News Australia.to – May 17, 2008
Think of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident which prompted the first large-scale involvement of U.S. armed forces in Vietnam when you read this article. Congress granted approval for Lyndon B Johnson to escalate the war in Vietnam.
Presstv.ir carried a story today that shows that Iran is fully aware of the preparations the US and Israel are making. Under the heading "Iran strikes back at Satanic Bush" the Iranians wrote A top Iranian cleric urges countries to 'be more considerate of nations', hammering the US president as undeserving of any expectations.
"Iran is always delighted to hear good news from any Muslim country, but always objects when Zionism imposes hardships upon others," said Tehran's interim Friday prayers leader Ayatollah Mohammad Imami-Kashani.
"Our message and our genial approach to all countries but the Zionist regime has infuriated the Bush administration to such an extent that they now rely on such petty anti-Iran remarks," he continued.
"Bush is a satanic person, and we have no expectations of him... We do, however, request governments, parliaments and the officials of Muslim countries to be more considerate of nations," the senior cleric added in reference to atrocities being committed around the world.
Ayatollah Imami-Kashani concluded that Iran 'seeks nothing more than peace and stability' around the globe.
US President George W. Bush stepped up his hawkish rhetoric against the Islamic Republic on Thursday, branding Iran as 'the leading sponsor of terror' and hinted at another military action in the already volatile Middle East.
"Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations," Bush had preached in Israel on Thursday, describing those who seek diplomacy with Iran as 'Nazi appeasers'.
Meanwhile on the other side, In a Wednesday lecture at the Kansas State University, CIA Director Michael Hayden claimed that slaying US military forces has become the political strategy of Iran's highest governmental officials.
"It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," maintained Hayden, just a day after the US steamed a second American aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf.
CIA Director Michael Hayden "Just make sure there's clarity on that," the CIA director continued.
His comments come at a time when a recent CBS report indicates that the US Defense Department had ordered military commanders to develop new war plans against Tehran, a claim echoed by top American analysts.
"I believe George Bush and Dick Cheney plan to take care of Iran before they leave office," former CIA analyst Ray McGovern said in an interview published in the Charleston Gazette on Wednesday.
"There's no doubt in my mind that the United States is planning right now, as we speak, a military strike against Iran. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and almost every senior US military official has pretty much acknowledged the same," former UN weapons inspector and now anti-war commentator Scott Ritter had told Democracy Now on Monday.
The US steamed its second aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday in what Washington has termed a 'reminder' of US power.
Senior US officials have been accusing the Iranian government of helping the spread of violence in Iraq without providing any concrete proof.
Pundits, however, say recent 'Washington hype' is a reminder of US preparations made prior to the Iraq war and signal efforts to prepare the public for a war on Tehran while shifting the blame of US failures in Iraq onto others."
The Iranian government ( political and religious ) on Presstv.ir uses the word "Pundits" to provide the message for its people" Here are some examples.
"While the US has failed to provide any concrete evidence in support of its various accusations against Iran, pundits believe Bush is now trying to encourage the media to find a justification of its own to allow him to strike yet another oil-rich country before leaving office."
"Pundits say the US president's go-to-war rhetoric has exposed his flagrant disregard for concrete evidence and expert opinion."
"Pundits, however, say recent 'Washington hype' is a reminder of US preparations made prior to the Iraq war and signal efforts to prepare the public for a war on Tehran while shifting the blame of US failures in Iraq onto others."
As a direct message to the USA and Israel, on Thursday, Iran's Defense Minister said Israel "was too weak to launch an attack on Iran and the Islamic Republic was ready to repel any military invasion."
On another front in the US - Iran cold war the US has announced that it is taking action to prevent the horrendous loss of US personnel to IED's
Air Force Hosts Anti-IED Conference in Southwest Asia
By Air Force Tech. Sgt. Joel Langton
Special to American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2008 - The battle against improvised explosive devices takes place on the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan every day, but this week coalition members took the fight into a conference room, tucked away on an air base in Southwest Asia.
Arranged by the Combined Air and Space Operations Center's Combined Theater Electronic Warfare Coordination Cell, the conference put IED experts from Iraq and Afghanistan together with William Hughes, director of the Joint IED Defeat Organization's test board and test board members to exchange information during the two-day conference.
"We're here to see if we're meeting the warfighters' needs," Hughes said. "Is the information we're providing helping them, is it in the right format? Meetings like this are critical to that."
Hughes' group decided to make the trip to Southwest Asia to make it easier on the warfighters. "We don't want them to have to come to us; our group came to them to make it as easy as possible for them."
