Last Sunday’s paper carried an article by Houston Post reporter Stewart M. Powell, entitled “Iran’s growing presence in Latin America worries U.S.”
It is one of the craziest, most darkly hilarious pieces I’ve read in my life, and that’s saying something. Written with a straight face, too, evidently, which means either that Powell is on retainer for the CIA or has had his brain rewired in some Pentagon psy-ops experiment gone bad.
Datelined Washington:
“Ever since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck a deal with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for weekly air service between the nations’ distant capitals, American officials have been worried that Iranian-backed terrorists could reach the rim of Latin America, pick up fake Venezuelan passports and sneak into the United States.”
Someone, dear reader, is tugging on your hose.
There are airline flights between two capital cities; this has set off alarm bells among unnamed ‘American officials.’
Let’s look at the real world for a second. First, the United States and Israel have been threatening the existence of Iran for years. Israel, with Obama’s covert blessing, is planning to attack Iran, probably after the U.S. election. The reason for this is transparently phony: rumors that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear device.
Consider: the United States has tens of thousands of nuclear weapons right now, sufficient to obliterate the entire planet hundreds of times over. It continues to develop them. Israel has nuclear weapons of its own. These two countries, without any moral or legal right to do so, demands that nobody else develop such weapons.
Consider: before the U.S. invaded Iraq, it lied to the world about so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which did not exist. The U.S. knew this to be a fact but used the claim to justify mass murder and the overthrow of another nation’s government.
Consider: Iran has good reason to mistrust the United States. It’s last democratically-elected government was overthrown by the CIA in 1953. The U.S. then installed the notorious Shah, whose secret police, SAVAK, is universally regarded as one of the worst criminal operations in history.
Consider: there is no proof that Iran is even trying to develop nuclear weapons; the U.S. itself has intelligence reports indicating that Iran is many years away from having a functional nuclear weapon, even if it is trying to get one. In the meantime, Israeli agents have assassinated several Iranian scientists inside Iran.
From the Powell article:
“Now, with growing talk of a pre-emptive attack by Israel to slow Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, Iran has threatened that it would retaliate across the globe. And Iran’s easy access to the Western Hemisphere has U.S. officials particularly concerned.”
Interesting thought process, don’t you agree? A ‘pre-emptive’ attack implies that Israel would be striking Iran in order to protect itself from what it expects is an imminent Iran attack against it. But there is no such threat. Iran has made no such threat. In fact, Iran has not survived for centuries by acting without regard to its own situation, and nobody is going to launch an attack against Israel when Israel itself is armed to the teeth with many times the nuclear firepower.
Iran has said that if attacked it will retaliate? Well, what in the world would we expect? Do we think they have no right to do so? Do we think we can blow them up, kill their citizens, destroy their land without blowback? Are we that fucking crazy? Maybe. We seem to be crazy enough to act as though they have no such right.
The United States, which is killing people in many countries right now with CIA operatives, various special force strikes, and remote-controlled drones, seems to believe that our victims have no right to strike back. Needless to say, the rest of the world does not agree with that sociopathic viewpoint.
As for Iran’s ‘easy access’ to the Western Hemisphere, what exactly is the position of the United States? Do we actually believe that other countries have no right to commerce with Western Hemisphere countries unless we approve of it? Do we believe that we own the entire hemisphere?
In 2010, 59,017 non-Mexican nationals were arrested trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. That’s a lot of people. How many of these do you think were Iranian? Fourteen. That’s fourteen. Wow. No wonder U.S. officials are ‘particularly concerned.’ They must be soiling their trousers in fear.
The Powell article is of course a plant. Anytime the CIA or other intelligence operation expects to engineer a coup, an invasion, or an ‘uprising’ –– c.f. Libya –– it prepares public opinion as best it can to accept the cover story, however ludicrous. Powell quotes extensively remarks by James Clapper, director of National Intelligence.
“If the attack comes,” Powell writes, “experts see it being staged by Iranian operatives who entered the United States through Latin America.” He quotes the usual unnamed sources and notes that “The Iranian-backed suicide bombing of an Israeli tourist bus... is the latest sign that Tehran remains prepared to strike abroad.”
Forget for the moment that the U.S. not only remains “prepared to strike abroad” but does so every hour of every day, consider the wording. “Iranian-backed...” meaning, exactly, what? Meaning nothing, that’s what. Meaning we’re going to use vague terms, unnamed sources (except for Clapper), and innuendo.
The bottom line in all of this is that the United States is determined to assert its ownership of the whole planet. What other countries may attempt in forwarding their own perceived interests is provocation. Unless they roll over any time we put a hand on them, they are seen as dangerous, potential or actual targets, disturbers of the peace.
It is considered hostile for any nation to resist the international banking system; to do so will get you invaded or bombed to pieces, as was the case in Iraq and Libya. Now we are going after Iran. And there’s nothing that country can do in the face of the clear intent of America, and Israel, to destroy it. Iran has not attacked another country in more than two centuries. America attacks another country every five minutes.
The Powell story of course serves a second purpose, that of preparing the public for a U.S. assault on Venezuela. We want to attack that country and kill its President. We want Venezuelan oil, yes, and we want not to be embarrassed by Hugo Chavez anymore. Couple of winters ago, when the U.S. government couldn’t be bothered with assisting people in the northeast, some of whom were actually freezing to death because they couldn’t afford heating oil, it was Venezuela which offered assistance.
We want to kill Chavez but it would look bad. Most of Latin America is onto us by now, and there are indigenous movements for land and justice breaking out all over the place. Independent governments have been elected in many countries and they are standing up to the U.S. Obama has already presided over one military coup, in Honduras, and if he buys another they might take back his Nobel Peace Prize. But Chavez sticks in his craw.
The Powell article, I think, is one small piece of a larger campaign, that of poisoning the people of the United States toward Chavez. We already have troops in Honduras pretending to fight drug trafficking. We are pissed off at Ecuador, which has the guts to offer political asylum to Julian Assange. The international bankers would like to take Argentina because the Kirchners have refused more ‘loans’ designed to impoverish and enslave their people. The U.S. is prepared to invent reasons for further military action in the southern hemisphere. But the government needs a cover story –– not for people in other countries; they know better –– but good enough to fool the already distracted American public.
There are two things to keep in mind about the imminent attack on Iran (regardless of who wins the November U.S. election). One, we want to own the middle east and will kill anyone in our way. Two, it is not acceptable to defy the United States.
Remember the invasion of Grenada? We were told at the time that it was necessary to prevent a ‘communist’ coup and to protect U.S. citizens there. In fact, Grenada had developed a democratic system where land reform and literacy had transformed that nation into a highly successful model. The U.S. invasion was the most one-sided ‘war’ in all history. We slaughtered the opposition and left the message in blood for the rest of the Americas to read: do not defy us. That was the point. It still is.
