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P. M. - Next Target Iran?
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by Polly Mann, W A M M
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On April 17th, retired U.S. Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner said on Amy Goodman’s show Democracy Now! over KFAI that the U.S. government has agents in three locations in Iran and that covert actions against that country have begun He is one among many retired military officers, including generals, who have called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Col. Gardiner is extensively quoted in an article appearing in the New Yorker of April 17th.
It’s most unusual for this kind of information to be made public even before an invasion occurs. It’s usually only after the fact that this is learned and lamented by those of us who believe that war is barbaric and should be outlawed. (No, we don’t believe in peace at any price. We believe that diplomacy can work; that all humans are created equal with the same needs and desires; that nobody is inherently “evil”; that war in this era of nuclear weapons is unthinkable; and that solutions short of war are possible.)
It was long after the end of the Vietnam War when I learned that U.S. dollars had financed one-third the cost of the French offensive in Vietnam to the tune of $3 billion. So it has been with sensitive information the government has kept hidden from the public until years later, when nothing could be done about it. For example, plans for the invasion of Iraq were drawn up even before September 11, 2001. To my knowledge, the extent of covert U.S. military activity in Iraq before the first Persian Gulf War has not yet been revealed.
However, this administration has made its war plans very clear in documents available even over the Internet. (See Project for the New American Century.) In Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s book, Saving Christianity from Empire, is a quote from former President Al Gore concerning current government officials: “What they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush’s team, is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat—and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.”
Most people that I talk with are fearful that this country is going to attack Iran, and they feel helpless about being able to stop it. There is little indication that the Democrats in the Congress are resisting the administration in any meaningful way. What we would like to believe is that the issue will somehow blow over. Journalist Seymour Hersh would not agree. In his New Yorker article he says, “The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups.”
It’s difficult to even comment on much of this because so much information is kept from the public. We do know that, on the one hand, the President, while condemning Iran’s nuclear program, has approved India’s. Iran’s contention is that it is enriching plutonium for civilian usage. Robert Gallucci, a former government expert on nonproliferation who is now the dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, says, “Based on what I know, Iran could be eight to ten years away from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon.” At this point I’m far more concerned about what the United States plans to do. Seymour Hersh reports, “One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapons, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.”
The scariest part of this scenario is that, quoting Hersh, “Some operations, apparently aimed in part at intimidating Iran, are already under way. American Naval tactical aircraft, operating from carriers in the Arabian Sea, have been flying simulated nuclear-weapons delivery missions—rapid ascending maneuvers known as ‘over the shoulder’ bombing—since last summer, the former official said, within range of Iranian coastal radars.”
Despite the corporate mainstream media’s compliance with the administration’s policy to tell us as little as possible, we know what the situation is in Iraq. We know about the lack of safe drinking water. We know about the untreated sewage. We know there’s been no housing construction for Iraqis. We know about the shortage of food. We know about the lack of adequate medical care, hospitals, and doctors. We know that there’s a whole generation of unschooled young Iraqis. We know about depleted uranium and its deadly effects upon U.S. soldiers and Iraqis. We know about the half million children dead as a result of the U.S./UN sanctions. And we know that this situation would be repeated in Iran if the U.S. attacks there.
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© 2006 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete May 2006 Index - click here
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