Filed under: army, haiti, Marines, Mike Mullen, Military, navy, Pentagon, SOUTHCOM | Tags: 82nd Airborne division, haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake relief effort, haiti quake, Port au Prince, USS Carl Vinson
U.S. pouring 10,000 troops in Haiti
Global Research
January 15, 2010
Haiti has a longstanding history of US military intervention and occupation going back to the beginning of the 20th Century. US interventionism has contributed to the destruction of Haiti’s national economy and the impoverishment of its population.
The devastating earthquake is presented to World public opinion as the sole cause of the country’s predicament.
A country has been destroyed, its infrastructure demolished. Its people precipitated into abysmal poverty and despair.
Haiti’s history, its colonial past have been erased.
The US military has come to the rescue of an impoverished Nation. What is its Mandate?
Is it a Humanitarian Operation or an Invasion?
The main actors in America’s “humanitarian operation” are the Department of Defense, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). (See USAID Speeches: On-The-Record Briefing on the Situation in Haiti, 01/13/10). USAID has also been entrusted in channelling food aid to Haiti, which is distributed by the World Food Program. (See USAID Press Release: USAID to Provide Emergency Food Aid for Haiti Earthquake Victims, January 13, 2010)
The military component of the US mission, however, tends to overshadow the civilian functions of rescuing a desperate and impoverished population. The overall humanitarian operation is not being led by civilian governmental agencies such as FEMA or USAID, but by the Pentagon.
The dominant decision making role has been entrusted to US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).
A massive deployment of military hardware personnel is contemplated. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has confirmed that the US will be sending nine to ten thousand troops to Haiti, that includes 4,000 to 5,000 sailors on ships at see, plus 3,000 soldiers and 2,000 marines on the ground. (s) (American Forces Press Service, January 14, 2010)
Aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson and its complement of supporting ships has already arrived in Port au Prince. (January 15, 2010). The 2,000-member Marine Amphibious Unit as well as and soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne division “are trained in a wide variety of missions including security and riot-control in addition to humanitarian tasks.”
In contrast to rescue and relief teams dispatched by various civilian teams and organizations, the humanitarian mandate of the US military is not clearly defined:
- “Marines are definitely warriors first, and that is what the world knows the Marines for,… [but] we’re equally as compassionate when we need to be, and this is a role that we’d like to show — that compassionate warrior, reaching out with a helping hand for those who need it. We are very excited about this.” (Marines’ Spokesman, Marines Embark on Haiti Response Mission, Army Forces Press Services, January 14, 2010)
While presidents Obama and Préval spoke on the phone, there were no reports of negotiations between the two governments regarding the entry and deployment of US troops on Haitian soil. The decision was taken and imposed unilaterally by Washington. The total lack of a functioning government in Haiti was used to legitimize, on humanitarian grounds, the sending in of a powerful military force, which has de facto taken over several governmental functions.
Filed under: 2-party system, Afghanistan, airstrikes, Anti-War, army, Barack Obama, China, CIA, CNN, Colonialism, Coup, death squads, destabilization, destabilize, Dictatorship, El Salvador, Empire, Eugenics, Fascism, federal crimes, Genocide, human rights, ISI, Islamabad, kidnapping, left right paradigm, McChrystal, middle east, Mike Mullen, Military, military base, military bases, military insustrial complex, military strike, nation building, NATO, Nazi, neocons, Neolibs, obama, occupation, Pakistan, Pentagon, Population Control, proxy war, Richard Holbrooke, Senate, Seymour Hersh, soldiers, Stanley McChrystal, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, Torture, Troops, u.s. military, u.s. soldiers, Vietnam, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, Waziristan | Tags: Joint Special Operations Command, North West Frontier Province, NWFP
Ex-Intel officer: U.S. Seeks Occupation of Pakistan
Press TV
Seppember 14, 2009
The US seeks to establish new military bases in Pakistan to keep the country destabilized and control its nuclear weapons, says a former head of Pakistan’s intelligence service.
In an exclusive interview with Press TV on Sunday, Hamid Gul said that Washington planned to expand its embassy and increase its security guards in Pakistan.
“There are already three thousand five hundred of them [US security guards] and one thousand more are coming,” Gul said.
He also noted that Americans seek to set up a large intelligence network inside Pakistan under the pretext of giving financial aid to the country.
“They [Americans] are going to set up a large intelligence network inside Pakistan. They say because we are spending money directly on projects, therefore we need the security guards and we are bringing in the contractors,” said Gul.
US officials “want to go for Pakistan’s nuclear assets. They are inching close to those nuclear assets day by day,” he added.
When asked about Washington’s long-term goal in Pakistan, the former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) said that the United States wants to keep the country destabilized.
Washington’s decision to expand its embassy in Pakistan has also rung alarm bells in China with Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, Luo Zhaohui, expressing concern over the planned measure.
“China has concerns over the expansion of the US Embassy in Islamabad and the United States should expand its Embassy by materializing rules and regulations of Pakistan,” Zhaohui said at a news conference.
Washington’s “good war”
Death squads, disappearances and torture in Pakistan
WSWS
September 16, 2009
As the Obama administration prepares a major escalation of the so-called AfPak war, reports from Pakistan’s Swat Valley, near Afghanistan’s eastern border, provide a gruesome indication of the kind of war that the Pentagon and its local allies are waging.
While touted by Obama and his supporters as the “good war,” there is mounting evidence that the Pentagon and the CIA are engaged in a war against the population of the region involving death squads, disappearances and torture.
The Pakistani army sent 20,000 troops into Swat, part of the country’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), last April to wage war against ethnic Pashtun Islamist movements (routinely described as the Pakistani Taliban) that have supported fellow Pashtuns across the border who are resisting the US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan.
