- The Washington, DC, think-tank, The American Enterprise
Institute, camouflages its purpose with its name. There is nothing American
about AEI, and the organization's enterprise is fomenting war in the Middle
East against Israel's enemies. Its real name should be The Likud Center
for Middle East War.
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- AEI has the largest collection of warmongers in America.
AEI "scholars" have agitated for war in the Middle East for years.
A moronic president and 9/11 gave them their opportunity. Now that the
US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have failed, the AEI
warmongers are conspiring with Vice President Cheney to foment war with
Iran.
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- Writing in the Washington Note, Steven C. Clemons reports
that Cheney is working with the AEI warmongers to short-circuit the efforts
of Bush's secretaries of defense and state to find a diplomatic solution.
Clemons reports that one former high level national security official describes
the Cheney-AEI conspiracy as possibly an act of "criminal insubordination"
against President Bush.
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- Now that the Democrats have betrayed their mandate of
last November to end Bush's war against Iraq and given Bush carte blanche
to continue the gratuitous bloodshed, the neoconservative plan, spearheaded
by Vice President Cheney, to initiate aggression against Iran, is back
on the front burner.
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- Disinformation is being fed to the media that Iran is
responsible for attacks on US troops in Iraq. This disinformation is routinely
reported without skepticism by the American media in the face of challenges
from experts. For example, a recent British report concludes: "few
independent analysts believe Tehran is playing a decisive role in the sectarian
warfare and insurgency."
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- While the Cheney/AEI conspirators strive to whip up American
anger at Iran with lies and disinformation, they are doing everything possible
to provoke Iran. The warmongers have planted the story in the media that
the US is conducting covert operations against Iran. The US Navy is conducting
"exercises" off Iran's coast. The US military in Iraq has violated
diplomatic privilege and kidnapped Iranian officials in Iraq despite protests
from the Iraqi and Iranian governments. The US government is stirring up
more trouble in Lebanon by setting extremist Sunnis against Iran's Hezbollah
ally. In short, the US government is doing everything possible to start
a war with Iran. Bombing Iran, perhaps after a contrived "false flag"
operation, is the next step.
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- Bush continues to tell his favorite lies that he is bringing
"freedom and democracy to Iraq" and that Muslims hate us because
of our "freedom and democracy." He continues to make these inane
assertions even as he ignores the will of the American people and destroys
habeas corpus, the foundation of civil liberty.
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- Bush ignores the will of the people as expressed in last
November's congressional elections and as expressed in opinion polls. The
New York Times/CBS News poll released May 24 shows another sharp drop in
public support for Bush and his war. America is "seriously off on
the wrong track" was the response of 72 percent of the public.
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- President Bush, the Republican Party, and the Democratic
Party have proved to the entire world that the American people have no
voice. The American people have no more ability to affect their government's
policy than inmates in a gulag would have.
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- What do people in other countries think when they hear
Bush prattle on about "freedom and democracy" while he ignores
opinion polls and election results and detains people without warrants,
tortures them, and puts them before military tribunals in which they are
denied even knowing the evidence against them? Bush has contrived a situation
for defendants in which no defense is possible. In Bush's America, people
can be executed on the basis of hearsay and secret evidence. If this is
"freedom and democracy," what is tyranny?
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- Recent polls show that the majority of the American people
are no longer fooled, no matter what politicians say and media report.
The election last November demonstrated the electorate's lack of support
for continuing the war.
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- The problem is in implementing the will of the people.
Democrats in Congress are not only recipients of AIPAC, oil industry, and
military-security complex payoffs just as the Republicans are, Democrats
are also behaving very cynically. They believe that it is Bush's policy
that gave them control of Congress in November and that by continuing to
let Bush prevail, they will clean up on a larger scale in 2008. They believe
that their antiwar base has nowhere else to go.
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- Their cynical logic is probably correct as far as it
goes. Bush is being blamed for the war and its failure. The longer this
goes on, the worse the situation for the Republicans. Prior to Bush's invasion
of Iraq, I wrote in a column that the unintended consequences of an invasion
would be the destruction of Bush, the Republican Party, and the conservative
movement. It has taken longer than I thought, largely because of Americans'
blind desire for revenge for 9/11, but the prediction is on track.
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- The problem with the Democrats' cynical logic is that
allowing Bush to prolong the war in Iraq increases the chances that Cheney,
Israel, and the neoconservatives can contrive a war with Iran. Most experts,
and many in our own military, think that a war with Iran would go very
badly for us, endangering our troops in Iraq by exposing them to more intense
attacks from the more numerous Shi'ites, who would be armed with Iranian
weapons that can neutralize our tanks and helicopters, leaving our fragmented
and divided troops isolated and cut off from supplies and retreat routes.
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- The pending disaster would play into Cheney's hands.
With America faced with the loss of an army, Cheney and the neoconservatives
would likely succeed in convincing Bush to nuke Iran. Cheney and Rumsfeld
have already changed US war doctrine to permit preemptive nuclear attack
against non-nuclear powers. Surprised by the inability of the US military
to prevail in Iraq and by Israel's military failure against Hezbollah,
the neocons concluded that the only way to establish US/Israeli hegemony
over the entire Middle East is to nuke Iran. The neocons believe that using
nuclear weapons against Iran will demonstrate to the Muslim world that
they have no alternative but to submit to US hegemony.
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- The Democrats are far from being alone in lacking the
vision to see the abyss into which their cynicism is leading us. With the
corporate media serving as propaganda ministry for the administration,
Cheney will be able to whip up enough fear and anger to convince the American
people that the use of nuclear weapons was imperative.
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- Bush's popularity will return as he prevails over the
enemy and tells Americans how he saved them from Iran's nuclear weapons.
The Democrats' cynicism will have destroyed them and opened new avenues
to destruction and violence.
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- Creators Syndicate c. 2007 All Rights Reserved
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