The
48 Hour Media-blitz
For War With Iran
By Mike Whitney
11 March, 2006
Uruknet
In
the last 48 hours all the major players in the Bush administration have
issued statements warning of the impending danger of Iran.
Cheney blasted the Islamic
regime saying there would be "meaningful consequences" if
it refuses to comply with international demands to stop its nuclear
program.
Condoleezza Rice said, "We
face no greater challenge from a single country than Iran… This
is a country that seems determined, it seems, to develop a nuclear weapon
in defiance of the international community that is determined that they
should not get one."
Donald Rumsfeld warned at
a press conference on Wednesday, "I will say this about Iran. They
are currently putting people into Iraq to do things that are harmful
to the future of Iraq. We know it, and it is something that they, I
think, will look back on as having been an error in judgment."
Bush chimed in too, "Iran
must not have a nuclear weapon. The most destabilizing thing that can
happen in this region and in the world is for Iran to have a nuclear
weapon."
And then there was Bolton,
the most vehement of all, saying that the Security Council should issue
a "vigorous response" to Iran’s nuclear ambitions or
the United States might have to consider other steps.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas
Burns said, "It’s going to be incumbent on our allies around
the world to show that they are willing to act."
Congress also added their
support led by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) "Iran’s quest for nuclear
arms requires us to do two things: squeeze Iran’s economy as much
as possible and do so without delay." Lantos claims that more than
300 lawmakers will support sanctions.
Israel’s Defense Minister
joined the chorus as well," If the UN Security Council is incapable
of taking action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israel
will have no choice but to defend itself."
Bush, Cheney, Bolton, Rice,
Rumsfeld, Burns, Congress, and Israel.
Whoa! That’s quite
a line-up.
All in the last 48 hours!
Was it spontaneous or a calculated
public-relations campaign?
Beyond the political speechmaking
are literally hundreds of articles, full of the same predictable fictions
and demagoguery which have mischaracterized Iran’s nuclear program
from the get-go; fueling the hysteria for another preemptive war.
Did Iran become nuclear superpower
overnight?
Apparently, so. But, just
for the sake of argument, let’s remember that according to the
IAEA there is "no evidence of a nuclear weapons program or any
diversion of nuclear material."
That is the judgment of the
Nobel Prize-wining chief of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, Mohammad
ElBaradei. ElBaradei warned that there were no nuclear weapons programs
in Iraq and he has drawn the very same conclusion in Iran.
"No evidence" still
means "no evidence" except in Washington, DC, where it is
a mere stumbling block for a massive media-blitz to manipulate public
perceptions and whip the masses into war-fever.
It’s hard not to be
impressed by the sudden ratcheting-up of inflammatory statements and
spurious claims that blast from every media-soapbox across the country.
Who could have imagined 4 years ago how utterly corrupted our media
really is?
Try this: do a Google search
through the 2,400 articles on Iran right now on and see what you find.
You’ll find that all
2,400 articles reiterate the same bland deceptions and wearisome lies
as all the others. You’ll see that the forth estate provides neither
facts, nor context, nor analysis, just the endless, repetitive fear-mongering
of administration officials.
That’s it; just manipulation
through state-sponsored demagoguery 24-7.
You won’t find anything
about the IAEA inspection team that rummaged through Iran’s nuclear
sites for the passed two years in the most thorough examination of any
country in the history of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
You won’t hear anything about the "go anywhere, see anything"
inspections that allowed officials from the IAEA to investigate any
location or facility they felt was suspicious. You won’t hear
that the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) predicted that it would
take 10 years for Iran to build a nuclear weapon. (If, in fact, that
is even their intention) You won’t hear that Iran temporarily
sacrificed its legal right to enrich uranium and accepted "additional
protocols" because it trusted the EU-3 (Germany, France and England)
who, it turns out, were simply acting as Washington’s agents.
You won’t find one single article that clarifies the most fundamental
issue of the entire confrontation; that Iran has an "inalienable
right" to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes unless it can factually
established that it has not complied with the terms of its agreement.
It has complied. There is
no violation. That is why there will be no "punitive action".
Instead, the United States
is hoping for a "presidential statement"; a bogus "slap
on the wrist" from the Security Council because the individual
members can’t muster the courage to do their duty and defy the
US.
Perhaps, the Security Council
could offer a "supplemental presidential statement" at the
same time, condemning the Bush administration, for developing a new
regime of low-yield, bunker-busting "usable" nukes, and for
its involvement in poisoning the groundwater and great swaths of the
Iraqi countryside with Depleted Uranium; ensuring environmental devastation,
cancer and birth defects will continue into perpetuity.
Will the Security Council
have time to reprimand the real nuclear terrorist or will it limit itself
to the imaginary villain who refuses to prostrate itself to Washington?
Iran has weathered this farce
with great dignity. They understand the gravity of the situation when
the media begins swarm to their victim. They know that there are Carrier
groups in the Gulf and AC-130s in bases in Iraq. They know that Israeli
commandoes have infiltrated the countryside and are scoping out potential
targets. They know that satellites and unmanned drones have mapped out
every square inch of territory from Iraq to Pakistan and the B-52s are
tucked away close by where they can "liberate" another 100,000
or so Iranians.
How do they know?
Because it is the same lame
script that was used in the lead up to the war in Iraq.
The Iran Bourse
On March 20 the Iran Bourse
will formally open and allow countries to break to US monopoly on oil
purchases in petrodollars. The central banks across Europe and Asia
will trade in part of their stockpiles of greenbacks for euros, and
dollars will come flooding back to the homeland. $3 trillion of American
cash and securities are owned by people or institutions outside of the
United States. If just a small portion of them pour back into the US,
Depression will follow.
Is the impending war with
Iraq merely an effort to shore up the debt-ridden greenback? (which
is now underwritten by $8.2 trillion in debt)
If not, then how do we explain
the Federal Reserve’s surprise announcement that it would stop
releasing the M-3 in late March, 2006 coinciding with the opening of
the bourse? (The M-3 provides the aggregate statistics on US dollars
around the world)
Don’t you think the
American people would like to know when the central banks begin tossing
their stockpiles of greenbacks overboard?
And won’t this "weakening
of the dollar" curtail Washington’s ability to print unlimited
amounts of money to fund a powerful standing army and provide lavish
tax cuts to the wealthy?
The Iran bourse is a direct
threat to the present economic system of extorting labor and resources
from the developing world for worthless paper.
The Bush administration will
do everything in its power to defend that system.
Berkshire-Hathaway chief,
Warren Buffet recently noted, "Right now, the rest of the world
owns $3 trillion more of us than we own of them. In my view, it will
create political turmoil at some point. …Pretty soon, I think
there will be a big adjustment."
"Political turmoil"?"big
adjustment"?…"Pretty soon, I think"?
'nuff said.