Iraq Confirms: We Want U.S troops Out in Two Years
"Yankee Go Home."
timesonline.co.uk —
The Iraqi Government said today that it had a vision for all US combat
troops to leave the country by the end of 2010 — another apparent
endorsement of Barack Obama’s war strategy during his visit to
Baghdad. The sudden and unexpected Iraqi comments on the desire for a
timetabled withdrawal was greeted with dismay by the White House &
McCain.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article4373602.ece
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