Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
Stephen Gowans: “Non”-State Actors Construct a Case for War on Iran
2 views
Skip to first unread message
Anarcissie
Nov 10, 2012, 9:47:05 AM11/10/12
to
“Non”-State Actors Construct a Case for War on Iran
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/non-state-actors-construct-a-case-
for-war-on-iran/
By Stephen Gowans
“There have been,” write Julian E. Barnes and Jay Solomon in the Wall
Street Journal (November 8, 2012), “a series of provocations by Iran in
recent years. US officials say Iran has been responsible for a series
of cyberattacks this year on US banks. There have also been incidents
in the Persian Gulf, where Iranian fast boats have threatened US and
British warships.”
Barnes and Solomon make no mention of the more frequent and menacing
provocations aimed at Iran by the United States and its Middle East
partner in aggression, Israel:
• Washington virtually declaring war on Iran when it designated the
country a member of an “axis of evil.”
• Cyberattacks on Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities.
• Assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.
• Penetration of Iranian airspace by US drones.
• Massing of US and British warships in the Persian Gulf.
• US deployment of anti-missile systems to its Gulf allies (what an
aggressor preparing for an attack does to protect its allies from
retaliation.)
• Innumerable threats to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.
• Economic warfare of crippling trade sanctions and financial isolation
which is destroying Iran’s economy and its ability to provide medical
care to its population.
The United States bases its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, only 150 miles from
Iran. It has an aircraft carrier-led battle group in the Persian Gulf.
Its warplanes and thousands of US troops are stationed in Kuwait and
Qatar. In terms of provocation, this is roughly equivalent to the
Chinese basing a naval fleet in Havana, a battle group in the
Caribbean, warplanes in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and troops in
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. We needn’t ask whether Washington
would denounce China’s massive deployment of military force close to US
borders as provocative, doubly so were this accompanied by Beijing
branding the United States part of an axis of evil and declaring that
in its dealings with Washington all options are on the table.
And this tells only part of the story. China is no match militarily for
the United States, but US military capabilities overwhelmingly outclass
Iran’s. The hypothetical aggressive deployment of Chinese military
force to US borders isn’t a tenth as provocative as Washington’s actual
deployment of massive military force to the Persian Gulf.
So it is that no one with a rudimentary grasp of current international
relations could possibly conceive of the relationship between the
United States and Iran as one of Iran provoking the former, rather than
the other way around. Since it’s fair to assume that the journalists
Barnes and Solomon are not without a rudimentary grasp of the subject,
it can only be concluded that they write propaganda for the US state
despite working for a private organization—and that the propaganda is
every bit as much chauvinist and congenial to US foreign policy goals
as the bilge pumped out of Washington’s official propaganda agency,
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
So how does the Journal reporters’ selective-references to provocation
aid US foreign policy? In this way: There is a pattern of aggressive
powers—from imperial Britain to Nazi Germany to the United
States—justifying their military interventions as necessary responses
to “provocation.” If cruise missiles are to smash into Iran, it will be
helpful to justify Washington’s unleashing of its military force as a
response to Iranian provocations, since a legitimate casus belli
doesn’t exist. Even a case for war that public relations specialists
could falsely invest with the appearance of legitimacy—namely,
eliminating an Iranian nuclear weapons program—has become impossible
ever since the US intelligence community declared that there is no
credible evidence Iran has one. This led George W. Bush to lament in
his memoirs, “How could I possibly explain using the military to
destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community
said had no active nuclear weapons?”(1)—a question that doubtlessly
troubles his successor. Iranian “provocations,” then, become a useful
pretext for the use of military force in the absence of a legitimate
case for war.
That Barnes and Solomon should act as imperialist-friendly
propagandists is hardly surprising, since any dispassionate analysis of
the mass media’s multiple linkages to the state through the corporate
ruling class inevitably leads to the conclusion that the mainstream
media’s take on foreign affairs will portray US foreign policy as
admirable, virtuous and right, while the intended victims of the
profit-driven quest to extend US hegemony will be depicted as
democracy-hating, terrorist-promoting, economy-mismanaging, human
rights-abusing, provocateurs (which, come to think of it, is a fairly
apt description of the US government itself.)
(1) David Morrison, “George Bush was ‘angry’ when US intelligence said
Iran hadn’t got an active nuclear weapons programme,”
http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/iran/iran-bush-on-nie.htm . Morrison
has written a number of trenchant and beautifully crafted analyses,
available on his website http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/.
http://gowans.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/non-state-actors-construct-a-case-
for-war-on-iran/
By Stephen Gowans
“There have been,” write Julian E. Barnes and Jay Solomon in the Wall
Street Journal (November 8, 2012), “a series of provocations by Iran in
recent years. US officials say Iran has been responsible for a series
of cyberattacks this year on US banks. There have also been incidents
in the Persian Gulf, where Iranian fast boats have threatened US and
British warships.”
Barnes and Solomon make no mention of the more frequent and menacing
provocations aimed at Iran by the United States and its Middle East
partner in aggression, Israel:
• Washington virtually declaring war on Iran when it designated the
country a member of an “axis of evil.”
• Cyberattacks on Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities.
• Assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.
• Penetration of Iranian airspace by US drones.
• Massing of US and British warships in the Persian Gulf.
• US deployment of anti-missile systems to its Gulf allies (what an
aggressor preparing for an attack does to protect its allies from
retaliation.)
• Innumerable threats to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.
• Economic warfare of crippling trade sanctions and financial isolation
which is destroying Iran’s economy and its ability to provide medical
care to its population.
