Intel Vets Question Iran-UK Crisis

By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
March 30, 2007

The frenzy in America’s corporate media over Iran’s detainment of 15 British Marines who may, or may not, have violated Iranian-claimed territorial waters is a flashback to the unrestrained support given the administration’s war-mongering against Iraq shortly before the attack.

The British are refusing to concede the possibility that its Marines may have crossed into ill-charted, Iranian-claimed waters and are ratcheting up the confrontation. At this point, the relative merits of the British and Iranian versions of what actually happened are greatly less important than how hotheads on each side—and particularly the British—decide to exploit the event in the coming days.

Read on.

Simple Calculus: Why Iran Won in Iraq

By Morgan Strong
March 29, 2007

There are two fundamental truths about the war in Iraq. The first is that the administration did not tell the American people the true reasons for this war. Whether it was through deliberate lies or by false intelligence, the consequence is equal. The second is that the democratic election that took place in Iraq in 2005 was a victory for the majority Shiite, and for their sponsors, Iran.
The administration insisted on early elections to demonstrate the Iraqi populace was prepared and eager for democratic governance. The election may have been free and democratic, but the results of the elections established the contrary.

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What to Do About Iran?

By Ivan Eland
March 29, 2007

The conventional wisdom for dealing with Iran is demanding repeatedly that the Iranians end their uranium enrichment program, and slapping on new sanctions.

Although the December 2006 United Nations Security Council sanctions that banned countries from exporting nuclear and missile materials and technology to Iran probably were prudent, widening the sanctions outside the nuclear and missile areas is a mistake.

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Rise of a Very ‘Loyal Bushie’

By Richard L. Fricker
March 28, 2007

If you want to know what the career path of a “loyal Bushie” looks like, let me introduce you to J. Timothy Griffin, a Karl Rove protégé who was slipped into the post of U.S. Attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas, and now is at the center of the controversy over whether the Bush administration has sought to politicize federal prosecutions.

Since college, the 38-year-old Griffin has been following the stations of the cross for a Republican legal/political operative with ambitions to rise to a position of power and influence in a government like the one headed by George W. Bush.

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The American Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

By Sam Provance
March 27, 2007

For those of you who have not heard of me, I am Sam Provance. My career as an Army sergeant came to a premature end at age 32 after eight years of decorated service, because I refused to remain silent about Abu Ghraib, where I served for five months in 2004 at the height of the abuses.

A noncommissioned officer specializing in intelligence analysis, my job at Abu Ghraib was systems administrator (“the computer guy”). But I had the misfortune of being on the night shift, saw detainees dragged in for interrogation, heard the screams, and saw many of them dragged out. I was sent back to my parent unit in Germany shortly after the Army began the first of its many self-investigations.

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Fatal Flaws of Bush’s ‘Tough-Guy-ism’

By Robert Parry
March 26, 2007

The showdown over Iraq War funding will test the political appeal of George W. Bush’s dominant foreign policy approach – what might be called “tough-guy-ism” – the concept of picking fights and battling until “victory” whatever the ghastly cost.

“Tough-guy-ism” is a philosophy with its own historical narrative, which was put on display by Bush’s Republican defenders during the March 23 debate on a House bill to condition Iraq War funding on a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. combat forces.

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WPost Prints New Wilson/Plame Attack

By Robert Parry
Marcn 22, 2007

Rather than fire Washington Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt or at least apologize for all the newspaper’s past misstatements about former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, ex-CIA officer Valerie Plame, the Post instead has published a rehash of the lies and distortions about the couple.

This new attack is contained in a column by right-wing pundit Robert D. Novak, who originally blew Plame’s CIA cover in July 2003 and has sought to add insult to the injury ever since. Some of Novak’s past falsehoods about Wilson/Plame also have found their way into Post editorials, apparently without benefit of fact-checking.

Read on.

U.S. News Media’s ‘War on Gore’

By Robert Parry
March 22, 2007

When historians sort out what happened to the United States at the start of the 21st Century, one of the mysteries may be why the national press corps ganged up like school-yard bullies against a well-qualified Democratic presidential candidate while giving his dimwitted Republican opponent virtually a free pass.

How could major news organizations, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, have behaved so irresponsibly as to spread falsehoods and exaggerations to tear down then-Vice President Al Gore – ironically while the newspapers were berating him for supposedly lying and exaggerating?

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Republican RICO-Style Abuse of Power

By Stephen Crockett
March 21, 2007

There is nothing as corrupt as using the governmental powers of law enforcement, to selectively prosecute your political enemies and to cover-up criminal behavior by your political organization and allies, while in a position of political power. This situation is the essence of the current scandal concerning the firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush White House.

The Watergate scandal should have taught the Republican Party that this kind of abuse is outside the bounds of acceptable political behavior in American society. Republican activists failed to learn the lessons of Watergate and are now reliving history on issue after issue.

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The Terrorists-Follow-Us-Home Myth

By Ivan Eland
March 20, 2007

The Bush administration, desperate for justifications to buy a little more time with the American people for its failed adventure in Iraq, markets the idea that if the United States rapidly withdraws from Iraq, the “terrorists will follow us home.”

A closer examination of this assertion—like the rest of the administration’s fear mongering—demonstrates it is baseless.

Read on.