This offensive, which was carried out on the direct and highly public insistence of US envoy Richard Holbrooke and senior American military officers during repeated trips to Islamabad, unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe. In what amounted to a massive exercise in collective punishment, many civilians were killed or wounded and some 2.5 million people were driven from their homes.
Now, the Pakistani military continues to occupy the area, carrying out a reign of terror in which individuals identified as opponents of the government and the US occupation across the border are being picked up and tortured to death.
According to a report published September 15 in the New York Times, with the military occupation of the Swat Valley “a new campaign of fear has taken hold, with scores, perhaps hundreds, of bodies dumped on the streets in what human rights advocates and local residents say is the work of the military.”
While the Pakistani military has denied responsibility for this wave of killings—blaming them on civilians seeking revenge against the Islamists—the Times quotes local residents, politicians and human rights workers as blaming the army. They point, the article states, to “the scale of the retaliation, the similarities in the way that many of the victims have been tortured and the systematic nature of the deaths and disappearances in areas that the military firmly controls.”
In addition to bearing marks of brutal torture, many of the bodies are discovered with their hands tied behind their backs and with a bullet in the back of the neck. In some cases corpses have been beheaded.
On September 1, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn quoted government officials as saying that 251 bodies had been found dumped along the roadside in the Swat Valley since July. On August 27, the newspaper reported that 51 bodies had been found in the area in the space of just 24 hours.
Dawn has also reported the discovery of a number of mass graves containing victims of the military and referred to local residents who had “witnessed the crude and inhuman lumping together of the living and the dead.”
The Times cites the case of Akhtar Ali, 28, arrested by the military at his electrical repair shop on September 1. While military officials repeatedly told his family that he would be released, four days later his corpse was dumped on their doorstep, bearing cigarette burns and with nails hammered into his flesh. “There was no place on his body not tortured,” his family said in a petition seeking justice.
American officials have praised the Pakistani military for its campaign in the Swat Valley, with US Ambassador Anne Patterson visiting Mingora, Swat’s largest town, last week to congratulate the army.
Now US officials are pressing the Pakistani government to replicate this bloody campaign in South Waziristan. A similar offensive is already underway in the Khyber Agency, site of the Khyber Pass, a key route for supplies to the US occupation force in Afghanistan. UN officials report that 100,000 people have been displaced by the attack.
Washington stands behind the atrocities being carried out against the Pakistani people. It is funding the Pakistani military operations, with some $2.5 billion in overt military aid this fiscal year. Meanwhile, CIA drone attacks continue, having claimed nearly 600 Pakistani victims over the past year, the majority of them civilians.
There is every reason to suspect that the wave of disappearances, torture and death squad assassinations in Pakistan is also “made in the USA.”
Before becoming the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal headed the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the secret special operations unit that investigative journalist Seymour Hersh described as an “executive assassination wing.”
US special forces “trainers” are operating on Pakistani soil, instructing Pakistani forces in the kind of tactics favored by JSOC—tactics that yield the bound and battered bodies dumped in the streets of Swat.
These tactics fit a long pattern of US counterinsurgency warfare, from Operation Phoenix in Vietnam to the US-backed death squads that terrorized the population of El Salvador in the 1980s.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen warned again Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military will almost certainly seek an increase in troop levels over the 70,000 American soldiers and Marines that are to be deployed in Afghanistan by the end of this year.
Citing diplomatic sources, Dawn reported that Gen. McChrystal is calling for a shift in the war’s focus to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area.
Having lost control of most of Afghanistan after nearly eight years of US occupation, the Pentagon is preparing to launch a new wave of bloodletting and terror against the population on both sides of the border in the hope of breaking popular resistance.
The administration of Barack Obama, elected on a wave of antiwar sentiment, is already implicated in war crimes that rival those carried out by his predecessor. Support for the war within the US has declined to levels approaching those reached over Iraq, with the latest CNN poll showing 58 percent of Americans opposing the US occupation of Afghanistan and only 39 percent supporting it.
Driven by the interests of the US ruling elite, the escalation of this dirty war, together with the escalating assault on jobs and living standards at home, is creating the conditions for the emergence of a mass political movement of working people against the Obama administration and the profit system which is the driving force of imperialist war.
Filed under: Ahmadinejad, AIPAC, airstrikes, blockade, China, CIA, Coup, Economy, False Flag, George Bush, gulf, Gulf of Tonkin, h.con.res.362, Hegelian Dialectic, Holocaust, inside job, Iran, Iran war resolution, Iraq, Israel, jewish, michael mullen, middle east, Mike Mullen, Military, military strike, mofaz, muslim, nation building, neocons, Nuke, occupation, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Problem Reaction Solution, Ray McGovern, Russia, Sanctions, shaul mofaz, Shock and Awe, staged provocation, State Sponsored Terrorism, Tehran, tel aviv, Troops, Uncategorized, US Economy, USS Liberty, War On Terror, White House, WW3, ww4, Zionism | Tags: Phillip Giraldi, soldiers, u.s. soldiers
Mullen Warns Israel: Don’t Even Think About Another USS Liberty
Mark Glenn
American Free Press
August 4, 2008
Recently appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen flew to Tel Aviv to warn Israel’s military establishment how “important” it was that “history not repeat itself ”—referring to Israel’s deliberate attack on the USS Liberty in June, 1967. The Establishment media blacked out the event (in which 34 American men were killed) for decades—and still does.
Given the fact that this brazen two-hour attack upon the United States has been hushed up for 41 years, the reason for Mullen’s meeting is obvious—someone within the intelligence or military apparatus of the United States has concluded that Israel is planning a “USS Liberty Part II,” meaning an attack on a U.S. ship, most likely in the Persian Gulf, leading to a massive loss of life to be blamed on Iran.
