Antiwar.com Blog

Historian and journalist Gareth Porter explains why the “permanent government” – the State Department, the CIA and the military – have decided that there is not going to be a bombing of Iran. The latest is that the new head of Centcom, Admiral Fallon, has refused to allow a third carrier battle group to overlap the two already there as Dick Cheney wanted. Also where Iran fits in the neocon plan for world domination, bogus accusations against them in terms of their nuclear program and “EFPs” in Iraq, covert support for terrorists in Iran, and the time they offered everything including recognition of Israel.

MP3 here.

Gareth Porter is a historian and journalist for IPS News . His latest book is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press).

I hate to give away the introduction to my next article, but this can’t wait. –Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to Sam Tannenhaus Vanity Fair, May 9th, 2003:

“There are a lot of things that are different now [that the U.S. occupies Iraq], and one that has gone by almost unnoticed – but it’s huge – is that … we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It’s been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda.

“In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other positive things.

“I don’t want to speak in messianic terms. It’s not going to change things overnight, but it’s a huge improvement.”

Hat tip to Thomas Woods at LRC.

Not content with attacking him for what he actually said or did, the War Party is now making up stories.

The Hotline, the daily blog of the National Journal, runs the following item:

Republicans have a message for Ron Paul: don’t mess with us.

Since Tuesday’s debate, Mr. Paul’s supporters have flooded the phone lines and e-mail servers at South Carolina State Republican Party headquarters with complaints. A mild annoyance, to say the least. So the party is struck back, sort of. They have Mr. Paul’s mobile phone number, and they invite all complaint callers to leave a message on it. Call it blowback.

I talked to Rob Godfrey, the communications director of the Republican Party of South Carolina this morning. He was quite surprised to hear of the National Journal item.

Godfrey said neither part is true. He said they have not received any complaints since the debate and have not given out anyone’s personal phone number. Godfrey said the debate was a very positive affair that helped to build the South Carolina party and that they had only received compliments about the event.

The second part of the National Journal blog entry is true:

Undaunted, Paul-ites soon moved to another target: outspoken Michigan Republican Party chairman Saul Anuzis, who publicly called for Paul to be banned from further debates. The Michigan Republican Party has been deluged with incoming missives, some inviting Anuzis to go become the Republican party chair of Cuba. They’re even calling his home. Anuzis won’t give him and still plans to circulate a petition.

I guess this second part makes Ron Paul look good compared to the GOP, so they had to make up the first part.

Ron Paul is everywhere — Here he is on CNN, with Wolf Blitzer, who can always be counted on to give out the “conventional wisdom” — and is put to rights by Ron. Blitzer blithers “He [Giuliani] really had some supporters in that auditorium. Are you ready to back away now?” Ron’s answer (I’m paraphrasing): NO way, says Ron: I found two passages in the 9/11 commission report that back up what I say. Blitzer: That [the bombing of Iraq by Clinton] was the reason they came over and blew us up? No, I said that was part of it. There’s also the presence of US troops on Saudi Arabian soil, which Muslims consider sacred soil. Here he is, mayor of New York, bragging about the security, and he hasn’t even read the 9/11 report. Blitzer presses him on this point, and Ron says that he couldn’t say everyting in a sound bit. Talks about the sanctions, hundreds of thousands killed: what if someone did that to us? And then the important part:

“He’s hiding behind “patriotism” and saying I’m ‘un-American’ if I dare to question the policy. But if policy is detrimental and provokes blowback then we have to change it. I don’t blame the American people, I blame bad policy” I think he [Giuliani] needs to back down and read the report, and come back and apologize to me.”

It’s so typical of Wolf Blitzer, one of the major gate-keepers of elite opinion, to try to enforce political correctness — and so typical of Ron Paul that he proudly and articulately rejects this nonsense, and turns the tables on the would-be enforcers.

Of all the smears and epithets directed at Ron Paul by the Giuliani camp and the neocons (or do I repeat myself?), the sleaziest was upchucked by professional opportunist and political chameleon David Gergen, appearing on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360”:

 “I think Rudy Giuliani won the night … [Giuliani] seized a moment when Ron Paul sort of opened up this argument that maybe we had it coming, with 9/11 and Giuliani just jumped into the debate, he disrupted the debate. To just say no, no, that’s not right and I just don’t agree with that. … [I]t was like a minor Nashua moment when Ronald Reagan, you know, seized the microphone, there was a quality here about showing his sort of, not only his anger but strength that I think served him well tonight.”

Ron Paul said no such thing, as is shown here, but that hasn’t stopped the Smear Machine from churning out lies. To say that US government policies in the Middle East provided grist for Osama bin Laden’s mill is not to say that the 3,000-plus people he murdered “had it coming,” as Gergen put it.

Gergen, the sometime Clintonite, is, perhaps, awaiting the call to join Rudy’s inner circle of advisors, where he’ll take his place alongside Bernie Kerik. Whatever the outcome of this ambition, my guess is that Gergen’s ultimate reward will be a reserved spot in the 8th circle of hell, where the souls of “fraudulent counselors” are sent, along with panders and seducers, flatterers, simonists, diviners, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, falsifiers, and makers of discord.

Oh, and, by the way, Giuliani didn’t pay for that microphone — but that hasn’t stopped his supporters from following their Leader’s example and trying to silence Ron Paul.

Patrick Cockburn, intrepid Iraq-based investigative reporter, discusses the daily slaughter in Iraq, the Iraqi parliament’s vote for the U.S. to leave, recent attacks in the Green Zone, the factional differences and the “surge.”

MP3 here.

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent of The Independent, has been visiting Iraq since 1978. He was awarded the 2005 Martha Gellhorn prize for war reporting in recognition of his writing on Iraq. He is the author of, his memoir, The Broken Boy (Jonathan Cape, 2005), and with Andrew Cockburn, Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession (Verso, 2000). His latest book, The Occupation: War, Resistance and Daily Life in Iraq is published by Verso in October 2006.