Iraq occupation at home

Bizarro World

Early Wednesday, a massive truck bomb wounded 137 and killed 64 students near the Hub at the UW.[AG1]

“I just remember my buddy Matt screaming then waking up in the hospital with my f***ing leg missing!,” freshman Louie Aragon recalls.[AG2]

Most of the victims were students gathering in-between classes.

Egyptian troops from the 516^th Armored Calvary regiment rolled up shortly after, dispensing medical aid in a vain attempt to bring security to the area.

Despite the offers of help, the crowd turned angry and violent.

In the confusing melee that followed, a soldier shot two young men suspected of carrying detonating cell phones.

The 516^th is still noticeably grieving the loss of two of the unit’s soldiers, corporal Nermeen Dabashi and sergeant Gamal Abdel-Latif. They died on Monday by a roadside bomb on the nearby University Bridge.

Most of the wounded were rushed to the nearby UW Medical Center. Once a prestigious medical institution, the UWMC lay in shambles after heavy Egyptian bombing. It runs with under 4 hours of power a day.

Only two doctors and three nurses were on staff for assisting the wounded in the putrid and bloody emergency room.

Since the Egyptian-led invasion of 2003, most of the professional class -- doctors, lawyers, judges – along with those wealthy enough, have fled to neighboring Mexico and Canada.

The remaining are not so fortunate.

A prestigious Jordanian medical journal has estimated that 11.5 million Americans have died as result of the Egyptian lead invasion. Over 20 million are now refugees.*

Long before the invasion, 12 years of Egyptian and Jordanian led UN sanctions have decimated US society and infrastructure, causing another 8-11 million American deaths. Half of the fatalities were children under the age of 5, according to World Health Organization and UNICEF studies.

“I think it [was] a very hard choice,” former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mu'azzaz Abdul-Shafi told an interviewer when asked about the use of sanctions. "But the price, we think the price is worth it.”

"You wonder why there are terrorists?” Canadian Health Minister Martin Hadley asks. “Where do you think the children that survive will be in a decade, the Peace Corps?”

Dismissing the Jordanian study’s numbers, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also had to fend off statements from his former Financial Minister Abdul Gha'four who recently said in his memoirs, the war "was largely about oil."

Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,” Retired General Jamil Abdallah adds.

The Egyptian Energy Association estimates that the US sits atop 112 billion barrels of oil, the second-largest proven reserves in the world.

Those statements received little play in Egypt where media self-censorship and consolidation have taken their toll; elsewhere, the world seemed fully aware of this dirty little secret.

Since the fall of Washington four years ago promises of liberation and freedom have rang hollow. The Egyptian-catalyzed civil war rages on.

"There is no question that [Egypt] is living a nightmare with no end in sight," says former Egyptian commander of forces in America, Lieutenant General Ra'id Shehab.

“In my profession, these types of leaders (top Egyptian officials) would immediately be relieved or [court-marshaled],” Shehab adds.

Despite overwhelming majorities of Egyptians that agree, most citizens are largely unaffected by the war overseas.

While only 1% of the Egyptian population is are serving in the military, the rest have only been asked, "to go shopping," by Mubarak.

12 former Army Captains see only one option left for Egypt: a Draft. “Short of that, our best option is to leave America immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition,” they say.

Many Egyptians agree. But the leadership in the Parliamentary opposition seem to share the same goals with the widely unpopular president Mubarak.

“[America] is right in the heart of the oil region,” leading presidential front-runner Hanaa Amayreh recently remarked. "This is an American problem, we cannot save the Americans from themselves,” she adds, commenting on the daily bloodshed in the US.

Americans painfully conclude that as long as oil energy-hungry Egypt seeks hegemony of the North American region and its resources, there will be a lasting presence on their soil.

ENDNOTE: This is reality for millions of Iraqis and tens of thousands of US troops in harm's way every day. The names were fictional. The quotes are real. Can you guess who said them?

*This number is from the following statistics: 1,000,000+ (est. numbers are higher) Iraqi deaths = 1/26 of total population, 1/26 of 301,000,000, current US pop. = 11.5 million.

Rendition

Blackwater and Iraq

Blackwater and Iraq

Esquire:The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know

Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush Administration say the U.S. has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It'll be Iraq all over again.

By John H. Richardson
Excerpts:

The most ominous new development is the Bush administration's push to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.

