AN IRAQ SOLUTION

Column No. 74 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - September 1, 2005

An increasing number of authorities are calling for either an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq or the establishment of a public plan with a timetable for doing so.  A very reasoned argument for doing so is presented in the September-October issue of Harvard Magazine by John Deutch, Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former Director of Central Intelligence (1995-1996) and deputy secretary of defense (1994-1995).  My purpose here is not to review the arguments for doing so in any detail.  Among them are, of course that: given the current array of forces on both sides, the US cannot possibly “win” militarily; that no more American troops should be killed for a war that this President lied the country into; that American interests in the Middle East and especially around the world are not only not be served, they are being harmed; and that a primary result of the US presence in the country seems not to be the establishment of  Bush’s very vaguely defined “freedom and democracy” there but rather the establishment of some sort of theocratic state.

While others have plowed this ground in depth, what is often lacking is any detailed proposal for a diplomatic solution to the problem. For example, in considering the so-called alternative to Georgite policy proposed by the current Democratic Party leadership, that of the so-called "muscular Democrats" (read the corporate-DLC, the so-called “Democratic Leadership Council”). Of their fundamentally pro-war, pro-Georgite policy, a friend has written:

"Democrats and others may be interested in Avi Berman's essay in the current Nation. Berman points out that leading Democrats – [H] Clinton and Biden – have got themselves in an odd position on Iraq, calling for an invasion in 2003 and now calling for more troops even as the nation gets nervous.

"I don't have a solution to the Iraq problem: once in, we've got ourselves in a fine mess that will take some work to solve. . . . All Democrats must know that the Party needs a sound security policy. But that policy is going to require more thoughtful positions. . . . Exactly how much the Party leadership will learn from all this is an intriguing question. Berman's essay is at: http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?I=20050829&s=Berman.” And while Berman’s essay is an excellent critique of current right-wing Democratic Party establishment, it doesn’t present a proposal for withdrawal either.

In this column, I have the temerity to propose one, in outline form to be sure. This plan is not something that the Georgites would ever do, of course. For the goals of the plan proposed below, to achieve peace for Iraq and the Middle East region accompanied by Iraqi reconstruction, as well as a US withdrawal without abandonment of the Iraqi people, are not those of the Georgites. Theirs are what they always have been: oil and power.    Neither would the corporate-DLC Democrats, who apparently like Georgite policies just as much as the Georgites themselves.

Obviously with their interference in the so-far unsuccessful attempts in Iraq to draw up a Constitution (as of this writing on 8-26-05, admittedly things might have changed by the item of publication), the Georgites still think that their goals are achievable.  With their bases in Western Iraq under construction (perhaps by this time some of them have been completed but this government will never tell us about that), and their hopes for a tri-partite federal state for the former Iraq that will ensure that Kurdistan will for all intents and purposes become a US protectorate so that the US oil companies can get their hands on reserves that may in the end prove to be larger than what is left in Saudi Arabia, they may yet achieve their original goals (see my column of October 6-7, 2004 on “Iraq and Vietnam”).

Here’s my proposal, the main elements of which I offered several times during the Presidential campaign in various TPJ columns, in outline form.  Again, given the current government and the position of the main other party, hardly an opposition party, there is no way to accomplish this.  But maybe sometime down the road.  Hey, you never know.

1. Announce a date for the end of US offensive military action in Iraq, in combination with a UN takeover of command of all foreign forces, for the purposes of peace establishment and keeping.

2. In that context, announce a date for withdrawal of all US forces other than those requested by the UN.

3. Propose to the Iraqi government the repeal of the "Bremer Plan" for the takeover of the Iraqi economy by foreign investors.

4. Announce a date for the termination of all US private contracts for security and construction in Iraq, other than those that might be negotiated by the UN and the Iraqi government. Ask Congress to appropriate any funds necessary for the early termination of contracts with Halliburton, Bechtel, and etc.

5. Shut down all construction of permanent military bases, with handover of what already exists to the UN Command on an interim basis. Future disposal would be negotiated by the UN with the Iraqi government.

6. Announce support for a comprehensive Israel-Palestine settlement along the lines of the already negotiated "Geneva Agreement."

7. Renounce any interest in ownership or control of any Iraqi oil reserves.

8. Propose as a long-term solution to the Iraqi political situation a tri-partite federation, guaranteed by the UN peacekeeping mission. As part of the package, the Sunni member of the federation would be guaranteed some portion of future oil revenues.

9. Propose the creation, under UN leadership, of a new international organization for combating terrorism using the most sophisticated weapons of intelligence, police work, and focused military action as indicated.

10. Arrange for the immediate shutdown of the US "Guantanamo Prison System" around the world with the transfer of all persons held to the justice systems of their home countries.

Perfect? No. Doable with the right US leadership (to be found among neither the Georgites nor the corporate-DLC)? Yes. Better than what exists now? Surely.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN

Column No. 73 By Steven Jonas, M.D., M.P.H. - August 25, 2005

The sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan by the United States has brought out much discussion of the appropriateness and the politics of the decision to bomb, on both the Right and the Left in this country.  (Around the rest of the world, there are few defenders of the decision left.) The standard US defense is well known: the bombings, both of them, had to be done in order to avoid an invasion of Japan by US ground force which might have cost upwards of blank-blank-blank US casualties (you fill in the number).  (There never seems to be any mention of concern for casualties in the Soviet Army, which Stalin had already committed to the conflict.  But what the hey, they were only Russians and what have you.)