As was intended in 1967, when Israel attacked the Liberty, angry Americans would demand the “obliteration” of the guilty party, the false identity of which the Jewish media establishment in America would provide. And while all players involved have been tight-lipped about the particulars of this meeting, Mullen’s impromptu trip to Israel and subsequent discussion was in effect a stern warning to Israel to “Not even think about it.”
Some in Washington are beginning to realize that they’ve just put their foot into something nasty with regards to Israel’s dirty wars in the Middle East that will never be finished as long as it exists. With oil and virtually all consumer products skyrocketing in price simultaneous to the U.S. economy going down the drain, some now understand that by signing on as Israel’s pit bull in the Muslim world that America will wind up paying the ultimate price for her devotion to the Jewish state, meaning the complete destruction of her economy and her position as a world power.
America’s top general officer seems to be wary of widening the present debacle to include war with Iran that may bring into the fray nuclear-armed nations such as Russia and China. He has now joined with saner voices both inside and outside the Bush administration who are trying to prevent an otherwise apocalyptic end to America.
In discussing an attack on Iran, Mullen recently stated that opening a third front would be “extremely stressful” on the U.S. military and added that it would lead to consequences “difficult to predict,” adding that “There is need for better clarity, even dialogue.”
Is this making Israel jittery to the point she would contemplate pulling off another USS Liberty?
“Respectable” people have begun to openly voice such thoughts as well. In a recent provocative article entitled “If Iran is Attacking, It Might Really Be Israel,” ex-CIA officer Phillip Giraldi wrote:
Some intel types are beginning to express concerns that the Israelis might do something completely crazy to get the U.S. involved. There are a number of possible “false flag” scenarios in which the Israelis could stage an incident that they will make to look Iranian, either by employing Iranian weapons or by leaving a communications footprint that points to Teheran’s involvement. Those who argue Israel would never do such a thing should think again. Israel is willing to behave with complete ruthlessness towards the U.S. if they feel that the stakes are high enough. Witness the attack on the USS Liberty and the bombing of the U.S. Consulate in Alexandria in the 1950s. If they now believe that Iran is a threat that must be eliminated it is not implausible to assume they will stop at nothing to get the United States to do it for them, particularly as their air force is only able to damage the Iranian nuclear program, not destroy it. . . .
Joined alongside Giraldi is former long-time CIA analyst Ray McGovern who in a recent essay entitled “Israel Planning a September/October Surprise?” writes the following with regards to the U.S. pulling out of the Middle East and what Israel might do as a result:
My guess is the Israeli leaders are apoplectic. . . . This dramatic change—or even just the specter of it—greatly increases Israel’s incentive to ensure U.S. involvement in the area that would endure for several years. The Israelis need to create “facts on the ground”—something to guarantee Washington will stand by “our ally.” The legislation drafted by AIPAC calls for a blockade of Iran. That would be one way to entangle; there are many others. The point is that the growing danger the Israelis perceive will probably prompt them to find a way to get the U.S. involved in hostilities with Iran. All Israel has to do is to arrange to be attacked. Not a problem. There are endless possibilities among which Israel can choose to catalyze such a confrontation. Viewed from Tel Aviv it appears an increasingly threatening situation, with more urgent need to “embed” (so to speak) the United States even more deeply in the region—in a confrontation involving both countries with Iran. A perfect storm is brewing. . . . In sum, Israel is likely to be preparing a September/October surprise designed to keep the U.S. bogged down in Iraq and in the wider region by provoking hostilities with Iran. And don’t be surprised if it starts as early as August. . . .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/..ens-to-shut-Gulf-shipping-lanes.html
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Mofaz on Iran: We won’t allow a second Holocaust to occur
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1007710.html
Iran to face sanctions if it does not cooperate : French diplomat
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Bush must be stopped before starting war with Iran
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Filed under: Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, ashkenazi, ban ki-moon, Barack Obama, Britain, central bank, Condoleezza Rice, Coup, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dick Cheney, diplomacy, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Ehud Barak, Europe, european union, False Flag, George Bush, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hamas, Inflation, Iran, Iraq, Israel, John Bolton, Mike Mullen, Military, military strike, Mossad, nation building, neocons, Nuke, occupation, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Robert Gates, Ron Paul, Russia, Shock and Awe, stephen hadley, Stock Market, Syria, Tehran, UN, United Kingdom, US Economy, War On Terror, WW3, ww4
U.S. ’diplomatic’ talks in Iran to legitimize attack
Jerusalem Post
July 27, 2008
Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen (L) salutes Israeli Chief of Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi who recently warned that all options must be prepared against Iran.
Recent talks the United States held with Iran are aimed at creating legitimacy for a potential attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, defense officials speculated on Sunday as Defense Minister Ehud Barak headed to Washington for talks with senior administration officials.
Barak will travel to Washington and New York and will hold talks with his counterpart Robert Gates, Vice President Dick Cheney, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Officials said it was likely that President George W. Bush would join the meeting between Barak and Hadley. On Wednesday, Barak will fly to New York for a brief meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon.
Barak’s departure to the US came as IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi returned to Israel on Sunday from a week-long visit to the US as Mullen’s guest. Ashkenazi held talks with Cheney, Hadley and other senior officials with a focus on the Iranian nuclear program.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak (L) on Tuesday said; “A policy that consists of keeping all options on the table must be maintained” shakes hands with Barack Obama who also states would take “no options off the table”.
“There is a lot of strategic thinking concerning Iran going on right now but no one has yet to make a decision what to do,” said a top IDF officer, involved in the dialogue between Israel and the US. “We are still far away from the point where military officers are poring over maps together planning an operation.”
