Please free us from the remarkable arrogance and manipulating deceit that is Israel.

Its not a relationship, its extortion and it has come at our immense expense.

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Great interview Amy. Very interesting stuff in there. Thanks a lot. Confirmed my suspicions about Israel not doing it, confirmed my suspicions on what the hold-up has been, confirmed that McCain is Bush's third term (McCain's gotta hate that accusation, especially after this interview since it's obviously true). I had been wondering about the political ramifications on doing the Iran operation after the election...I had assumed that it just wouldn't be possible; guess I was wrong. Let's hope somebody can talk some sense into these people or keep them occupied with crossword puzzles or something until 09. It's a real shame that the democrats lacked the backbone to impeach. Even if the impeachment wasn't a success it could possibly have damaged the administration enough so that Iran would not be possible.

dboy

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Last century they provoked Two World Wars, and then armed the World with Nuclear weapons so that we could kill each other 10 times over - even just by a mistake.

They allowed religious and cultural divisions to promote mass human breeding resulting in totally unsustainable population growth.

Whilst there was great technical progress - this really only benefited a small fraction of the human population - and devastated the quality of life of most of the poorest in the World.

More recently the financial elite have conspired to produce an enormous financial collapse potentially impoverishing everyone except a tiny elite

And they have allowed the World's strongest Military Power to be controlled by a bunch of crazed religious neocon fanatics who "believe" that Iran poses a danager to the rest of the World - despite all the evidence that it is they themsleves that are the problem.

Lets face it guys - you've done a completely appalling job.

Its time for the lot of you to give it up, stop trying and spend your money on something useful that will benefit both the planet and the human race.

You couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery - so stop trying to control the human race.

You are totally incompetent.

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I'm not sure anything is new here, other than the dangerous scale of US-funded anti-Iranian interference. People like Noam Chmsky have been talking for years about several different groups internal and external to Iran that the US has been funding in order to try to destabilize/overthrow the Iranian gov't. It's been going on since 1979. Heck, we funded Saddam Hussein's war against Iran...Remember? Compared to that murderous campaign, what, if anything, Iran is doing in Iraq now is like flies on dung.

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She needs to be tossed out on her ass and replaced with a progressive. Is anyone challenging her?

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With Dictator Bush and his Global Domination efforts at hand, it wouldnt surprise me in the least.

JT
Is your ISP watching?

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Why these two men are just blown off? I just read an interview with Ritter and he's just as convinced that Iran is not the threat or the problem. Joe Biden has stated that If there's any military action against Iran without Congressional apporoval he will begin impeachment proceedings. He's a decent guy and I believe him. I DON'T believe that everything begins and ends with Nancy Pelosi. Sounds like another way to pass the buck. Thanks, ANNA

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Excuse me, how can this be news, when it's been common knowledge for the past thirty years and more recently the renewed efforts to infiltrate Iran, kidnap Iranians, sow disent and even blow up their Mosques all paid for by the U.S. of A.

If it were another country doing the same to the U.S. what would be the response of the American people ?

So why is it OK for Americans to wage an undeclared war against another country that has done them no wrong ?
Why is such aggression SUPPORTED by the majority of Americans ?

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how to stop this shite. strangle the funding of all war by not working in the cystem, stop paying your taxes to the cystem. doing this alone will dry up the cystem into dust. growing your own food is a revolutionary act against the cystem. use the endowed creativity within to break the shackles of fear that has been imbued in ourselves since time was created.

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The response to beef up surveillance both regular and clandestine is a very good thing. Had the US had had the eye on the ball they would not have been caught of guard by the Taliban or by Saddam.

If you have bad information, you make bad decisions. If you have good information, intelligence you can make informed decisions without speculation.

Personally I would go to any length to keep nuclear weapons out of Iranian hand, short of a full scale invasion. but the threat must always be implied, the Ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad must always fear the risk and invasion.

I would probably support an air strike if things got that far, as far as i can understand the point of no return will come early 2010. At that time th Iranians have full capability of building nuclear bombs.

It is a shame that Iran has such an totalitarian and emphasized regime. Many of my best friends in Sweden are Iranian liberals and they assure me that the Iranian people hate the ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad with a vengeance, in particular the young under 25, some 50 % of the population. The love America, its values and its free market society.

