The Saker interviews Joel S. Hirschhorn

After reading the very interesting article by Joel S. Hirschhorn "Time to Boycott Voting" I decided to contact him to ask him some further questions about his controversial point of view. He kindly agreed to answer my questions for which I am most grateful to him
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Q: Please introduce yourself, tell us about you, about what you do in life

A: Though I started my professional life in engineering and was a successful professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,, I moved into public policy, spending 12 years at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment working mostly on environmental issues and after that about 5 years at the National Governors Association where I was Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources. I have testified at over 50 Senate and House hearings and a number of state government hearings. Writing was always my love and when I stopped working a regular job I focused on writing several books, including Sprawl Kills and Delusional Democracy. Now my time is devoted to writing articles that appear on over 100 websites, covering political and government issues. I also co-founded Friends of the Article V Convention at www.foavc.org and that is a very special interest for me. More recently I have become active in the 9/11 truth movement.

Q: Are you not implicitly responsible for whatever outcome an election has if you abstain? Does your *failure to oppose* not make you an accomplice of the policies which are enacted after your abstention?

A: My view is that our current political system is so completely rigged and corrupt that it really does not matter which Democrat or Republican wins a particular election. There comes a time when good citizens must face the ugly truth: that participating in a corrupt and criminal system that no longer obeys the rule of law nor honors our Constitution merely legitimizes this awful system. We have a delusional democracy that is nearly worthless; it serves the interests of a rich, powerful elitist class much more than it serves ordinary citizens. That our voter turnout is so low simply reflects the fact that most Americans see voting as next to useless. Those who think that they can vote our nation out of the current condition are delusional and/or brainwashed. I strongly agree with the Jeffersonian view that we need periodic rebellions to preserve a quality democracy. But now we must use a non-violent approach, which is extremely difficult because the mainstream media are part of the problem because of corporate ownership. Moreover, the power elites have engineered a culture and society that makes most citizens distracted, tired and sick consumers -- too busy and too exhausted to be truly engaged with their democracy. Intentional civil disobedience with a political reform goal is very different than merely being too distracted, busy or tired to vote.

Q: You mention Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. If they decided to join forces and run in the name of, say, a "Jeffersonian Party" whose platform would only be to 1) stop all wars of aggression 2) restore all civil rights mentioned in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - would you consider voting in for such a ticket?

A: Yes, I must admit I would; I have always been a very strong advocate for third parties. The problem is that the two major parties have succeeded in rigging our political system to make it nearly impossible for third party candidates to win federal elections. And the media don't help at all, because they want simple horse races to keep the public watching and listening, and to make tons of money from the two big parties.

Q: You say that Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich will not be nominated by their respective political parties. But does voting for them not send a strong message to the party leaders about what people want? Imagine Ron Paul coming in third or even second at the Republican Convention. Would that not be an earthquake for the GOP?

A: Again, these kind of populist, minor candidates keep people that are rightfully fed up with our political system engaged. Their supporters are no threat whatsoever to the big parties and their candidates. Most people are terribly ignorant about our political system and how the major parties operate. Their conventions are tightly controlled. I am sickened by the delusional state of the supporters of Paul most of all; they really do not seem to understand how rigged and corrupt the two-party system is. They are wasting their time, energy and money - BUT I fully understand and support their zeal. In the end, they will accomplish nothing, and then what?

Q: If not the big parties, how about voting for, say, Nader? If he got enough votes, would that not rock the boat enough to make the US politicians pay attention?

A: In every election where he was on my ballot I voted for him. Intellectually and in terms of policy he has been about the best presidential candidate we have had in many decades, but he is no politician, so he never stood a chance. And he was falsely and illogically blamed for Bush's victory.

Q: Say that people follow your advice and massively abstain. What do you imagine the reaction of the political elites would be to such an event? Do you really expect them self-dissolve themselves and leave the political scene with contrite hearts? Why could they not simple ignore it and vote some money to increase "civic education in schools"?

A: They would never easily give up their power, but neither could they ignore a very low voter turnout. They have managed to hoodwink the populace in so many ways. But if the turnout dropped to 25 percent or lower the situation would be profoundly different. Our political system, president and government would have absolutely no credibility on the world scene; it could not be ignored. In a marvelous and strange way I think reaching that extremely low voter turnout would trigger a massive, populist rebellion among Americans. The delusional democracy would no longer have any credibility and could not survive; key parts of society would become activist and engaged - civil disobedience CAN WORK! People should think in terms of a tipping point - when the vast majority of Americans clearly reject their political system, politicians and major parties.

Q: Assuming that a huge amount of people abstaining did rock the boat enough and the system would be in a crisis, how would then a reform come from people who are nowhere represented in the political system or, if you prefer, how could abstainers make sure that they voice is heard and, even more relevantly, that their voice would matter?

A: I envision many possible events, including popular support for constitutional amendments achieved through the nation's first Article V convention; the main goal would be major reforms that loosen the grip of the two major parties and open the system up to third party candidates. A number of electoral reforms would be used to greatly increase voter turnout; for example, making Election Day a national holiday and making voting mandatory, as it is in many democracies. One or both major parties would undergo massive self-reforms to regain public trust. We have to think in terms of a successful Second American Revolution, from which new honest, high quality leaders emerge.

Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy – Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government that presents many electoral and other reforms; he can be contacted through www.delusionaldemocracy.com . Formerly, he was a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association.

Seymour Hersh interviewed on DemocracyNow! (transcript and video)

Seymour Hersh was interviewed today by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on DemocracyNow!

JUAN GONZALEZ: The Bush administration is approaching its last year in the White House. As the clock ticks toward 2008, speculation grows over whether President Bush and Vice President Cheney will indeed launch a widely feared attack on Iran.

The latest report from the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says war planning is intensifying. Writing in the New Yorker, Hersh reveals that the White House recently requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to redraw longstanding plans for a possible attack. According to Hersh, the Bush administration’s rationale for bombing Iran has shifted from Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program to Iran's role in Iraq. Hersh writes, "What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.” The focus is no longer a broad bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere.

On Sunday, John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, called for the US to attack Iran and overthrow Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Bolton said, "If we were to strike Iran, it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change...The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back."

AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh joins us now from Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Sy. Lay out what you have learned.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Yeah, well, actually, it’s funny. The plans have both intensified and they're less intense, in this sense: the new plan that they're talking about is much more limited, not a thousand points of light. It doesn’t involve massive Air Force bombing attacks. Most of the Iranian nuclear facilities that were the initial target are -- many of them are underground, one in particular, Natanz, where the centrifuges are located, where Iran is enriching uranium, seventy-five very hard feet underground. And the bombing plans were extreedingly -- you had to put one bomb after another with no guarantee of knocking down the facility.

So what they’ve done -- and what happened, really, is this government finally realized that they had not been able to sell the American people on their view of the Iranian nuclear threat. In other words, it simply wasn’t working. Unlike in 2003, when we were sort of mushroom cloud into going along with the Iraqi war, the American public did not respond in any noticeable way to a fear. They didn’t share the fear of the leadership in the White House and many in the Israeli government of a nuclear-armed Iran. Maybe it was just a question of American credibility. You know, we cried wolf once before.

And so, what happened is that -- you could see it over the summer, Amy and Juan -- you could see the conversation with the White House grow more and more intense about -- not about nuclear weapons in Iran, but the Iranians coming across the border, the Revolutionary Guard, the al-Quds Brigade, one of its commando units, coming across the border and killing American -- or helping to kill American and coalition -- that is, British -- soldiers. So that was the new sort of mantra for this summer.