In recent weeks, Mullen has said publicly that he is opposed to military action against Iran which would open a “third front” for the US military which is currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Barak’s talks in the US come a little over a week after the Bush administration sent its number three diplomat to Geneva to participate in European Union talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
The move led to reports that the US was changing its isolation tactic vis-à-vis Iran but Israeli defense officials speculated Sunday that the move was really a ploy to buy international support in the event that Bush decides to attack Iran in his last months in office.
“This way they will be able to say they tried everything,” one official speculated. “This increases America’s chances of gaining more public support domestically as well as the support of European nations which are today opposed to military action.”
Diplomatic officials have speculated that the Iran-US talks were also connected to the presidential elections.
According to the IDF officer, the frequent meetings between Israel and the US in recent weeks – Mullen was in Israel in June – is a sign of the strong ties between the two countries as well as the mutual interest both take in different regional issues such as Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas and Syria.
Bolton: U.S. should help Israel hit Iran
Jewish Ledger
July 25, 2008
Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton said the United States should assist Israel in any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The ex-U.S. envoy in an op-ed in the July 15 Wall Street Journal said the United States must consider what assistance to extend to Israel before and after an airstrike.
“We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible,” wrote Bolton, who was known for his hawkish foreign policy views.
“At a minimum, we should place no obstacles in Israel’s path, and facilitate its efforts where we can.” Bolton said the efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions through sanctions had failed, and even if they could still be enacted, the time for their effectiveness has passed.
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Israel: All options ‘must be prepared’
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Ahmadinejad Condemns World Powers for Expanding Atomic Arsenals
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US lawyer seeks to sue US over Iran threats
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Iranian Military Convoy Mysteriously Blows Up
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Russia says opposes deadlines for Iran response
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Filed under: 2-party system, 2008 Election, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, ashkenazi, Barack Obama, Bill Kristol, Britain, christian, Condoleezza Rice, Coup, Dissent, Europe, european union, False Flag, George Bush, gordon brown, Iran, Israel, Joe Lieberman, John Bolton, john hagee, John McCain, left right paradigm, Media, Media Fear, Mike Mullen, military strike, Mossad, MSNBC, neocons, Neolibs, Nuke, obama, Pat Robertson, PNAC, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Propaganda, religion, Russia, Saber Rattling, Sanctions, Shock and Awe, Tehran, United Kingdom, War On Terror, Washington D.C., White House, WW3, ww4 | Tags: fred kagan
Pat Robertson: Israel Should Strike Iran Before 2008 Election
Think Progress
July 23, 2008
On yesterday’s edition of The 700 Club, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson sharply criticized the “moderate tone” the Bush administration has allegedly taken toward Iran and its nuclear weapons program. Robertson advocated that Israel look out for the “survival of its nation” and “make some kind of a strike” against Iranian nuclear facilities. He also predicted that it will likely happen before the 2008 elections:
But nevertheless, I think we can look in the next few months for Israel to make a strike — possibly before the next election — because I think George Bush — to use the term an “amber light” — he’s given the amber, the yellow light, saying, “Caution, but go ahead.”
Robertson’s predictions often turn out to be wrong. In 2004, Robertson claimed that the Lord told him it would “be like a blowout” re-election for President Bush. (Bush ended up receiving just 51 percent of the vote.) In 2006, he incorrectly predicted that “the outcome of the war and the success of the economy will leave the Republicans in charge.”
He does, however, have an inside track into the Bush administration. Last year, Robertson’s Regent University estimated that one in six of its graduates were employed in government work. Approximately 150 served in the Bush administration.
Today, top McCain surrogate Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is also talking to controversial Pastor John Hagee’s organization. In 2006, Hagee declared:
The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.
Other members of the right wing have also been unifying around the idea of striking Iran before Bush leaves. Both John Bolton and Bill Kristol have made the same argument.
Kagan: ‘The only way’ to ‘force’ Iran to halt its nuclear program is an ‘attack.’
Think Progress
July 23, 2008
Appearing on MSNBC this afternoon, Iraq surge architect Fred Kagan criticized direct talks with Iran and made his case for attacking Iran, claiming it is the only means to “force” the country to halt its nuclear program:
Well, there’s nothing we can do short of an attack to force Iran to give up its nuclear program. … At the end of the day, the only way that you can make for sure that [a nuclear arm’s race] doesn’t happen is with an attack. There are a variety of things you can do short of an attack and hope that they will work, but hope is not a method here.
Top Israeli official: If nuclear talks fail, Bush will order Iran attack between November and January
DEBKAfile
July 19, 2008
This assessment was reported by Israeli national radio Saturday overnight quoting a high-placed “security-political” official.
The source predicted that President George W. Bush would order Iran attacked between the November 4 presidential election and his exit from the White House in January. The quote was aired shortly after the six-power talks with Iran in Geneva – with US official participation for the first time – failed, and just before Israel chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi set out for Washington. He is to spend a week there as guest of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
DEBKAfile’s political sources describe the disclosure as a step aimed at slowing down the collapse of Israel’s stated policy of relying on international diplomatic pressure to thwart Iran’s acquisition of nuclear arms. It is expected to raise a furious outcry from the powers spearheading the diplomatic effort and prompt extreme reactions from Tehran.
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Filed under: Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, axis of evil, CIA, CNN, Coup, Dissent, False Flag, George Bush, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Keith Olbermann, Lebanon, Media, Mike Mullen, military strike, Mottaki, MSNBC, north korea, Nuke, Oil, Pentagon, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Propaganda, Psyops, Russia, Saber Rattling, Shock and Awe, Tehran, War On Terror, White House, WMD, WW3, ww4 | Tags: OIC
Pentagon Chief: Don’t Attack Iran
AFP
July 3, 2008
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who was in Israel over the weekend, issued a strong warning today about the dangers of a military attack on Iran.