The United States bases its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, only 150 miles from
Iran. It has an aircraft carrier-led battle group in the Persian Gulf.
Its warplanes and thousands of US troops are stationed in Kuwait and
Qatar. In terms of provocation, this is roughly equivalent to the
Chinese basing a naval fleet in Havana, a battle group in the
Caribbean, warplanes in Venezuela and Nicaragua, and troops in
Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. We needn’t ask whether Washington
would denounce China’s massive deployment of military force close to US
borders as provocative, doubly so were this accompanied by Beijing
branding the United States part of an axis of evil and declaring that
in its dealings with Washington all options are on the table.
And this tells only part of the story. China is no match militarily for
the United States, but US military capabilities overwhelmingly outclass
Iran’s. The hypothetical aggressive deployment of Chinese military
force to US borders isn’t a tenth as provocative as Washington’s actual
deployment of massive military force to the Persian Gulf.
So it is that no one with a rudimentary grasp of current international
relations could possibly conceive of the relationship between the
United States and Iran as one of Iran provoking the former, rather than
the other way around. Since it’s fair to assume that the journalists
Barnes and Solomon are not without a rudimentary grasp of the subject,
it can only be concluded that they write propaganda for the US state
despite working for a private organization—and that the propaganda is
every bit as much chauvinist and congenial to US foreign policy goals
as the bilge pumped out of Washington’s official propaganda agency,
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
So how does the Journal reporters’ selective-references to provocation
aid US foreign policy? In this way: There is a pattern of aggressive
powers—from imperial Britain to Nazi Germany to the United
States—justifying their military interventions as necessary responses
to “provocation.” If cruise missiles are to smash into Iran, it will be
helpful to justify Washington’s unleashing of its military force as a
response to Iranian provocations, since a legitimate casus belli
doesn’t exist. Even a case for war that public relations specialists
could falsely invest with the appearance of legitimacy—namely,
eliminating an Iranian nuclear weapons program—has become impossible
ever since the US intelligence community declared that there is no
credible evidence Iran has one. This led George W. Bush to lament in
his memoirs, “How could I possibly explain using the military to
destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community
said had no active nuclear weapons?”(1)—a question that doubtlessly
troubles his successor. Iranian “provocations,” then, become a useful
pretext for the use of military force in the absence of a legitimate
case for war.
That Barnes and Solomon should act as imperialist-friendly
propagandists is hardly surprising, since any dispassionate analysis of
the mass media’s multiple linkages to the state through the corporate
ruling class inevitably leads to the conclusion that the mainstream
media’s take on foreign affairs will portray US foreign policy as
admirable, virtuous and right, while the intended victims of the
profit-driven quest to extend US hegemony will be depicted as
democracy-hating, terrorist-promoting, economy-mismanaging, human
rights-abusing, provocateurs (which, come to think of it, is a fairly
apt description of the US government itself.)
(1) David Morrison, “George Bush was ‘angry’ when US intelligence said
Iran hadn’t got an active nuclear weapons programme,”
http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/iran/iran-bush-on-nie.htm . Morrison
has written a number of trenchant and beautifully crafted analyses,
available on his website http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/.
Phlip
Nov 10, 2012, 9:55:18 AM11/10/12
to
On Nov 10, 6:47 am, Anarcissie <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
> “There have been,” write Julian E. Barnes and Jay Solomon in the Wall
> Street Journal (November 8, 2012), “a series of provocations by Iran in
> recent years.
You mean like how they announced they'd join international arms talks,
> “There have been,” write Julian E. Barnes and Jay Solomon in the Wall
> Street Journal (November 8, 2012), “a series of provocations by Iran in
> recent years.
and halt their uranium enrichment program, just before the US
election?
Just their way of endorsing Obama, instead of Romney & his crooks, who
were openly plotting to take us to war as soon as they had the White
House...
Anarcissie
Nov 11, 2012, 11:53:17 AM11/11/12
to
and almost certainly biased reports in the boss media) that
Romney had denied an intention to start a war with Iran if
elected. I wonder if you have any more information about
this.
Phlip
Nov 11, 2012, 12:09:08 PM11/11/12
to
On Nov 11, 8:53 am, Anarcissie <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It was my impression (based, of course, on very incomplete
> and almost certainly biased reports in the boss media) that
> Romney had denied an intention to start a war with Iran if
> elected. I wonder if you have any more information about
> this.
That would depend on the exact time of the sound-bite. But his real
> It was my impression (based, of course, on very incomplete
> and almost certainly biased reports in the boss media) that
> Romney had denied an intention to start a war with Iran if
> elected. I wonder if you have any more information about
> this.
strategy reveals in his accomplices. He hired the team Bush used to
bamboozle us into war with Iraq.
Romney would have used war with Iran - coupled with deteriorating job
conditions, to prevent a politically inconvenient draft - as an excuse
to continue ruining the budget. He would have handed us over to his
oligarch backers, and his own idiotic "tax plan" would have left him
no other recourse, because it couldn't have worked.
Dan Clore
Dec 3, 2012, 8:59:30 AM12/3/12
to
three of them (including Romney) essentially promised to start a war on
Iran. Only Ron Paul opposed the idea. When he asked the others to at
least say they would follow the Constitution and get a declaration of
war before starting a war with Iran, they literally laughed at the idea.
Of course, Romney and the others deny any intention of starting a war,
but at the same time make the same sort of arguments for preventive war
on Iraq, based on the same sort of exaggerations, distortions, and
outright lies.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/8puuzuc
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
0 new messages