And underneath it lay a notion that, well, if we can’t sell the notion that Iran is a nuclear threat, we can certainly sell the American people on the notion that Iran is responsible for killing Americans and others and that any action we take -- limited action, less intense in terms of a kinetic force -- any limited action would be more saleable, would be accepted more readily by the American people, and, more significantly, or most significantly, really, the international community might not go ape over it. And the Brits, for example, I write, expressed interest. Nobody’s saying anything; nobody is committing to it, and there’s been certainly no order to do this. This is just a new plan that has one great advantage: it’s something that could be sold, not only to us, but also to some of the allies, and therefore it becomes much more arguable inside the government.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Sy Hersh, what’s been the impact on all of this of the apparent refusal of the International Atomic Energy Agency to go along with the Bush administration’s picturing of the nuclear development and research in Iran? In your old paper, the New York Times, several articles recently are questioning Mohamed ElBaradei's role in all of this.

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, look, there’s nothing but bad blood between ElBaradei, the Egyptian who runs the -- who's the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- basically the position there in Vienna, as I see it or as I’m told by the people I know there, is this, that Iran has not been very successful in enriching uranium. In the last report they filed -- I think August the 30th -- they made the point -- the IAEA reported that Iran had only been able to enrich uranium, after all these years, to 3.67% enrichment, even below the 4% or 5% you need to run a peaceful atomic reactor, a non-military reactor, well below the 90% you need. That doesn’t mean Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons ambitions. It doesn’t mean that it won’t eventually get to 90% if it keeps on working on it. But it does mean that there’s no near threat at all.

And it just so happens that in the White House they have finally come to terms in the Vice President's office, and I assume in the President's office -- I don’t know much about what goes on with Bush -- but in the Vice President's office, they’ve come to terms with the more or less general consensus with the American intelligence community and most of the European Community that Iran is a minimum of five years away. Iran has been five years away from the bomb, oh, for fifteen or twenty years. I wrote a story about Iran in late 2001 that said then five years away. It’s always been five years away.

There’s no evidence that Iran is significantly into weapons fabrication or that Iran has done any of the kind of testing it needs to do to develop an actual warhead. And so, they are enriching, and they may have ambitions, but there’s no rush. And ElBaradei has been saying that. And he’s getting -- I wrote some pretty harsh things in the magazine about his view. He believes that the United States has essentially been lying and misrepresenting the data. And he feels that they’ve really been doing -- playing fast and loose with some very important information -- you know, that is, where the Iranians are for their own short-term political goals, the goals sort of that are articulated by Bolton.

AMY GOODMAN: Sy Hersh, I wanted to go to the reaction of the White House to your piece. White House spokesperson Dana Perino was asked about your article at Monday's news briefing.

REPORTER: This weekend, the New Yorker magazine came out with an article claiming that this summer the President, or at least the White House, in general, asked the Joint Chiefs to redraw plans to attack Iran. Is that true?

DANA PERINO: Look, you know, I'm glad you brought it up. Every two months or so, Sy Hersh writes an article in the New Yorker magazine, and CNN provides him a forum in which to talk about his article and all the anonymous sources that are quoted in it.

REPORTER: So the President --

DANA PERINO: The President has said that he believes that there is a diplomatic solution that we can use to solve the Iranian problem. And that's why we're working with our allies to get there.

REPORTER: That's what he said before we went to Iraq, too.

REPORTER: But what's the -- can you answer actually on the substance of whether or not the White House asked -- I mean, if it's not true, then you can say Sy Hersh is wrong and CNN was wrong to air it. You could say that, but --

DANA PERINO: We don't discuss such things, Ed.

REPORTER: -- what about the substance of whether we --

DANA PERINO: We don't discuss such things. What we have said and what we are working towards is a diplomatic solution in Iran. What the President has also said is that as a President, as a commander-in-chief -- and any commander-in-chief -- would not take any option off the table. But the option that we are pursuing right now is diplomacy.

REPORTER: But the article very specifically said that this summer in a video conference -- secure video conference with Ambassador Crocker, the President said that he was thinking about "hitting Iran" and also --

DANA PERINO: I'm not going to comment on -- one, I don't know. I wouldn't have been at any -- at that type of a meeting. I don't know. I'm not going to comment on any possible -- any possible scenario that an anonymous source, you know, continues to feed into Sy Hersh. I'm just not going the do it.

REPORTER: Why should anybody believe that the President wants diplomatic solutions? He said that before going into Iraq.

DANA PERINO: The President sought a diplomatic solution in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein defied the UN Security Council seventeen times.

REPORTER: Some of the history we've learned since suggests otherwise.

DANA PERINO: That the President didn't -- that Saddam Hussein defied seventeen UN Security Council resolutions?

REPORTER: No, that the President was intent on going to war in Iraq in any case.

DANA PERINO: No, the President pursued a diplomatic option. He went to the UN Security Council, and then we proceeded.

HELEN THOMAS: Did he consult -- would he tell Congress before attacking Iran -- before he attacks Iran?

DANA PERINO: Helen, we are pursuing a diplomatic solution with Iran.

HELEN THOMAS: I'm asking you, does he feel committed to ask Congress for permission?

DANA PERINO: We are pursuing a diplomatic solution in Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: White House spokesperson Dana Perino. Your response, Seymour Hersh?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, obviously, look, there's a lot of responses to make. One, the most obvious one is if he really -- if they are pursuing a diplomatic solution, why not talk to the Iranians, why not talk to the Syrians, why not talk to Hamas, why not talk to Hezbollah? He doesn’t talk to people he doesn’t like. And all of those people, those four groups, are in the sites, are in the targets, of this White House right now, along with, of course, Iraq.

And so, it’s real simple. If he’s really interested in diplomacy, this game they have going now -- the game right now, the American and British and German, the allied game, the Western game, with Iraq -- the situation with Iraq is this -- Iran, rather: they’re enriching uranium. Our position to the Iranians is: when you stop enriching uranium, shut it down, we will then start talking to you about your enrichment. That’s the American -- that is absolutely the bargaining position. We will not talk to them until they stop. And it’s sort of -- it’s real simple, if you really are talking. And so, the rest of the stuff is chit-chat.

I don’t think she -- you know, I just -- I don’t, you know -- there was a video conference, and it was even more explicit than we in the New Yorker wrote it. The President was very clear that he is interested in going across the border and whacking the Iranians.

And in the belief -- and I do believe this President believes it, just like I still believe the President believed there were WMDs there -- and, you know, I actually listen to George Bush, always have listened to him, and I take him at his word, which, of course, scares the hell out of me. But I think he really believes that the Iranians are responsible for training terrorists, not only Shia terrorists, Iran’s Shia, some of the southern -- the government now that controls Iraq is a Shia government -- but he also believes, and the American administration has said, that the Iranians are supporting the Sunnis, the insurgency, and also even al-Qaeda, which is another Sunni -- the jihadist al-Qaeda. And there’s just -- I can tell you, as I write in this article, indeed, Iran may be doing all of that, but there’s a tremendous dispute about all of those assertions inside the American government. There’s just a lot of questions about it inside the government. They don’t see the case as being nearly as strong as the White House is saying in public.

AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, we have to break, but we’re going to come back to you. Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, has a major expose about the administration’s plan for Iran in the latest New Yorker. Back with him in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, his latest piece in the New Yorker, “Shifting Targets: The Administration’s Plan for Iran.” Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Sy Hersh, I’d like to ask you -- that clip that we played just a few minutes ago about the White House in the press conference there, it sounded like it was Helen Thomas asking whether President Bush would notify Congress before taking action or not. Your sense of what you heard from your sources? Is this likely to be, in essence, a surprise attack, that the President notifies the Congress afterwards?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I actually -- since I’m so used to believing that they don’t deal with Congress at all, it’s nothing I’ve focused on, except the Congress is -- in general, one could say the Congress is the last thought. In this case, I think they will probably, on the day of the morning of a raid, brief Congress, you know, call on the leadership as the raid is in progress. That’s been done. And my understanding is when the Israelis hit Syria the other week -- remember, I think September the 6th, the raid in Syria -- the Israelis actually told some of their allies, the Jordanians and the Egyptians, just an hour before the raid, and us, too. Of course, we were deeply involved, as we always are. But I think that kind of notification, we're talking about.

There’s -- look, there wasn’t much use for the Congress when it was Republican-run; now it’s Democratic-run. You can imagine how little -- the President thinks he has this whole notion we’ve been struggling with for seven-six years now, the Unitarian -- you know, the notion of the neoconservatives that the President has all power. This is a Cheney notion that’s very dominant Dick Cheney, that he has -- the executive powers of the presidency were diminished under Clinton, and they’ve been restored under Bush.

AMY GOODMAN: Sy Hersh, what do you know about the raid on Syria, Israeli raid that has not gotten a lot of attention? Was it a test run to see how Syria would respond if they flew over?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Let me write about it, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me play a clip of General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq. In his report to Congress last month, he accused Iran of fighting a proxy war inside Iraq.

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS: In the past six months, we have also targeted Shia militia extremists, capturing a number of senior leaders and fighters, as well as the deputy commander of Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800, the organization created to support the training, arming, funding and, in some cases, direction of the militia extremists by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps Quds Force. These elements have assassinated and kidnapped Iraqi governmental leaders, killed and wounded our soldiers with advanced explosive devices provided by Iran and indiscriminately rocketed civilians in the international zone and elsewhere. It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of this Quds Force, seeks to turn the Iraqi special groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: General David Petraeus. Seymour Hersh?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, that’s way over the top. He made a lot of assertions that are really seriously questioned by the intelligence community, and, again, in the article, I deal with that, that particular -- some of that statement, making the point that, look, Iran -- the Shia inside Iraq under Saddam were beaten down, were really humiliated. He had his foot on their neck constantly. And their only support they had, the Iranian -- the Shias in Iran -- Iran was dominated by the Sunnis and by the Baath Party and by Saddam, who had -- and so, their only support they had for three decades has been Iran.

And if you remember the history, after the first Gulf War that ended in early 1992 at that horrible massacre along the highway of death, this Bush and Cheney -- Cheney was then the Secretary of Defense, and Bush’s father was the President -- we decided not to go take the war all the way to Baghdad, dethrone Saddam. And more significantly, we allowed Saddam and the Sunni leadership to conduct -- use helicopters to overcome a Shia revolt, in which the stories are just thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Shia were slaughtered by Saddam as we stood aside right after the war. And the Shia were very bitterly disappointed with us, because they thought we had sort of set it up for them to do an overthrow and then didn’t support them, in fact aided the Sunni leadership. Iran was the only country that supported the Shia then.

Most of the Shia leadership right now, Prime Minister Maliki, lived in exile for many years in Iran. The relationship between Iran and the Prime Minister and his office and the Shia leadership of Iraq is very intense. And the idea that they're running a proxy war against the -- Iran is running a proxy war against the Iraqi people, the truth is that Iran is there with the Iraqi people. Iraqi people, that is, the Shia. There’s no proxy war, as he describes it. Iran is simply a big simple player.

And we have basically -- the strategic mistake of the White House in this whole process was, we were so anxious to overthrow the Sunnis and the Baath Party and make sure none of them got into office, we delegated the country to the Shiites, and they believed -- the neocons -- and this was a great debate in ’03 -- the neocons were absolutely insistent that the Iraqi Shia would be nationalists and support Iraq and not defer to Iran. And that’s not true. They're much closer to Iran than to the Sunnis or to the Kurds or to the Americans.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Sy Hersh, I’d like to ask you -- those of us who are old enough to remember Vietnam see some parallels between what’s going on now and -- is Iran the new Cambodia, in essence, a failed war being expanded by an administration that remains intransigent in its view of what needs to be done?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, it’s much bigger than Cambodia and much more potentially destabilizing. Iran is right now-- look, this is a government, American government, that’s losing a war. Nothing is going right. If you want to believe the surge, I’ve got a bridge I want to sell you. The surge is simply another example of ethnic cleansing. It’s not going to go anywhere. Yes, things are safer in Anbar Province where the surge is going on, because all of the Shiites, 100,000 or so, who live there are gone. There’s been ethnic cleansing. So basically the President is into ethnic cleansing, although he’s not saying it. That’s probably one way we’re going to creep in the next four or five years, if it goes that long.

But, you know, the real problem with this analogy is this: in Vietnam, we lost 58,000 Americans. It was a much -- we’ve got, what, almost 3,800 -- 7%, 6%-7% -- deaths.

And yet, Vietnam was always a strategic war. When the war ended, we were driven off. Four years later, they’re inviting us back, the leadership of the unified Vietnam, to play monopoly, build hotels and do tourism business, and we were doing it. Everything is peaceful now.

This war in Iraq with the Muslims that we're into and this sort of hostility we have to the Shia world and to Hamas and to Syria, this is strategic. We are putting ourselves into a situation where, for the next twenty, thirty years, we could be in a serious free-for-all, particularly if we go into Iran. It would be -- the war would spread. There’s no question, the Iranians will respond asymmetrically. By that, I mean they won’t necessarily hit Israel or hit targets in America; they might just do things in the Gulf; they certainly would do things inside Iraq and inside Afghanistan. If they start doing things inside Afghanistan, they have to protect their borders. We control the countries on both sides of Iran: Afghanistan and Iraq. If they start doing things in Afghanistan to protect their position, Pakistan may come in. You’re looking at unbelievably strategic issues here. And Vietnam never crossed the tactical barrier. It was stupid, stupid, stupid, and killer, killer, killer, but nothing as potentially devastating to the lives of all of us as what this President is doing now and, if he expands the war, what he will do.

And why, Juan and Amy, why the American public isn’t saying in heated tones: Why doesn't this President talk to people? Why isn't he talking to the Iranians and to the -- the Iranians have been telling us in these various conferences -- you know, Ambassador Crocker has had three meetings now, I think, with his counterpart, his ambassador from Iraq in Baghdad, and the video conference I quote in the article, the one that was mentioned in the White House press statement where Bush was bragging about what he wants to do -- braggadocio, really -- in those conferences, the Iranians have never asked for our troops to be gone, get out. What they keep on saying is, “We can help you.”