At a Pentagon press conference, Mullen was asked, “How concerned are you … that Israel may undertake a unilateral strike against Iran by the end of the year?”
“My strong preference, here, is to handle all of this diplomatically with the other powers of governments, ours and many others, as opposed to any kind of strike occurring,” he answered. “This is a very unstable part of the world. And I don’t need it to be more unstable.”
Mullen refused to talk specifically about what was said in his talks with the Israelis, but he made it clear wants to avoid military confrontation.
“I’ve been pretty clear before that from the United States’ perspective, the United States’ military perspective in particular, that opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t have capacity or reserve. But that would really be very challenging and also the consequences of that sometimes are very difficult to predict.”
Mullen said there needs to be better “dialogue” on the Iranian nuclear issue. Asked what he meant, Mullen responded, “When I talk about dialogue — actually, I would say very broadly across the entirety of our government and their government.
“But, specifically, that would be — need to be led, obviously, politically and diplomatically,” he said. “And if it then resulted in military-to-military dialogue, I think that part of it certainly could add to a better understanding of each other.
“We haven’t had much of a dialogue with the Iranians for a long time,” Mullen said. “It takes two people to want to have a dialogue, not just the desire on one part.”
Mullen’s views here seem to be at odds with the Bush administration’s policy, which is that there will be no direct dialogue between the United States and Iran on the nuclear issue unless Iran agrees to suspend its nuclear program.
President Bush today said all options remain on the table against Iran but emphasized the need for a diplomatic solution.
“I have made it very clear to all parties that the first option ought to be to solve this problem diplomatically,” Bush said at the White House. “And the best way to solve it diplomatically is for the United States to work with other nations to send a focused message, and that is, that you will be isolated and you will have economic hardship if you continue trying to enrich [uranium, the first step toward making nuclear weapons].”
Iran’s foreign minister today dismissed talk of a U.S. or Israeli attack against his country, calling the prospect of another war in the Middle East “craziness.”
Mottaki on the possible Israel or U.S. military strike
Olbermann: Veteran CIA Analyst Fired For Refusing To Falsify Iran Intel
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i-GGGimZ5fkzeks15fWzQ1jhq-Tg
Russia: Waging war on Iran, catastrophic
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=62282§ionid=351020101
U.S. envoy in Israel plays down talk of Iran attack
http://www.reuters.com/article/..080703?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Bush: Force not ruled out on North Korea or Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/080702224549.tsqaewtb.html
Mullen: U.S. Strike On Iran Risks Mayhem
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23964804-663,00.html
OIC warns against attack on Iran
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=62422§ionid=351020101
Filed under: 2008 Election, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, ashkenazi, Barack Obama, Britain, Bushehr, Coup, Ehud Barak, Europe, european union, False Flag, Geneva Convention, gulf, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, John McCain, Lebanon, Mike Mullen, Military, military strike, Mossad, Mottaki, Nuke, Oil, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, red cross, Revolutionary Guards, Russia, Sanctions, Shock and Awe, Syria, Tehran, Troops, United Kingdom, War On Terror, White House, WW3, ww4 | Tags: Faisal Baqerzadeh
Top US commander briefed on Israel’s four-front strategy in potential Iran war context
DEBKAfile
June 29, 2008
The visiting Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, carried out a guided tour of Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip over the weekend. It was led by the IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and OCs Northern and Southern Commands, Maj. Gens. Eisenkott and Galant.
He was briefed on IDF tactics in a war on all these potential flashpoints in the context of a comprehensive conflict with Iran and then held long conversations with defense minister Ehud Barak and Ashkenazi.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that it is very unusual for the top American commander to carry out a close, on-the-spot study of Israel’s potential war fronts. It was prompted on the one hand by skepticism in parts of the US high command of Israel’s ability to simultaneously strike Iran’s nuclear installations and fight off attacks from three borders while, at the same time, Adm. Mullen showed he was open to persuasion that the IDF’s prospective tactics and war plans were workable.
Former Israeli spymaster: We have year to hit Iran nukes
Haaretz
June 29, 2008
Israel must destroy Iran’s nuclear program within the next 12 months or risk being attacked with an atomic bomb itself, the former head of the Mossad told the British Sunday Telegraph.
“As an intelligence officer working with the worst-case scenario, I can tell you we should be prepared,” Shabtai Shavit, who served as Mossad chief from 1989 to 1996, told the British paper.
“We should do whatever necessary on the defensive side, on the offensive side, on the public opinion side for the West, in case sanctions don’t work. What’s left is a military action.”
“The time that is left to be ready is getting shorter all the time,” Shavit told the Telegraph.
Shavit added that a victory by Democratic nominee Barack Obama in the November presidential election would significantly lower the chances that the U.S. would approve of military action against Iran.
“If [Republican candidate John] McCain gets elected, he could really easily make a decision to go for it,” Shavit told the paper. “If it’s Obama: no. My prediction is that he won’t go for it, at least not in his first term in the White House.”
Shavit told the Telegraph, however, that Israel would not hesitate to go it alone, with or without U.S. support.
“When it comes to decisions that have to do with our national security and our own survival, at best we may update the Americans that we are intending or planning or going to do something,” Shavit told the paper. “It’s not a precondition, [getting] an American agreement,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday he did not believe Israel was in a position to attack the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.
“They know full well what the consequences of such an act would be,” Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki told reporters.
Speculation about a possible attack on Iran because of its disputed nuclear ambitions has risen since a report this month said Israel had practiced such a strike, prompting increasingly tough talk of retaliation, if pushed, from Tehran.
