Media Disinformation and the “Iranian Threat”: The great, international, demonic, truly frightening Iranian threat

William Blum
Global Research
June 5, 2009

The United States is “facing a nuclear threat in Iran” — article in Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers, May 26

“the growing missile threat from North Korea and Iran” — article in the Washington Post and other major newspapers, May 26

“Iran’s threat transcends religion. Regardless of sectarian bent, Muslim communities need to oppose the attempts by Iran … to extend Shia extremism and influence throughout the world.” — op-ed article in Boston Globe, May 27

“A Festering Evil. Doing nothing is not an option in handling the threat from Iran” — headline in Investor’s Business Daily, May 27, 2009

This is a very small sample from American newspapers covering but two days.

“Fifty-one percent of Israelis support an immediate Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites” — BBC, May 24

After taking office, on Holocaust Memorial Day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We will not allow Holocaust-deniers [Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] to carry out another holocaust.” — Haaretz (Israel), May 14, 2009

Like clinical paranoia, “the threat from Iran” is impervious to correction by rational argument.

Two new novels have just appeared, from major American publishers, thrillers based on Iran having a nuclear weapon and the dangers one can imagine that that portends — “Banquo’s Ghosts” by Rich Lowry & Keith Korman, and “The Increment” by David Ignatius. “Bomb, bomb, bomb. Let’s bomb Iran,” declares a CIA official in the latter book. The other book derides the very idea of “dialogue” with Iran while implicitly viewing torture as acceptable.1

…….full article here

Watching Obama Morph Into Dick Cheney

Paul Craig Roberts
Antiwar.com
May 21, 2009

America has lost her soul, and so has her president.

A despairing country elected a president who promised change. Americans arrived from every state to witness in bitter cold Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. The mall was packed in a way that it has never been for any other president.

The people’s good will toward Obama and the expectations they had for him were sufficient for Obama to end the gratuitous wars and enact major reforms. But Obama has deserted the people for the interests. He is relying on his non-threatening demeanor and rhetoric to convince the people that change is underway.

The change that we are witnessing is in Obama, not in policies. Obama is morphing into Dick Cheney.

Obama has not been in office four months and already a book could be written about his broken promises.

…….full article here

The American Rome Is Burning – So Let’s Attack Iran

Eric S Margolis
Huffington Post
Mar 14 2009

Iran has haunted every U.S. administration since the days of President Jimmy Carter. While running for president, Barack Obama proposed opening talks with Tehran and trying to end the long Cold War between the United States and Iran.

Obama’s sensible idea was greeted with the deepest dismay by ardent supporters of Israel and Rambo Republicans who want to see the US go to war with Iran, a nation of 70 million, and destroy its nuclear infrastructure.

Now, as the United States fights for its economic life, the Iran question and its alleged nuclear weapons program have again become an issue of major contention. Officials in the Obama administration and the media issued a blizzard of contradictory claims over Iran’s alleged nuclear threat, leaving us wondering: who is really charge of U.S. foreign policy?

…….full article here

Obama’s “War on Terror”

Stephen Lendman
Global Research
Feb 10, 2009

The language is softened and deceptive. The strategy and tactics are not. The “war on terror” continues. Promised change is talk, not policy. Just look at Obama’s “war cabinet,” discussed in an earlier article. It assures:

– the “strongest military on the planet” by outspending all other countries combined;

– continued foreign wars;

– possible new ones in prospect; on February 7, vice-president Joe Biden outlined continuity of the Bush administration’s policy toward Iran, including “preventive” wars under the National Security Strategy; demands also that Iran abandon its legal nuclear program meaning nothing going forward will change;

– permanent occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is planned;

– a reinvented “Cold War” with Russia; perhaps also with China; “draw(ing) a new ‘iron curtain’ (between these) formidable Eurasian powers” to prevent their alliance from challenging America, according to F. William Engdahl;

– an “absolute” commitment “to eliminating the threat of terrorism (with) the full force of our power;”

…….full article here

The War on Terror is a Hoax

Paul Craig Roberts
Information Clearing House
Feb 4, 2009

According to US government propaganda, terrorist cells are spread throughout America, making it necessary for the government to spy on all Americans and violate most other constitutional protections. Among President Bush’s last words as he left office was the warning that America would soon be struck again by Muslim terrorists.

If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly.

The most obvious indication that there are no terrorist cells is that not a single neocon has been assassinated.

I do not approve of assassinations, and am ashamed of my country’s government for engaging in political assassination. The US and Israel have set a very bad example for al Qaeda to follow.

