War!! Hypocrisy!! US Attacks Iran: Global Community Must Respond (Suggested Response Included)

The long-rumored war between the United States and Iran has begun, but not with a radioactive bang, as some had feared. That can still come later, of course. "All options are on the table," as they say -- "they" being all the so-called "serious presidential candidates" and the statement itself being thinly veiled "diplomatic code" threatening a nuclear attack against the Iranians.

Rather than an attack with "bunker-busters", the first attack of the war was made with a "bank-buster", and it came in the form of a shot across the bow of the global banking system. The hypocrisy couldn't be clearer, not that this will matter much to the Iranian victims -- unless the truth suddenly becomes as important to the world's bankers as it is to some of the world's bloggers.

The first alleged casus belli against Iran was supposed to be its purported pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Iranian leadership has renounced any desire to obtain such weapons; the international governing body, IAEA, has inspected Iran repeatedly without finding anything resembling a program designed to develop nuclear arms, and technically sound experts such as Scott Ritter scoff at the notion that Iran is even close to developing any nuclear capability.

There's irony in the American threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran, supposedly in order to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons itself. If the subject matter were any lighter; if there were not literally millions of lives at stake immediately, and many more thereafter; the irony would almost be funny.

But it's not. It is an affront to any sensibility not tainted by "American exceptionalism": the widespread American belief that the United States is uniquely blessed with democracy and liberty and therefore has the right to dictate the foreign and domestic policies of every other country on Earth -- at the point of a weapon if feasible. In other words, everyone save Americans -- and only those blinded by the propaganda barrage -- can see that this line of "reasoning" is bogus.

But that's just the beginning. Now, apparently because of the American failure to create a credible nuke-related casus belli, they've turned to a new game -- charging Iran with laundering money, supporting terrorism, and committing financial crimes detrimental to the world's financial community.

Using little-known provisions in the "USA PATRIOT Act", the exceptional Americans are cracking down on Iran for doing what comes naturally to the Bush administration: money-laundering, supporting terrorism, and endangering the global economy.

The "PATRIOT Act" itself is exceptional: it was passed by a Congress that hadn't read it and signed by a "President" who had never been legitimately elected; it strips Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms from American citizens and at the same time it purports to give the American administration control of global systems; it's an enormous piece of legislation amending hundreds of laws which was presented to the House only a month after the attacks of September 11, 2001 -- supposedly in response to those attacks and supposedly in order to prevent future attacks.

The problem, of course, is that the attacks of September 11 were never properly investigated; the sham investigation initiated by the White House didn't even get started until a year after the "PATRIOT Act" was made law; thus there was no way for the drafters of the "PATRIOT Act" to know what changes in legal and security structures would have been needed for the United States to prevent future attacks of the kind -- assuming, of course, that the United States National Security apparatus was not already fully prepared to prevent the attacks of 9/11, and for some reason chose not to do so.

The final assumption appears to be completely unjustified, but even if it were true, the "PATRIOT Act" would still be an abomination. So it's only fitting, in an Orwellian kind of way, that it would be used to start a war of aggression against a peaceful country that has never threatened the United States.

The accusations against Iran may be true, in part. It appears that Iranian banks have altered records to obscure some transactions. And Iranians have been accused of funding terrorism in the Middle East and of providing weapons for use against the Americans in Iraq. No credible evidence has ever been presented to support the weapons charge, but for the sake of the current analysis let's pretend it's a valid allegation. Let's just add up the charges, put them in context, and see what we've got.

A couple of Iranian banks were caught pulling a couple of shifty stunts. Does anything like that ever happen with American banks? Tell the truth, now.

The American intelligence services operate with black budgets in the multi-billion dollar-a-year range; they ship and sell weapons and drugs all over the world to generate even more billions (not to mention assisting the twin scourges of murder and drug addiction); Americans shipped pallets of hundred-dollar bills to Iraq which then simply disappeared; the list of money-laundering crimes goes on and on, and the financial crime not only tolerated but in fact perpetrated by official US government agencies runs in the hundred-billion dollar-a-year range; and the US has the gall to accuse the Iranians of laundering money. Nice.

Did Iranians send weapons to Iraq to be used against the Americans? Have Americans ever sent weapons to Iraq to be used against the Iraqis? Tell the truth again. Have they sent men to fire those weapons? Let's tell the whole truth: They're using radioactive ammunition, too.

The Americans have openly spent hundreds of billions of dollars every year for the past five years to fund their attack on a defenseless nation which had not threatened them. They have shipped more than a million men and women to fight there, at least 4,000 of whom have died in Iraq. Countless others have been wounded, physically or mentally or both. And that's just the American side of the damage sheet. On the Iraqi side it's much worse -- as usual when American troops destroy a foreign country. Tell the truth; it's good for all of us.

How many countries has the United States done this to? Count invasion and occupation; count bombing and inciting terrorism; count starting civil wars and setting up death squads; count covert subversion and overt sabotage of democratic processes; count Vietnam and Guatemala and Chile and Somalia and Grenada and Haiti and Iran and ... oops! did I just mention Iran? Strike that. Trust me: it's the Iranians who are to be feared for inciting terrorism. Just ask George Bush.

Are the Iranian banks to be feared for jeopardizing the global financial system? Again you can ask the Americans, but don't mention Enron or BCCI or (fill in the blank here _____) or any of the other tips of corrupt American financial icebergs that have been floating around sinking unsuspecting voyagers on the rough waters of national and international finance. Why? Just because, that's why!!