There is no incentive for Syria, for Iran, for Jordan, Kuwait, all of whom flooded with refugees coming out of Iraq, there’s no incentive for them to want the kind of destabilization they have inside Iraq. I mean, we now have a new refugee crisis that’s going to be probably worse than the Palestinian crisis. If you remember, after the Israelis invaded Israel in ’48, we generated a million or so refugees in Syria, in Lebanon, elsewhere in the world. They’re still in camps in as fetid positions, you know, a horrible situation. But now we have -- right now, Syria has anywhere from 1.6 million to 2 million refugees -- Syria is a country of 17 million, led by Alawites, a sort of derivative faction of Shiism -- mostly Sunni. And now they have 1.6 million or 2 million Sunni refugees in their country. I mean, that’s very destabilizing to Syria. Same in Jordan, same in Kuwait. It’s a mess that nobody wants to talk about in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Sy Hersh, can you talk about the role of Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney? And is Dick Cheney in the ascendancy, because so many of President Bush’s inner circle have deserted him, have left?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, that’s always a great question. You know, there's a great debate. I had somebody from inside call me about a meeting that took place. Rumsfeld was back at the White House the other day. I have no idea what for. But he was there, maybe --

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe he was fleeing the protesters at Stanford, where he is coming to be a fellow at the Hoover Institute.

SEYMOUR HERSH: No, I think he was there talking about this situation. But, anyway, it was interesting that he was back. Somebody called me, and he said he was talking about a German official who came to town to get a briefing, among other things, on this issue, the new targeting, and he said, “Well, he may have seen Hadley,” who is the -- Steve Hadley, the National Security Adviser, “and I hear he saw POTUS” -- the President -- “and also Darth Vader.” And he knew I understood that to mean Cheney. This is somebody inside the government.

Cheney is very powerful. I think the most powerful aspect of Cheney includes the fact that he’s very, very bright. He singled out Elliott Abrams, who is the President's National Security Adviser, the refugee from Iran-Contra, who is a big -- a very super neoconservative -- his father-in-law is Norman Podhoretz -- very pro-Israel in the sense that he believes that as Israel goes, so goes the American policy, I would think up to a great length. And Abrams is a key player.

Condoleezza Rice, my friend says it’s always a chronic debate: where is she? She favors a limited bombing, so I hear. If you want to really get a dark scenario, Cheney has gone along with the limited bombing. Basically, they call the limited bombing the third option, because there’s one option to do nothing; the other one is to bring in the Air Force and rake -- you know, rake everything; the third option being this one. And, by the way, the Air Force would not be a big player in this. The Navy would be a player in this limited option: cruise missiles, Navy F-18s doing some attacks, some Marines, some Special Forces, etc. Not inconsiderable, but nothing like the Air Force plan. And I understand that’s a plan that she would agree to if negotiations fail. But right now, her position is negotiations in public. I don’t know where she stands.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, Sy Hersh, I’d like to ask you, the role of the commercial media here in the United States, in terms of what -- you were raising the issue of where the American people are in terms of any Iran assault -- the whole furor that arose at the United Nations over the visit of Ahmadinejad and his speech at Columbia?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, you know, look, we have to have our Hitlers. America seems to thrive on Hitlers after Hitler went out. You know, we had Khrushchev. We had Stalin. We had Mao. We had Zhou Enlai. We had Gaddafi for a little while. We had Khomeini. We just bounce along from Hitler to Hitler. So he became the hit guy, Ahmadinejad.

Look, he says terrible things. It’s very stupid, what he says about the Holocaust. It’s counterproductive. He’s obviously very stubborn, but he’s not stupid. I wish the American press would have published some of his speech to the UN, because it was a pretty interesting speech, the actual speech, what he said. There were a lot of elements in it that were of great interest, and not at all irrational. And I asked somebody about the famous line about homosexuality, because it seemed so inept. And the Arab view is, if you talk to -- I'm talking about American Arabs and international, my friends overseas and those who know Farsi, what he said was -- and I’m not defending him; I’m just telling you what they say he said: “Homosexuality is not a problem in Iraq.” In other words, it’s just not a problem.

AMY GOODMAN: In Iran.

SEYMOUR HERSH: In Iran, rather. They don’t -- it’s just not a problem. He didn’t mean -- I don’t know whether the translation was flat, you know, when translations are always pretty bad, as any of you know. I’ve given speeches in foreign countries, and getting the translation back is always pretty comical. It’s never very good.

AMY GOODMAN: Sy Hersh, I wanted to switch gears for the last question, and this has to do with it not just being Republicans who are sounding a drumbeat for war. The three leading Democratic presidential candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards -- have all declared no options off the table. This is a clip from last week’s Democratic debate. It was the day the Senate approved a controversial resolution calling on the State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. At the debate, Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Gravel bitterly criticized Hillary Clinton for voting in favor.

MIKE GRAVEL: This is fantasy land. We're talking about ending the war. My god, we’re just starting a war right today. There was a vote in the Senate today. Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has authored another resolution, and it is essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran. And I want to congratulate Biden for voting against it, Dodd for voting against it, and I’m ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You're not going to get another shot at this, because what’s happened, if this war ensues, we invade, and they're looking for an excuse to do it. And Obama was not even there to vote.

TIM RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I want to give you a chance to respond.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: [laughter]

AMY GOODMAN: That was Hillary Clinton laughing. Fifteen seconds, Seymour Hersh. Your response?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Money. A lot of the Jewish money from New York. Come on, let's not kid about it. A significant percentage of Jewish money, and many leading American Jews support the Israeli position that Iran is an existential threat. And I think it’s as simple as that. When you’re from New York and from New York City, you take the view of -- right now, when you’re running a campaign, you follow that line. And there’s no other explanation for it, because she’s smart enough to know the downside.

AMY GOODMAN: And Obama and Edwards?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I -- you know, it’s shocking. It’s really surprising and shocking, but there we are. That’s American politics circa 2007.

AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, thank you very much for being with us, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. His piece in the New Yorker is called “Shifting Targets: The Administration’s Plan for Iran.”

Time to Boycott Voting

By Joel S. Hirschhorn

After many years of political disappointment, more progressives, liberals and conservatives – and certainly moderates and independents – know in their hearts that voting for Democrats or Republicans is a waste. Just imagine if voter turnout was cut to 25 percent or less! Let the whole world see Americans boycotting a broken and corrupt political system and rejecting what has become a delusional democracy. To keep voting in an unjust political system makes us willing political slaves that the rich and powerful elites exploit.

Just leaving the major parties is not good enough and, besides, most Americans are not party members. We need a bolder strategy. We must humiliate the political elites in both major parties and the corporate interests that support both of them. We can send a shock wave throughout the political establishment by not voting in the 2008 presidential election.

Stop playing THEIR game. Take back control. Take back YOUR nation. Time to boycott voting. This strategy is consistent with the thinking of Gandhi and King: peaceful resistance to political tyranny that can bring the corrupt system to its knees. Ultimately, the most effective protest is through civil disobedience – to visibly and stubbornly refuse to respect what has become a corrupt, untrustworthy system. Before it can be fixed it must be deconstructed and then rebuilt. Taxation with MISrepresentation means we need a Second American Revolution; it must begin – not with violent action – but with massive withdrawal by citizens that have seen the light. We have a good head start with about half of eligible voters already so turned off that they don’t vote. Obviously that has not been sufficient to change the system.

There will be negative, defensive knee-jerk reactions to this audacious strategy. Let’s examine them:

Many will think that taking such action violates our responsibility as citizens. But taking that responsibility seriously as engaged citizens in the Jeffersonian sense must reflect that there is still a valid contract between citizens and their government. When we vote we have the right to a political system that respects we the people and gives us an authentic representative democracy. We have a right to a constitutional republic operating under the rule of law. But we have elected representatives that no longer have the public interest as their primary commitment, nor truly honor and respect our Constitution.