That the standard defense of the US decision has been debunked many times over the years, with much evidence on the side of us debunkers, does not prevent the proponents of the company line from repeating it over and over again. Nor does it prevent them from engaging in name calling when what they call “evidence” in support of their position does not stand up very well under scrutiny.  Having seen both some evidence debunking the standard defense of the US decision that I had not seen before, as well as a well-written repeat of that US-standard defense, accompanied by some of the usual name calling that often goes with it, I thought to revisit the issue myself.

In an email, a friend of mine noted that “in her 1956 book [one with which I was not previously familiar] entitled The Enemy at His Back, journalist Elizabeth Churchill Brown supplied overwhelming evidence to counter the inaccurate views about the close of the war. She wrote, ‘With this knowledge at hand, I quickly began to see why the war with Japan was unprecedented in all history. Here was an enemy who had been trying to surrender for almost a year before the conflict ended [emphasis added].’ “For the latter statement, Brown supplied a huge stack of documentary evidence, way back in 1956, no less.

In response to that email, taking the US-standard, another friend had this to say, in part: “This ground has been plowed before. US casualties on Iwo Jima and Okinawa convinced the US that Japanese resistance to an invasion of the home islands [of Japan] would be equally bitter and drawn out and we would incur at least 75,000 deaths. A demonstration bombing was suggested and rejected, on grounds we had no assurance the Japs [sic] would attend a demo blast, or be convinced if they did. Truman did not take Japanese casualties into consideration, after the depredations of the Japanese in Manchuria and China since 1931, the attacks on Pearl and Manila in 1941, and subsequent treatment of US prisoners in the Philippines. The bleeding heart left merely makes itself look silly as it resurrects this canard every year. This nonsense demonstrates how universal is gullibility and devotion to doctrine.”

Sounds good, don’t it?  Well, not so fast.  Let’s look at some of the holes in the argument.  The battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, while resulting in relatively heavy US casualties, consumed much of what was left of trained Japanese troops after three years of brutal fighting in the Pacific.  The US still had plenty left. After the Philippine Campaign and the huge losses they suffered in it, the Japanese no longer had a functioning Navy because of the lack of ships as well as experienced sailors.  They no longer had a functioning Air Force because of the lack of trained pilots.  That was one of the main reasons they resorted to the Kamikaze attacks using barely trained youngsters at Okinawa.  (By the way, “kamikaze” means “Divine Wind,” referring to a providential typhoon that broke up a potentially disastrous Mongol invasion of Japan in the 13th century.)

The Japanese just might have attended a demonstration bombing if invited, but we will never know that.  For the above defender of the US-standard revenge is apparently an appropriate motivation for a particular tactic of war.  Also in that view it would appear that one dastardly sneak attack (Pearl Harbor) justifies another (or two).  That one needs to engage in character assassination of critics of the US-standard also indicates some of the problems with the US-standard that this particular friend upholds.  Of course, let’s assume for the moment that character assassination is okay in this kind of argument.  Would the following personages qualify as “bleeding-heart liberals?”

“General Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." General Curtis LeMay [he of the Tokyo fire-bomb raid of March, 1945, that killed more people than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined] declared that the atomic bomb had nothing to do with Japan's surrender. And Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to both Roosevelt and Truman, stated angrily that the "use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender ... in being the first to use it, we ... adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages (‘Bush and the Bomb,’ Marjorie Cohn, t r u t h o u t | Perspective, Wednesday 10 August 2005)."  I guess that it all depends upon how you define “bleeding-heart liberal,” just as exactly what Cheney meant when he described the Iraqi insurgency as being in its “last throes” depends upon how you define the words, as he took pains to tell us.

Now looking further at the reality of the time, I happen to believe Churchill Brown's version of the events from mid-1944 onwards, that the Japanese were trying in one way or another to arrange for a surrender, with which I was not previously familiar. Her version is highly sourced. One position that supporters of the US policy take is that “unconditional surrender” was the unified demand of the Allied Powers, and Japan wanted to negotiate. Therefore the US had no choice, they contend. But in the end, the US did negotiate with Japan on conditions, the principal one being the preservation of the Imperial House, de-deified to be sure. No one less than General Macarthur thought this was necessary if for no other reason than to assure that a US occupation, given that the Emperor publicly accepted it, would proceed unopposed by any force on the Japanese side. And it was. If a negotiation on conditions could take place after the atomic bombings, why could it have taken place before? During the summer of 1945, the highly placed Prince Konoye, who was well-known to diplomats the US side, was desperately trying to find someone to talk with about surrender. He found only deaf ears.

Further still, even if none of that had occurred, Japan had six months oil supply left. The US Unterseebooten, Wolfpack U-boat campaign against Japanese shipping in the Pacific Ocean and China Seas was much more effective than the German campaign against British-US shipping in the North Atlantic had ever been.  (Oops, sorry.  That “U-boat/Wolf-pack” stuff was the work of the dastardly Germans.  Even though the US campaign relied heavily on tactics learned from the Germans, especially in firing at merchant ships without warning, I meant to say heroic US submariners risking their lives.)  At any rate the blockade was getting ever tighter. There were no more military targets left to bomb in Japan, the conventional terror (oops, sorry, once again I'm using words that are verboten when applied to the US side)/incendiary bombing campaign had been highly effective. In fact, it killed many more people than the atomic weapons did (an estimated 250,000 in the above-mentioned firebombing of the then-paper city of Tokyo in March, 1945 alone). Further, to repeat, the US could have done an atomic bomb demo. If it failed to explode (unlikely given the testing) and the Japanese didn't bite, then a bomb could have dropped. Further still, why not drop a bomb on open territory in Japan, say on the sparsely populated island of Hokkaido, rather than on two cities, neither of which was a military target. And so on and so forth.