"The U.S. has designated any number of states over the years as state sponsors of terrorism," says Leverett. "But here for the first time the U.S. is saying that part of a government is itself a terrorist organization."

This is what Leverett and Mann fear will happen: The diplomatic effort in the United Nations will fail when it becomes clear that Russia's and China's geopolitical ambitions will not accommodate the inconvenience of energy sanctions against Iran. Without any meaningful incentive from the U.S. to be friendly, Iran will keep meddling in Iraq and installing nuclear centrifuges. This will trigger a response from the hard-liners in the White House, who feel that it is their moral duty to deal with Iran before the Democrats take over American foreign policy. "If you get all those elements coming together, say in the first half of '08," says Leverett, "what is this president going to do? I think there is a serious risk he would decide to order an attack on the Iranian nuclear installations and probably a wider target zone."

This would result in a dramatic increase in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, attacks by proxy forces like Hezbollah, and an unknown reaction from the wobbly states of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where millions admire Iran's resistance to the Great Satan. "As disastrous as Iraq has been," says Mann, "an attack on Iran could engulf America in a war with the entire Muslim world."

In the spring, Crown Prince Abdullah flew to Texas to meet Bush at his ranch. The way Leverett remembers the story, Abdullah sat down and told Bush he was going to ask a direct question and wanted a direct answer. Are you going to do anything about the Palestinian issue? If you tell me no, if it's too difficult, if you're not going to give it that kind of priority, just tell me. I will understand and I will never say anything critical of you or your leadership in public, but I'm going to need to make my own judgments and my own decisions about Saudi interests.

Bush tried to stall, saying he understood his concerns and would see what he could do.

Abdullah stood up. "That's it. This meeting is over."

No Arab leader had ever spoken to Bush like that before, Leverett says. But Saudi Arabia was a key ally in the war on terror, vital to the continued U.S. oil supply, so Bush and Rice and Powell excused themselves into another room for a quick huddle.

Bush rolled his eyes. "We sure don't want to go through anything like that again."

Then the king of Jordan came to Washington to see Bush. There had to be a road map for peace in Palestine, the king said. Despite the previous experience with Abdullah in Crawford, Bush seemed taken by surprise, Leverett remembers, but he listened and said that the idea of a road map seemed pretty reasonable.

Then came the moment that would lead to an extraordinary battle with the Bush administration. It was an average morning in April, about four weeks into the war. Mann picked up her daily folder and sat down at her desk, glancing at a fax cover page. The fax was from the Swiss ambassador to Iran, which wasn't unusual -- since the U.S. had no formal relationship with Iran, the Swiss ambassador represented American interests there and often faxed over updates on what he was doing. This time he'd met with Sa-deq Kharrazi, a well-connected Iranian who was the nephew of the foreign minister and son-in-law to the supreme leader. Amazingly, Kharrazi had presented the ambassador with a detailed proposal for peace in the Middle East, approved at the highest levels in Tehran.

A two-page summary was attached. Scanning it, Mann was startled by one dramatic concession after another -- "decisive action" against all terrorists in Iran, an end of support for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, a promise to cease its nuclear program, and also an agreement to recognize Israel.

This was huge. Mann sat down and drafted a quick memo to her boss, Richard Haass. It was important to send a swift and positive response.

Then she heard that the White House had already made up its mind -- it was going to ignore the offer. Its only response was to lodge a formal complaint with the Swiss government about their ambassador's meddling.

A few days after that, a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia killed thirty-four people, including eight Americans, and an intelligence report said the bombers had been in phone contact with Al Qaeda members in Iran. Although it was unknown whether Tehran had anything to do with the bombing or if the terrorists were hiding out in the lawless areas near the border, Rumsfeld set the tone for the administration's response at his next press conference. "There's no question but that there have been and are today senior Al Qaeda leaders in Iran, and they are busy."

Colin Powell saw Mann's memo. A couple weeks later he approached her at a State Department reception and said, "It was a very good memo. I couldn't sell it at the White House."

In response to questions from Esquire, Colin Powell called Leverett "very able" and confirms much of what he says. Leverett's account of the clash between Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah was accurate, he said. "It was a very serious moment and no one wanted to see if the Saudis were bluffing." The same goes for the story about his speech in Israel in 2002. "I had major problems with the White House on what I wanted to say."

