Remember this in the run up to the illegal invasion and occupation?
While still wrangling over how to overthrow Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration is already looking for other targets. President Bush has called for the ouster of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Now some in the administration--and allies at D.C. think tanks--are eyeing Iran and even Saudi Arabia. As one senior British official put it: "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran."
http://www.msnbc.com/news/792516.asp
There are already
sanctions in place against Iran, so we are already waging economic war against the people.
Some have rumoured that Israel will do the dirty work and blow Iranian nuclear facilities to bits as they have done in the past.
Slipping conveniently under the wires except in Asia, Bush pressures Pakistan to send troops to Iraq.
"Pakistan is the specific domain of the US Central Command, like India falls under the Pacific Command, and the visit of General John Abizaid means there is an exclusive agenda in the region with marked priorities, which include operations in the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal areas and forcing Pakistan to support its war in Iraq, where the US now has realized that its troop operations are a failure and only Muslim armies can play a role," said Gul, who was a part of Pakistan's ruling oligarchy until Islamabad did an about-turn on Afghanistan and support of the Taliban in late 2001, and gradually sidelined those who supported jihadi movements. Gul is the architect of Pakistan's jihadi movement, which played an active role in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
Gul strongly believes that by giving Pakistan "major non-NATO ally" (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) status, the US has already struck a deal under which it bargained military cooperation in return for the support of Musharraf's regime. "The US establishment has already accepted Musharraf's non-democratic rule in return for his support to help them crush anti-US movements which the US has branded as terror outfits," said Gul.
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FG03Df03.html
bin Laden is hiding somewhere, Iran seems to be where the trail of breadcrumbs leads:
And it appears that he chose Iran, rather than Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or China. A leading source says that shortly before the collapse of Kandahar, Mullah Omar called a meeting in the town at which the governor and important commanders were present. Mullah Omar briefly mentioned the war situation, explaining the reasons for the sudden retreat from Kabul. He stressed that given the heavy US carpet bombing, there would be no way to defend Kandahar, and so he had arranged for the safety of senior "guest" fighters and would announce the surrender of Kandahar shortly.
http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/CL19Ag01.html
Iran is suppossed to have WMD too; However:
During the past year or so, Iran has given IAEA inspectors unprecedented and unlimited access to go anywhere and see anything thought suspicious. The IAEA has found no evidence that Iran now has - or has ever had - a nuke development program.
Nevertheless, on May 6, the U.S. House of Representatives passed by an overwhelming margin (376-3) a resolution that said - among other things - that Congress:
"(1) condemns in the strongest possible terms Iran's continuing deceptions and falsehoods to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the international community about its nuclear programs and activities;
(2) calls upon all State Parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), including the United States, to use all appropriate means to deter, dissuade, and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, including ending all nuclear and other cooperation with Iran (including the provision of dual use items), until Iran fully implements the Additional Protocol between Iran and the IAEA for the application of safeguards;
(3) declares that Iran, through its many breaches for 18 years of its Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, has forfeited the right to be trusted with development of a nuclear fuel cycle, especially with uranium conversion and enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology, equipment, and facilities..."
So what's going on? Representative Ron Paul (R, Texas) - one of the three who voted against the resolution - thinks he knows.
"I find it incomprehensible that as the failure of our Iraq policy becomes more evident - even to its most determined advocates - we here are approving the same kind of policy toward Iran.
"With Iraq becoming more of a problem daily, the solution as envisioned by this legislation is to look for yet another fight. And we should not fool ourselves: this legislation sets the stage for direct conflict with Iran.
"The resolution "calls upon all State Parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), including the United States, to `"use all appropriate means to deter, dissuade, and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons...'"
"Note the phrase `...use all appropriate means...'"
So, will US pilots - or Israeli pilots "under contract" - "take out" the Iranian Safeguarded facilities? Stay tuned.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/prather.php?articleid=2644
As the politicians try to sell us the draft, and, bin Laden hides in either Pakistan or Iran beware the WMD scam pointed this time towards Iran. The ultimate goal is to have an enemy in place so congress can be persuaded to pass more and more missile defense and nuclear programs.
The new threat is dirty bombs. This time it is rumoured by sea delivered in suitcases. Notice the US announced yesterday it will board all ships sailing into US ports.
Don't be fooled by the dirty bomb threat:
Two years ago, before Comey revealed what radiological agent Padilla intended to use, the dirty bomb "experts" at the Federation of American Scientists decided to scare the pants off you soccer moms.
The FAS "dirty bomb" was a "coffee jar" containing about a thousand curies of a true radiological material such as Cobalt-60. That's about the radiological source-strength of a medical radio-therapy unit used to irradiate cancer patients.
"A successful bomb would have to be designed with great sophistication, first to break open the 'coffee jar,' then to gradually heat the radioactive source so that it vaporized, and finally to scatter it to the winds."
Sophistication?
Padilla?
Actually, the FAS scenario sounds like the 1986 Chernobyl accident. A graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor at Chernobyl was being deliberately operated in a zone where the reactor was known to be unstable. The operators lost control, the reactor ran away, melting the core, setting the graphite moderator on fire and vaporizing the coolant, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen gases. The fire then ignited the hydrogen-oxygen gas mixture, which exploded, blowing the roof off the reactor building.
About a hundred million curies of radioactivity was spread over a wide area by invisible gases and thick black smoke. The fire burned for 10 days. Downwind, Soviet citizens could see the smoke and the sooty "fallout." But there was no terror, no panic. In fact, one of the other power plants at Chernobyl continued to operate throughout the entire ordeal.
Many of those downwind, who were forced to evacuate, didn't want to go. And except for an increase during the first several years after 1986 of thyroid cancer in small children, there has been no significant increase in cancer incidence among the downwind population.
But the FAS apparently scared some of you. So, we and the Russians - in cooperation with the IAEA - have decided to help other countries enhance their own radiological safeguards and physical security. There are estimated to be more than 10,000 medical radiotherapy units and 12,000 industrial radiographic units in operation, worldwide.
Thieves - not terrorists - have stolen several medical radiotherapy units - which weigh about a ton - and sold them as scrap metal.
In the worst incident - in 1987 in Brazil - the thieves removed the highly radioactive source from the shielded unit. Result? Five persons died within days and others got life-threatening doses of radiation.
Hence, the FAS thousand-curie dirty-bomb scenario results in a dead dirty-bomber and very little terror.
But, Padilla could survive his micro-curie uranium scenario. That is, if he wore rubber gloves.
Reprinted from WorldNetDaily
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/prather.php?articleid=2810
Elsewhere aircraft carriers speed toward China.
But, while warning of China's increasing naval might, Fisher said Beijing's calculation that Washington would capitulate and leave Taiwan to its own defense if an American flattop were destroyed was "potentially dangerous."
"The United States likes vainglory; if one of its aircraft carriers should be attacked and destroyed, people in the United States would begin to complain and quarrel loudly, and the U.S. president would find the going harder and harder," Huang was quoted as saying.
Fisher's assessment may be on track; in March, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a group of U.S. and Taiwanese military officials that the Bush administration "has said ... the United States is committed to doing whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself."
Nevertheless, China continues to hone its naval warfare capabilities and modernize its fleet.
The weekly military intelligence brief Geostrategy Direct reported Wednesday that China recently conducted a new anti-ship missile test in the South China Sea. Photos of the missile test and its launcher were disclosed July 4 in the official Communist Party newspaper, People's Daily, Geostrategy reported.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28271
Bush is determined to be the war time President. Do not underestimate the desperation, case in point: 9-11.