...before it starts?
We are on the verge of war with Iran, and most of America doesn't even know it.
But make no mistake. George W. Bush wants to attack Iran.
He wants to do it for his own last chance to create some sort of legacy.. His oil buddies, including the vice-president, want him to attack Iran, to eliminate one more wildcard in the deck of world petroleum suppliers. His long-time family friends in the House of Saud, the people he owes for bailing him out of one failed business venture after another, want him to attack Iran to curb Iranian Sh'ia hegemony in the region. And mostly, his last bastion of support in the fundamentalist Church wants him to attack Iran, because they believe it will be good for Israel and is therefore what God wants him to do. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that Israeli Likudnik hard-liners, who tell the fundies what to believe about what's good for Israel, want him to bomb Iran so they won't have to.
So what is Bush doing to prepare for a new war? Well, he appointed a Navy four-star to run U.S. Central Command. There has NEVER before been an admiral in charge of CENTCOM. It's a ground-based theater, suited for the employment of Army and Marine Corps units. Except for the Persian Gulf, of course. A president whose focus was on Iraq or Afghanistan would want an Army or Marine Corps officer in charge.
But a president more interested in military operations in the Gulf?
And what operations are going on in the Gulf today? Well, there are two aircraft carrier groups currently deployed, and reportedly another on the way. And what do aircraft carriers do? Why, they launch aircraft, of course. Ground attack airplanes, for example. And cruise missiles. Oh and by the way, the Navy four-star who now commands the theater, and is responsible for planning ALL future operations there, just happens to have been a carrier group commander.
Then there's the rhetoric. Iran is building nuclear weapons, Bush tells us. Iran sponsors terrorism, he tells us. Iran is arming the Iraqi militias who are killing our soldiers, he tells us. All or any of which may be true... or not. Hard to tell with this president's track record. And everything he says about Iran is suspiciously like what he told us about Iraq in 2002.
But does it really matter? One lesson you learn from Army intelligence is that intentions are difficult to determine, but capabilities not so hard. We can know what Bush is capable of from what he's done before.
Wait, you say... don't we have a Democratic Congress to keep him in check? Isn't that why we elected them? Well, we had a Democratic Senate when the Iraq war was proposed. How well did that work out for us? The current Senate isn't filibuster-proof -- they can't even pass a non-binding resolution. And we're only one Connecticut turncoat away from losing the Senate altogether. I wouldn't look too confidently at Congress to put the brakes on the coming war, and I sure as hell wouldn't sit back and expect them to do the right thing on their own.
Oh, don't get me wrong. If Bush attacks Iran and it all goes south (like everything he does), Congress will react. The entire House and a third of the Senate is up for reelection in 2008. They know their constituents won't be happy and they'll have to do something. But how many people will die in the process? How will the Iranians react? What will they do to the close to 200,000 (by then) soldiers and marines right across the Iraqi border and surrounded by 10 million Sh'ia?
There's only one chance to stop this war before it starts. We have to stop it. Yeah, that's right. You and me. And fifty of our friends. And fifty of each of their friends. We have to tell America what the media won't. We have to get them outraged enough that they will make damn sure their Congressmen and women know before the fact that they will not stand for another war, and will hold accountable anyone, of either party, who lets it happen.
So it's time to spread the word. Now, before it's too late. Click on the link to StopIranWar.com. Send the letters to the White House, the Congress and to your local newspaper. Copy the code for the link into your blogs, add it to your sig lines. Make a bumper sticker or a button or even business cards with a StopIranWar.com logo, and hand them out to everyone you know. Make flyers to put under the windshield wipers of cars at the grocery store.
Whatever you do, don't find yourself a year from now, reading in the paper about 3000 more dead US soldiers, 100,000 Iranian civilians, and wondering, could I have done more to prevent it?