They have been corrupted by corporate and other special interests that fund their campaigns to get the laws, loopholes and largesse they want. They have been corrupted by power and the perks of office. They are political cowards and mostly intellectual midgets. The two major parties have a stranglehold on our political system that no longer merits our participation in their crooked game. Political parties are not part of our Constitution and the two-party duopoly has demonstrated that both Democrats and Republicans put their own interests above those of we the people, our nation and our democracy. We cannot vote our way out of our current, dreadful political system.

Whether you are on the political left or right, you will fear that not voting will help put in office people that support policies your abhor. But decades of objective political reality tell us that even people from the party that we align with do not, when elected, fulfill their promises and our hopes. Sadly, most Americans have become lesser-evil voters, deluding themselves that this is the best, least worse, yet awful choice. Instead of feeling bad about voting for candidates that we know in our hearts are not worthy of our votes and public office, we must have the courage to say “enough is enough; I will not play in this shameful game any longer.” We must stop legitimizing and abetting our disgraceful government.

Many may fear that not voting sets a terrible example to children. But isn’t it more important to tell America’s children that true patriotism must reveal itself by rejecting a political system that no longer merits respect? Thomas Jefferson believed in periodic rebellion. Now is the time for all good Americans to come to the rescue of their nation, peacefully by boycotting elections.

The small number of third party members may be screaming: yes, don’t vote for Democrats and Republicans; come over and join us! I have been a strong third party supporter, but we must face the painful truth. The two major parties have so rigged the political system in their favor and against third parties that voting for third party candidates for federal office is a futile action. We must first boycott voting to create sufficient pressure to open the system to genuine political competition. That requires a number of electoral reforms, possible if the nation gets its first Article V convention (see www.foavc.org). With reforms we can increase voter turnout to over 90 percent, as routinely seen in other democracies.

False patriotism may cause some to think that we must not show anti-American nations and terrorists that our government no longer has the trust of its citizens. But that has already been widely disseminated by endless polls and surveys, including the recent Zogby poll that found a record-low 11 percent support for Congress. Better to show our enemies that we the people have finally awakened and decided to re-assert our sovereignty and restore American democracy. Loyalty to country, yes; loyalty to government, no. Our populist American insurgency must begin with a boycott of voting.

Proof that this extraordinary strategy can work is that by now diehard Democrats and Republicans reading this are squirming in discomfort. So spread the word, if you have not deluded yourself about voting the nation into a far, far better place. Time to boycott voting. Join the picket line; admit that none of the above is the only rational decision when the choices the two major parties give us for federal officials are not worth a dime.

Voting in a delusional representative democracy is as harebrained as voting even though you know votes will not be honestly counted – which many fear may be true. We may have lost control of our government, but we still control our voting. Time to walk away from the brainwashing and fiction that it really matters which Democrat or Republican you vote for in primaries and general elections for federal office. Power elites want us to believe that. They collude with the corporate mainstream media that make tons of money from campaigns and want you to stay glued to suspenseful horse races. Loud-mouth political pundits that narrate the races are democracy’s enemies. We must stop watching and listening to the political entertainment designed to keep us obediently mesmerized, as if the game is honest. Without an audience, these phony races and media circus will disappear.

Don’t be fooled by the large number of candidates in the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries. It is a sham – a scheme to keep spectators glued to the illusory competition. Ron Paul has as much chance of being the Republican nominee as Dennis Kucinich has of being the Democratic nominee. With power elites controlling both major parties, zero chance for them and the other minor candidates, regardless of their grassroots support. Reflect on how both major parties accept lots of candidates in televised debates in the primary season. But come the general election with prime time televised presidential debates they keep out third party candidates that desperately need that exposure to rally meaningful support. Such is the hypocrisy and disdain of the two-party duopoly.

Come Election Day in 2008 we should party and celebrate (with TVs turned off) our populist boycott of voting and enjoy the camaraderie of fellow patriots. We must help them resist any late urge to vote, because by then millions of dollars will be spent by many special interests to make us feel guilty and ashamed if we do not vote. I can hear Paul Revere now: The liars are coming! The liars are coming! All that advertising and pundit-screaming to herd us back into the voting booths will verify that our boycott strategy works.

With having the votes of only a small minority of the electorate, whoever becomes president will have no public mandate except major, systemic political reforms that satisfy the will of the people. Either that or accept being the president of a fake democracy on the world scene.

Be brave. Stick together. Save voting for a reformed political system worthy of respect and participation.

Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy – Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government that presents many electoral and other reforms; he can be contacted through www.delusionaldemocracy.com . Formerly, he was a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association.

The Israeli mindset: Apartheid and nuclear war

by Amira Hass
Democracy is more than going to the polls

"The protest wave has calmed down," some Israeli journalists said Friday of the Burmese military junta's success in driving thousands of demonstrators off the streets, using excessive violence.

Despite the natural sympathy for the uprisers, several editors chose the word "calm," which embodies the rulers' point of view: The norm is "calm," even if it means constant government violence. The mass protest against the oppression is a disruption of order and calm.

The word "calm" was an automatic reflection of how most Israeli Jews and their media see the constant, 40-year Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. This is the norm one thinks of when the Palestinians disrupt the calm.

The oppression of the Palestinian people is intended to perpetuate its banishment from its land and the infringement on its rights there. But on the other side of the regime of oppression is democracy for Jews, even those who oppose the occupation.

Generally, Jewish dissidents are not risking their life, livelihood, freedom or rights. However, the demonstration against the separation fence does involve certain risks - a few hours in detention, soldiers' fire, tear gas, or a blow from a gun. Therefore, each protester makes his or her own courageous decision to take part in the demonstration. Assisting the Palestinian olive harvest also requires courage, because it could end in an attack by the settlers (while the government's representatives, the soldiers, stand idly by). And yet there are dozens of anti-oppression activities that do not endanger the hundreds of devoted activists (mostly women) who take part in them.

Potentially, hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis could have taken part in activities against the multi-faceted Israeli oppression - the apartheid laws and orders, military attacks, hidden information, economic siege, land expropriation, expanding settlements, and more. Not a hair on their head would be touched. These are people who say they support peace, with a Palestinian state beside Israel. But apparently their interpretation of participation in democracy is going to the polls once every few years, and faint protest in their living room.

However, democracy also is displaying civic responsibility, by constantly supervising the political decisions and acts between elections, thus ensuring that democracy's essence has not been eroded. Those who say they support a two-state solution are ignoring the other facet of the democracy-for-Jews - the military regime that it imposes on the Palestinians. This regime creates faits accomplis all the time, foiling the last chance for a solution (i.e. full withdrawal with slight changes to the June 4, 1967 lines and establishing a Palestinian state).

The Jewish citizens who enjoy their democracy are not personally harmed by its other facet. On the contrary, they gain from it - cheap land and quality housing, additional water sources, a cadre of security professionals in demand worldwide, and thriving defense industries. This is the "calm" that even self-defined peace supporters refrain from disrupting.

In the Soviet empire and racist South Africa - like in today's Burma (Myanmar) - objecting to oppression involved a high personal price. Therefore, one could understand the objectors who chose not to act. In Israel, because it is a democracy for Jews, all those who sit idle, ignoring what is being done in their name, bear a heavy responsibility.

Chiefs of staff, prime ministers, ministers and generals are not the only ones responsible. Anyone who theoretically objects to oppression, discrimination and expulsion, but does not actively take part in the struggle and in creating a constant popular resistance to topple the apartheid regime we have created here, is responsible.