Because is the key word in all this; because the Americans claim to control the global financial system; because the Americans accuse the Iranians of certain crimes against that system; because Americans are exceptional and can never be held to account for obvious and egregious crimes against humanity; because of all these factors the allegations against a few Iranian banks have been spun into a threat against all Iranian banks -- and all banks which deal with Iranian banks!

The threat goes like this: the allegedly offending Iranian banks are to be isolated; all banks which do business in Iran are to be treated likewise; all banks which do business with any Iranian bank likewise as well. It's an international quarantine on Iranian banking interests, based on allegedly anti-terrorism provisions of the "PATRIOT Act". The inevitable result will be widespread poverty in Iran. The obvious intent is provoke the Iranian government into doing something that could be used as a casus belli -- a "case for war".

Two drippingly ironic facts are hidden in all this maneuvering.

First, the United States has no international legal right to quarantine Iran as it is doing -- with heavy-handed blackmail and threats of "cooperate with us or you'll be next". No nation or national bank wants to be seen as cooperating with terrorism -- and yet, in their efforts to eschew "terrorists" and cooperate with the Americans -- this is exactly what they're doing.

Secondly, by invoking these financial threats -- threats which could lead to genocidal economic blockade -- the Americans have provided the Iranians with a casus belli of their own, to be used against the United States. But Iran doesn't want war; so it doesn't need a casus belli. What it needs -- what is always needed when a schoolyard bully starts picking on a little kid -- is strength in numbers among the potential victims.

The "schoolyard bully" analogy may not be particularly apt in the context of international relations; but then again in this case it might be just perfect.

To everybody except the exceptional Americans, there appears to be one rogue state in the world. Its dubious public pronouncements are willingly swallowed by an increasingly centralized "news" media and broadcast to gullible idiots everywhere; the result is death and destruction on a scale and of a type heretofore unknown in the history of human conflict.

The residue of depleted uranium munitions will render a large chunk of the Middle East unfit for human habitation forever -- and the radioactive debris is spreading, slowly and inexorably, to the rest of the world.

But Iran is a threat! Iran must suffer sanctions! Iran must be isolated and punished! It's unbelievable -- or not -- depending on how low you think the Bush administration will stoop. (Here's a helpful hint: there's no limit!)

If the depleted uranium alone isn't enough to make the nations of the world band together against the schoolyard bully; if the Bush doctrine -- preemptive war, anywhere, anytime, based on the flimsiest lies -- is not enough; if the countries of the world are not drawn together by the enshrinement of torture and indefinite confinement as national norms in a country known (rightly or not) as a world leader for human rights; perhaps this overt act of war against Iran can provide the impetus. After all, the "justifications" used by the Americans also apply -- in every case and with overwhelming force -- to crimes committed by the Americans themselves.

Therefore, in my view, it is time for an alliance of all the life-affirming countries of the world -- an Axis Against Evil that could be based on a document as simple as the following:

WHEREAS the American use of radioactive ammunition in Iraq and Afghanistan poses an existential risk to humanity and all other forms of life all over the world,

WHEREAS the United States has nuclear weapons, has used them, and has threatened to use them again, while Iran has no nuclear weapons and no plans to develop any such weapons,

WHEREAS the United States of America has a long history of terrorism and fomenting terrorism,

WHEREAS covert agencies of the United States government regularly launder billions of dollars a year,

WHEREAS American banks are currently -- as always -- a grave threat to the global financial system,

WHEREAS America is currently and obviously guilty of all the crimes of which Iran is accused, and many more, on an unimaginably greater scale,

WHEREAS the American administration is now threatening Iran with economic destruction, allegedly to further the prevention of terrorism,

WHEREAS the blackmail tactics used by the United States in attempting to isolate Iran are reprehensible and typical, and constitute a form of terrorism in and of themselves,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that from this day forward and until all said issues are resolved to our satisfaction, we shall do NO BUSINESS with any American Business and NO BANKING with any American Bank, nor shall we enter into any transaction with any Bank or Business doing Business with any American Business or Banking at any American Bank; and we will do our coercive best to make sure that all Banks and Businesses within our jurisdiction do the very same.

[Signed]

[your name]

___________________________

[your country]

___________________________

[your position; circle one]

(King) (Queen)
(President) (Prime Minister)
(Prince) (Princess)
(Grand Poobah) (Petite Poobah)

It sounds like a crazy idea, but if we get two or three dozen of the right signatures, the American imperial project is finished.