MUST WATCH

Rudy '08

Iran

Iran drumbeat

It Can Happen Here

In a grotesque display of irony, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino recently condemned actions by the Junta against citizens in Myanmar.

The administration is "distressed…about very innocent people being thrown into detention, where they could be held for years without representation or charges.”[AG1]

Yes, quite "distressing" indeed.

Surely, that type of thing could never happened here, right? Wrong. It already has, to a US citizen no less.

With the passage of the Military Commissions Act in October of 2006, this administration claimed it could deny the right to trial to whomever the president declares ‘an enemy combatant.’

That means President Bush, or Clinton, or Giuliani can decide the Bill of Rights doesn't apply to you whenever he or she says so.

In existence from the days of the Magna Carta 800 years ago, the writ of habeas corpus was guaranteed even under the King of England.

Then came the case of José Padilla, an US citizen branded by the administration as the ‘dirty bomber.’

Apprehended in 2002 with no charges filed against him, Padilla was dragged away to a Navy brig where he would be stripped of all human dignity and methodically tortured to the point of "irreversible psychological damage."

For three and a half years, Padilla’s completely isolated detention consisted of a 7 x 9 foot windowless cell, bright lights on for days, no mattress on his steel bed, no pillows, sheets, clocks, calendars, radio, television, telephone calls, and no visitors -- including a lawyer -- or human contact other than his interrogators for almost 2 years, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

He was regularly assaulted, hooded while held in extreme stress positions, threatened with imminent executions, subjected to extreme temperatures, and even given LSD and PCP during some of his interrogations.

Experts agree the prolonged periods of isolation and sensory deprivation will drive a prisoner insane.

"What the government [was] attempting to do,” says Dr. Stuart Grassian, nationally recognized expert on solitary confinement, “[was] create an atmosphere of dependency and terror."

Ironically, techniques like these are banned under the US Army Field Manual primarily because their efficacy is questionable, to say nothing of their morality.

These methods are adapted from the same ones the Soviets used on political dissidents and the North Koreans on US POWs, methods that the US once condemned, according to the Monitor.

Some officials say however, these methods are vital and do not go far enough.

“Anything that threatens the perceived dependency and trust between the subject and interrogator directly threatens the value of interrogation as an intelligence-gathering tool,” said Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Jacoby goes on to claim that the introduction of legal counsel "may substantially harm our national security interests.” [AG2]

Legal counsel a threat to national security[AG3] ? “Anything that threatens” the trust and dependency? Like the Bill of Rights and Due Process?

Those chilling remarks are literally straight from George Orwell's 1984. In fact José Padilla is eerily similar to Winston Smith in that in the end they both deeply sympathize with and are terrified of the government that destroyed them.

While it may be true that Padilla was no Boy Scout, even psychopath's like Ted Bundy and Green River killer weren't treated so inhumanely.

The moment that the he declared Padilla an ‘enemy combatant,’ Bush had essentially repealed the foundation of constitution and the Bill of Rights as he saw fit, assuming powers that surpassed the King of England.

“[The administration argued that] the President always knows best...,” says Yale law professor Jack Balkan, continuing that these powers are that "of a dictator in an authoritarian regime. They are the powers of the old Soviet Union.”

Padilla was finally convicted in what can only be described as a show trial based on dubious evidence and vague charges of conspiracy. They had nothing to do with the original sensational accusations.

It is shocking that there is little outcry from our leaders that a US citizen was held for 3 1/2 years without Due Process, denied habeas corpus and his constitutional rights, and tortured to the point of brain damage, all before being charged with the crime.

The Padilla conviction was a pyrrhic victory for this administration but ultimately is a shameful and ominous day for our constitution, our republic, and the sacred principles of our nation.

It must never happen again.

---

Photos of war

Watch this short photo slideshow on the Israeli attack into Lebanon.

Developments on Iran

Top Advisers to Bush convinced that he will attack Iran

I believe President Bush is going to order airstrikes [on Iran] before he leaves office. Because he has several times said — at least twice to my knowledge — that if we allow Iranians to acquire nuclear capabilities, 50 years from now, people will look back at us the way we look back at Munich and say ‘how could they have let this happen?’

Richard Perle: “Would this president do it? I think that until the day he leaves office, this is a president that, if he is told, ‘Mr. President, you are at the point of no return,’ I have very little doubt that this president would order the necessary military action.” [Link]

A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.” [Link]

Bill Kristol: “We could be in a military confrontation with Iran much sooner than people expect.” [Link]

Israeli Uri Avnery warns,

Whoever pushes for war against Iran will come to regret it.