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Most Israelis back using nukes

A recent Canadian survey reveals that approximately 72 percent of Israelis support the use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances.

The survey showed that 37 percent of Israelis believed the use of nuclear weapons to prevent a war would be justified, while 35 percent believed the weapons could be justifiably used during a war.

In addition, the survey found that Israel had the lowest public support for destroying nuclear weapons out of all the six countries questioned.

Nearly 72 percent also agreed that "nuclear weapons place Israel in a unique position, so it is not in our interest to participate in treaties that would reduce or eliminate our purported nuclear arsenal".

About three-quarters of Israelis also said they would feel safer if they knew for certain that Israel had nuclear weapons. Israel has thus far maintained its policy of nuclear ambiguity.

The study spanned a sample of 1,000 adults in Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the US along with Israel.

Iran is now selling 65% of its oil in euros

by Lew Rockwell

Iran is now selling 65% of its oil in euros, 20% in yen, and only 15% in dollars, and even that 15% it plans to switch to "more creditworthy currencies" such as the UAE dirham.

With the Bush administration threatening fullscale war against Iran almost every day, and taking any number of other warlike steps (sanctions, funding of terrorism, etc.), political reasons are enough to explain this pricing decision, but as an Iranian spokesman noted, there is also "the fluctuations of the dollar on the currency markets and the depreciation of its value since 2004."
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(Note: also see original article here)

By the way, the dollar has been tumbling for a long while already. Chek out this graph from the US Dollar Index USDX, a measurement of the strength of the Dollar against six other freely exchangeable currencies (for an explanation of the USDX check here):

(click on image to enlarge)

Senior Bush Official: "I hate all Iranians"

By Simon Walters

Britsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians."

And she also accused Britain of "dismantling" the Anglo-US-led coalition in Iraq by pulling troops out of Basra too soon.

The all-party group of MPs say Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates, made the comments this month.

The six MPs were taken aback by the hardline approach of the Pentagon and in particular Ms Cagan, one of Mr Bush's foreign policy advisers.

She made it clear that although the US had no plans to attack Iran, it did not rule out doing so if the Iranians ignored warnings not to develop a nuclear bomb.

It was her tone when they met her on September 11 that shocked them most. The MPs say that at one point she said: "In any case, I hate all Iranians."

Although it was an aside, it was not out of keeping with her general demeanour. "She seemed more keen on saying she didn't like Iranians than that the US had no plans to attack Iran," said one MP. "She did say there were no plans for an attack but the tone did not fit the words."

Another MP said: "I formed the impression that some in America are looking for an excuse to attack Iran. It was very alarming." Tory Stuart Graham, who was on the ten-day trip, would not discuss Ms Cagan but said: "It was very sobering to hear from the horse's mouth how the US sees the situation."

Ms Cagan, whose job involves keeping the coalition in Iraq together, also criticised Britain for pulling out troops. "She said if we leave the south of Iraq, the Iranians will take it over," said one MP.

Another said: "She is very forceful and some of my colleagues were intimidated by her muscular style." The MPs also saw Henry Worcester, Deputy Director of the Office of Iranian Affairs, who said he favoured talks with Iran.

The Pentagon denied Ms Cagan said she "hated" Iranians. "She doesn't speak that way," said an official.

But when The Mail on Sunday spoke to four of the six MPs, three confirmed privately that she made the remark and one declined to comment. The other two could not be contacted.

Bush doesn't give a 'rats ass about GOP future in next elections

Actually, while Hersh reported that Bush does not give a rat's ass about what will happen to the GOP at the next elections, it would have been more to the point to say that the Neocons do not give a rat's ass. The reason is simple: since they equally control both factions of the War Party or, as Mumia Abu-Jamal calls it, the two factions of the "Republicrat Party" it really matters very little to them what will happen in future elections. What they do want is a war with Iran. Check out this video of Sy Hersh interviewed by Keith Olbermann:



(Notice that the US government spokeswoman does not deny *any* of what Sy Hersh reported)

Iran threatens to attack 170 US targets

The Jerusalem Post reports that Iran threatened Monday to attack some 170 American targets in the Middle East and around the world if it is attacked by Israel or the US, Israel Radio reported.

A high-ranking officer from the country's Revolutionary Guards told the force's official journal, The Guards, that Teheran succeeded, after extended and comprehensive work, to identify hundreds of strategic American targets in the Middle East and around the world.

The Revolutionary Guards' Ground Forces Command is able to easily kill American nationals staying in the Middle East. "Several years ago they [Americans] were far away from us by thousands of kilometers. Now they are so close we can touch them," the Iranian general said.

On Sunday former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Tory delegates in Britain that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.

The Day After We Bomb Iran

by Chris Weigant

There's a raging debate within the Bush administration, the punditocracy, and the blogosphere about whether or not it is time to bomb Iran. While this conversation scares small children (and other sane people), most of the focus has been on (1) whether President... oh, excuse me... Vice President Cheney truly is moonbat-crazy enough to do so, and (2) whether anyone else in America (including the military) would go along with the idea. But not enough attention is being paid to what happens after we rain death from the skies down on Iran. Which is a shame, because that's what we ignored during the ramp-up to war with Iraq. And we all know how that turned out.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the United States actually does go ahead and bomb Iran. There are a lot of different scenarios which could lead to this point, of course -- a "false flag" operation (think: Gulf of Tonkin Incident); Iranian military captives the United States swears were killing Americans in Iraq being paraded before the television cameras; provoking the Iranian Navy and swearing we were in international waters and not Iranian waters -- there are many ways to make the case for war before the eyes of the world, so it's not very productive to worry about which method it may take. But let's assume George Bush presents some sort of a casus belli to the world, which is immediately followed by the United States military dropping bombs and cruise missiles on Iran.

Now the actual method of the attack (as opposed to the rationale) may influence later events, so it is worth breaking down the possibilities. The old plan was to destroy both Iran's nuclear sites and enough infrastructure that rebuilding them would take the Iranians years to accomplish (while bombing all the military sites and radar installations we see along the way, of course). The new plan (according to Seymour Hersh in his explosive new article in the New Yorker) is to take out the Revolutionary Guard (and to ignore the nuke sites), merely as hot-pursuit retaliation for Iranian involvement in Iraq (while also bombing all the radar installations we see along the way, of course).

The neo-cons thinking: "They'll greet us with flowers, II"

So far, the Iranian response has seemingly been addressed by the neo-conservative think tank "The Iraqis Will Greet Us With Flowers Institute," which is fully as dangerous and deluded as it sounds. Their basic argument is the Iranians will see the errors of their ways (after we bomb them), throw out the Mullahs in Tehran, and beg the United States' forgiveness. Or that they're just too scared of our awesome military might ("Shock And Awe II," you might call it) to retaliate in any way, because they'd be terrified of losing a war with us.

That this is divorced from both reality and the history of the United States and Iran for the past 60 years or so seems to escape the proponents of this view. But then again, they sold the Bush White House on the "we'll be greeted as liberators, with flowers" line, so there's no guarantee it won't work a second time.

Here are some chilling quotes from Hersh's article on the subject of "what happens next?" after the bombs stop falling.

"They're moving everybody to the Iran desk," one recently retired C.I.A. official said. "They're dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It's just like the fall of 2002" -- the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, "The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through."