Otherwise we are.

~~~

NOTES: My main computer has been down for the past several hours; I wrote this post on a machine that is not much more than a typewriter. It's a lovely discipline, for sure, but the piece is not as well-annotated as usual, nor does it quote any sources. Therefore:

[1] If you didn't click the links above, please do so now:

John McGlynn: The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran

Chris Floyd: Worried Just a Bit? Bush Launches Economic 'Shock and Awe' on Iran

[2] If you are a world leader, you are invited to sign the declaration above. Otherwise, please bring it to the attention of your leader(s).

It's About That Mutiny: Air Force Covers Its Tail With Transparent Feathers

The US Air Force has decommissioned five officers and barred 65 others from handling nuclear weapons after what has been called an investigation into what has been called a series of mistakes which led to a B-52 flying from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana on August 30 while carrying nuclear-armed cruise missiles, in violation of standard practices as well as international treaty.

Staff Sgt. Monique Randolph, Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs, spelled out the gist of the official story for Air Force Link:

Air Force releases B-52 munitions transfer investigation results

A senior Air Force official released results of the command-directed investigation stemming from a weapons transfer incident that occurred Aug. 30 when cruise missiles were loaded onto a B-52 Stratofortress at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and transported to Barksdale AFB, La.
...

Following the incident, Gen. Ronald Keys, Air Combat Command commander, ordered an immediate investigation to be conducted by Maj. Gen. Douglas Raaberg, ACC director of Air and Space Operations. The investigation lasted six weeks.
...

"This was a serious error caused by a breakdown of procedural discipline by our Airmen," General Newton added. "We're accountable and we reassure the American people that the Air Force standards they expect are being met."

This is the same story we've been told ever since we learned of the event, ably echoed by William Arkin for the Washington Post:

Six of Our Nukes Went Missing -- But Don't Worry

Despite the huffing and puffing of the professional concerned, the danger to the good people of the United States from the B-52 crashing or a missile spontaneously exploding was probably infinitesimal. Still, the reality is that six nuclear warheads were removed from their bunkers in North Dakota, loaded onto a bomber, flown across the United States for three and a half hours, and then left on a parking apron for another 10 hours -- and no one noticed.

"The weapons were always in our custody," an Air Force spokesman assures. Of course they were in Air Force custody, at least as far as the paperwork goes. That doesn't mean a group of terrorists, aided by people on the base, couldn't have stolen the weapons from the North Dakota bunker.

There is no explanation for this incident other than gross incompetence on the part of the munitions and flight crews.

Unfortnately for William Arkin, other explanations are indeed possible -- indeed some other explanation is needed, as noted by tstorey in a comment at my blog:

With extensive research, you will find that the removal from storage (Minot AFB) and the transport of nuclear weapons to (Barksdale AFB) involves presidential involvement. For nuclear tipped missiles to be mounted into launch position on a combat platform (B-52) the D.O.D custody regulations require a signature from the White House.

Media reports said it was a series of unfortunate "mistakes."

Research reveals the impossibility of five different two to four star generals signing off on a mistaken shipment of 50 kiloton+ stealth cruise missiles.

The "event" is one issue that has been widely discussed. The ONLY important issue that came out of the fiasco is this, The Military Times is run by Gannett. I am old so I know some big shots in the newspaper business. It is a violation of a litany of national security regulations to release a story involving "treaty regulated" transport of nuclear weapons. It is NOT done. The first publication to carry the report was the Military Times, from there it spread to the wire services. THIS IS NEVER DONE. This was a private "family matter" that would be released years from now.

The flight officer at Minot AFB knew he had just released a flight with live nukes. The flight officer at Barksdale AFB knew he was in receipt of a flight live nukes. What happened next?

A two star general responsible for the AF region got a phone call. This "general" arranged for two "unnamed" officers to "report" the incident to Gannett and we are off to the races.

Keep in mind the next step. The Military Times cannot print ANYTHING without it being vetted by an officer. Either a full colonel or a brigadier. With a review of this post you will find that no fewer than four generals were involved in the order to get the missiles mounted on the B52 and no fewer than three in ANNOUNCING the event to the world.

This is mutiny. This is brass against brass. The senior officer who vetted the story for release knew he was "covered" by still higher ups [...] The Military Times, a division of Gannett media group, was ORDERED to release the story of the B-52 Nukes. Somebody from Washington DC with many stars gave that order. Somebody with so much juice that they knew they would survive.

The cabal is not popular with the US military. I will suggest that this is hope and that hope is good. The US military are what stand between us and martial law. Every officer signs his commission with the statement to uphold the US constitution. What if most of them do?

I haven't been able to find anything in the preceding comment that appears false.

On the contrary, it makes a lot of sense to me, and it points to deeper intrigue -- the very sort of intrigue Wayne Madsen described in his piece of September 24th, "Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater":

WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources that the B-52 transporting six stealth AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead, on August 30, were destined for the Middle East via Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

However, elements of the Air Force, supported by U.S. intelligence agency personnel, successfully revealed the ultimate destination of the nuclear weapons and the mission was aborted due to internal opposition within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community.

Yesterday, the Washington Post attempted to explain away the fact that America's nuclear command and control system broke down in an unprecedented manner by reporting that it was the result of "security failures at multiple levels." It is now apparent that the command and control breakdown, reported as a BENT SPEAR incident to the Secretary of Defense and White House, was not the result of a command and control chain-of-command "failures" but the result of a revolt and push back by various echelons within the Air Force and intelligence agencies against a planned U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional weapons.
...

The Washington Post story on BENT SPEAR may have actually been an effort in damage control by the Bush administration.
...

Just as this report was being prepared, Newsweek reported that Vice President Dick Cheney's recently-departed Middle East adviser, David Wurmser, told a small group of advisers some months ago that Cheney had considered asking Israel to launch a missile attack on the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. Cheney reasoned that after an Iranian retaliatory strike, the United States would have ample reasons to launch its own massive attack on Iran. However, plans for Israel to attack Iran directly were altered to an Israeli attack on a supposed Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear installation in northern Syria.

WMR has learned that a U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional weapons was scheduled to coincide with Israel's September 6 air attack on a reputed Syrian nuclear facility in Dayr az-Zwar, near the village of Tal Abyad, in northern Syria, near the Turkish border. Israel's attack, code named OPERATION ORCHARD, was to provide a reason for the U.S. to strike Iran. The neo-conservative propaganda onslaught was to cite the cooperation of the George Bush's three remaining "Axis of Evil" states -- Syria, Iran, and North Korea -- to justify a sustained Israeli attack on Syria and a massive U.S. military attack on Iran.

WMR has learned from military sources on both sides of the Atlantic that there was a definite connection between Israel's OPERATION ORCHARD and BENT SPEAR involving the B-52 that flew the six nuclear-armed cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale. There is also a connection between these two events as the Pentagon's highly-classified PROJECT CHECKMATE, a compartmented U.S. Air Force program that has been working on an attack plan for Iran since June 2007, around the same time that Cheney was working on the joint Israeli-U.S. attack scenario on Iran.
