| USA vs IRAN - WAR ALERT! | ||
| Preparing the
battlefield 1 The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran by Seymour M. Hersh Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program. Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature. Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed. “The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said. Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy. The request for funding came in the same period in which the Administration was coming to terms with a National Intelligence Estimate, released in December, that concluded that Iran had halted its work on nuclear weapons in 2003. The Administration downplayed the significance of the N.I.E., and, while saying that it was committed to diplomacy, continued to emphasize that urgent action was essential to counter the Iranian nuclear threat. President Bush questioned the N.I.E.’s conclusions, and senior national-security officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, made similar statements. (So did Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee.) Meanwhile, the Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods. (There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the Times, among others, has reported that “significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement.”) Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House’s concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary . A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.) The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were “pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers, including combatant commanders”—the four-star officers who direct military operations around the world—“have weighed in on that issue.” The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last year he told the Financial Times that the “real objective” of U.S. policy was to change the Iranians’ behavior, and that “attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice.” The New Yorker July, 2. 2008 |
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| Preparing
the battlefield 2 This past weekend (3rd/4th of May), World Can't Wait held a national meeting in Berkeley CA. Here is how the meeting began: About six weeks ago, Bush got approval and funding from the Congress for a secret directive authorizing a range of operations, including assassinations, against the Iranian government. According to Andrew Cockburn on May 2, the area "covers actions across a huge geographic area - from Lebanon to Afghanistan - but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines - up to and including the assassination of targeted officials… A Marine amphibious force, originally due to leave San Diego for the Persian Gulf in mid June, has had its sailing date abruptly moved up to May 4." That's tomorrow. It'll take them about a month to get there. This preparation is real, the threat of a new attack must be taken extremely seriously - and there is NO opposition to this coming from within the halls of power or from the democratic presidential contenders. Hillary Clinton threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran and Obama's only objection was that "using words like obliterate doesn't actually produce good results… I think the Iranians can be confident that I [too] will respond forcefully." Vanity Fair wrote a month ago that the only thing standing between the US and an attack on Iran was General Fallon - and just days later he was forced to resign. The Bush program is still shaping the world - and everything they have put in place for the last seven years is what is setting the stage and the terms for all of official politics today. As we said in January, "George Bush is unrelenting in his determination to drive the savageness of his agenda into the next administration". Politics as usual will not meet the enormity of the damage that has been done. Can the world wait? Hell, no! And do we still need to bring to a halt this whole program and direction? Hell, YES! This is a time for moral clarity and fearless determination. The horrors that we came together to stop are not over - and we can't be over either. |
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| U.S. Secretary of "Defense",
Robert Gates, today (30th of April 08) told reporters in Mexico that
the U.S. has sent a second air craft carrier to the Persian Gulf,
as a "reminder" to Iran. The New York Times reported early
this morning that when asked if this was an escalation by the U.S.,
Gates told reporters in Mexico "I don't see it as an escalation.
I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder." In recent weeks there have been threatening statements aimed at Iran from several U.S. officials, including Dick Cheney. The top military command of the U.S. has been re-shuffled to position people in full agreement with the Bush/Cheney team in control. Another contrived incident that supposedly shows Iranian “aggression” against the U.S. hit the U.S. media. And now the U.S. is sending its war machine to encircle Iran even more menacingly. Gates statement, and the positioning of naval fleet close to Iran, need to be a “reminder” to all those opposed to the unjust wars the U.S. is already waging. They aren’t stopping. Whatever unfolds in the upcoming days and weeks, we must invigorate our resistance, do everything possible to mobilize people politically, and to alert them to act against the possibility of U.S. attacks upon Iran, and step up opposition to the unjust and criminal wars it is already waging. |
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| THE EVIL TOUR | ||
| As a sign against War On Iraq
in June 05 Wydoks has started the Evil Tour.