You know, why do not the defenders of the US use of the Bomb just come out and say it: the US dropped the bomb as the first strike in the Cold War (which it was --- see Gar Alperovitz’ book The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb), and have done with it. Fighting the commies was just as important as fighting the fascists, wasn't it? And oh yes, if the real consideration was unconditional surrender, which it obviously wasn't, wouldn't it have been worth it to explore an agreement that we eventually agreed to anyway, to save a few hundred thousand Japanese lives, regardless of what happened at Nanking (talk about the revenge factor). But oh yes, doing so would have allowed Stalin to take over the whole of the Korean peninsula and land troops on Hokkiado at a minimum. It also might have allowed him to intervene directly in the Chinese civil war. Couldn't have that now, could we?

Had the Bomb not been dropped, the entire geo-political history of our world might have been different. For one thing, there likely would have been no nation to date that had used the Bomb as a weapon. That the US did use it, once, established a precedent that numbers of Right-Wing American politicians have been tempted to follow right up to the present day (Dick Cheney [oh what a great whipping boy], anyone?). Even more important however, there would have been a precedent established that one country did have the Bomb, could have used it, and didn’t.

Note:  An earlier version of this column appeared at http://planetmove.blogspot.com/ as a “Dr. J’s Short Shot.”

WHY GOD SENT US GEORGE W. BUSH

Column no.  72 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - August 18, 2005

Back on March 8 of this year, at Tomdispatch.com, a project of the Nation Institute, there was published a “Tomgram: William Dowell on George Bush's Wahabbis.”  Concerning the “Ten Commandment” cases that were then before the US Supreme Court, now decided, Mr. Dowell said in part:

“Whether the Ten Commandments, graven in stone, sit on a lawn by a government building or a courthouse, isn't for me exactly a life-and-death issue -- and I think I'm not alone on this, which is why the Ten Commandments cases at the Supreme Court right now are so dangerous. The Bush administration and its various fundamentalist allies (religious and political) have proven especially skilled at finding wedge issues that, because they only seem to go so far, successfully challenge and blur previous [Constitutional] distinctions, thereby opening yet more possibilities.  The Supreme Court's decision in these particular cases holds great promise for further blurring the lines that once separated church and state in our country.

[Mr. Dowell was quite right.  The Supremes said that while inside was a no-no, outside, as long as the Ten Commandments monument in particular was one of many memorial and/or memorializing monuments, that was OK.  Talk about blurring the issue, by an “apolitical” (ho, ho, ho) Supreme Court.  Is this not a classic case of “one for you and for ye,” splitting the difference when the issue of church-state separation and its numerous major implications for the structure and function of government is surely one that doesn’t lend itself to splitting differences?] “We're in a period, of course, [Mr. Dowell went on] when lines of every sort, involving civil rights, privacy, foreign and domestic spying, presidential power, Congressional rules, the checks-and-balances that once were such a proud part of our political system, and so many other matters are blurring radically.  We also have a President who is in the process of casting off the [Constitutional] constraints of any [previous] presidency, while placing religion with powerful emphasis at the very center of Washington's new political culture [e.g., Bush’s recent equilibration of the Theory of Evolution and the hypothesis of “Intelligent Design.”  Of course, neither Bush nor anyone in the media that I have come across know the very real and very major difference in science between a Theory and an hypothesis, see also below].  He is now adored, if not essentially worshipped, by his followers as he travels the country dropping in at carefully vetted ‘town meetings;’ and the adoration is often not just of him as a political leader but as a religious one, as a manifestation of God's design for us [emphasis added].”

I agree that the Georgites have made much of “God’s design” and “God’s handiwork” in their appreciation of the Presidency of George Bush.  The man himself has made it clear that he feels that he was sent by God to the Presidency, to do HIS work.  Now most rational beings would dispute this interpretation of what is going on and who is doing whose work for what purpose.  Some of the less charitable among us have supposed that Bush in particular and the Georgites in general are doing the work of the oil industry, the war profiteers (including one, it is charged, in a very high place), the very wealthy in the U.S., the military and prison industrial complexes, the massive exporters of capital (and with it more and more American jobs), and folk with similar interests.  But that could be characterized as uncharitable.  I have puzzled over this question a good deal myself.  I have come to the following conclusion.

If one is to believe the Creation story as told in the Old Testament, or the hypothesis of Intelligent Design (yet to be subject to scientific analysis and testing so that it could characterized as a Theory, like, for example, the Theory of Evolution), before God created man in his own image He created the Earth and all of the other beings, plant and animal alike, that inhabit it.  There is nothing in the Creation story that indicates that God under-valued his non-human creatures, although in that story he does place man at the top of heap.  In fact, in the Noah/flood story, God made sure that all of the species survived that natural disaster.  While God was certainly very proud of his creation man, he also gave him the power to do both good and evil for the earth and all its inhabitants.

Unfortunately over time, man has been doing more and more of the latter.  He has created multiple harms to himself and, at an increasing rate, to all of the other species, which happen, plant, and animal alike, to be disappearing at an alarming rate.  Since God created all of them, He must be increasingly unhappy at this turn of events.  Even before the advent of the Georgites, whose central policies are leading to an acceleration of species destruction, environmental devastation, and the ultimate catastrophe, global nuclear holocaust, things were not looking good for the preservation of life on Earth, exclusive of the human species.  With the accession of the Georgites, things are looking infinitely worse.

