Very interesting warnings in Globe editorial

[Mr. Premise]

Today's Boston globe has an editorial by the editorial page director, H.D.S. Greenway, who always seemed aligned to CIA/State Department to me over the years. In this editorial he not only warns against war with Iran but even makes mention of the fact that Zionism has put lots of Jews in one place for destruction!!! I don't know what to make of this. Is it a coded warning?

Here it is (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/01/16/whats_next____war_with_iran/):

What's next -- war with Iran?
By H.D.S. Greenway | January 16, 2007

ONE OF the more far-reaching aspects of President Bush's new strategy was his stunning rebuke of the Iraq Study Group recommendation that the United States should try to "engage" Iran and Syria "constructively." Instead, the president has made more threats and promises more confrontation. He promised to "seek out and destroy the networks providing advance weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," opening up the possibility of cross border operations.

Congress was quick to react. Senator Joe Biden, Democrat of Delaware, made it clear that any move to expand the war into neighboring countries would need congressional approval, and Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, compared the prospect with the invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

It is ironic that while Bush ramps up confrontation, the Iraqi government -- presumably our ally -- is trying to make diplomatic efforts toward both Iran and Syria to explore areas of mutual interest.

It can be no coincidence that an Iranian "office of relations" in Kurdish Erbil was attacked by Americans almost as the president was speaking last week. At the same time the president reminded Americans that he is sending more naval strength to the Persian Gulf and anti missile systems to America's Sunni allies on the Gulf's western shore to confront Iran.

The confrontation escalation also shows that the hoped for revival of influence by the "realist" wing of the Republican Party is not coming any time soon and that the influence of the party's high priest of confrontation, Vice President Dick Cheney, remains strong. But having unleashed Shi'ite power by overthrowing Saddam Hussein, and thereby tremendously increasing the influence of Iran, the United States is going to have a difficult time putting that toothpaste back in the tube.

There remains, of course, the nuclear bomb issue, which the Iraq Study Group hoped to put on a different track than Iranian influence in Iraq. But are we now feeling a renewed undertow toward military action against Iran?

The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh has been writing about the Pentagon's plans to strike Iran, which he says are far beyond anything that ordinary contingency planning could account for. Time Magazine ran a cover story a while back titled "What War With Iran Would Look Like."

The American Jewish Committee took out a full page ad in The New York Times showing Iran in the center of concentric circles, including all the Middle East and beyond, asking: "Can anyone within range of Iran's missiles feel safe?"

Professor Efraim Inbar of Israel's Bar Ilan University has written that military action against Iranian nuclear installations "has many risks and is complicated, but the difficulty is exaggerated, and inaction is bound to bring about far worse consequences."

And recently The Times of London carried an article -- quickly denied in Jerusalem -- that Israel has a secret plan to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities by using a low-yield nuclear weapons, about "one fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb."

The Times quoted Israeli military sources as saying that, unlike Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility, which the Israelis destroyed by air in 1981, the Iranian sites were too well protected to destroy with conventional bombs. The Israeli Air Force has been making practice runs far out into the Mediterranean, according to The Times. It quoted an unnamed official as saying "as soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished."

The Israeli foreign office dismissed the report as "absurd," and said that Israel was 100 percent behind the diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to give up nuclear ambitions. Are such reports sheer nonsense? Or just contingency plans? Or perhaps leaks designed to dismantle the plan? Or leaks designed to put more pressure on Iran -- or perhaps to put pressure on the United States to get serious? One doesn't know, but Cheney long ago said that perhaps the Israelis will one day act on their own, which sounded suspiciously like a green light.

Every Israeli prime minister has had to fear in one remote corner of the brain that the effect of Zionism might be to gather all the Jews in one place for destruction. This fear has been brought front and center by Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's criminally irresponsible call for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Yet a widening of the Iraq war will be as destructive as was widening the Vietnam War in the last stages of that conflict. If ever there was a time for everyone to step back and take a deep breath, it is now.

H.D.S. Greenway's column appears regularly in the Globe.