Ahmadinejad share many post-structural left liberals hate in general for modernity, the free market and liberal democracy and the hate for the US in particular.

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I have a question. Will we ,the American people, finally take to the streets BEFORE an attack on Iran ? It seems to be it could be our only recourse. Gracie

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Well, to call yourself a socialist is amazing. a failed economic theory, and even worse it has failed time after time in practice. What is worse it has always been accompanied by terror or oppression, or as Lenin said: "There can be no revolution without firing squads!"

Iran need to be contained. We must make every effort that they do not acquire nuclear weapons. It would destabilize the whole region.

An intervention is th last resort but i think it is extremely unlikely given the experience if Iraq. But sabotage and limited strikes should not be taken out of the picture.

The strikes, as Israels against Syria's north Korean style reactor, should be contemplated before production of plutonium takes place or the reactors become operational beginning of 2010.

I am a friend of the Iranian people and I am fully aware how proud the are of being Persians and how much they hate the militant islamist and how much they love the US.

The worst conflict in the world was created by two socialists, Stalin the Marxist-Leninist and Hitler the National socialist.
They were also responsible for the worst atrocities, the mass murder of 10's of million of innocent people. Stalin was however worse. During the Russian revolution some 8 mn civilians were murdered by the Red Army and the Tjeka. Stalin added on some 20 mn in his purges during the Great terror. Hitler exterminated some 10 mn Jews, Homosexuals, Gypsies and Russians.

Saddam and Ahmadinejad are no Stalins nor Hitless if they share similar ideologies.

Ahmadinejad would if he were not deterred, contain want to call for a Global and total Jihad, Holy War on all infidels. Convert or die!

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Hersh makes an interesting comment on how the NIE was worded. They assert that there was no nuclear program after 2003. He points out that one shouldn't conclude that there was a program before that. To me that sounds a lot more accurate than the conclusion out of the blue that Iran ever had such a program.

What they do have is projects that are deliberately ambiguous, but I think that is as far as they're willing to go. These are bargain chips, and guess what, before starting negotiations, they have to give up those bargain chips.

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If you take in account that

- the military had far too few people to control the area
- This Bremer guy arrives and starts taking destabilising decisions that bewilder the generals
- a huge secret and or private army was able to do things that the army had no right to know about
- and a few thinktanks proposing to break up the country
- and a few other things

could it be that Cheney decided to break up Iraq in 3 separate regions and could arrange for internal battles to break out(black flag stuff), without even having to tell anyone? There is always incompetence of course. But that can be an alibi. Cheney isn't incompetent.

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Alrighty then. So do you want to keep letting both the Democrats and Republicans ABUSE your votes or are you all ready to SHUT UP AND VOTE 3rd Party for a change ?!?!?

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Alexander Cockburn strains to point out they were first.

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Sending in SF teams into sovereign territory to kidnap armed forces members? How is this not an act of war?
I seem to remember from a previous Hersh article that the US is financing "rebel" groups who are committing car bombings and other attacks within Iran.
The congress has been utterly gutless in dealing with the Bush administration on Iraq and it is now laying the groundwork an even more disastrous adventure in Iran.
It seems clear that Bush and Cheney are determined to start a war with Iran before they leave office, either acting directly or more likely through their Israeli proxies.
If congress does not act in a determined, moral manner to rein in this lunacy then they will be as responsible as Bushco for the whole region going up in flames.
I honestly believe at this point that there is no real alternative to a draft in the US. It would focus everyone's minds wonderfully if their own children stood to be endangered by foreign adventures and it would lighten the hideous load now being borne by the patriots who didn't "have other priorities" a la Cheney.
The cloud - rednecks will have to push their pickups to mcdonalds to get their freedom fries. The silver lining - a chance to clean up investing in Halliburton and Blackwter.

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Hey folks. Lets give credit where credit is due. It took Sy Hersch and the NewYorker 2 full months to publish a story first discussed in far better detail by Patrick Cockburn and the folks at Counterpunch.org. Hersch even admits to it in the New Yorker article.

Here's the link to both stories.

Orginal Coverage

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with all this concern about the price of oil and gasoline, does no one say that the end of the Iraq war and stopping the speculation about attacking Iran could go a long and quick way to stopping the speculation driving oil and gas prices?

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