So what has God got to do with this and where does Bush “as a manifestation of God's design for us” come in? Well, this may come as a surprise to you, my readers, but I think that indeed God has sent Bush to the Earth, on a mission.  That mission is somewhat different from what his followers naively think it is, because God is much smarter than they credit Him with being.  God sees that the human species, if left unchecked, even without Georgite-type “leadership,” will eventually carry out the destruction of much life on Earth, as we know it.  God has decided that they only way He could prevent that outcome is to actually speed up the process of self-destruction by the human species, or if not total destruction, then enough reduction in numbers and level of scientific/technological/artistic “civilization” so that the human species would no longer present the threat to the totality of life on Earth that it currently does.

George Bush and the Georgites are the perfect vehicle for creating this outcome. God is gambling, of course, and yes, certain, but not all, Christian Fundamentalists to the contrary notwithstanding, God is a gambler.  He is gambling that the massive de-population and end of civilization as we know it for the human species will be accomplished by Georgite policies without the invocation global nuclear (or even nookyulahr) holocaust.  The latter, of course would mean the destruction of most life on Earth, not just human life.  But saving the latter, if God is right, Georgite policies will accomplish the destruction of our species while sparing many others.  And then, in the fullness of time, as God’s creation Evolution works, the Earth will become repopulated with the gorgeous mosaic (thanks, Mayor Dinkins) of species that existed before the human depredations on it began many centuries ago.  And who knows, maybe the next time around Evolution will produce a truly intelligent species, not the half-smart one that ours is.

Yes, God is good, God is just, and God has sent George Bush to accomplish the swift elimination of us, so that the rest of the species can indeed survive the geologically recent arrival of that one that is mis-named “humanity.”

An earlier version of this column was published on Wednesday, March 9, 2005, at http://planetmove.blogspot.com/ as “Dr. J.’s Short Shot No. 52: Why God has Sent George Bush.”

JOHN BOLTON AND THE NUCLEAR OPTION, II

Column no. 71 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - August 11, 2005,

I published the first version of this column on March 31, 2005.  On the occasion of the recess appointment of Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations by President Bush, it seems appropriate to revisit the subject.  This column is an edited version of the earlier one, with a few additional thoughts.

In re my column of two weeks ago about Iran and nuclear weapons, it seems appropriate to repeat that the Georgites relish talking about “nuclear options” (or is it “nookyulahr opshuns”?). They do this both in the real and metaphorical contexts, as in their plan for ending the possibility of Senate filibusters in re judicial appointments.  (This one may come up again in the context of the Roberts Supreme Court nomination.  Unlike Bolton, he is likeable.  In every other way, he is the ideal, far right-wing Georgite.  For example, his rulings from the bench on the President’s power, claimed by the present Attorney General [!] to amend the Constitution on whim in relation to the Geneva Conventions, show a fascistic trend as least as strong as Bolton’s.)   Cong. Tancredos (R-CA) has talked about “nuking” Mecca in response to another London 7/7-type bombing.  In my column of two weeks ago, which referred back to material I published in this space in February and March, I discussed the possibility of the very real use of nuclear weapons in Iran, apparently now being promoted by Cheney’s office.  As I pointed out then, since US ground forces are in an increasingly parlous state, it appears that the only possible course of US military action beyond “special ops.” with our own and Iranian guerilla troops (not Iranian “terrorists,” of course) would be to use the real “nuclear option.”  Now we have another metaphorical example of Georgite thinking along these lines: the appointment of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations.

There has been much analysis of the inappropriateness of this particular Bush/neocon choice, given Bolton’s long-standing disdain for the institution and his advocacy over time of a variety of anti-UN measures, including the possibility of quitting the body altogether.  Beyond his views on the UN, the man does not exactly have a reputation as an accomplished diplomat.  To the contrary, two bulls in a china shop seem to be an accurate description of his interpersonal, much less diplomatic, skills.  In conventional terms, then, the appointment seems to be un-understandable, inexplicable.  However, if one starts thinking about what the true Georgite objectives likely are, naming Bolton to the UN makes total sense.  They indeed are symbolized by this appointment.

Bush plaints about “have to fill the vacant post” are (being generous) as disingenuous as are so many other of his statements.  Bolton could not get past the Senate.  There are a number of qualified Republicans who could easily get Senate approval, e.g., Colin Powell. But Bush was absolutely determined to by-pass the democratic process that he tells us over and over again he wants to impose by force in many other parts of the world, to get his man.  Why?  It is unlikely that any of the truly qualified Republicans would agree to play Bush’s UN game for which Bolton is uniquely suited, that is to achieve the destruction of the UN.

The “Bush Doctrine” calls for unrestricted US intervention around the world, using force when, as, and if Bush deems it necessary, unconstrained by any treaty obligations. Based on Presidential whim or other motivations, such interventions do not require -- indeed reject to the political extent possible – multi-lateralism and allied involvement.  The “Doctrine” is a formula for continued and continuous maxi-imperialist aggression by the Georgite-run United States, using the excuse of the week whether true or not.  In such a context, the UN could only be an impediment to carrying out this policy.  At best, then, the US would like to find some way to destroy the UN as we have known it since 1945.  Next best to destruction, which I suppose only people like Bolton and Cheney could seriously imagine happening, would be to make a conclusory case domestically for US departure from that body.