The programme of films and live music (film
and chant down Babylon) was supported by film makers,
musicians and other artists. For backing the Evil Tour we
have to thank: Frank Dorrel (USA), Peter Dudar and Sally Marr (USA), Brendon Marback (USA), Rena Masuyama (Japan), Matthias Aberle (Germany), Daniel Santiago (Germany), Ganjaman & Junior Randy (Germany), Survivor (Germany), DJ Stranjah (Germany), Nümmes (Germany), Vincenzo Savino (Italy) and the staff of the Aljazeera film festivals in Doha, Quatar. Further information and inquiry eviltour@wydoks.com |
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| THE EVIL TOUR ROADMAP | ||
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| From 27th to 30th of March 2006 the
films (P)RESIDENT EVIL and EMBEDDED
where invited to the Aljazeera film festival in Doha, Quatar. |
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| 26. Oktober 05 / KINO
EIGENREICH / Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg 03. Oktober 05 / KIEZLADEN DUNCKERSTRASSE / Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg 23.02.2005 / ZAPATA / KUNSTHAUS TACHELES / Berlin-Mitte 28.11.2004 / NEUES KANT KINO / Berlin-Charlottenburg 03.10.2004 / KUNSTHAUS TACHELES / Berlin-Mitte 02.10.2004 / Herbstfest KOLLE 37 / Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg 18.09.2004 / RAUCHHAUS / Berlin-Kreuzberg 03.09.2004 / LA BOHEME / Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg 27.06.2004 / FILMHAUS STUTTGART / Stuttgart-Mitte |
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| THE PRESIDENT AS HITLER / The Bush-Hitler Ads Removed by MoveOn | ||
| The liberal activist site MoveOn
ran a contest, Bush in 30 Seconds, in which people were invited to
create and submit political TV ads critical of the Bush Administration,
with the winning entry to air in swing states and on national television.
(CBS has refused to air the winning ad during the Super Bowl, however.) Over 1,500 ads were submitted. Out of them, two compared Bush to Hitler. After years of talking about "feminazis" and "Hitlery" Clinton, the right wing suddenly felt that Third Reich references were absolutely indefensible. Republicans expressed new-found outrage, and the corporate media dutifully tsk-tsked. MoveOn pulled the ads from their contest Website. Click on the pictures to watch those ads: |
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Download
Real Player www.real.com  |
| MOVEON.ORG SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR ADS COMPARING BUSH TO HITLER / RNC complains | ||
| Washington, DC-Republican National
Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie today made the following statement
regarding a second ad posted on the MoveOn.org Web site comparing
President Bush to Adolf Hitler and calls from Jewish leaders for MoveOn.org
to apologize for posting the ads. Both ads can be read at the following
link: http://www.gop.com/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=3764. "Yesterday, MoveOn.org said an ad comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler that it had posted on its Web site as one the group would consider selecting for $7 million worth of paid airtime was only one of hundreds submitted and that MoveOn.org tried to screen out ads in such poor taste. It now turns out that the ad was one of two submissions comparing President Bush to Hitler that the organization posted, further reflecting the group's view that this despicable tactic complied with its guidelines that submissions be: ‘really creative ads that will engage and enlighten viewers and help them understand the truth about George Bush. There are some legal limits on what you can do (see below), and we're not going to post anything that would be inappropriate for television, but other than that what you put in your ads is up to you (live action, animation, personal rant, whatever!)’(Source: http://www.bushin30seconds.org/rules.html) Such ads are anything but appropriate for television, and MoveOn.org should apologize for posting the ads, as the Simon Wiesenthal Center today asked them to. Further, every Democrat seeking his or her party's nomination and who stands to benefit politically from MoveOn.org's efforts to defeat President Bush in November though millions of dollars in advertising should support the Simon Wiesenthal Center's request, and urge MoveOn.org to apologize for posting these ads on their Web site and deeming them appropriate for television." |
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| ADS ATTACKED BY RNC CHAIRMAN ARE NOT MOVEON.ORG VOTER FUND ADS / MoveOn responds | ||
| MoveOn.org Voter Fund Regrets Screening
Process Allowed Ads to Slip Through Statement by Wes Boyd, Founder
of MoveOn.org Voter Fund: The Republican National Committee and its chairman have falsely accused MoveOn.org of sponsoring ads on its website which compare President Bush to Adolf Hitler. The claim is deliberately and maliciously misleading. During December the MoveOn.org Voter Fund invited members of the public to submit ads that purported to tell the truth about the President and his policies. More than 1,500 submissions from ordinary Americans came in and were posted on a web site, bushin30seconds.org, for the public to review. None of these was our ad, nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund. They will not appear on TV. We do not support the sentiment expressed in the two Hitler submissions. They were voted down by our members and the public, who reviewed the ads and submitted nearly 3 million critiques in the process of choosing the 15 finalist entries. We agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process. In the future, if we publish or broadcast raw material, we will create a more effective filtering system. Contrast this with the behavior of the RNC and its allies when supporters of President Bush used TV ads morphing the face of Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA) into that of Osama Bin Laden during the 2002 Senate race. MoveOn.org and the MoveOn.org Voter Fund exist to bring the public into the political process and produce a more fact-based election process. We regret that the RNC doesn’t seem to embrace the same goals. |
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