Mottaki said Israel was still dealing with the consequences of its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon and was also suffering a “crisis of deepening illegitimacy” in the Middle East region.
“That’s why we do not see the Zionist regime in a situation in which they would want to engage in such an adventurism,” he said when asked about the possibility of an Israeli attack.
Iran ’digging 320,000 graves for invaders’
Press TV
June 29, 2008
A senior Iranian commander says the country is digging some ’320,000 graves’ in its bordering provinces for future slain invaders.
Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh, the Head of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holy Defense, said Sunday that the decision had been approved by Iran’s Armed Forces Headquarters.
“We will dig 15,000 to 20,000 graves in each of the border provinces,” he said.
“We do not wish the families of enemy soldiers to experience what Americans had to go through in the aftermath of the Vietnam War,” added Brig. Gen. Baqerzadeh, who is also the head of the search committee for missing soldiers.
The commander said the preemptive measures would decrease the time slain soldiers would be ’missing in action’.
“The burial of slain soldiers will be carried out decently and in little time,” he continued.
Baqerzadeh added that the decision is in line with the Islamic Republic’s commitment to comply with the Geneva Convention and the additional protocol regarding wartime cooperation between Iran and the Red Cross.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/30/africa/ME-GEN-Iran-Israel.php
US treasury chief says seeking Russian sanctions on Iran
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_tr.._Russ_06302008.html
US says won’t allow Iran to shut key Gulf oil route
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_sa..shut_ke_06302008.html
Iran Nuke Plant To Go Online In October
http://en.rian.ru/world/20080629/112521629.html
Iran Threatens to Cut Off Key Persian Gulf Oil Line if Attacked
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=121733
Iran Minister Says Israel In No Position to Attack
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iran-israel-mottaki.html
Iran ready to strike at Israel’s nuclear heart
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4232021.ece
Hersh Details Covert U.S. Funding Of Al-Qaeda In Iran
http://noworldsystem.co..vert-us-funding-of-al-qaeda-in-iran/
Filed under: Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, Air Force, airstrikes, CBS, Cold War, Congress, Coup, Dick Cheney, ehud olmert, False Flag, George Bush, greece, gulf, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Mike Mullen, Military, military base, military bases, military strike, Mohammed Hosseini, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, Nuke, occupation, Oil, Olmert, palestine, Pentagon, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Propaganda, Revolutionary Guards, Robert Gates, Saber Rattling, Shock and Awe, Syria, Tehran, UN, War On Terror, WW3, ww4, Zionism | Tags: david martin, michael, ONGC, oren
’US builds 4 bases on Iraq-Iran border’
Press TV
June 26, 2008
The US military has constructed four advanced bases 20 miles from Iraq’s border with Iran, a senior Iraqi police officer has announced.
The bases, equipped with missile launch pads, have been set up over the past four months on the Iraq-Iran border; Iraqi al-Noor newspaper quoted the official as saying.
He added that one of the bases has been located 30 km (20 miles) from the first border town with Iran and houses remote-controlled launching pads as well as radar systems similar to ones used in Kuwait during the first Persian Gulf war.
“The bases do not serve military intentions and its staff would not be military personnel.”
According to the official, the bases are only precautionary measures in case of a military strike against Israel by Iran.
Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran
CBS News
June 24, 2008
Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran’s nuclear complex.
CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn’t want to wait for a new administration.
“The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize,” Oren said. “Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next administration vis-à-vis Iran.”
Israel’s message is simple: If you don’t, we will. Israel held a dress rehearsal for a strike earlier this month, but military analysts say Israel can not do it alone.
“Keep in mind that Israel does not have strategic bombers,” Oren said. “The Israeli Air Force is not the American Air Force. Israel can not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.”
The U.S. with its stealth bombers and cruise missiles has a much greater capability. Vice President Cheney is said to favor a strike, but both Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates are opposed to an attack which could touch off a third war in the region.
IRAN: American public won’t allow another war, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman says
LA Times
June 27, 2008
Despite constant talk of war, U.S. officials have tried to reach out to the Iranian people in an attempt to get past the animosity between Washington and Tehran.
But Iranian officials have also been on a diplomatic offensive, reaching out to ordinary people in the Middle East as well as, more modestly, to Americans.
Known for his good looks, polite manners and kindly attitude toward the media, Iran’s silver-haired foreign ministry spokesman, Mohammed Ali Hosseini has emerged as a frequent public face on his government’s policies.
In a lengthy interview in his office Wednesday, he described Americans as a peace-loving people who “hate violence” and are suffering because of the mistakes of their leaders. He said he believed economic pressures, the military entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American public opinion would prevent war from breaking out between Iran and the United States. “The U.S. and the Zionist regime, thanks to the increasing economic, political, security and military crises in which they are stuck, are not logically in a position to tolerate the expenses of another massive and far-reaching crisis,” Hosseini said.
He continued:
Public opinion in the world will not permit [President] Bush to exacerbate the pains and tragedies already inflicted on the nations of the region and the American people. Nowadays, the polling surveys carried out among U.S. elites, thinkers and, by and large, the American people, show they hate violence, further battles and anarchy. The surveys indicate that the Americans are seeking genuine peace, stability and security.
But he warned:
If there is a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, it will be out of control and with unpredictable consequences. Thus, anyone with minimum rationality and political logic does not dare to step on this path.