The Georgite anti-UN campaign, let us recall, began in the run-up to the pre-planned Iraq War.  A US Secretary of State formerly held in high regard in many world capitols, knowingly (or perhaps, if he is not as smart as advertised, unknowingly) lied through his teeth on the Iraq reality to the Security Council in February, 2003 (see my TPJ column for March 16, 2004).  Powell showed total disdain for the UN in that performance.  What followed was a supposed campaign to get the Security Council to pass a resolution supporting the invasion.  However, the US put such conditions on the proposed resolution that UN intransigence was virtually guaranteed.  That was the Bush/Blair goal, precisely.  For in fact the US and its puppet, Blair’s UK, did not want any UN participation, at all.  For that would have meant UN involvement in determining war plans and goals and objectives, US/UK military forces under UN command, and UN control of post-war developments.  These were three big sets of no-no’s for the Georgites, who have kept the UN at arms-length in Iraq since then.

Since then, too, the Georgites have kept up the drumbeat of anti-UN propaganda domestically, focusing on five (count them) Congressional investigations of the Iraq oil-for-food program.  (This in a Congress that investigates little else other than as distractions, e.g., the problem of steroid use in major league baseball.)  The UN investigations, of course, have turned out to be all for naught, since the US either knew about or was in the middle of whatever ethical and rules violations and corruption took place.  But once again, we must remember that it is simply unfair to confuse the Georgite constituency with facts.  The anti-UN seeds have been planted and are being cultivated.  Secretary General Kofi Annan already recognizes what is going on as he launches his campaign to make a primary focus of the international body the protection and promotion of human rights, specifically condemning such actions as those embodied by the “USA Patriot” Act.

As Ambassador to the UN Bolton will be an instigator, not a negotiator.  (As Andy Borowitz said in his web-based Report of August 2nd, “Elsewhere, in his first day on the job, United Nations Ambassador John Bolton toured the U.N. building in New York to determine which ten stories would be easiest to remove.”)  Perhaps there will be demands for his departure on the part of some of the smaller countries which he manages to insult with his chestnuts of anti-UN aggression.  The US regime’s domestic clamor to make massive reductions in contributions to the world body will become ever-louder and be echoed with increasing vigor, in the Congress by O’RHannibaugh, and by the rest of the Georgite Privatized Ministry of Propaganda.  There will be possible intermediate outcomes.  But ultimately, I believe that the Georgites will have built their case at home with their constituency, the only place where it counts for them, to quit the UN and of course to expel its headquarters from this country.  To achieve such Georgite objectives is the only scenario that could rationally explain the appointment of John Bolton, a mark of Bush’s desperation as well as his determination to achieve the full agenda of the Republican Religious Right.  Time will tell if I am right on this one.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE KARL ROVE SPEECH

Column No. 70 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - August 5, 2005

Presently (or at least as I write this), Karl Rove’s name is entangled with leaks, tweaks, possible law-breaking, possible treason, possible firing, possible resignation, possible impeachment.  However, whether Karl Rove stays in or goes from his present position, whether he is indicted for one crime or another or is not, the Georgite policies that he has done so much to develop, along with the highly effective propaganda organization he has also developed, will remain firmly entrenched.  They will be at the center of the Georgite regime and what it does, both day-to-day and long-term.  Further, if Rove goes, unless it is to prison, he will be very much involved with the regime on an on-going basis, just without an official title, without a White House pass (presumably), and without a government salary.  As to the latter, of course he will be doing much better on his “lobbyist’s” salary or whatever they want to call it that will surely be provided by wealthy Bush-backers.

This column is thus not about the current affaire Rove.  It is about something much more significant: the content and meaning of the speech the man gave to an assembly of the New York State Conservative Party on Wednesday, June 22, 2005.  That speech provided a rare look into both the strategy and the tactics of the Republican Religious Right.  Although one can be certain that Rove did not engineer the current flap over his central role in outing Valerie Plame, funnily enough it bears all the hallmarks of a classic Rove-distraction that he has engineered so many times over the course of the Georgite occupation of the White House.  Although Rove could not possibly have wanted one possible outcome of “PlameGate” so badly that he would put his own head in the noose, it has served to distract attention from that highly significant speech.

Advance warning: this is scary stuff, scarier even than the likely fact that Rove did out Plame, not as an act of revenge (that too, but minor) but as my friend and colleague Michael Carmichael has pointed out in “Some dare call it treason,” http://planetmove.blogspot.com/ and these pages as well, as a warning to future whistleblowers.  “You do it, and we’ll figure out a way to put your lives at stake,” in this case by blowing the cover of a long-time CIA agent and many of her contacts around the world as well, working in the highly dangerous real (as opposed to the Georgite fictional) world of Weapons of Mass Destruction.  (Rove does deal with one type of WMD, extremely well: Weapons of Mass Distraction.)  However, what Rove said in that speech is scary for everyone, not just potential whistleblowers.  Thus if you do not like tales of horror, do not read any further.