Some adventures are easy to get into but hard to get out of.

The last one to find this out was Saddam Hussein. He thought that it would be a cakewalk – after all, Khomeini had killed off most of the officers, and especially the pilots, of the shah's military. He believed that one quick Iraqi blow would be enough to bring about the collapse of Iran. He had eight long years of war to regret it.

Both Americans and Israelis may soon be feeling that the Iraqi mud is like whipped cream compared to the Iranian quagmire.

Raw Storyt reports the Air Force creates an Iranian strike wing.

Kevin Drum opines about to supposed military opposition,

A couple of things. First, my semi-understanding of the state of play here is that opposition to bombing Iran comes at the Joint Chiefs and theater command levels, not at the individual service level. Second, a lot of this surely depends on what kind of bombing mission we're talking about. A massive two-week effort deep into the heart of Iran to destroy their nuclear infrastructure is one thing, and that seems to be the mission the Chiefs have a problem with. (Assuming scuttlebutt is right and they have a problem in the first place.) But if Sy Hersh is right and Dick Cheney's latest gambit is to turn Iran into a 21st century Cambodia complete with "limited" bombing raids along the border, that's another thing entirely. I'd be surprised if anyone in the E Ring had a serious problem with that.

The Nation also reports on the matter,

And there are reports from the UK that the US is training Gulf states for war with Iran,

The American air force is working with military leaders from the Gulf to train and prepare Arab air forces for a possible war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Chris Weigant speculates on what happens after the bombs drop,

The very first thing the Iranians would do is bomb the MEK camps in Iraq. This would be on a "tit-for-tat" level and they could make a good case before the world for doing so. The MEK ("Mujahedeen-e-Khalq") is an Iranian dissident group who have been trying to overthrow the government of Iran for quite some time now. They used to operate out of Saddam's Iraq, in cross-border raids into Iran. When we invaded, we kind of institutionalized a stalemate with them -- we accepted their surrender, told them we would protect the safety of their camps, but we allowed them to stay. The only problem is, they're a terrorist group. Which we're protecting with the American military.

If America kept attacking Iran, the options get much grimmer much quicker. Iranian missiles may start targeting the Green Zone in Baghdad with a passion. They may start targeting those sprawling US bases out in the desert in Iraq. Remember the Kuwaiti war with Saddam? America kept saying "oh, we've taken care of all of Saddam's missiles" while the SCUDs kept raining down, proving us wrong. Imagine that scenario coming from Iran.

Iran may also unleash the terrorists it sponsors. Hezbollah, in particular, may begin spectacular terrorist attacks within Europe. They could even conceivably (unlike Bush's bugaboo "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia") successfully attack the United States mainland. So not only are missiles raining down on the Green Zone, but shopping malls and train stations and power plants are getting blown up all over Europe and the United States, or (failing to reach America) U.S. Embassies worldwide.

But these nightmare scenarios aren't the worst weapon. Iran's real leverage comes from sitting on top of the Straits of Hormuz (some use the singular Strait of Hormuz). Check out a map of it on Wikipedia, and notice that Iran surrounds this tight bottleneck on three sides. Twenty percent of the world's oil moves through these straits every day, on supertankers. Imagine Iranian mines, torpedoes and missiles taking out oil tankers here. They'd really just have to successfully take out one, or maybe two to prove they could do it whenever they felt like.

What would happen after the first of these successful attacks would be oil trading at astronomical highs: $150 to $200 a barrel. Or roughly two to three times what is has been trading at during the Iraq war. Six to nine dollars a gallon at your local pump.

If this went on for a short period of time, it could cause a devastating recession on the American economy. If it went on for a long period of time, it could cause a worldwide economic depression.

If the American economy crumbles, it's going to be harder and harder to find the money to continue three wars at once. Remember, we essentially outspent the Soviet Union in the arms race. It'd be awfully ironic if it happened to us, since it would be almost impossible to pour the amount of money we have been into the Middle East if our economy was on its knees.

