So if Iranian assassins are called “death squads” what are similarly trained operatives from the CIA or Army called?

Perhaps the euphemisms that Pentagon officials use are: customer service representatives, safety patrol officers, personal assistants, and make-over specialists.

While the actions of both sides are essentially premeditated murder, the CIA and Army special forces should also come clean about their decades old operations involving the execution of foreign nationals.  Come clean on operations in Guatemala, El Salvador, Vietnam, and even Iran itself.

Contemporaneously, after deafening calls to reinstate the official sanctioning of assassinations, the legacy of director Richard Helms continues unabated,as the Pentagon continues to fund and operate the notorious School of the Americas at Fort Benning which has trained hundreds of foreign nationals with assassination tactics.

Furthermore, despite being banned in the 1970s — after revelations disclosed by the Church and Pike committees — with the assistance of Israeli Defense Forces, the US Army has been actively training “hunter-killer” squads in Iraq under a program called Operation Gray Fox.

And the latest act of bellicosity: this hypocritical condemnation comes a month after an exposé showed that last year, Congress appropriated $400 million for the CIA to conduct clandestine operations in Iran.

While the exact nature of the operations are undisclosed, it is difficult to fathom that the funds are financing more plumbers, carpenters, and electricians in a covert attempt to build new homes and infrastructure for local residents.

Why is this quote so striking? Because Morris implicitly admits that the Israeli government has nuclear weapons, even though that government has never so admitted. In 1986, Mordecai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician, revealed that fact and for his troubles, was kidnapped by the Israeli government, tried for treason in secret, and forced to spend 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement. His treason? Revealing Israel’s nuclear weapons program. It’s true that he violated a non-disclosure agreement, but that’s not treason. Presumably the treason is that he revealed Israel’s nuclear weapons program, with the non-disclosure agreement being irrelevant.

Guess what? In last Friday’s New York Times, Benny Morris revealed Israel’s nuclear weapons program. So shouldn’t he be charged with treason too?

One of the gems on the frontpage involves a recent timeline of economic relations between China and Taiwan since the election of Ma.  Notice how it is almost the exact opposite of what the current US administration has towards Iran.

There is an old parable attributed to Frederic Bastiat which states that when goods and services do not cross borders, armies will.

One of the underlying reasons for why this observation typically holds true is that businesses and patrons have personal wealth at stake and can pressure the political class and military brass to be more diplomatic in negotiating with foreign states.

After all, in order to remain solvent, businesses do not want their employees, enterprises, buildings or customers to be blown up.

As a consequence to warming relations, in 2007 alone, cross-strait trade between China and Tawain grew 16% to more than $100 billion.

In contrast, for nearly three decades, the US federal government has levied both sanctions and penalties on firms that conduct business with Iranians.  And HR 362 will amplify this imperial boycott to the extreme, with a naval blockade.

See also: 1 2 3

Download audio file (08_06_30_hersh.mp3)

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, author of the book Chain of Command and many important articles about the Bush administration’s Iran policy, discusses his new one for The New Yorker magazine, “Preparing the Battlefield,” Secretary Gates’s warning about long term consequences of an air attack, the turning over of much of America’s covert action under the control of the Joint Special Operations Command to avoid oversight, the backing of Sunni radicals in Iran, Baluchistan, Kurdistan etc. in order to try to provoke the Iranian government into escalating as an excuse for war.

MP3 here. (6:18)

The bill is the chief legislative priority of AIPAC. On its Web site, AIPAC endorses the resolutions as a way to ”Stop Iran’s Nuclear Program” and tells readers to lobby Congress to pass the bill. In the Senate, a sister resolution, Resolution 580, has gained co-sponsors with similar speed. The Senate measure was introduced by Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh on June 2. It has since gained 19 co-sponsors.

The bill’s key section “demands that the president initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program.”

“Imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran” can be read to mean that the president should initiate a naval blockade of Iran. A unilateral naval blockade without UN sanction is an act of war.

Resolution 362 has already gained 170 co-sponsors, or nearly 40 percent of the House. It has been referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has 49 members, 24 of whom, including the ranking Republican, are co-sponsors. The Iran Nuclear Watch Web site writes, “According to the House leadership, this resolution is going to ‘pass like a hot knife through butter’ before the end of June on what is called suspension – meaning no amendments can be introduced during the 20-minute maximum debate. It also means it is assumed the bill will pass by a 2/3 majority and is non-controversial.”

Our national legislators deem it non-controversial to recommend to a president known for his recklessness and bad judgment that he consider engaging in an act of war against Iran. Those of you who consider this issue controversial can go to the Just Foreign Policy Web site and tell your representative to oppose this resolution.

Thanks to Geoffrey V. Gray for this submission.

Here’s the truth: the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons, and Iran doesn’t have a single one. But when the world was on the brink of nuclear holocaust, Kennedy talked to Khrushchev and he got those missiles out of Cuba. Why shouldn’t we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies? That’s what strong countries do, that’s what strong presidents do, that’s what I’ll do when I’m president of the United States of America.

If you guessed Ron Paul you would be wrong.

The correct answer is Obama. Despite the fact that strict non-interventionists like Paul have stated similar statements over the past several months (decades even), it is not until the “credible” frontrunner says it that it becomes a widely-cited talking point.