 

[PopHistorian]

<< The American Jewish Committee took out a full page ad in The New York Times showing Iran in the center of concentric circles, including all the Middle East and beyond, asking: "Can anyone within range of Iran's missiles feel safe?" >>

That's the clincher for me, DonJHunt. If you believe that the US is really the client state of Israel (at least for now) and that the AJC is part of the Israel lobby that always seems to get its way, well, connect the dots.

Personally, I have been talking to people about how I've noticed in just the last week how strongly the anti-Iranian rhetoric has been ramped up in the US media, suggesting a "get them used to the idea" campaign has been ordered. Almost hilarioulsy, Lou Dobbs of CNN, for instance, will spit out distaste for the Iraq War and then launch immediately into a "those darned Iranians" posture and report a couple of feeble stories from "gov't sources" about how nasty Iran is, that they're arming Iraqi insurgents, that they're teaming up with anti-American leftists in the South America, building a nuke, etc. It's transparent.

For those who continue to say, "No! It's impossible, not enough troops" or "no support from the American people," or "the Democrats won't vote for it." Come on, all those things can be overcome almost instantly if there is false-flag attack of significant magnitude that can be "traced to Iran." I think those factors that the doubters cite actually raise the probability of "something big" happening after a few more weeks of this anti-Iran media campaign.

Then this: << Every Israeli prime minister has had to fear in one remote corner of the brain that the effect of Zionism might be to gather all the Jews in one place for destruction. >> , which we've discussed at length around here, suggests the possibility of a frantic, panicked, kill-or-be-killed, all-out frenzy of firepower to be unleashed by Israel in the region should anything be construed as a serious attack on them.

 

[Mr. Premise]

Scary, especially added to the orchestrated leaks saying Cheney has already made the decision to bomb Iran in April.

George Ure last week said that the web bot future prediction thing (www.halfpasthuman.com) says that "the global financial system doesn't show up in linguistic modelspace in a meaningful way after this year."

 

[PopHistorian]

Hmmm, just musing on a little connection here -- maybe nothing, but I just realized that the famous financial astrologer, Mahendra Sharma, suddenly, out of nowhere, predicts with high probability that gold will shoot to $1000/oz. sometime in March (and that the rise started last Thursday, which was the day after Bush's speech and roughly when I noticed the anti-Iran rhetoric go through the roof). Check it here: (http:/)/www.mahendraprophecy.com/LatestFlash.asp?Pyear=&page=2#year

 

[on_strike_usaexpat]

I would not take anything Mahendra says with credibility. Before I stopped participating in the Gold Eagle forum a while back, he made a string of very bad "sure" predictions. Disinfo or distraction for sure. Feel sorry for anyone that subscribes or buys his books. I place him up there with Sorcha Faal and company.

 

[PopHistorian]

You're right about Mahendra's predictions of the past year (one can read his newletter a week after publication on the site given). His long-term (across years) guesses have been pretty good, but last year he went on a tear of losing short- and mid-term predictions that lasted for months and months. He said it caused him to retreat to his guru in India to re-examine his methodology. Regardless, this sudden prediction of a 60% rise in 90 days is totally out of the blue and out of character for him. Even if he's a disinfo source, it wouldn't mean that he's always wrong, either.

 

[anart]

For those who continue to say, "No! It's impossible, not enough troops" or "no support from the American people," or "the Democrats won't vote for it."Come on, all those things can be overcome almost instantly if there is false-flag attack of significant magnitude that can be "traced to Iran." I think those factors that the doubters cite actually raise the probability of "something big" happening after a few more weeks of this anti-Iran media campaign.

At this point, it's become painfully clear that the NeoCons need NO support from the American people, NO Democratic support, NO legality or justified premise at all to attack Iran. This administration does not need a false-flag attack to proceed - there is no one to stop them, and the legislation and removal of any and all potential voices of reason from positions of power within the government and the Pentagon has been orchestrated over the past six years for exactly this reason.

At this point, a false flag attack may be needed to secure the final clamp down on the domestic populace, but judging from the 'Surge', and the refusal to abide by the clear wishes of the American people, much less the advice of Congress, it seems clear that they are free to launch the attack on Iran whenever they wish.