This would quickly lead to World War III speculates former CIA officer Philip Giraldi,

It might start with a minor incident, possibly involving an American Marine patrol operating out of the new base at Badrah near the Iranian border. The Marines are surrounded by superior Iranian forces claiming that the Americans have strayed inside Iranian territory. The Marines refuse to surrender their weapons and instead open fire. The Iranians respond. Helicopter gunships are called in to support the Marines, and artillery fire is directed against Iranian military targets close to the border. President Bush calls the incident an act of war and, in an emotional speech to the nation, orders U.S. forces to attack. A hastily called meeting of the UN Security Council results in a 17-1 vote urging the United States to exercise restraint, with only Washington voting "no." In the UN General Assembly, only the U.S., Israel, Micronesia, and Costa Rica support the military action. The U.S. is effectively alone.

In the first few days, overwhelming American air and naval superiority destroy Iran's principal air, naval, and army bases. Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities are particularly targeted and are obliterated, as are the known Iranian nuclear research and development sites. Population centers are avoided, though smart weapons destroy communications centers and command and control facilities. There are nevertheless large numbers of civilian casualties and widespread radioactive contamination as many of the targeted sites are in or near cities. Infrastructure is also hit, particularly bridges, roads, and power generation stations close to known nuclear research centers and military sites. The U.S. media, which had supported the administration's plans to engage Iran, rallies around the flag, praising the surgical attacks designed to cripple Tehran's nuclear weapons program. Congress supports the bombing, with leaders from both parties praising the president and commenting that Iran had it coming.

The Pentagon and White House call the attacks a complete success, but Iran strikes back. With five years to prepare, Iran has successfully hidden and hardened many of its military and nuclear facilities, a large percentage of which are undamaged. The aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower operating in the Persian Gulf is hit by a Chinese Silkworm cruise missile and grounds itself in shallow water to avoid sinking. Three other support vessels are also hit and severely damaged when they are attacked by small craft manned by suicide bombers. Pro-Iranian riots break out in Beirut, where the government is forced to call in soldiers to shoot at the crowds. In the south of Lebanon, Hezbollah fires salvoes of rockets into Israel. Israel responds by bombing Lebanon and Syria, which it blames for the attacks. Iranian Shahab-3 missiles also strike Israel, killing a number of civilians. The Israeli Defense Forces are mobilized, and troops are sent to the northern border. Syria and Lebanon also mobilize their forces. Rioters in Baghdad attack US. .troops and the American embassy and are driven back only after the soldiers open fire and call in helicopter gunships. Snipers attack American soldiers all over Iraq. Shi'ites sympathetic to Iran sabotage Saudi Arabia's eastern oil fields. The Saudi fields suffer some damage, and hundreds of alleged saboteurs are shot dead by Saudi security forces. An oil tanker out of Kuwait is hit by a Silkworm close to the Straits of Hormuz and runs aground. Another hits a mine planted by Iran. Insurers in London refuse to cover any tankers transiting the Persian Gulf. Oil shipments from the region, one quarter of the world supply, stop completely, and oil goes up to $200 a barrel. Wall Street suffers its biggest loss in 20 years, with the Dow Jones index plummeting by more than 800 points.

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A piece on pre-empting the next war,

Convincing them to switch course and reassert their right to make such a fundamental decision as whether to go to war with Iran will require a major popular outcry: petitions--from groups like MoveOn, TrueMajority, Working Assets, and Democracy for America--that aren't just mailed in, but publicly delivered by the basket. It means marches, rallies and endless phone calls and visits to Congressional offices. It probably means people sitting in some of these same offices (and I bet similar efforts around Iraq convinced my own Senator, Washington State's Maria Cantwell, to vote the right way in this case). We can say these kinds of efforts have so far failed to halt the Iraq war, but they've certainly fed the Congressional resistance, and it's always easier to stop wars before they start. We're also demanding a far more modest initial goal of Congress and the Senate simply reaffirming their constitutional right to make fundamental war-and-peace decisions in the first place. So it should be an easier sell.

UPDATE
senators Clinton and Webb introduce legislation prohibiting funding for war with Iran

BarbinMD writes,

And would the President consult Congress before attacking Iran?

Q Did he consult -- would he tell Congress before attacking Iran -- before he attacks Iran?

MS. PERINO: Helen, we are pursuing a diplomatic solution with Iran.

Q I'm asking you does he feel committed to ask Congress for permission?

MS. PERINO: We are pursuing a diplomatic solution in Iran.

Draw your own conclusions.

Seymour Hersh on Countdown (video).