Thursday, September 06, 2007
Pacifica Commentary For September 5, 2007
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and served as Middle East Bureau chief for the New York Times. He frequently reported on Iran. Here are his thoughts on the upcoming war of aggression which the Cheney/Bush Administration has planned against Iran. It was exactly this kind of premeditated murder that was clearly identified as the "Supreme International Crime" at Nuremberg.
The Pentagon has reportedly drawn up plans for a series of airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran. The air attacks are designed to cripple the Iranians’ military capability in three days. (Why not say thirty years?)
This outrage will be accomplished by U.S. and Israeli warplanes.
But then what? We don’t have the troops to invade. And we don’t have anyone minding the helm who knows the slightest thing about Persian culture or the Middle East. There is no one in power in Washington with the empathy to get it. We will lurch blindly into a catastrophe of our own creation.
It is not hard to imagine what will happen. Missiles which cannot reach the United States, will be launched at Israel, as well as American military bases and the Green Zone in Baghdad. We can expect massive American casualties, especially in Iraq, where Iranian agents and their Iraqi allies will be able to call in precise coordinates. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, will be shut down. Chinese-supplied anti-shipping missiles, mines and coastal artillery will target U.S. shipping, along with Saudi oil production and oil export centers. Oil prices will skyrocket. The dollar will tumble against the euro.
Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, interpreting the war as an attack on all Shiites, will fire rockets into northern Israel. Israel, already struck by missiles from Tehran, will begin retaliatory raids on Lebanon and Iran. Pakistan, with a huge Shiite minority, will reach greater levels of instability. The unrest could result in the overthrow of the weakened American ally President Pervez Musharraf and usher into power Islamic radicals. Pakistan could become the first radical Islamic state to possess a nuclear weapon. The neat little war with Iran, which few Democrats oppose, has the potential to ignite a regional inferno.
Hundreds of demonstrations are taking place now and throughout the months ahead. The international organized crime syndicate in Washington can either listen to the voices for sanity in the streets of our nation or we can all perish together.
The Pentagon has reportedly drawn up plans for a series of airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran. The air attacks are designed to cripple the Iranians’ military capability in three days. (Why not say thirty years?)
This outrage will be accomplished by U.S. and Israeli warplanes.
But then what? We don’t have the troops to invade. And we don’t have anyone minding the helm who knows the slightest thing about Persian culture or the Middle East. There is no one in power in Washington with the empathy to get it. We will lurch blindly into a catastrophe of our own creation.
It is not hard to imagine what will happen. Missiles which cannot reach the United States, will be launched at Israel, as well as American military bases and the Green Zone in Baghdad. We can expect massive American casualties, especially in Iraq, where Iranian agents and their Iraqi allies will be able to call in precise coordinates. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, will be shut down. Chinese-supplied anti-shipping missiles, mines and coastal artillery will target U.S. shipping, along with Saudi oil production and oil export centers. Oil prices will skyrocket. The dollar will tumble against the euro.
Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon, interpreting the war as an attack on all Shiites, will fire rockets into northern Israel. Israel, already struck by missiles from Tehran, will begin retaliatory raids on Lebanon and Iran. Pakistan, with a huge Shiite minority, will reach greater levels of instability. The unrest could result in the overthrow of the weakened American ally President Pervez Musharraf and usher into power Islamic radicals. Pakistan could become the first radical Islamic state to possess a nuclear weapon. The neat little war with Iran, which few Democrats oppose, has the potential to ignite a regional inferno.
Hundreds of demonstrations are taking place now and throughout the months ahead. The international organized crime syndicate in Washington can either listen to the voices for sanity in the streets of our nation or we can all perish together.
