US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack
Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter, Washington
"Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
"Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
“'There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,' a source with close ties to British intelligence said. 'There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.'
"A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. 'All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
“'There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.'
"A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. 'American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,' said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders."
(MORE)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq//article1434540.ece?Submitted=true-------------------------------------------
This is an astonishing development. The Bush Junta has utterly blown our foreign policy, which is such a tattered ruin that U.S. generals feel compelled to leak to their opposition. We have utter chaos at the top of the our government--as in Iraq, as in Katrina, as in Afghanistan, as in a $10 trillion deficit, as in an AG who supports torture, as in the alienation of every ally in the world, every country and every people on earth, as in Darth Vader having his finger on the trigger--able to give commands to the US military that they, by law, must obey--no matter how unlawful and insane those commands may be. Their only alternative is to resign!
This the result of stolen elections! This is what you get when votes are "counted" by Bushite corporations using "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code! The insane and unrepresentative policy of out-of-control tyrants.
I am damned glad these generals have a conscience--and common sense, and professional integrity. But they should never have to be in this position. And WE put them there, by our inattention to our voting system, and our obliviousness to the fascist coup that occurred between 2002 and 2004, with the "Help America Vote for Bush Act"--a product of the Anthrax Congress, that fast-tracked unaccountable, SECRETLY CODED electronic vote counting all over the country. We let it happen. And so did our political party--enticed by $3.9 billion in boondoggle funding, and their corrupt approval of corporate privatization of EVERYTHING, including our elections. Now they're so hogtied to these electronic voting corporations--who "count" the votes in THEIR elections as well, with "trade secret" code--they can't break loose.
Well, we are going pay for our stupidity. Because the world is not going to sit by and let Bush/Cheney attack Iran. There will be consequences--among the MILDER ONES, a deliberate crash of the US dollar. And that may come as a preventative! (China, Russia and India recently met: their agenda, how to stop the U.S. bully?). And if Cheney dares to strike Iran, there will be a military re-alignment worldwide, to stop us altogether--to disarm us! The impact of an attack on Iran will be vast. If it's nuclear, it will be catastrophic. Millions will die. Portions of the Middle East will be unlivable. Sick, homeless, starving refugees will flood into neighbor states--it will involve all of southern Europe (Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain), not to mention the Middle East, Pakistan, and north Africa. And even a limited use of nuclear weapons can destroy the whole planet--by throwing up a huge dust cloud that suffocates all plant life on earth. In a matter of months, everything could be dead. (Read Carl Sagan's "The Cold and the Dark.") And even if the attack is limited to conventional weapons, we have got to understand that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT THE SAME THING as the hated Saddam Hussein dictatorship. In seeking nuclear weapons, Iran is merely asserting its sovereignty, and is, indeed, stating its FEAR--its fear of the U.S. under Bush/Cheney, combined with its fear of Israel's nukes. They see the two as one. THAT's why they want nukes, to PREVENT interference and invasion. (Bear in mind that the US/UK/Israel overthrew Iran's democracy in 1954, and inflicted the Iranian people with 25 years of torture and oppression under the horrible Shah of Iran. We DROVE them into the arms of the mullahs. They have no reason to trust us.) If Cheney attacks Iran, the entire Muslim world will rise up against us, and we will have NO ALLIES. None! I take that back. We will have ONE ally: Israel. Poor Israel--whose rightwing leadership has chosen, as their ally, the most despised regime on earth.
That will be the end of the U.S. of A. By trade, by finance, by military alliance, we will be isolated and de-fanged, and, unfortunately, we, the people of the USA, will be the victims of it. You can be sure the Bushites have their stolen booty in foreign currency, and their escape routes well-planned.
Let us hope that the US military, US intelligence agencies, internal political forces and other countries can combine to stop these tyrants. The American people don't have enough time to do so. We can eventually get our democracy back, but it's not going to be easy; it's going to take long hard work on transparent elections and grass roots organization--the things we have failed to give sufficient attention to, while our democracy slipped away. The catastrophic power in Cheney's hands obviously can trump any grass roots citizen action. Our compromised election system--in which the people have to outvote the machines--has resulted in a Congress which is still not very representative of the American people, and that seems paralyzed on the simplest assertions of Congress' constitutional powers, and acts like a deer frozen in the headlights when the war profiteering corporate news monopolies reply to efforts to defund Cheney's war with Cheney's "talking point": "we must support the troops."
We, the People, do not have the power to stop these tyrants. And we cannot restore our power in time to prevent outright catastrophe, which will cap all the slower moving catastrophes that Bush/Cheney have inflicted on us. So we can only hope and pray. And this outcry of the generals gives me hope. We are not alone. Others see our dilemma. Our military has more respect for the Constitution and for international law than do the President and Vice President of the U.S. How's that for irony! The Constitution puts the military under civilian control, and the civilian leadership is nuts.
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