...

Command and control breakdowns involving U.S. nuclear weapons are unprecedented, except for that fact that the U.S. military is now waging an internal war against neo-cons who are embedded in the U.S. government and military chain of command who are intent on using nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive war with Iran.

CHECKMATE and OPERATION ORCHARD would have provided the cover for a pre-emptive U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran had it not been for BENT SPEAR involving the B-52. In on the plan to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran involving nuclear weapons were, according to our sources, Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley; members of the CHECKMATE team at the Pentagon, who have close connections to Israeli intelligence and pro-Israeli think tanks in Washington, including the Hudson Institute; British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, a political adviser to Tony Blair prior to becoming a Member of Parliament; Israeli political leaders like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu; and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who did his part last week to ratchet up tensions with Iran by suggesting that war with Iran was a probability. Kouchner retracted his statement after the U.S. plans for Iran were delayed.

Although the Air Force tried to keep the B-52 nuclear incident from the media, anonymous Air Force personnel leaked the story to Military Times on September 5, the day before the Israelis attacked the alleged nuclear installation in Syria and the day planned for the simultaneous U.S. attack on Iran. The leaking of classified information on U.S. nuclear weapons disposition or movement to the media, is, itself, unprecedented.
...

The nuclear brinkmanship involving the United States and Israel and the breakdown in America's command and control systems have every major capital around the world wondering about the Bush administration's true intentions.

You can read the rest of Wayne Madsen's report here.

The Air Force forgot to mention the mysterious deaths of six airmen who were involved with the incident, as reported by the Iranian news service Press TV on September 22nd:

Mystery surrounds deaths of Minot airmen

Six members of the US Air Force who were involved in the Minot AFB incident, have died mysteriously, an anti-Bush activist group says.
...

The activist group Citizens for Legitimate Government said the six members of the US Air Force who were directly involved as loaders or as pilots, were killed within 7 days in 'accidents'.

The victims include Airman First Class Todd Blue, 20, who died while on leave in Virginia. A statement by the military confirmed his death but did not say how he died.

In another accident, a married couple from Barksdale Air Force Base were killed in the 5100 block of Shreveport-Blanchard Highway. The two were riding a 2007 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, with the husband driving and the wife the passenger, police said.

"They were traveling behind a northbound Pontiac Aztec driven by Erica Jerry, 35, of Shreveport," the county sheriff said. "Jerry initiated a left turn into a business parking lot at the same time the man driving the motorcycle attempted to pass her van on the left in a no passing zone. They collided."

Adam Barrs, a 20-year-old airman from Minot Air Force Base was killed in a crash on the outskirts of the city.

First Lt. Weston Kissel, 28, a Minot Air Force Base bomber pilot, was killed in a motorcycle crash in Tennessee, the military officials say.

Police found the body of a missing Air Force captain John Frueh near Badger Peak in northeast Skamania County, Washington.

The Activist group says the mysterious deaths of the air force members could indicate to a conspiracy to cover up the truth about the Minot Air Base incident.

I'm fairly sure some of my readers know a lot more about this incident than I do. If you're one of them, don't hesitate to add to the story via the comments link.

Air Force Standing Down Tomorrow

After a mysterious episode last month in which six nuclear warheads were "mistakenly" transported from North Dakota to Louisiana under the wings of a B-52H bomber, Air Combat Command General Ronald Keys has called a command-wide "safety day" for Friday, September 14th.

Air Force Times reports:

The entire command — about 100,000 active-duty airmen — is standing down training flights and many other operations...

Newport News, Virginia's Daily Press provides some background on the B-52 incident:

On Aug. 30, a B-52 with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles flew from Minot Air Force Base, N.D., to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., a military official told The Associated Press.

The missiles, which are being decommissioned, were mounted onto pylons on the bomber's wings.

It is unclear why the nuclear warheads had not been removed beforehand.

The plane's crew, according to news reports, did not know they were carrying nuclear weapons.

The Daily Press story includes some official military double-talk:

Citing Defense Department policy forbidding the release of any information about nuclear weapons, Pentagon officials have not confirmed that nuclear weapons were involved in the incident.

However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Bush were immediately notified of the incident, a Pentagon spokesman said.

As the Air Force Times notes,

... the safety stand-down is the first commandwide safety day in recent memory. In the past, the command has singled out specific types of aircraft for safety days ...

It is not clear what purpose is served by announcing that the Air Force will be stood down tomorrow.

What does seem clear is that anyone who might be planning mischief in the skies would benefit from such knowledge.

Pakistan: Nuclear Defiance May Be Political Cover

The following story from the Associated Press of Pakistan appears to be a rather strident statement of defiance concerning the future of nuclear weapons in Pakistan. (Pakistan is believed to have about 50.) But all this nuclear saber-rattling may be a distraction, a radical-sounding but ultimately fairly meaningless statement whose main purpose is to draw attention away from a stunning revelation which the government would prefer to see ignored.

Pakistan to never compromise on nuclear assets : Shaukat Aziz

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz Monday said Pakistan will never compromise on its nuclear assets and will not allow anyone to cause harm, as these are vital for its sovereignty and security. “Pakistan’s strategic capabilities as a nuclear and missile power are an important factor that not only ensures its security and sovereignty but also progress,” he said this while addressing a seminar titled, Let’s think what did we give to Pakistan, organized by Pakistan Ideological Council (PIC) here at Prime Minister Secretariat.

The Prime Minister said progress and development are linked with defence and every citizen of the country is ready to defend and will never compromise on national nuclear assets.

Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan of today and tomorrow is not the Pakistan of yesterday, adding that over the past 8 years the government has worked hard to implement broad based multi-sectoral reforms that have revived and repositioned the country.

This map shows Pakistan's "traditional" position -- that's the Pakistan of yesterday. If I'm right, and this is a stealth move, we may never see a map of the repositioned Pakistan, Pakistan of today and tomorrow.

I think this is a big story, don't you? How easy is it to reposition a country of 170 million? And to think they're trying to do it in secret!!

Look at some of the other radical policies these madmen are pushing:

Referring to the foreign policy, Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan wants good relations with every country and is engaged with the Afghan government to help bring peace and stability to Afghanistan which is in the interest of Pakistan as well.

On issue of Kashmir, the Prime Minister said every Pakistani desires its peaceful solution which is necessary for progress.

“We remain confident that the Kashmir dispute would be resolved in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people which will be beneficial to all,” he said.
...

Regarding religious seminaries, he said these are part of our society and playing an important role in imparting both worldly and religious education.

“The government has always supported the religious seminaries, but at the same time we do not want that any one is exploited on the name of religion,” he added.

What is this "peaceful solution" crap? Peace and stability? the aspirations of the people? beneficial to all?