 

[PopHistorian]

I think the 'cons can safely make a "surge" without worrying about a serious revolt from the US populace. But I do not think they can launch into another, bigger war without something to catalyze big-time anti-Iranian feeling -- not without risking at least some civil unrest -- who knows, maybe that's what they want.

 

[on_strike_usaexpat]

Two carrier groups in the Gulf will make a good testing ground for the latest anti-ship missiles along with being a Pearl Harbor of massive military proportions.

Since Congress will not act, I think the only realistic way left to avert disaster is a military coup (can't believe I have to say this given my anti-authoritarian sentiments).

 

[Cyre2067]

Interesting thought, they could attack iran without a false flag, which might actually provoke iran into activating sleeper cells here. Ones that are CIA-run or ones they actually control, or both, as the C's have mentioned the one world gov't thing exists already... So while 9-11 was truly a false-flag op, the next attack might not be.

 

[Appollynon]

Personally, I have been talking to people about how I've noticed in just the last week how strongly the anti-Iranian rhetoric has been ramped up in the US media, suggesting a "get them used to the idea" campaign has been ordered.

I have noticed this too, the rhetoric seems to have been ramped up here in the UK since the turn of the year, and here today is another example framing the Iranians as people who are attacking the US and US interests.

by Liang Youchang

TEHRAN, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Iranian troops have shot down a U.S. pilotless spy plane recently, an Iranian lawmaker announced on Tuesday as the Islamic Republic was facing increasing military pressure from its arch rival -- the United States.

The aircraft was brought down when it was trying to cross the borders "during the last few days," Seyed Nezam Mola Hoveizeh, a member of the parliament, was quoted by the local Fars News Agency as saying.

The lawmaker gave no exact date of the shooting-down or any other details about the incident, but he said that "the United States sent such spy drones to the region every now and then."

For the full article go here:
http://news(dot)xinhuanet(dot)com/english/2007-01/17/content_5615540(dot)htm

The link above is carried on Drudgereport and the story itself does not comment on the fact that the US is in breach of the Iranian airspace and these type of spying actions should be stopped. It simply talks about how Iran is a growing threat to US National interests in the Middle East and how dangerous and destabilizing the Iranians are being. IMHO quite a biased article to be promoted by Xinhuanet.

 

[Mike]

You're right about Mahendra's predictions of the past year (one can read his newletter a week after publication on the site given). His long-term (across years) guesses have been pretty good, but last year he went on a tear of losing short- and mid-term predictions that lasted for months and months. He said it caused him to retreat to his guru in India to re-examine his methodology. Regardless, this sudden prediction of a 60% rise in 90 days is totally out of the blue and out of character for him. Even if he's a disinfo source, it wouldn't mean that he's always wrong, either.

Mahendra's predictions did go bad this past year in general. I read what he wrote each week up to a couple months ago as well as reading what the GATA people and Jim Sinclair had to say each day. Haven't followed GATA in a while. From past observation, seemed the best indicator that I observed that gold was going to move up was when the view from all three moved in this direction. (the daily GATA post always seemed to think the big pop was on the way, but would become extra-bullish at times) All three have a loose or some kind of relationship to each other which you can notice if you read each and pay attention enough. JS will sometimes rail against following the stars in predicting where gold will go, etc. JS has written recently that Gold may start moving up in a big way in the end of Jan.

How all this applies to the ramp up to attack Iran I think is that big money/smart money/informed money or whatever you want to call individuals that get a feed from TPTB or people that can look at the available data and see what is coming will start to act in anticipation of any action toward Iran.

Two carrier groups in the Gulf will make a good testing ground for the latest anti-ship missiles along with being a Pearl Harbor of massive military proportions.
Since Congress will not act, I think the only realistic way left to avert disaster is a military coup (can't believe I have to say this given my anti-authoritarian sentiments).

The individuals on the ships in the carrier groups (especially those in charge of ship self-defense missile and gun systems) know that they can't stop a full on barrage of anti-ship missiles or probably even a limited, small scale salvo of missiles, especially the sunburn. They are sitting ducks almost anywhere in the gulf. They know Iran will mine the Strait of Hormuz and seal it off for at least a few weeks in any conflict (that's with Minesweepers working both ends of the strait un-harassed), so maybe they will come to their senses and not follow this mad plan destined to fail.