That theme was echoed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national-security adviser, who said that he had heard discussions of the White House's more limited bombing plans for Iran. Brzezinski said that Iran would likely react to an American attack "by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years."

. . .

A senior European diplomat, who works closely with American intelligence, told me that there is evidence that Iran has been making extensive preparation for an American bombing attack. "We know that the Iranians are strengthening their air-defense capabilities," he said, "and we believe they will react asymmetrically -- hitting targets in Europe and in Latin America." There is also specific intelligence suggesting that Iran will be aided in these attacks by Hezbollah. "Hezbollah is capable, and they can do it," the diplomat said.

The article does quote one unnamed "senior European official" (most likely British) who has drunk deep of the neo-con Kool-Aid:

The European official continued, "A major air strike against Iran could well lead to a rallying around the flag there, but a very careful targeting of terrorist training camps might not." His view, he said, was that "once the Iranians get a bloody nose they rethink things." For example, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Ali Larijani, two of Iran's most influential political figures, "might go to the Supreme Leader and say, 'The hard-line policies have got us into this mess. We must change our approach for the sake of the regime.' "

This is rebutted with a quote from an unnamed "former [American] senior intelligence official":

"Do you think those crazies in Tehran are going to say, 'Uncle Sam is here! We'd better stand down'? " the former senior intelligence official said. "The reality is an attack will make things ten times warmer."

War-gaming the Iranian response

The Iranians have missiles. They also have a shadowy world-wide terror network that, from all accounts, is quite competent and deadly. And geography gave Iran a chokepoint that could cut off roughly 20% of the world's oil supplies.

Put all of these together, and you have quite a range of options for the Iranians to take. Let's assume that they would use these on an escalating scale, with proportionate responses by the U.S.

The very first thing the Iranians would do is bomb the MEK camps in Iraq. This would be on a "tit-for-tat" level and they could make a good case before the world for doing so. The MEK ("Mujahedeen-e-Khalq") is an Iranian dissident group who have been trying to overthrow the government of Iran for quite some time now. They used to operate out of Saddam's Iraq, in cross-border raids into Iran. When we invaded, we kind of institutionalized a stalemate with them -- we accepted their surrender, told them we would protect the safety of their camps, but we allowed them to stay. The only problem is, they're a terrorist group. Which we're protecting with the American military.

You can easily see the parallels with what we would be claiming Iran is doing -- supporting outlaw groups from within their own territory who cross the border and perform terrorist actions. Which is why they would be target number one for Iranian retaliation if we used the "hot pursuit" rationale. Iran would loudly proclaim American hypocrisy and attempt to convince the world of the justification of their actions. They might even succeed in doing so.

If America kept attacking Iran, the options get much grimmer much quicker. Iranian missiles may start targeting the Green Zone in Baghdad with a passion. They may start targeting those sprawling US bases out in the desert in Iraq. Remember the Kuwaiti war with Saddam? America kept saying "oh, we've taken care of all of Saddam's missiles" while the SCUDs kept raining down, proving us wrong. Imagine that scenario coming from Iran.

Iran may also unleash the terrorists it sponsors. Hezbollah, in particular, may begin spectacular terrorist attacks within Europe. They could even conceivably (unlike Bush's bugaboo "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia") successfully attack the United States mainland. So not only are missiles raining down on the Green Zone, but shopping malls and train stations and power plants are getting blown up all over Europe and the United States, or (failing to reach America) U.S. Embassies worldwide.

But these nightmare scenarios aren't the worst weapon. Iran's real leverage comes from sitting on top of the Straits of Hormuz (some use the singular Strait of Hormuz). Check out a map of it on Wikipedia, and notice that Iran surrounds this tight bottleneck on three sides. Twenty percent of the world's oil moves through these straits every day, on supertankers. Imagine Iranian mines, torpedoes and missiles taking out oil tankers here. They'd really just have to successfully take out one, or maybe two to prove they could do it whenever they felt like.

What would happen after the first of these successful attacks would be oil trading at astronomical highs: $150 to $200 a barrel. Or roughly two to three times what is has been trading at during the Iraq war. Six to nine dollars a gallon at your local pump.

If this went on for a short period of time, it could cause a devastating recession on the American economy. If it went on for a long period of time, it could cause a worldwide economic depression.

If the American economy crumbles, it's going to be harder and harder to find the money to continue three wars at once. Remember, we essentially outspent the Soviet Union in the arms race. It'd be awfully ironic if it happened to us, since it would be almost impossible to pour the amount of money we have been into the Middle East if our economy was on its knees.

And really, what would the eventual end to the American military escalation of an Iranian war? A military draft here at home, for one thing, since the Army just could not withstand to supply a ground invasion at its current level of soldiers. Or we could escalate bombing on a level not seen since Vietnam -- carpet bombing from B-52s, not "smart" bombs in pinprick raids. Or the Bush White House might even be tempted to test out those nuclear penetrator bombs we've been working on -- to take out "deeply buried Iranian nuclear sites," no doubt.

My point is that the consequences for an Iranian adventure would be severe. In all the arguments swirling around Iran currently inside the Beltway, not enough attention is being paid to the likely outcome of such military action. If you're a neo-con and are arguing that Iran needs to be taken out because they're the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism, then fine -- make your case. But be sure to realistically address what the costs of such rash action would be for America.

Because last time around, we ignored that part of the equation with "we'll be greeted as liberators" -- and we just can't afford a second mistake of that magnitude.

Senate passes mammoth "defense" (sic) bill

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Senate Monday passed a mammoth 648 billion dollar defense policy bill, shorn of attempts by disappointed anti-war Democrats to dictate President George W. Bush's Iraq strategy.

The bill included around 128 billion dollars for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.

The legislation passed by 92 votes to three after Democrats lost several attempts to dictate US troop levels in Iraq.

While the Department of Defense Authorization bill for fiscal year 2008 sets the size of programs, funds can only be disbursed after the passage of a Senate defense spending bill due to be taken up by the chamber this week.

The most significant Iraq related portion of the bill was an amendment backed by Democratic Senator Joseph Biden which passed last week, calling for a federalization of Iraq, with large amounts of power ceded to the provinces.

The amendment was however non-binding and will not force Bush to change strategy in the unpopular war.

Democrats failed by only four votes to include an amendment which would require troops who served in Iraq or Afghanistan to be granted as much time at home as they spent on combat deployments.

The bill would have effectively limited the number of troops available for deployment, and cut the size of the 160,000 strong US force in Iraq more quickly than the gradual reductions which Bush has promised.

The House of Representatives has already passed its version of the Defense authorization.
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Note: this bill funding the Imperial wars of aggression was passed quasi-unanimously even though a majority of Americans oppose funding these wars. This is yet another illustration of the undeniable reality that Americans do not live in a democracy but are ruled by a Soviet-style Nomenklatura which does not care in the least what the people of the US want. While Bush's approval rating stands at 33% the Congress' is at an amazing 29%, even lower than Dubya's. So we can say that roughly one third of Americans really support the Empire while a full 70% do not. These 70% have no political party to represent their interests and no media (other than on the Internet) to echo their concerns. They are as disenfranchised as any other oppressed peoples in history.

Cubans treat man who killed Che

BBC - Cuban doctors working in Bolivia have saved the sight of the man who executed revolutionary leader Che Guevara in 1967, Cuban official media report.

Mario Teran, a Bolivian army sergeant, shot dead Che Guevara after he was captured in Bolivia's eastern lowlands.