Hosseini, 47, is a physicist by training and a career diplomat. A native of Tehran, he studied in India before joining Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs 20 years ago. He’s a family man, with a wife and three children. He sat down for an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times about Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. relations and turmoil in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, which have became contested terrain in the Cold War between Washington and Tehran.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM..t6NsANUMU-KNN7S6vw
Greece: We did not prepare for Iran war
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=61624§ionid=351020104
Are Congressional Democrats Leading Us to War with Iran?
http://www.yesmagazine.org/svgbl..ional-democrats-leading.html
Pentagon making case against Iran
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.as..sectionid=351020101
ONGC discovers new Iranian oilfield
http://in.reuters.com/article/email/idINIndia-34272220080628
Israeli top brass split over plan to hit Iran
http://www.thejc.com/home.asp..d=19&AId=60896&ATypeId=1
Olmert acknowledges secret meeting
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/26/ol..dges-meeting/
Iran Revolutionary Guards chief in new warning to Israel: report
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/080628075012.z5qpu0qc.html
Israel gives UN watchdog secret briefing on Iran
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996713.html
Iran Says Gulf Oil Route At Risk if Attacked
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/i..-oil.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Syria planned to supply Iran with nuclear fuel, Israel says
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/25/syria.iran
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, code pink, David Petraeus, DEBT, defense department, DoD, George Bush, Iran, Iraq, iraqi deaths, Mike Mullen, Military, military strike, nation building, occupation, Pentagon, PTSD, Tony Blair, Troops, War On Terror
Billions In Defense Spending Unchecked
AP
May 27, 2008
Pentagon auditors say billions of dollars in military spending is going unchecked because they are having trouble keeping pace with the ever-expanding defense budget and combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a recent report, the Defense Department inspector general estimates that nearly half of the military’s $316 billion weapons budget went unchecked last year because the IG’s office lacked the manpower. Whereas 10 years ago when a single auditor would have reviewed some $642 million in defense contracts, individual investigators are now charged with auditing more than $2 billion in spending.
The IG also has been stretching its staff to investigate corruption and fraud cases overseas, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan where the military is hiring contractors to help run operations.
“The continual degradation of audit resources that is occurring at a time when the (Defense Department) budget is growing larger leaves the department more vulnerable to fraud, waste, and, abuse and undermines the department’s mission,” the report states.
“Our coverage of high-risk areas and defense priorities is weakened and will continue to be weakened by insufficient personnel to accomplish our statutory duties,” it adds.
The March assessment was obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group based in Washington.
In this year’s budget, Congress approved an additional $24 million for the IG office to improve contract oversight. According to the IG, it will need another major boost—$25 million more than President Bush requested—to meet its requirements in 2009.
The IG says it plans to hire some 481 new personnel in the next seven years, expanding to more than 1,900 full-time employees.
Mullen Warns Military To Stay Out Of Politics
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=13196027
Wartime PTSD Cases Jumped Near 50%
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20..nZOLTheFc5qm06CvVXFUuWwvIE
Tony Blair is barracked over Iraq by students at Yale
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10…d-Iraq-students-Yale.html
Iran: US conning Iraqis into slavery
http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=488826&lng=1#
Pentagon Cannot Account For $15 Billion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-..R2008052203751_pf.html
Petraeus confirmation interrupted by Code Pink protesters
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Petra..upted_by_Code_Pink_0522.html
Increased U.S. airstrikes in Iraq killing more civilians
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/U.S._airstrike_kills_8_Iraqi_civilians_0523.html
Filed under: Brian Kilmeade, Bryan Whitman, Coup, ehud olmert, False Flag, Fox News, Geoff Morrell, George Bush, Gulf of Tonkin, Iran, Israel, Keith Olbermann, LBJ, Media, Media Fear, Mike Mullen, Military, military strike, navy, neocons, Norman Podhoretz, NSA, Nuke, Pentagon, Propaganda, Psyops, Saber Rattling, Shock and Awe, Strait of Hormuz, Vietnam, White House
Journalist: Pentagon Fabricated “Non Event” Iranian “Provocation”
Echoes of faked Gulf of Tonkin incident as Pentagon distortions exposed
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
January 16, 2008
A respected American Journalist has accused a Pentagon spokesman of falsifying events surrounding the recent encounter between Iranian patrol boats and a US navy vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, which was eventually labeled a “provocation” by the White House.
Gareth Porter, a journalist who previously broke a story regarding a secret Iranian peace overture to the Bush Administration in 2006, writing for the Asia Times states that the event was hyped up into a major incident after the original press release described the event as somewhat routine and did not refer to any threat to “explode” US ships or any similar confrontation.
the release reported that the Iranian “small boats” had “maneuvered aggressively in close proximity of [sic] the Hopper [the lead ship of the three-ship convoy]. But it did not suggest that the Iranian boats had threatened the boats or that it had nearly resulted in firing on the Iranian boats.
On the contrary, the release made the US warships handling of the incident sound almost routine,” Porter adds. “‘Following standard procedures,’ the release said, “Hopper issued warnings, attempted to establish communications with the small boats and conducted evasive maneuvering.’
The release did not refer to a US ship being close to firing on the Iranian boats, or to a call threatening that US ships would “explode in a few minutes”, as later stories would report, or to the dropping of objects into the path of a US ship as a potential danger.
That press release was ignored by the news media, however, because later that Monday morning, the Pentagon provided correspondents with a very different account of the episode.
The fact that several mainstream reports then emerged at the same time all carrying almost identical accounts of the incident, including the details of threats to explode vessels and dropping white boxes, can be traced back to a press briefing by a top Pentagon official in charge of media relations, Porter divulges.
He identifies Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman’s off the record comments to journalists as the catalyst for the ensuing pandemonium. Porter states that Whitman hadn’t wished to be identified as the source:
In an apparent slip-up, however, an Associated Press story that morning cited Whitman as the source for the statement that US ships were about to fire when the Iranian boats turned and moved away – a part of the story that other correspondents had attributed to an unnamed Pentagon official.
Three days later, at the height of the hype, the Pentagon released a video of the incident into which had been inserted audio of a strange voice threatening to “explode” the US vessel.