A quick Google search finds that Paul stated something very similar more than 6 years ago:

Even at the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union had missiles pointed at us from 90 miles away in Cuba, we solved the dispute through dialogue and diplomacy. Why is it, in this post Cold War era, that the United States seems to turn first to the military to solve its foreign policy problems? Is diplomacy dead?

In fact, Ron Paul has said similar statements many times. Back on November 11, 2007 Paul was interviewed on Face the Nation and he said:

I fear our policy towards Iran is a threat. [...] We [should] have a more sensible policy, we talk to them and trade with them. We remove the sanctions. I mean, the Soviets had 40,000 of them. I was called up for military duty in 1962 during the Cuban crisis. The height of the Cold War and we won the Cold War, we didn’t have to go a nuclear war. We won that by being strong by talking to the Soviets, we talked to Khrushchev. We have a lot more than Iran, Iran has none.

In March of 2006, Neil Cavuto interviewed Paul about this issue asking: Would our national security be threatened if Iran had the bomb?

Paul replied: “Could it be any worse than 30,000 nuclear missiles faced us down in the Cold War against the Soviets. Did we feel like we had to have regime change in the Cold War? Did we use containment and we can’t contain Iran?”

In the September 2007 debate hosted by Fox, moderator Brit Hume asked the candidates about a hypothetical situation involving an uncooperative, nuclear capable Iran.

Paul replied: “Thinking back to the 1960s when I was in the Air Force for 5 years and there was a Cold War going on and the Soviet’s 40,000 and we stood them down and we didn’t have to have a confrontation. We should back off. We should be talking to Iran right now. We shouldn’t be looking for the opportunity to attack them.”

In a post-debate interview with Bill O’Reilly regarding Iran, Ron Paul literally says many of the same things, including “How come we got through the Cold War when the Soviets had 40,000 of them?”

In November 2007 in an interview with CNN he is asked about a hypothetical situation in which Iran has nuclear weapons.

Paul replied: “I prefer them not to. I think if we have different foreign policy they wouldn’t have an incentive. But if they did, I wouldn’t do much about it — I wouldn’t bomb them. They are third rate nation. They are incapable of attacking their neighbors.”

These quotes are from just a cursory perusal of the large archive that can be found on YouTube (ron paul + iran).

I am not suggesting that Obama’s speech writer plagiarized but given that Paul has said the same thing for years one has to wonder if by sheer accident they caught a glimpse of the Paulian talking point and thought it made a lot of sense.

It sure is the sincerest form of flattery.

There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action. …

Read the rest.

The Sunday Times says the military is renewing plans for strikes at Quds Force targets in Iran, a further irony since the Quds Force is the father organization of the Badr Corps (AKA: Bush’s “Iraqi Army”).

And Secretary Rice has laid down the gauntlet, accusing Iran of everything under the Sun.

Any strikes against Iran seem almost certain to escalate into full scale war in southern Iraq, Iran’s nuclear facilities and who-knows-what else.

One notable portion of Cockburn’s article:

Interestingly, despite the bellicose complaints, Petraeus has made little effort to seal the Iran-Iraq border, and in any case two thirds of U.S. casualties still come from Sunni insurgents. “The Shia account for less than one third,” a recently returned member of the command staff in Baghdad familiar with the relevant intelligence told me, “but if you want a war you have to sell it.”

Cross-posted at Stress.

Israeli sources are reporting that the FBI investigation of the Ben-Ami Kadish spy case resulted from a leak coming from inside the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. …

[Yosef] Yagur, who is now retired and living in Israel, was Kadish’s case officer, handling the cases of both him and Jonathan Pollard. Before the anonymous leak of information, the FBI had no idea that Kadish had been a spy for Israel. Now it is investigating a number of US citizens, including an individual who held very senior security positions in the Clinton and Bush White Houses.

How many different people fit the definition, “an individual who held very senior security positions in the Clinton and Bush White Houses”? Can’t be too many… More to the point, why would the Israeli government do such a thing as out their own agents (albeit past ones) to the FBI? According to Giraldi,

The leak of the information at the present time is believed to be linked to proposed closed congressional hearings at the end of this month in which the White House had planned to use several Israeli intelligence officers to provide evidence on the alleged Syrian nuclear program that was bombed on September 6, 2007. It is now unlikely that Israeli intelligence officers will allow themselves to be questioned because they would almost certainly be asked about Israeli spying on the US. Vice President Dick Cheney and Olmert had apparently planned on using the congressional briefings as a launch pad to intensify diplomatic and military pressure against both Syria and Iran. It is believed that the “doves” in the Olmert administration who leaked the information are seeking to make a military confrontation more difficult and are hoping that negotiations, particularly with Syria, will instead take place.

According to the LA Times, these Congressional hearings about the bogus Syria-North Korea Plutonium factory were meant by the neocons at the American Enterprise Institute to be a simple “box-checking exercise,” on the great clipboard of war in the words of AEI vice-warmonger and Ahmad Chalabi champion, Danielle Pletka.

Gareth Porter’s new article explains how the installation of General Petraeus as Royal Viceroy over the Middle East and Central Asia helps smooth the road to war. Perhaps the new and forthcoming spy revelations will help push the scales back the other way.