The US deals with al Qaeda and Taliban by assassinating their leaders, and Israel deals with Hamas by assassinating its leaders. It is reasonable to assume that al Qaeda would deal with the instigators and leaders of America’s wars in the Middle East in the same way.

…….full article here

Investigate US torture and prosecute those responsible

David Walsh
WSWS.org
Jan 28, 2009

Considerable efforts are being made in various quarters to cover up the record of US torture and prevent the prosecution of military and Central Intelligence Agency torturers and those higher up who ordered them to carry out their crimes.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reportedly holding up approval of Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, until he promises not to prosecute any former Bush administration officials for their part in approving torture.

Not that the incoming Obama regime needs much encouragement along those lines. The new administration has made a series of cosmetic changes that will in no serious way alter the brutal course of US policy in regard to the “war on terror” and the treatment of detainees. The eventual closing down of the Guantánamo internment camp and illegal CIA prisons, as well as the official requirement that CIA and military personnel follow the Army Field Manual’s prohibitions on torture, will resolve nothing.

…….full article here

Obama: Regime Rotation

Nafeez Ahmed
The Cutting Edge
Jan 25, 2009

The arrival of the Obama administration will not fundamentally alter the course of military expansion accelerated during the Bush era. The origins of these policies do not lie uniquely in neoconservative ideology. While the election of President Obama may offer new opportunities for progressive forces to delimit the damage, their space for movement will ultimately be constrained by deep-seated structural pressures that will attempt to exploit Obama to rehabilitate American imperial hegemony, rather than transform it.

Indeed, the radicalization of Anglo-American political ideology represented by the rise of neoconservative principles and the militarization processes of the ‘War on Terror’, constituted a strategic response to global systemic crises supported by the American business classes. The same classes, recognizing the extent to which the Bush era has discredited this response, have rallied around Obama. Therefore, as global crises intensify, this militarization response is likely to undergo further radicalization, rather than a meaningful change in course. The key differences will be in language and method, not substance.

…….full article here

America eyes up Georgia as a base to launch attack on Iran

Marcus Papadopoulos
Tribune
Jan 15, 2009

GEORGIA’S President Mikheil Saakashvili is involved in high level negotiations with members of the United States government on the construction of American military bases in the South Caucasian country, according to a representative of a Georgian opposition party.

Nestan Kirtadze, of the Georgian Labour Party, said last week that President Saakashvili is offering Washington thousands of hectares of land rent free on which to build military bases.

Mrs Kirtadze appealed to American planners and policy-makers not to turn Georgia into a theatre for confrontation between the two superpowers – a reference to US-Russia rivalry in the former Soviet republic.

…….full article here

New US media campaign promotes military strike on Iran

Patrick Martin
WSWS.org
Jan 12, 2009

Front-page reports in two leading US newspapers Sunday signal a ratcheting up of US pressure on Iran and the preparation of American public opinion for a new round of US military aggression.

The New York Times published a lengthy article by its chief diplomatic correspondent, David Sanger, a long-time conduit for the concerns of the Pentagon and State Department, purporting to detail discussions between the Bush administration and Israel over the past year about possible air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The Washington Post carried a shorter but equally prominent article, written by correspondent Joby Warrick, recounting efforts by Iran to obtain electrical components from US and European suppliers, allegedly for Improvised Explosive Devices to be used against American forces in Iraq.

The provocative character of the Post article is demonstrated in its sensationalistic first sentence, which reads: “The Iranian businessman was looking for high-quality American electronics, but he had to act stealthily: The special parts he coveted were denied to Iranians, especially those seeking to make roadside bombs to kill US troops in Iraq.”

…….full article here

Iran says has proof U.S., UK back police killer group

Reuters
Dec 13, 2008

Iran has documents to prove the United States and Britain, the Islamic Republic’s two Western arch foes, back a group that killed 16 abducted Iranian police officers, state radio reported on Saturday.

Shi’ite-dominated Iran said this month the Sunni group Jundollah (God’s Soldiers) had killed 16 police hostages who were abducted from a checkpoint in the southeastern Sistan- Baluchestan province in June.

Tehran, which often accuses Britain and the United States of trying to destabilize the Islamic Republic, has said Jundollah’s head, Abdolmalek Rigi, is part of the Sunni Islamist al Qaeda network.

“There are documents that show that Britain and America are supporting Rigi’s terrorist group with arms and information,” the radio quoted Ebrahim Raisi, first deputy to Iran’s judiciary chief, as saying.

“The Iranian nation will avenge the blood of the border post soldiers powerfully,” it added, without providing further details on the documents.

…….full article here