The test board coordinates and synchronizes all counter-IED testing and provides information on results to the combat theater. Hughes said the effort is cyclical, as whenever coalition forces use new countermeasures against the deadly devices, enemy forces respond by changing technology.
Hughes, at 58 and wearing a pacemaker, has personally logged nearly 600 miles on convoys in Iraq, gathering information to help stop terrorists' deadliest weapon. IEDs are one of the primary threats in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We take what we collect here and go back and try to refine what we're doing, to give our guys the best possible defense against IEDs," Hughes said.
(Air Force Tech. Sgt. Joel Langton serves with U.S. Air Forces Central Public Affairs.)
To reinforce the message the US is about to release a comprehensive report on Iran's deadly activities against the US in Iran.
More Pressure Needed to Curtail Iran’s Destabilizing Activities
By Donna Miles - American Forces Press Service May 15, 2008
A preview offered to Iran of details in a yet-to-be-released Multinational Force Iraq report about its meddling in Iraq appears to have had no effect, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today. However, that may change when the report goes public, he added.
The report, prepared under Army Gen. David H. Petraeus’ leadership, documents how Iranians have been supplying, training, equipping and financing extremist Shiite groups within Iraq, Morrell told reporters during a Pentagon news briefing. Petraeus has called these so-called “special groups” the biggest threat to the Iraqi government’s stability.
Information from the MNFI report “has already been shared with the Iranian government,” Morrell said. “I don’t know what, if [any], difference that has made. Perhaps when the rest of the world sees it -- sees the extent to which they have been undermining a duly elected government and really wreaking havoc within that country, perhaps it will increase the international pressure on Iran to change its ways.”
Even with “extraordinary military pressure” on Iranian-backed groups operating in Iraq, Iran hasn’t scaled back its activities, Morrell said. “We go after them relentlessly,” he said. “And we have done so to great success recently, uncovering huge caches of weapons that we continue to find that are clearly being provided by the Iranians.”
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is committed to ratcheting up diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Iran to get it to stop its destabilizing activities and to abandon its nuclear ambitions, Morrell said.
“The secretary believes we should be continuing all of those pressures simultaneously and in an amplified way to make sure that Iran feels the pressure of remaining a destabilizing influence in the Middle East,” he said. “Through those pressures, he hopes to gain the leverage to ultimately, at some point, have them say, ‘Enough. We’re ready to talk about changing our ways.’”
Gates has been dealing with Iran for 40 years and “is still looking for the elusive Iranian moderate with whom we can deal rationally and constructively,” Morrell said.
And while the secretary considered the merits of reaching out to Iran in 2004 while it was under then-President Mohammad Khatami’s leadership, he sees little chance of positive exchange with Iran’s current leadership, Morrell said. Iran’s activity in Iraq was “somewhat ambivalent” under Khatami, he told reporters, but is anything but that under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “It is entirely unhelpful,” he said.
Historians will determine if not engaging with the Khatami government was a lost opportunity, Gates told retired diplomats yesterday at a meeting of the Academy of American Diplomacy in Washington.
Direct talks with Iran under Ahmadinejad’s leadership can be effective only after Iran bows to mounting international pressure and ceases its destabilizing activities, Morrell said the secretary now believes.
“With the election of Ahmadinejad and the very unambiguous role that Iran is playing in Iraq today, we need to find a way to build up some leverage with the Iranians and then sit down and talk,” Gates told the Academy of American Diplomacy. “We can't go to a discussion being completely the demander with them not feeling they need anything from us.”
The secretary has been candid about using U.S. military activities -- including the temporary presence of two aircraft carriers in the Arabian Gulf early this month -- to remind Iran of U.S. strength in the region, Morrell said.
The United States has enough military assets in the Middle East to amplify its message, but prefers to emphasize diplomatic and economic pressure first, he said.
“Obviously, we have 150-plus thousand troops in a neighboring country. We have many more troops in the region. We have ships. We have planes. We have more than enough assets,” he said. “But that is not the course of action at this point. It is an option that remains on the table.”
The Gulf of Tonkin incident led a Texan, Lyndon Johnson to war in Vietnam in 1964. In 2008 another Texan George Bush of America is preparing his justification to strike Iran before it has nuclear weapons.
Iran knows what is coming and has set the "Pundits" loose to say "The US president's go-to-war rhetoric has exposed his flagrant disregard for concrete evidence and expert opinion."
It is a bad time to be on guard duty at the power plant.
www.australia.to/story/0,25197,23040467-055,00,00.html
Last updated 19/05/2008
Homepage