Anti Federalist
03-01-2012, 07:12 PM
Goal in Iran: Regime Change
Posted by Michael S. Rozeff on March 1, 2012 06:43 AM
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/106630.html#more-106630
The Infowars article has it right, Lew. The goal in Iran is regime change. If that takes mass murder, it will be done. If it takes infrastructure destruction, it will be done. Yesterday, there was one news item (unverified) reporting an unnamed Israeli official speaking of starving the Iranians. Sounds like Clinton's starving of Iraqi children.
The neocons made a list of target countries as Glenn Greenwald reported and they are going down that list:
"Political blogger Glenn Greenwald recently wrote about retired General Wesley Clark’s recollection of an officer telling him in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks that the then-U.S. Secretary of Defense had issued a memo outlining a plan for regime change within five years in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. We play an excerpt of Clark’s comments and ask Greenwald to respond. 'What struck me in listening to that video just a couple of days ago is that if you go down that list of seven countries that he said the neocons had planned to basically change the governments of, you pretty much see that that vision, despite the perception that we have a Democratic president and therefore the neoconservative movement is powerless, is pretty much being fulfilled,' Greenwald says."
The neocons are still rampaging. The Iraq and Afghanistan partial retreats or withdrawals have not stopped them. They are influential in high places. Having tasted blood, they have extended their list to targets in Africa. Pakistan is a likely addition.
The neocon-supported empire already is starting to run up against Russia and China. Sri Lanka is being contested. The Chinese are building a deep water port there. The US would like a naval base there.
The foreign logic of empire is expansion. That's what is happening ever since the USSR collapsed. The domestic logic of empire is bread and circuses, inflation, corruption, destruction of virtue, truth, language, morality, and productivity.
The empire and its expansion were always present in American history, from the outset. It was a force that contested the republican form of government and still does. Each of many steps along the way was a victory for empire. The direct election of senators, for example, shifted power away from the states and to Washington. The central bank was a step. When Dewey sailed into Manila and when McKinley took on the Spanish empire, those were really major events in the course of empire. There had been no invasion of America, and yet the armed forces were going overseas. The yellow press of the time was already corrupt. When Wilson took America into war, he confirmed that course. It has not changed at all since that time.
Vietnam should have deterred the expansion and brought forth a peace movement and a pro-republic candidate, but it did not. Instead, Reagan and Carter rebuilt support for war among Americans by their small wars in Granada and Panama and by the continuation of the Cold War. Bush I had his Gulf War. Clinton had his Yugoslavian war. These were all propaganda victories. Americans like war and victory. These events rebuilt their support of military force and American adventurism overseas.
It is again the case that a time has come for a candidate to take advantage of the disillusionment among Americans, modest though it is, with Iraq and Afghanistan. This can be connected to the economic and financial distress to build a powerful anti-empire coalition.
But Iran now is being used to marginalize such a movement. Targeting it and making it an enemy, even without attacking it, serves the purpose of empire by undermining support for a peaceful republic program. Americans are easily dissuaded from peace.
America chose Obama over McCain as a move away from empire and toward peace and prosperity. It has made a difference at the margin in winding down two wars. However, Obama's ignorance on economics, his personal biases, and his failure to surround himself with people who had a consistent orientation toward a free and peaceful republic have led to a continuation of the neocon empire vision.
Obama had a chance to move toward a Ron Paul menu of policies and he failed, almost completely. Obama didn't have the maturity, understanding, or vision that was required to inform his character and lead to a strong and consistent set of policy actions that might restore America or shift its path away from where it's headed. He didn't have the belief in free markets and property rights. He didn't have the skills (and apparently no desire) to shift away from his leftist approaches to the economy, but at the same time he was willing to go along with Wall Street. After 4 years, it does not appear to me that Obama has learned a thing.
Posted by Michael S. Rozeff on March 1, 2012 06:43 AM
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/106630.html#more-106630
The Infowars article has it right, Lew. The goal in Iran is regime change. If that takes mass murder, it will be done. If it takes infrastructure destruction, it will be done. Yesterday, there was one news item (unverified) reporting an unnamed Israeli official speaking of starving the Iranians. Sounds like Clinton's starving of Iraqi children.
The neocons made a list of target countries as Glenn Greenwald reported and they are going down that list:
"Political blogger Glenn Greenwald recently wrote about retired General Wesley Clark’s recollection of an officer telling him in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks that the then-U.S. Secretary of Defense had issued a memo outlining a plan for regime change within five years in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. We play an excerpt of Clark’s comments and ask Greenwald to respond. 'What struck me in listening to that video just a couple of days ago is that if you go down that list of seven countries that he said the neocons had planned to basically change the governments of, you pretty much see that that vision, despite the perception that we have a Democratic president and therefore the neoconservative movement is powerless, is pretty much being fulfilled,' Greenwald says."
The neocons are still rampaging. The Iraq and Afghanistan partial retreats or withdrawals have not stopped them. They are influential in high places. Having tasted blood, they have extended their list to targets in Africa. Pakistan is a likely addition.
The neocon-supported empire already is starting to run up against Russia and China. Sri Lanka is being contested. The Chinese are building a deep water port there. The US would like a naval base there.
The foreign logic of empire is expansion. That's what is happening ever since the USSR collapsed. The domestic logic of empire is bread and circuses, inflation, corruption, destruction of virtue, truth, language, morality, and productivity.
The empire and its expansion were always present in American history, from the outset. It was a force that contested the republican form of government and still does. Each of many steps along the way was a victory for empire. The direct election of senators, for example, shifted power away from the states and to Washington. The central bank was a step. When Dewey sailed into Manila and when McKinley took on the Spanish empire, those were really major events in the course of empire. There had been no invasion of America, and yet the armed forces were going overseas. The yellow press of the time was already corrupt. When Wilson took America into war, he confirmed that course. It has not changed at all since that time.
Vietnam should have deterred the expansion and brought forth a peace movement and a pro-republic candidate, but it did not. Instead, Reagan and Carter rebuilt support for war among Americans by their small wars in Granada and Panama and by the continuation of the Cold War. Bush I had his Gulf War. Clinton had his Yugoslavian war. These were all propaganda victories. Americans like war and victory. These events rebuilt their support of military force and American adventurism overseas.
It is again the case that a time has come for a candidate to take advantage of the disillusionment among Americans, modest though it is, with Iraq and Afghanistan. This can be connected to the economic and financial distress to build a powerful anti-empire coalition.
But Iran now is being used to marginalize such a movement. Targeting it and making it an enemy, even without attacking it, serves the purpose of empire by undermining support for a peaceful republic program. Americans are easily dissuaded from peace.
America chose Obama over McCain as a move away from empire and toward peace and prosperity. It has made a difference at the margin in winding down two wars. However, Obama's ignorance on economics, his personal biases, and his failure to surround himself with people who had a consistent orientation toward a free and peaceful republic have led to a continuation of the neocon empire vision.
Obama had a chance to move toward a Ron Paul menu of policies and he failed, almost completely. Obama didn't have the maturity, understanding, or vision that was required to inform his character and lead to a strong and consistent set of policy actions that might restore America or shift its path away from where it's headed. He didn't have the belief in free markets and property rights. He didn't have the skills (and apparently no desire) to shift away from his leftist approaches to the economy, but at the same time he was willing to go along with Wall Street. After 4 years, it does not appear to me that Obama has learned a thing.