They're madmen, I tell you! Madmen!!

I'll keep an eye on this story, of course, and when the new maps come out -- if they come out -- you'll be the first to know.

Bob Koehler: 'Disciples Of Yossarian'

I don't link to Bob Koehler often enough. Bob's an editor for Tribune Media Services in Chicago, and he writes a weekly column as well. I know him (in the virtual way) through the pro-democracy movement, and he's always been really friendly and generous. [As a blogger dealing with a mainstream media person, I can't deny I love that reaction. And yes, I have had other sorts of reactions from other mainstream people, but let's not go there just now.]

I don't know much about Bob's editing because who can tell what he's worked on? His weekly columns are so carefully crafted I can tell he's a stickler for detail. And I love that about him too. Most of all I love his writing. Bob Koehler kicks butt in a direct and heartfelt way every week, and sometimes (like this week) he really gets rolling, and then he's even more fun to read, in my slightly frozen opinion. Anyway...

This week Bob sticks his foot even further than normal up the butt of the monster Ike warned us about, with a piece whose theme features the central character of my favorite novel ever ever ever. So in addition to linking to Bob's site, I feel compelled to repost his column in full, and to scribble a frozen little introduction for it, a reasonable facsimile of which follows:

The summer before my senior year in high school, I got sick and was more or less bedridden for six weeks, time I spent reading and re-reading and re-re-reading the same book. After a month and a half I had read it seven times and I believe it had re-routed the connections in my brain because after my six weeks alone with Catch-22, I never again saw anything in quite the same way, ever ever ever.

If you haven't read Catch-22, you're missing a treat and a half; briefly: it's about a WWII American bomber squadron attacking Italy. The central character, Yossarian [played by Alan Arkin in the Mike Nichols film -- see top photo], hates flying missions but does it anyway (not that he has any choice) and whenever he reaches the number of missions required to complete a tour of duty (therefore supposedly earning a trip home) Colonel Cathcart raises the number of missions! Oops! There's a catch! It's a "Catch-22".

But that's not the only catch.

Doc Daneeka tells Yossarian he can get out of flying if he's crazy. But there's a catch -- another Catch-22: Anybody who doesn't want to fly in a war is obviously not crazy, so Yossarian must be sane and therefore he has to keep flying.

It turns out that "Catch-22" covers an enormous category of insanities. Any rule or regulation that generates contradictions (and contradictions abound in this very carefully crafted work of ironic fiction) is called a "Catch-22".

Not to spoil any endings, but: After reading it seven times in a row, I decided to model my life after Orr, one of Yossarian's buddies, who pledged "to live forever or die in the attempt". Orr used to crash on virtually every mission, and claimed Yossarian was crazy for not wanting to fly with him.

The author of this massively twisted tale of life in the Air Force, Joseph Heller, thus became and still remains my favorite American novelist ever ever ever, with the possible exception of Mark Harris, of whom we spoke quite a while ago here. Most of the people I know who love Catch-22 are lukewarm (at best) about most of Heller's other work, all of which I consider top-notch, so I am in a very small minority to praise Heller so highly. But then again, as I've said, I was sick, and my synapses were rearranged.

On a minor side note, I must say it frosts my already frozen rump to be accused of anti-Semitism, (as all 9/11 truth-seekers are, not to mention all those who are in any way critical of Israel!), when some of the people I love the most (both online and in real life) are Jewish, and especially when I would crawl for miles over broken glass to meet the Jewish-American novelist Joseph Heller -- but most unfortunately Joe Heller passed away in 1999.

Sigh. RIP Joe Heller.

I apologize for the ramble but on the other hand I thought you might be interested.

This week's column from Bob Koehler brought all that back to mind, and much more too.

DISCIPLES OF YOSSARIAN

By Robert C. Koehler | Tribune Media Services

Following on the heels of his flirtation with violent “decisiveness” toward Pakistan, Barack Obama got twisted up even further in the conflicting loyalties that complicate the lives of Democratic presidential candidates and the people who vote for them. Pretty soon the other candidates were in there with him, like cats in the yarn.

After declaring in a speech last week that he might order military strikes on Pakistan border areas to take out suspected al-Qaida camps, he was asked by an AP reporter if he’d use nuclear weapons against al-Qaida in Pakistan.

I pause here a moment to ponder the insanity of this question, or what I might call the “Yossarian moment” it produces, referring, of course, to Joseph Heller’s notorious central character in the World War II novel “Catch-22,” whose everyman sanity stood in constant amazed contrast to the routine insanities of war, like people all the time trying to kill each other. This is a Yossarian moment on steroids, reporter to almighty-deity-in-chief wannabe: When killing thine enemies, sir, would you be inclined to take ’em out 50,000 at a swath? A hundred thousand? A million?

We’ve been thinking the unthinkable for 62 years now, so long that only a dazed disciple of Yossarian, apparently, stumbles today on the idea that “the button” is still — still! — within human reach. Otherwise, our horror over this, or at least the media’s horror, has worn down over the decades to a smooth sense of normalcy.

Yossarian’s ... I mean Obama’s ... response was illuminating — a burst of idealism, uncensored, unsophisticated, uncompromised. One might even suppose he spoke as “himself”: “I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance,” he said.

Then, uh-oh, the Presidential Candidate took over, quickly adding the preposterous caveat: “... involving civilians.”

What? Non-civilian mass slaughter only? On its face, this is arguably the dumbest comment to date of the 2008 presidential campaign. But it’s also much more than that. It’s a sudden, stunning glimpse at the Truth About Presidential Campaigns: that the front-running candidates, the big-time players, the ones who might actually capture their party’s nomination, are only nominally running for president of the United States — president, that is, of that unruly mob of 300 million struggling, unpredictable and possibly peace-craving souls out there, including you and me.

In point of fact, they’re running for president of the Establishment — the power structure, the interlocking status quo of economic and geopolitical interests that knows what it wants and sets the parameters of policy: the war machine, in short; the military-industrial-media complex.

“Let me scratch that,” Obama went on. “There’s been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.”

Close call! Idealism off the table.

But it didn’t end there. Not quite. The painfully “presidential” Hillary Clinton, who, we can be certain, has been sand-blasted free of every last embarrassing protrusion of “it takes a village” idealism over the last 15 years, was asked to weigh in. “Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons,” she said, laying out the rules of the game.

“Presidents, since the Cold War, have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace,” she went on. “And I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.”

Joe Biden, a second-tier rival for the nomination, had to be more succinct. Channeling the invisible powers a U.S. president must serve, he pronounced Obama “naive,” the ultimate condemnation. Let’s move on, shall we?

Well, no, let’s not. This fleeting moment in the making of a presidential candidate is a sobering reality dunk for every last unreconstructed disciple of Yossarian in the bleachers, or for every disciple of Albert Einstein, who famously observed: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Those of us who believe in a genuinely peace-rooted, nuke-free, disarmed future — who believe that violence doesn’t work and see this confirmed almost daily in the headlines (190,000 AK-47s and other U.S.-distributed weapons missing in Iraq, many of which are almost certainly being used against us) — must take note. No leading U.S. politician is on our side or ever will be until we succeed at crashing the party.

The paradoxes of today’s violence may be strangling the future as we look on, but they’re so easily ignored by servants of the status quo, who will grab any irrelevant historical precedent (the Cold War is over, Hillary) to justify the continuation of the highly profitable myth that peace must gorge itself on blood.