I am not going to provide extensive quotes from the speech here.  For those readers not familiar with it, I refer you to articles in the Washington Post of 6/23/05 by Dan Froomkin and 6/24/05 by Dan Balz, and Patrick Martin at the World Socialist website (http://www.wsws.org) of 6/25/05.  The full text was published at the washingtonpost.com on 6/22/05 but may well no longer be there.  In summary, Rove said that “liberals” were wimps on the 9/11 attacks, that “conservatives” were tough on them; that “conservatives” wanted to “summon our national will” and “brandish steel” while “liberals” didn’t; that Howard Dean, Michael Moore, and Moveon.org did not want “to defeat our enemies;” that Sen. Durbin’s (totally correct) charge that the U.S. is using Nazi/Stalinist-type arbitrary arrest/indefinite imprisonment without charges, representation, or trial/routine-use-of-torture tactics in its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo “put America’s men and women in uniform in greater danger.  No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”

This was a totally remarkable speech, and will remain remarkable whether Karl Rove stays or goes from his current position, or even if he eventually ends up in prison.  First of all, at least up to this recent flap, Karl Rove, usually the quintessential behind-the-scenes guy, has been appearing in public more often.  The speech was preceded the day before by an appearance with David Gregory on MSNBC and followed on the day after it by an appearance with the right-wing commentator Joe Scarborough, also on MSNBC.  Why should this be happening?  Well, if you were a Georgite would you be happy with the way Bush articulates, or rather is completely inarticulate about, their positions?  These appearances indicate to me that the Bush puppet-masters are beginning to think that their Charlie McCarthy is getting a bit limp and that Edgar Bergen needs to step directly up to the plate.

Second, Rove told flat-out lies.  For example, the TV commercial he said Moveon.org put out right after the 9/11 tragedy simply doesn’t, and didn’t ever, exist.  Lying and misrepresentation have been stock in trade for the Republicans for decades.  Adlai Stevenson once famously said that “if the Republicans would promise to stop telling lies about the Democrats, I will promise to stop telling the truth about them.”  However, here they are coming directly from the White House.

Third, to make this speech Rove appeared before the New York Conservative Party.  Never mind that regardless of what they did in a given general election, it has been on the attack against New York’s Republican governor, Pataki, ever since he was elected.  Rove knows just how his minority-President got to be President, by creating a Republican/Christian Alliance, of which the members of the New York Conservative Party are natural elements.  That is the Georgite base, and Rove was talking to them, not a New York State party (which happens to be the official Republican one) that however, on paper at least, supports abortion rights and (with limits) gay rights.

Fourth, Bush is in political trouble (the War on Iraq, Social Security, gas prices, etc.).  So Rove thinks: “let’s go to the distraction tactic.  Since we cannot use the War, let us go back to what worked for us so beautifully the last time we were in serous political trouble: 9/11.  And now that it starting to fade in memory a bit, we can make up even more things about it than we have done previously.”

Fifth, Rove is now well into demonizing the Georgites’ political enemies.  Over the years, the Republicans have managed to make “liberal” into a dirty word, sort of like “commie” used to be.  Then he conflates “Democrats” (Dean, Durbin) with “liberals”  (Michael Moore, Moveon.org).  Just a turn of phrase, you think?  Hardly.  Ann Coulter made a mint, and a reputation in certain quarters, by writing a book that shows her true believers that “liberal” equals “traitor.”  Treason calls for the death penalty.  According to the way these people think, anyone who disagrees with them is a “liberal,” any liberal is a traitor, and you can easily see where that leads.  It’s one thing for Coulter to say it.  Quite something else for the leading policy formulator and Minister of Propaganda for the Regime to say it: if you are against us, you are a liberal, and liberals are traitors.  Just Ashcroft said the same thing right after 9/11 and the theme was quickly dropped in the face of the then-outcry.  It is now back, with a vengeance.  And what do you do with traitors?  Why lock them up, and then kill them, just like the Nazis did, of course.

Sixth, the speech does give a clear insight into just what Bush’s concept of “freedom and democracy” is.  For starters, it does not include any disagreement over Georgite policy.  But then again, over the gate at Auschwitz is the famous sign with the slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei:” “Work Makes You Free.”

Finally, one major state of affairs that the Rove speech was intended to distract attention from, to indeed cover up from the public’s gaze, is the true state of national security under the Georgites. It’s terrible. First, these guys were asleep at the switch when 9/11 happened.  Not that they necessarily could have stopped it like Clinton stopped the 12-airliners plot in 1998 or the Millennium Bomb plot in 2000.  But if they had paid attention to Richard Clarke, the 8/6/01 Presidential Daily Briefing, the Acting Director of the FBI, the FBI’s own counter-terrorism unit for which Ashcroft denied a funding  increase on 9/10/01, and so on and so forth, they might well have.  Bush has not destroyed al Qaeda or even caught bin Laden.  Cheney’s wished-for gas pipeline partners, the Taliban, are back in business in Afghanistan.  The US military is being wasted away in Iraq.  Report after report on a variety of aspects of domestic security (ports, railroads, chemical factories, atomic energy plants) show woeful inadequacies.  The institutionalized violence in U.S. prisons for Muslim captives who have zero rights just creates more terrorists, just as does U.S. support of Sharonist policy in Israel.

There it is, all laid out for us, nice and neat, the Georgite plan for dealing with the opposition, that is, us.  As I said above, it’s scary stuff, ain’t it?

_______________

Junkie:  For those TPJ readers who may find Dr. Jonas’ warnings unimaginable, read this article released last week -- The Iran War Buildup by Michael T. Klare.

Since Dr. Jonas’ article was published, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com has published an article revealing detailed plans by the Bush administration to invade Iran.  Raimondo provides a quote from a recent American Conservative magazine article (not online) authored by Philip Giraldi (emphasis added):

"The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing – that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack – but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections."

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA clandestine officer and co-publisher of "Intelligence Brief."  Giraldi is quoted in an interview earlier this year saying:

Some kind of U-S attack on Iran is likely . . . .

Probably the wind has gone out of the sails of the people that would be inclined toward a full-scale invasion after what has happened in Iraq. Iran is after all much bigger and more populous than Iraq. I think basically what we are going to see is an escalating covert campaign. – Voice of America

Dr. Jonas asked the question if the US was prepared to use nuclear weapons in Iran.  It appears that the answer to his question is emerging.

