Ray McGovern: Do We Have The Courage To Stop War With Iran?

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/audits/61328

Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran?

By Ray McGovern, AlterNet. Posted September 3, 2007.

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It is going to happen, folks, unless we put our lawn chairs away on Tuesday, take part in some serious grassroots organizing and take action to prevent a wider war -- while we still can. President George W. Bush's speech Tuesday lays out the Bush/Cheney plan to attack Iran and how the intelligence is being "fixed around the policy," as was the case before the attack on Iraq. It's not about putative Iranian "weapons of mass destruction," not even ostensibly. It is about the requirement for a scapegoat for U.S. reverses in Iraq and the White House's felt need to create a casus belli by provoking Iran in such a way as to "justify" armed retaliation, eventually including air strikes on its nuclear-related facilities.

Bush's Aug. 28 speech to the American Legion comes five years after a very similar presentation by Vice President Dick Cheney. Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Aug. 26, 2002, Cheney set the meretricious terms of reference for war on Iraq.

Sitting on the same stage that evening was former CENTCOM commander Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who was being honored at the VFW convention. Zinni later said he was shocked to hear a depiction of intelligence (Iraq has WMD and is amassing them to use against us) that did not square with what he knew. Although Zinni had retired two years before, his role as consultant had enabled him to stay up to date on key intelligence findings. "There was no solid proof that Saddam had WMD … I heard a case being made to go to war," Zinni told Meet the Press three and a half years later.

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Air strikes on Iran seem inevitable, unless grassroots America can arrange a backbone transplant for Congress. The House needs to begin impeachment proceedings without delay. Why? Well, there's the Constitution of the United States, for one thing. For another, the initiation of impeachment proceedings might well give our senior military leaders pause. Do they really want to precipitate a wider war and risk destroying much of what is left of our armed forces for the likes of Bush and Cheney? Is another star on the shoulder worth THAT?

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There is very little time to exercise our rights as citizens and stop this madness. At a similarly critical juncture, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was typically direct. I find his words a challenge to us today:

"There is such a thing as being too late. ... Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with lost opportunity. ... Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.'"

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

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[freedomfries]

1. Ray McGovern's very lucid piece lays bare the war propaganda. Stop and read:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates at his December '06 confirmation hearing:
"While they, the Iranians, are certainly pressing, in my opinion, for a nuclear capability, I think they would see it in the first instance as a deterrent. They are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons -- Pakistan to the east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west, and us in the Persian Gulf."
The inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency on August 28, 2007:
"The agency has been able to verify the nondiversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use."
George W. Bush's ominous speech to the American Legion on the very same day, August 28, 2007:
"Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust."

Thank you for posting this important piece! Pass it on!

[freedomfries]

2. K&R