~~~

Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can send him email at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at Common Wonders dot com.

© 2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Thanks again, Bob. You Rock! And thanks to Joe Heller too.

One last tangent: I once met a youngster who told me his first name was Yossarian. I didn't believe it at first but the guy who introduced us knew the family and swore it was true. Yossarian started to explain the origin of his name, and seemed relieved to find out no extended dissertation was necessary. He said, "I'm named after a character from a book." I said, "Of course!" He said, "Catch-22 is my dad's favorite book." I said, "No kidding!" And that was the end of that.

Yossarian turned out to be a very impressive 14-year-old. Sharp, quick, funny, very well-informed, the works. I haven't seen or heard of him in a long time, and I have no idea how he's doing but I certainly wish him well.

Please forgive me for a moment...

Hey Yossarian: if you read this, send me some email, will you?

On The Other Hand: What's The Future Security Of All Mankind, Compared To A Handsome Profit?

RAW STORY has just published a story worthy of a Pulitzer, according to Managing Editor Larisa Alexandrovna. I'm not qualified to confirm or deny Larisa's estimate but I do concur -- it's a great article. I can also give you a few key excerpts to get you started on this explosive tale of wanton betrayal, from Luke Ryland:

'They sold out the world for an F-16 sale'

In the era of Ronald Reagan, intelligence officer Richard Barlow was an analyst for the CIA, monitoring Pakistan's nuclear program. In 1989, he moved over to the Pentagon, where he worked for then-Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney. Barlow lost that job when he raised objections to his bosses about senior Pentagon officials allegedly lying to Congress concerning Pakistan’s emerging nuclear program.
...