 

[PopHistorian]

<< predicts with high probability that gold will shoot to $1000/oz. sometime in March (and that the rise started last Thursday >>

Well, may not reach $1000, but the rise started when predicted and has not stopped. Don't know if it means anything, but I've noticed sudden appearance of radio & TV ads suggesting that people sell their gold to various pawn shop chains and other dealers.

 

[Rich]

more delusions from Cheney's visit to Austraila:

Cheney hints at Iran strike - http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21279082-1702,00.html

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has raised the possibility of military action to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

He has endorsed Republican senator John McCain's proposition that the only thing worse than a military confrontation with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran.

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Cheney said: "I would guess that John McCain and I are pretty close to agreement."

The visiting Vice-President said that he had no doubt Iran was striving to enrich uranium to the point where they could make nuclear weapons.

He accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of espousing an "apocalyptic philosophy" and making "threatening noises about Israel and the US and others".

He also said Iran was a sponsor of terrorism, especially through Hezbollah. However, the US did not believe Iran possessed any nuclear weapons as yet.

"You get various estimates of where the point of no return is," Mr Cheney said, identifying nuclear terrorism as the greatest threat to the world.

"Is it when they possess weapons or does it come sooner, when they have mastered the technology but perhaps not yet produced fissile material for weapons?"

Mr Cheney also condemned Kevin Rudd's plan to withdraw all Australian combat troops from Iraq. Although he did not mention the Opposition Leader by name, Mr Cheney said the withdrawal of Australian troops "would clearly be a disappointment from our standpoint".

He encouraged further Australian involvement: "The more allies we have and the more committed they are to the effort, the quicker we can anticipate success."

Mr Cheney said the allied coalition could not afford to "anticipate failure" and said that the outcome in Iraq would affect not only US security: "We all have a stake in getting the right outcome in Iraq."

The US, he said, would stay in Iraq until it "got the job done".

"We deeply appreciate Australia, the Brits and others who have been there from the beginning and made a contribution and have been willing to get into the fight with us."

Earlier, in an address in Sydney to the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, Mr Cheney had emphasised the importance of the challenge of defeating Islamist terror, underlining the long-term nature of the struggle for the US and its allies.

"We have never had a fight like this, and it's not a fight we can win using the strategies from other wars," he said.

In his interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Cheney said the US-Australian alliance was, based on his knowledge of the relationship, now closer than ever and that this was in part because of John Howard.

However, he believed that new institutional closeness between the US and Australia, as evidenced in new intelligence-sharing arrangements and in the trilateral security dialogue among the US, Japan and Australia, would outlast individual politicians.

Mr Cheney paid tribute to the Australian military contribution in Iraq and Afghanistan. He singled out the elite SAS for particular praise, saying: "The SAS troops are great. We like very much working with the Australians."

Mr Cheney, who is regarded as the most hardline member of the Bush administration, was unrepentant about the Iraq operation.

"The world's better off now that (Saddam Hussein) is dead and there's a democratically elected Government in his place in Baghdad," he said.

"The Iraqi people are well on the road to establishing a viable democracy.

"In the long term when we look back on this period of time that will be a remarkable achievement. We're not there yet. We've still got a lot to do."

Mr Cheney saw Mr Rudd yesterday afternoon and will spend today with John Howard. He will fly home tomorrow.

 

[PopHistorian]

The news media is pathetic. Never do they consider (A) why does one group of people want to control another? (B) why is it threatening for Iran to have nuclear weapons? (C) why is it okay for some nations (like Israel) and not others to have them? (D) Etc. They start from all these assumptions that there is some kind of "threat" here.

I think it's a setup that Iran has "missed another deadline" (which should sound familiar from Iraq 2003). It's a setup that there is no practical recourse (to stop Iran from enriching) for anyone who is imposing deadlines, meaning that "drastic action" suddenly seems more feasible. It's a setup that the US is claiming "diplomacy is the way" but, oxymoronically, refuses to talk to Iran. If Israel unilaterally decides it is "under threat" and unilaterally lashes out, all hell breaks loose and all bets are off. I think some may be waiting for that.