IRAN NUKES, REVISITED (Expanded Edition)

Column No. 69 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - July 28, 2005

This column is a revisit to a series of short pieces that were run in this space last spring, which were in turn based upon a series of “Shorts Shot” run on our European Editor Michael Carmichael’s “The Moving Planet (Ltd. UK) Blog” (http://planetmove.blogspot.com/) for which I am privileged to be a Contributing Editor.  The topic will, I fear, be with us for quite some time and there are some new developments.  Thus in my view it is worth this revisit, with some editing and additional commentary.

On Monday, November 29, 2004, in "Short Shot No. 27: Iranian Nukes," I wrote in part that at that time not a day seemed to pass without the Iranians changing their position on nuclear weapons development.  One day, they are accepting European proposals for an agreement to suspend it; the next day they seem to be repudiating any agreement.  The U.S. and the Israelis have worked hard to paint the scariest of scenarios were Iran to join the nuclear club, albeit with a few bombs and fairly primitive means of delivering them.  I happen to think that the scariest nation having nuclear weaponry at present is the United States under the Georgites.  It is well known that leading members of and top advisors to the Georgite regime have for some time openly talked about invading Iran.  Since the U.S. ground forces are having such a tough time against lightly armed guerillas in Iraq, “with what is the U.S. going to invade Iran?” one might ask.

Consider the history.  The U.S. is the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons.  Since the time of the Eisenhower Administration (to my knowledge only under successor Republican presidents), the U.S. has actually considered using them again in one situation or another.  In the Iraq war, Georgite sympathizers talked about "nuking" Fallujah.  In his national radio program on June 25, 2005, Paul Harvey, the 87 year-old Disney Corp. (ABC) commentator, questioned why “rifles” were used in Afghanistan instead of the “big one.”  The Georgite program to develop a whole new generation of "bunker-buster" nuclear weapons, designed to get at underground facilities of various kinds, has been receiving on-again, off-again, on-again consideration in the Republican Congress, with the only concern apparently being the cost.  Most recently, the Georgites have announced their interest in starting up a new program to develop enriched plutonium.  Such work has not been done in years.  One wonders just what the purpose of that program would be.

If I were in the Iranian leadership, liberal or conservative, given these facts and given that close-by Israel, presently under the Partition-rejectionist/Palestinians-ejectionist Sharonists, is estimated to have about 400 nuclear weapons, I would want to have them too.  Unless a deal is made, since the Iranian nuclear industry is widely decentralized only a complete takeover of the whole country by the US could prevent Iran from eventually acquiring nuclear weapons.  The deal that the Iranians may be on their way to making with the Europeans and the Russians may be indeed to not acquire them, in return for a solid guarantee of protection against the US.  Perhaps (I noted back in November) this is what the on-again/off-again nature of the public Iranian position is all about, as the various forces maneuver behind closed doors to provide those guarantees to the Iranians.  Stranger alliances have occurred in history.

On December 04, 2004, I followed that commentary with "Short Shot No. 31: Further on Iranian Nukes."  In it I noted that a friend, a very sharp political analyst and a strong anti-Georgite on most issues, had sent me the following comment:

"Steve: If you're really, truly more afraid of George Bush than of the theocrats in Teheran, I'm afraid we don't have anything to say to each other on this topic.  If it's just rhetoric, I think it's ill-judged rhetoric."

I sent him the following response:

"Hi.  Yes, I am more afraid of George Bush and the theocrats/Neocons that are running him than I am of the theocrats in Teheran.  George Bush is rapidly turning our country into a fascist dictatorship.  This is beyond the power of the Iranians to do, nuclear-tipped or not.  The negative impacts of Georgite policy, not only for our country but also for the human species as we know it, are terrifying, in my view.  Whether or not Iran acquires nuclear weapons, I am indeed much more afraid that the Georgite theocratic/Armageddonists, as they become evermore entrenched in power while evermore feeling that on the international stage their backs are against the wall, might use the US nukes than that the Iranians would use theirs."

I never did receive a response from my erstwhile correspondent.  He is obviously a man of his word, that if I stuck to my position, we had nothing further to talk about.

I returned to the subject on February 21, 2005 in "Short Shot No. 48: Going Nuclear in Iran?”  I noted that our Editor/Publisher Michael Carmichael had just published the next item below on The Iran War.  It began:

"Seymour Hersh and Scott Ritter have reported that the US planning for the Iran War is reaching a very advanced stage.  George Bush has already approved a June launch, when the bombing will target strategic sites inside Iran.”  And continuing: ". . . the Defense Department is now revising military plans for a maximum ground and air invasion of the oil-rich nation."

Right above the notice of Michael's item in my email in box that day was the daily bulletin from The Washington Post, which contained this lead item: "Army Having Difficulty Meeting Recruiting Goals.  The active-duty Army is in danger of failing to meet its recruiting goals, and is beginning to suffer from manpower strains like those that have dropped the National Guard and Reserves below full strength, according to Army figures and interviews with senior officers.  (By Ann Scott Tyson, The Washington Post)"

The Georgite maxi-Imperialists must know this.  The US will have nowhere near enough ground forces for any sort of conventional invasion of Iran.  It is having a hard time holding its own against guerrillas in Iraq, much less the large, well organized and well-equipped Army it would be facing in Iran.  It could very well face mass rebellion in the ranks of the Reserves and National Guard, and even the regular forces, including some high-ranking officers (many of whom opposed the Iraq invasion, at least at the planning level) were it to try to mount a conventional invasion of Iran.  Does this mean that the powers that be are planning to go nuclear?