In 1975, Pakistani scientist AQ Khan “acquired” nuclear blueprints from his Dutch employer and was immediately put in charge of Pakistan's nuclear program. In 1988, Pakistan would detonate its first atomic bomb.

Former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers has said that the CIA was monitoring Khan from the beginning. He asserts that the US turned down offers to detain Khan in 1975 and 1986 because they wanted to “gain more information” about the scientist’s activities.

Intelligence information later showed that the US and its allies allowed Pakistan to clandestinely acquire most of the technology for its nuclear program from abroad, unwittingly facilitating the spread of nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya over the past several decades.
...

When Richard Barlow joined the CIA in 1985 as a counter-proliferation intelligence officer with particular expertise on Pakistan, he quickly realized that Pakistan was continuing to develop its nuclear program, and that some of its clandestine and illegal procurement activity was occurring within the US.

It didn't take Barlow long to realize that US officials knew what Pakistan was doing. According to Barlow, individuals at the State Department later actively facilitated procurement, tipping off targets of sealed arrest warrants in undercover operations and illegally approving export licenses for restricted goods.

How do we like this?

It gets even worse:

In 1987, Barlow engineered the arrest of some of Khan’s agents in the US as part of an undercover operation. He says the arrests came with the full support and knowledge of the highest levels of the CIA and the Reagan administration.

The arrest sparked a firestorm. Proof of Pakistan's proliferation activities would trigger the provisions of the the so-called Solarz Amendment and put an end to Pakistani aid.
...

Pakistan, Barlow said, had been breaking US nuclear export laws regularly since 1985, and the responsible individuals in the US intelligence and law enforcement communities knew it. Having just approved a multi-billion dollar aid package, Solarz and others in Congress—including Senator Larry Pressler, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee—were outraged to learn about Pakistan's violations of their laws. Solarz was appalled that information had been hidden from Congress.

In contrast, those who had willfully misled Congress were horrified that Barlow had told the truth. They tried to undercut Barlow's testimony but to no avail. Barlow’s classified testimony was unimpeachable.
...

In early 1989, after George H.W. Bush became president, Barlow joined the Pentagon’s Office of Non-Proliferation Policy—working under then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Stephen Hadley, and then-Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Scooter Libby.

Barlow says he continued to be engaged in trying to arrest more Pakistani nuclear agents. He also claims there were other examples of officials lying to Congress about Pakistan's nuclear program in order to keep aid flowing, but now there was a significant difference: The Afghan war was over, so there was no Cold War “justification” for continuing to shovel money at Pakistan. This time, he believes, it was simply about profit.

"They sold out the world for an F-16 sale," Barlow says.

Does that seem like an outrageous claim? Well, here's how they did it:

"[The Pakistanis] had nuclear weapons at the time, and we knew they did,” Barlow remarks. “The evidence was unbelievable. I can't go into it—but on a scale of 1 to 10, in terms of intelligence evidence, it was a 10 or 11. It doesn't get any better than that.”

Barlow asserts that in 1988 and 1989, Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush illegally certified that Pakistan was free of nuclear weapons in order to keep funds flowing.

In the late eighties, Pakistan, trying to outmuscle India by injecting nuclear and air power steroids into their arms program, was seeking to buy 60 new F-16s worth $1.6 billion.

F-16 manufacturer General Dynamics desperately wanted the sale.

Unfortunately for the firm, Rep. Solarz and others in Congress expected assurances that the planes couldn't be used to drop nuclear weapons.

This was problematic: American intelligence knew that Pakistan had already made the minor modifications to their existing fleet of F-16s so that they could carry, and drop, nuclear weapons.

In fact, US and foreign intelligence and news reports indicated that the Pakistanis had in fact modified their F-16’s for nuclear delivery and had been conducting training exercises where they practiced dropping nuclear weapons from the F-16s. Nonetheless, Barlow says, Pentagon officials lied to Congress under oath, saying that the planes couldn't be used for nuclear purposes without a radical overhaul well beyond the industrial capabilities of Pakistan.

Barlow says he then learned that Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Hughes had delivered testimony willfully falsified by officials at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He realized that Hughes had lied to Solarz' committee because earlier in 1989 he had prepared a comprehensive paper on this very issue for then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

“All the top experts had looked at this question in detail for years, and it was a cold hard engineering question,” Barlow says. “There was no question about it—the jets could easily be made nuke-capable, and we knew that Pakistan had done just that."

Barlow says he tried again to inform his bosses that the congressional testimony was false. He was effectively fired two days later.
...

Three years later, Rep. Solarz told Sy Hersh, “If what Barlow says is true, this would have been a major scandal of Iran-Contra proportions, and the officials involved would have had to resign.”

After two decades of investigations by the CIA Inspector General, the Department of Justice Inspector General, the State Department Inspector General, a General Accounting Office investigation, and the public record, we now know that what Barlow was saying was true.

The officials involved didn't resign. They’ve been running the country for the last six years.

Well, that's the basic idea, anyway. For the full text and live links, please click here to read the original. A hearty tip of a frozen cap to Luke Ryland for this excellent work, another to RAW STORY for publishing it, and a third to Larisa Alexandrovna for bringing it to my attention via her excellent blog, At-Largely.

Speaking of excellent blogs, keep an eye on what Luke Ryland is doing at Wot Is It Good 4, Kill the Messenger, Let Sibel Edmonds Speak, and disclose, denny!