Cuban media reported news of the surgery ahead of the 40th anniversary of Che's death on 9 October.

Mr Teran had cataracts removed under a Cuban programme to offer free eye treatment across Latin America.

The operation on Mr Teran took place last year and was first revealed when his son wrote to a Bolivian newspaper to thank the Cuban doctors for restoring his father's sight.

But Cuban media took up the story at the weekend as the island prepares for commemorations to mark Che Guevara's death 40 years ago.

"Four decades after Mario Teran attempted to destroy a dream and an idea, Che returns to win yet another battle," the Communist Party's official newspaper Granma proclaimed.

"Now an old man, he [Teran] can once again appreciate the colours of the sky and the forest, enjoy the smiles of his grandchildren and watch football games."

Wounded

Che Guevara, who played a key role in the Cuban revolution of 1959, travelled to Bolivia in 1966 to start a social revolution.

But in October 1967, the Bolivian army, with assistance from the CIA, captured Guevara and his remaining fighters.

Che Guevara, wounded in the fighting, was taken to a schoolhouse in the village of La Higuera on 8 October where the soldiers debated what to do with him.

Mario Teran is reported to have drawn the short straw and been ordered to execute the captured guerrilla.

Che Guevara was killed on 9 October and his body taken to a hospital in nearby Vallegrande, where his corpse was paraded before the world's media.

In 1997 his remains were discovered, exhumed and returned to Cuba, where he was reburied.

It’s Lobbying, But Is It Really Pro-Israel?

by M. J. Rosenberg

Critics of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by John J. Mearsheimer and Steven M. Walt cannot be surprised that the attacks on the book prior to publication have already helped propel it to #10 on Amazon's best-seller list. Not only that, the names "Walt-Mearsheimer" have become almost People magazine famous, odd for two mild-mannered political scientists from the University of Chicago and Harvard.

It just shows you what a little "buzz" will do and a lot of buzz surrounds this book.

And why not? It's an important, heavily sourced and documented book (108 pages of footnotes) by two distinguished professors at two of our best universities. It deals with Middle East policymaking at a time when America's problems in that region surpass our problems anywhere else. And it is a serious book about a subject that is decidedly provocative, a much improved and expanded version of the original London Review of Books article.

The book asks the question: how much power does the pro-Israel lobby have? The authors answer: too much, and that both America and Israel suffer as a result.

It's an arguable question and people are definitely arguing about it. It is also the kind of book you do not have to agree with on every count (I certainly don’t) to benefit from reading.

The authors do not say that there is anything intrinsically wrong about the existence of a pro-Israel lobby. As political scientists, they understand that lobbies are as American as corn in Kansas. They know that lobbies play a major role in virtually all areas of American policy-making, domestic and foreign. Nor do they suggest that the pro-Israel community is out of bounds when it uses its influence on Israel's behalf.

Their question is whether or not that influence is used to promote policies that are in America’s interest, or Israel's.

The authors answer is “no.” They believe that the interests of both countries would be better served by aggressive US involvement to produce an Israeli-Palestinian agreement along the lines of the so-called Clinton parameters. Israel would withdraw more or less to the '67 lines, a Palestinian state would be established, Israel's security would be guarded by ironclad guarantees, and the Palestinians would abandon any future claims on Israeli territory. They believe that it is the influence of the lobby that has prevented the US from vigorously pursuing this goal, despite the fact that both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush have endorsed it.

I spent almost 20 years as a Congressional aide and can testify from repeated personal experience that Senators and House Members are under constant pressure to support status quo policies on Israel. It is no accident that Members of Congress compete over who can place more conditions on aid to the Palestinians, who will be first to denounce the Saudi peace plan, and who will win the right to be the primary sponsor of the next pointless Palestinian-bashing resolution. Nor is it an accident that there is never a serious Congressional debate about policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. Moreover, every President knows that any serious effort to push for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement based on compromise by both sides will produce loud (sometimes hysterical) opposition from the Hill.

Walt and Mearsheimer mostly limit themselves to exploring whether all this is good for the United States (and to a lesser extent, Israel). The question I ask today, and not for the first time, is whether this type of behavior is good for Israel. Forty years after the Six Day War, the occupation continues, the resistance to it intensifies, and Israelis in increasing numbers question whether they have a future in the Jewish state.

Has "pro-Israel" advocacy consistently produced "pro-Israel" ends? At several critical moments, it most certainly has not.

Was it pro-Israel to lobby the Nixon administration in 1971 to support Israel’s rejection of Anwar Sadat's offer of peace in exchange for a three mile pullback from the banks of the Suez Canal? Nixon capitulated to the pressure and backed off, leaving Israel free to reject Sadat's offer. Two years later, Sadat attacked and Israel lost 3000 soldiers in a war that would have been prevented had Israel accepted the Sadat initiative. Israel gained nothing in that war, and ended up giving Sadat all the territory he sought in 1971, and much more.

Was it pro-Israel to urge the Reagan administration to back Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982? That war, and its bloody aftermath, lasted for 18 years with the last Israeli soldier not leaving Lebanon until 2000 – after a thousand soldiers were killed. Just days after Israel's invasion, Lebanese Christian forces massacred almost a thousand Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp. And 241 United States Marines, serving as post-war peace keepers, were killed (the most on any single day since Iwo Jima) when Hezbollah blew up their barracks. In the end, the war accomplished nothing and Israel withdrew unconditionally.

Was it pro-Israel to press Congress to attach so many onerous conditions to aid to President Abbas's Palestinian Authority that Abbas was unable to demonstrate to his people that a moderate President, who fully accepted Israel, would produce benefits that they would not achieve by choosing Hamas. The US (and Israeli) policies of all sticks and no carrots led predictably to Abbas's defeat by Hamas and a Hamas-controlled Gaza which has resumed its attacks on Israeli towns.

Was it pro-Israel to prevent the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II administration's from insisting on a permanent freeze on settlements or, at the very least, the immediate removal of the illegal settlements? Wouldn't Israel be infinitely better off if the United States had used friendly persuasion to end the settlement enterprise right from the get-go? After all, the vast majority of Israelis consider the settlements to be impediments to peace and so has every President since the first settlement was erected.

Similar question could be asked about the arguments favoring the Iraq war as good for both the United States and Israel (when critics correctly predicted that it would be disastrous for both) and should be asked about some future attack on Iran.

These questions are especially urgent with a Presidential election coming up.

Once again, Presidential candidates are being told that in order to earn the "pro-Israel" label, they must heartily endorse the status quo. That means that when asked what they would do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they must state unequivocal support for Israeli policies. They must put the onus for the failed diplomacy of recent years on the Palestinians. They must indicate that although they support peace, they will not adopt the kind of pro-active peacemaking engaged in by President Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. They must never use the words "even-handed or "honest broker." There is a script and the candidates must not deviate from it.

For the vast majority of us who care deeply about Israel, the politically correct (and safe) approach to Israel is insulting. Sure, it keeps candidates out of trouble with that small minority of the pro-Israel community which believes that Israel can survive as a Jewish state while holding on to the territories. But that isn't most American Jews, not by a long shot.

Candidates who avoid saying what they believe out of fear of offending lobbyists and activists who have been proven wrong over and over again are not doing Israel any favors. And they should not be rewarded for it by being granted the label of "pro-Israel."

There is nothing pro-Israel about supporting policies that promise only that Israeli mothers will continue to dread their sons' 18th birthdays for another generation. For that we are supposed to be grateful?