Yes, folks.  That is what I said.  The end of civilization as we know it may be closer than most of us think.

Finally, on February 25, 2005, in "Short Shot No. 49: There He Goes Again," I noted that George Bush was in Europe, talking about Iran and nuclear weapons.  While there, Bush said that he strongly endorsed the European diplomatic option in pursuit of a settlement with the "Moolahs" on the matter of "nookyulahr" weapons (yes, he used those pronunciations in a sound bite heard on All Things Considered, 2/23/ 05).  "Most important," he said.  "Will continue," he said.  "Absolutely the first option," he said.  (He did not say, of course, that his own government would engage in direct diplomacy with Iran on matters of mutual concern, any more than his government did with Hussein's Iraq, or is doing with North Korea, which has repeatedly requested bilateral negotiations.)  Perhaps it is to secure the promise made by the new Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, first reported by Andy Borowitz in his Report of June 27, 2005.  Sounding remarkably counter-factual and counter-rational like the U.S. President so often does, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, not to worry, Iran is building “the most peaceful nuclear weapon ever” (speaking in English and pronouncing the word “nuclear” correctly, to boot).

However, in several previous items in this space, primarily by our Editor-Publisher Michael Carmichael, we have read, courtesy of Scott Ritter, ex-Marine, ex-US Government weapons inspector in Iraq, which Bush has already signed off on a military attack on Iran for June.  Bush's statements on "diplomacy" obviously constitute major lying to the world, right up there with the lying to the world on the reasons for the US invasion of Iraq.  At stake with this newest ultra-Imperialist adventure of the Georgites are the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, to say nothing of the future of Constitutional democracy in the US, and the future of the US economy, to say nothing of the world's economy.  And if they use nuclear (yes, George, that is the correct spelling) weapons, as I suggested they might in my previous Short Shot, well . . .

Which brings us to the present and my present comment.

As is well known, the victor in the recent Iranian Presidential election was former Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  While the open military assault predicted by Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh has not yet taken place, according to Ritter the U.S. assault on Iran has already begun, covertly.  (You can follow Scott Ritter’s work at the Project for the Old American Century (http://www.oldamericancentury.org/), http://www.informationclearinghouse.info, and Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/.  Hey Scott, set up a website, will you?)  If true, this initiative has much in common with the pre-emptive air war that the US and the UK launched against Iraq well before they went to the UN with their “justifications” for “meeting the clear and present danger of that Hussein’s Iraq presented to the world.”  Ritter states that the anti-Iranian government terrorist organization, the Mujaheddin-e Khalg (known as the MEK or MKO in the West) is operating as a strike force under CIA direction, and that the United States is preparing to stage military attacks with U.S. troops from the neighboring Republic of Azerbaijan.

As for the new Iranian President and the possibility of U.S.-Iranian negotiations, the process of demonization of the former, most likely to give the US an excuse not to negotiate with him, has already begun.  He has been identified as a hostage-taker, interrogator, and possible torturer during the Tehran US Embassy hostage crisis of 1979-80 by at least six former hostages.  Iranian authorities are going out of their way to deny this, but one wonders what difference that would make if the Georgites really wanted to negotiate.  Of course, the US does not negotiate with terrorists.  Except.  Except when it is in its interest to do so.

After all, Reagan may well have negotiated with the Ayatollah Khomeini during the 1980 elections, with Bush the First as a major go-between, to defer release of the hostages until after the US elections, which Khomeini did (see the book October Surprise by Gary Sick).  Reagan definitely negotiated with the Khomeini regime to arrange the Iran part of the Iran-Contra scheme to raise money to buy weapons for the Nicaragua contras.  Both sides of the conspiracy were illegal.  Iran was at the time officially designated as a "terrorist state,” by the US, and US aid of any kind to the Contras was specifically prohibited by the Boland Amendment.  So Bush's ideological forbears, including directly his Dad, negotiated directly with the Iranian terrorists when it served their objectives.  As for the present, the Georgites are apparently negotiating with the Iraqi insurgents/terrorists right now (what exactly about, one has to wonder).  But direct negotiations with the government of Iran would not serve their interests now, so the facts be damned.  Let the demonization begin.

History, consistency, and honesty are just inconveniences for the Georgites and their supporters.  On the much more important nuclear question, one still has to wonder, is the use of nuclear weapons already on the Georgite agenda for Iran?  Given their extraordinary track record for secrecy and conspiracy, we may know only when the first mushroom cloud appears over the Elburz, or perhaps the Tagros mountains of that historic land.

_______________

Junkie:  For those TPJ readers who may find Dr. Jonas’ warnings unimaginable, read this article released last week -- The Iran War Buildup by Michael T. Klare.

Since Dr. Jonas’ article was published, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com has published an article revealing detailed plans by the Bush administration to invade Iran.  Raimondo provides a quote from a recent American Conservative magazine article (not online) authored by Philip Giraldi (emphasis added):

"The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney's office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing – that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack – but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections."

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA clandestine officer and co-publisher of "Intelligence Brief."  Giraldi is quoted in an interview earlier this year saying:

Some kind of U-S attack on Iran is likely . . . .

Probably the wind has gone out of the sails of the people that would be inclined toward a full-scale invasion after what has happened in Iraq. Iran is after all much bigger and more populous than Iraq. I think basically what we are going to see is an escalating covert campaign. – Voice of America

Dr. Jonas asked the question if the US was prepared to use nuclear weapons in Iran.  It appears that the answer to his question is emerging.