Street Drugs And Nuclear Secrets: Dreamers And Schemers On The Loose In 21st Century Schizoid Amerika

Sibel Edmonds tells a tale of nuclear arms dealing, drug-smuggling, money laundering, and international terrorism. Or at least she would if she weren't gagged!

How many of those elements can you spot in this story from Adam Zagorin of TIME Magazine?

New Mexico police got more than they bargained for last fall when they responded to a call about a domestic dispute in a trailer park near Los Alamos National Laboratory. Not only had they stumbled on paraphernalia for making the drug crystal meth; they also found thousands of pages of highly classified documents detailing the designs of U.S. nuclear weapons.

"We're taking it (the security breach) very seriously," said a spokesman for the Energy Department, which controls the lab, soon after the incident was made public. He added that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman "was personally disturbed" by the matter. As well he ought to have been: New details obtained by TIME offer an even more disturbing picture of security at the nation's nuclear inner sanctum than the one outlined last year in a no-nonsense investigation by the Department's Inspector General. In fact, according to government documents, the woman who made off with the weapons designs was herself engaged in chronic illegal drug use and other serious security breaches that have never been made public. Documents also show that the DOE is investigating separate drug use by at least 35 other lab workers who received security clearances around the same time.

Investigators don't believe powers hostile to the U.S. have exploited this latest round of security lapses, although they cannot be certain. But clearly, those with access to the nation's nuclear secrets would be priority targets of foreign intelligence services, and problems such as drug-abuse could make them vulnerable to manipulation.
...

TIME has also obtained the report of a task force set up by Energy Secretary Bodman to examine some of the security issues in his department. Given the stakes involved in protecting nuclear secrets in a post 9/11 world, the report makes uncomfortable reading: It details not only more extensive drug use among staff at Los Alamos, but describes a systematic lack of accountability and weaknesses in the safeguards surrounding nuclear secrets.

How are we doing so far? I've got three of the four already. And you?

Read the rest here.

Was Pye Dubios, the mad Max poet, writing about these very people?

We're all here to be reckless
We're all sleazy and easy to please,
Dreamers and schemers on the loose...

Tom Toles: I Guess You Showed Everybody!

Tom Toles is the best! And the most recent open thread is pretty well buried, so I suppose we might as well have another one.

Olmert Accidentally Tells The Truth

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accidentally told the truth about something Israeli politicians and others have been lying about for decades, and the fallout from his "slip of the tongue" is gathering a bit of momentum.

From the Jerusalem Post: Loose lips and nuclear warships

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to Berlin Tuesday - at least in the eyes of the Israeli press - was overshadowed by one sentence he said in a German television interview on Monday regarding Israel's alleged nuclear capabilities.

"Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map, can you say this is the same level when you are aspiring to have nuclear weapons as America, France, Israel, Russia?" the prime minister told German television network SAT 1, setting off a storm of protest in Israel.

Some of the reasons for that "storm of protest" are enumerated in another Jerusalem Post article: 'Olmert's comments may prove harmful'

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's apparent inclusion of Israel in the nuclear club and confirmation that the country has nuclear weapons could prove disastrous to Israel's strategic standing, senior defense officials said Tuesday.

According to the officials - responsible for planning Israel's long-term defense strategy - Olmert's comment could eventually lead to renewed pressure to open up the country's nuclear installations to international inspections. Egypt has repeatedly called for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of the Dimona nuclear facility as well as Israel's signature on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Olmert's comment was even more surprising considering that in recent weeks he held two four-hour long meetings with former minister Dan Meridor - author of Israel's newly-formulated defense doctrine - during which he was briefed on the main principles, which include maintaining Israel's long-standing policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Of course, by "nuclear ambiguity", the author, Yaakov Kaatz, means that Israel has never officially acknowledged that it has nuclear weapons.

Further details from the same article:

A high-level adviser to Olmert on defense and diplomatic issues told the Post recently that Israel needed to maintain nuclear ambiguity "at all costs."

"This policy scares our adversaries," the high-ranking official said. "Even if they think they know, they don't really know and that scares them."

According to the official, Israel's policy has paid off by preventing IAEA inspection of its nuclear sites. The policy has also allowed the United States to rebuff calls - like those from the Egyptians - for international inspections of Israel's facilities. In addition, the policy has so far warded off attempts by other Middle Eastern countries - except for Iran - to begin developing their own nuclear programs using the excuse that Israel has a nuclear capability.

I love the use of the word "excuse" in this context ... in an ironic way, of course. Why "excuse"? Why not "reason"? Because a "reason" seems to imply a valid motivation, whereas "excuse" implies an ulterior motive, or otherwise implies that the action in question is somehow less "ok".

I've never understood why it's ok for Israel to have nuclear weapons but it's not ok for Israel's neighbors to have any weapons at all. But then, maybe I'm just a little bit thick.

Aljazeera English has some more interesting commentary on this ...

The Israeli prime minister spent Tuesday trying to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle after an apparent slip-of-the-tongue.
...
Israeli official spokespersons also denied that his remark was an admission.
...
Olmert said in the interview that was shown on Israeli television: "The most that we tried to get for ourselves is to be able to live without terror."

Ha ha ha! He's a regular comedian, this guy.

Speaking in Germany on Tuesday, Olmert denied he had "outed" Israel's nuclear programme.

"Israel has said many times, and I also said this to German television in an interview, that we will not be the first country that introduces nuclear weapons to the Middle East," he said after meeting Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

That's a good one, too! Olmert is such a good liar, it's no wonder all of Israel gets its knickers in a knot when he accidentally tells the truth.