Porter reveals that according to Lieutenant Colonel Mark Ballesteros of the Pentagon’s Public Affairs Office the decision on what to include in the video was “a collaborative effort of leadership here, the Central Command and navy leadership in the field”. Porter also reveals that according to an official in the US Navy Office of Information in Washington, who asked not to be identified, the decision was made in the office of the Secretary of Defense.
Shortly after Iranian officials had denounced the video as a fake and had released alternative footage of their boats in contact with the US warship, it became apparent that the audio spliced into the video had not originated from the boats themselves but must have instead come from hecklers, often referred to as the “Filipino Monkey”, who cut in on VHF ship-to-ship radios and make rude comments or threats.
The Pentagon then backed away from claims that it knew the source of the audio or had ever known the source.
By January 11, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell was already disavowing the story that Whitman had been instrumental in creating only four days earlier. “No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats,” said Morrell.
No one said it but that doesn’t excuse the fact that they spliced the audio into the video of an unrelated incident!
The story then essentially fell apart altogether and dropped off the radar as Navy officials began to discredit the rest of the distortions perpetuated by the Pentagon.
Porter also spoke to a Pentagon consultant who asked not to be identified who told him that many officers have experienced similar encounters with small Iranian boats throughout the 1990s, and that such incidents are “just not a major threat to the US Navy by any stretch of the imagination”.
These revelations show just how easy it is for a non event to be hyped to serve an agenda and how the mainstream media is eager to swallow whole whatever the government feeds them.
The event mirrors that of the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, where an attack on US warships by North Vietnamese PT Boats, was cited by President Johnson as a legitimate provocation mandating U.S. escalation in Vietnam. However Tonkin was revealed as a staged charade that never took place. Declassified LBJ presidential tapes featured discussions on how to spin the non-event to escalate it as justification for air strikes. In addition, the NSA faked intelligence data to make it appear as if two US ships had been lost. This information was again reiterated in a report released last week.
Fox News Reverses Course After Initially Calling For U.S. Navy To Blow Iran Boats ‘Out Of The Water’
Think Progress
January 16, 2008
KILMEADE: Was this a mistake not to blow these other Iranian speedboats out of the water? […] Why did we not destroy these speedboats? […] We had an opportunity to send a message to a nation that has been needling us for 20 years.
Today, a week after his call for war with Iran, Brian Kilmeade was forced to concede that the verbal threats made against the U.S. ships are “a possible hoax from a man called the ‘Filipino Monkey.'” Kilmeade’s co-host Gretchen Carlson claimed that she knew it all along. “I remember sitting in my office thinking, you gotta be kidding me? That voice does not sound to me like an Iranian accent.” She didn’t say that on-air, however, prior to this morning.
Kilmeade’s other co-host, Steve Doocy, piped in with this comment:
DOOCY: But can you imagine, had we blown those little boats out of the water to find out, you know, that they didn’t have bombs and in fact it was the Filipino Monkey who was somewhere on shore pulling a prank?
Indeed, we would have have, if Fox News had its way. Watch a compilation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZmb3fa22Ek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfDHNZdLsI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHt_r7hWVUA
Carlson wrapped up the segment by stating, “Let’s hope it’s not the Filipino Monkey, for our sake. Because I think it’s a humongous embarrassment.”
Olbermann accuses U.S of trying to FAKE new Gulf of Tonkin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WADchtd0Hms
Norman Podhoretz: Bush will bomb Iran before he leaves office
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bLq6pzOc5w
Related News:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8U767QO0&show_article=1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/st..ss&feed=networkfront
Olmert: All options on table regarding Iran
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/S..rticle%2FShowFull
Iran sees end to nuclear crisis ‘very soon’
>http://www.spacewar.com/2006/080116130609.bqenkh5g.html
U.S. option to bomb Iran still on the table
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2008/01/15/9255.shtml
Iran says Bush’s accusations “words without value”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKHAF45102720080114
Bush accuses Iran of undermining peace
http://www.mercurynews.com..091?nclick_check=1
Bush: Iran is the “Worlds Leading State Sponsor of Terror”
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITIC..index.html
Things Have Gotten So Crazy Now a Prankster Could Start World War III!
http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/..-so-crazy-now.html
Mullen: ‘I Have Not Seen’ Iran Act So Provocatively, But Admits ‘I Haven’t Seen The Full Video’
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/14/iran-speedboats-mullen/
Gulf allies turn their backs on Bush
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA16Ak02.html
Huckabee: Deliver Iran to “Gates of Hell”
http://www.truthnews.us/?p=1643
Navy Says It Fired Warning Shots At Iranian Boats
http://ap.google.com/article/A..d09QD8U3TFRG0
US using 1994 Argentine bombing investigation to pressure Iran
Pentagon backs down over Iranian boat claims
UN Inspector Scott Ritter: Fools would Bomb Iran
US-Iranian naval clash: Radio trolls probably to blame
US blacklists Iranian commander, Syrian-based TV station
George Bush to push $20bn Saudi arms deal
Unraveling the Myth of Al Qaida – part 1
US, Israel on ‘same page’ on Iran
Tehran: U.S. trying to spread ‘Iran-phobia’
Sarkozy says pressure on Iran should be increased
U.S. Navy Withdraws Claims Against Iran
Israel’s Netanyahu Claims President Bush Promised Unilateral Nuclear Bomb Attack Against Iran
US Navy threat may not have been Iranian
Bush in Kuwait to seek Gulf backing against Iran
Israel stressed to Bush that Iran is a nuclear ‘threat’: general
Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes ’02 War Game
Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel
Ron Paul: “People are looking around for an excuse to bomb Iran”
noworldsystem.com 