Cheney cronies “double down” for more war

Already mired in a failing resource war in Iraq, the same cliques of discredited liars, war criminals and corporate profiteers behind the cynical “Global War on Terror” are now greasing the propaganda organs for an invasion of Iran.

The Pentagon loyalists surrounding Vice President Dick Cheney are calling this their “double down” strategy. The name is quite apt, with top military leaders behaving like reckless, degenerate gamblers who continue to raise the stakes after every losing bet.

The war machine is already in motion. The USS Stennis strike group, with at least 3,200 soldiers and a fleet of minesweepers, submarines and 80 fighter jets is now moving toward the Persian Gulf. It will join four other offensive armadas, the USS Boxer, USS Bataan, USS Eisenhower and Expeditionary Strike Group 2.

On Jan. 12, at least sixteen F-16 fighter jets arrived in Turkey, further exposing a possible attack. Speculation is now rampant in international newspapers that the United States will use nuclear “bunker buster” bombs to strike Iran before May 2007, using Israeli operational and air support.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh recently reported in the New Yorker that Cheney is once again bypassing the CIA and State Department, which have argued that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. Both groups estimated that even at Iran’s current pace, the country is at least nine years away from posesssing a nuclear bomb.

The actual reasons for invading Iran might be its status as the world’s fourth largest producer of crude oil, along with its recent decision to sell its oil in Euros, rather than dollars. The petroleum-rich region of Khuzestan — holding 90 percent of Iran’s oil fields along the Iraqi border — has the oil cartel salivating.

Yet propaganda must triumph over all. The echo chamber of corporate media, chiefly owned by seven transnational conglomerates, will likely follow its marching orders as it did prior to the invasion of Iraq. Claims of an Iranian nuclear bomb will dominate the headlines, once again frightening Americans into supporting the latest oil grab.

If this effort fails, a conveniently timed false-flag terror attack or Gulf of Tonkin style event would be enough to crush any dissent. For example, the now declassified 1962 Joint Chiefs’ document “Operation Northwoods” suggested dressing up American agents as Cubans, then hijacking commercial airliners and crashing them in order to justify a war with Cuba.Today, Iraq is a hopeless hellhole — occupied and tortured by American forces, exploited by Halliburton and oil syndicates, terrorized by death squads and radiated with depleted uranium.

A recent Johns Hopkins estimate, published in the scientific journal The Lancet, claimed over 650,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the “liberation” in 2003. Meanwhile, at least 3,000 American troops are dead while more than 20,000 are seriously injured for this ill-advised cause.

Now is not the time to “double down” with more troops in Iraq and an invasion of Iran. Congress should exercise subpoena power and investigate pre-war intelligence manipulation, including a more thorough examination into who orchestrated the attacks of Sept. 11. Yet Democrats, influenced by the same banking, military, oil and Israeli lobbies that fund both parties, seem unwilling to uncover the crimes of the administration.

Furthermore, the anti-war movement, dominated by insipid sloganeering and impotent protests, appears hesitant to confront the looming bloodbath in Iran. Regardless of politics, all sides should be forewarned: Iran is not a third-rate military power like Iraq. Iran possesses advanced conventional missile systems shipped in by China and Russia, who are backing them economically, militarily and diplomatically. China has over $100 billion in oil and gas deals with Iran, while Russia is assisting their nuclear power program.

If the United States invades, Iran will attempt to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, cutting off 25 percent of the world’s oil supplies and causing a global economic panic. A larger Middle Eastern war could immediately ensue, and Russia and China may find themselves in a reluctant conflict with the United States.

All of this was avoidable. According to Colin Powell, in 2003, Iranian leaders — including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini

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