The terror could be a’comin’… what if it’s by design?
Published by punkass marc January 11th, 2007 in Bush is a cock, Imperialism for DummiesNot that you’d know it from most online US news sources (The Post excluded), but it appears the US engaged in an act of war with Iran:
US forces accompanied by military helicopters on Thursday stormed the Iranian consulate in the Kurdish city of Arbil, arresting five Iranian employees, a Kurdish security source said. In addition to the arrests, US troops confiscated documents and computers, while Kurdish security authorities cordoned off all roads leading to the building.
[...]
The raid came a day after US President George W Bush said the United States would confront Iran and Syria, accusing them of fomenting violence in Iraq by allowing insurgents into the country and supporting attacks on American troops.
Via Shakes, Glenn Greenwald has the best response to those who’d like to downplay this event:
Isn’t it a definitive act of war for one country to storm the consulate of another, threaten to kill them if they do not surrender, and then detain six consulate officers?
Yup. Pretty much.
Everyone I’ve talked to expresses either confused astonishment at the act or chalks it up to Bushco’s idiocy and/or insanity. While I think our warmongers in office are insanely idiotic, I’m starting to believe there’s more to this than their dimwittery. If we’re fanning the flames of war with Iran, I think there’s a purpose to it, and it might be less tinfoil-hatty than you’d think.
The Wealthy Powers That Be like two things: wealth and power. With Bush’s latest speech and the news of the Iranian consulate attack, we appear to be moving closer to a state of perpetual war than farther from it. But there’s a problem with that scenario for our wealth/power addicts: if they keep this up much longer in the current climate, the whole of the Republican party may be tossed from office. After that, it won’t be too long before we shut down the McDonald’s Playland of Oppression and Death they’re building out in the desert. The deep pockets of the military industrial complex won’t like that too much, will they?
They won’t exit Iraq right now because they stand to lose too much money and look far too foolish. They aren’t just maintaining in Iraq because our citizens hate that idea and have demonstrated that hate with their votes — and will continue to do so in 2008.
Instead, our dear leaders are escalating our troop commitment in Iraq and spitting in the eye of Iran while letting Syria know they’re next. Now even more deeply committed in Iraq, we’re intentionally provoking other countries while we know and they know we’re stretched too thin to engage them.
Why?
Well, when did the Republicans enjoy their greatest popularity? When was this country hungry for war?
Right after 9/11.
I joked about it at the time, but Pat Robertson mysteriously predicted a 2007 terror attack. Could it be that he knows something about this new strategy that we don’t? Isn’t it _possible_ that this administration is doing everything it can to make sure we get “hit at home” again?
If we don’t get attacked again, national sentiment towards Republicans will only worsen. The current Wealthy Powers That Be will almost surely be forced out the door in 2008, right along with the gravy train they’ve made for themselves. Their current actions seem to threaten their own interests… unless they believe they’re making it more likely we get hit by another terrorist attack, at which point we go back to the good old days of nationalism and bloodthirst.
Maybe you think it’s preposterous that George Bush and friends would try to enable a terrorist attack at home. I don’t. It looks to me like the only way they can salvage the situation and their legacy.
Maybe they want to catch the attack early, before it happens, just to scare us. Maybe they tell themselves that even if they don’t stop an attack, Americans will be better served by recomitting themselves to Muslim extermination after suffering a few more minor casualties. The Wealthy Powers That Be certainly aren’t going to actually _commit_ the act of terrorism themselves. Any or all of those delusions might make it easy for them to sleep at night.
But Republicans and warmongers want that sleep to come on top of a pile of money and in the White House. I can think of only one kind of event that might make that happen, which makes me want to puke.
14 Responses to “The terror could be a’comin’… what if it’s by design?”
- 1 Pingback on Jan 13th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Bush is a traitor. He should be impeached and tried for treachery.
Marc, I hope like hell you’re wrong…
But I am deeply afraid you’re right…
(BTW, since Wealth and Power are convertible into each other, I wonder what the actual equation is… aW=bP where a=? and b=?
The old saying was “It’s always darkest before the dawn”
The new saying is “In Bushland, it’s always darkest…”
Aren’t consulates techincally classed as “foreign soil”, so in a sense, hasn’t bush already invaded iran (if you take it to a slightly literal level)?
Why are they starting shit with syria though? We’ve been exporting our torturing to them like every other major player in the region… Of course teh appearance of striving against american imperialism as a political tool is pretty much the main thing keeping the major american backed islamist governments in power so I guess the point is to just posture and let our allies in syria reap the rewards.
However Iran is a doubly juicey target because Al Qaeda has lost most of it’s entirely superficial Villainous Cat Stroker™ figureheads who the US kinda needs to sell eternal war to the public - it’s an iconographic thing, and whatshisface, the iranian president, would make a good icon, even if he does make me think of a geography teacher for some reason.
Why LIHOP when you can MIHOP?
I used to assume there was a limit to what Bush & Co. would do to salvage their self-esteem and hang on to power. I no longer make that assumption.
After these past elections, even with the fresh pine scent of hope and change in the air with the new Democratic majority, I had misgivings about what good it would do. I think I actually said to my partner, “Donning my tinfoil hat for a moment, these elections went surprisingly smoothly and we ended up a Democratic majority. Our fears of election fixing were mostly wrong. But what if they weren’t? What if the Democrats were allowed back into power, just so BushCo could set-up another terrorist attack on our nation, so that it could be “proven” once again that the Democrats are weak on terror and the Repugs would scream back into a majority. But, that’s crazy talk, right?”
Now, I’m wondering if my tinfoil-hat-thinking was, even its admittedly overly paranoic ramblings, somewhat close to the truth. I know I wouldn’t be surprised, in the least, for the fuckers in charge to allow a terrorist attack on the USA in order to reaffirm and settle their hold on power. This attacking the consulate stuff is … insane. Absolutely, positively without any kind of legal or moral rationale. And it can only lead to more death and destruction.
Ye gods, it’s enough to make me want to scream.
While the creeps infesting the Oval Office right now might just be praying harder than Reverend Pat for a domestic terror incident, I don’t think the storming of the Iranian embassy is meant to provoke a terror attack. Clearly it’s meant to provoke the Iranian government.
The neocons’ve been itching for Iran since the beginning, and Bush has blind faith that by ever more desperately going double down with all of America’s chips, he’ll eventually hit the jackpot. He knows he will. After all, he’s due. This losing streak can’t go on forever, can it? It’s gambling addiction, plain and simple. Or, perhaps better put, war addiction of the sickest kind: in which the perpetrators get off on the rush and don’t have to pay the price.
This time they’re not going to go through Congress to get permission for their illegal war. No, personally speaking, when I put on *my* tinfoil hat, I’m with Arthur Silberman ( http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/10/final-act.html ): the neocons have already decided to attack Iran, and they will do it by hook or by crook while they still retain power of the executive branch.
It doesn’t matter that the Democrats control the Congress. They won’t go through Congress this time.
You know the rest: endless war, America descends into blatant tyranny…
Not to get too Riddley Walker or anything, but between this, global warming and the impending energy crisis, I’m seriously thinking of enlisting myself in a crash course post-civilization survival skills.
Well, it could also have been stage managed by Syria to put the US in a bad spot — use the consulate to funnel all kinds of mischief so that we’re damned either way whether or not we attack it. But I have not got enough info to know, so really I don’t know any more than the rest of us do.
But for your overall article here, there’s one aspect of the analysis that might prove you wrong (I hope)…consider that your analysis takes as an assumption the goal here is political power. As in hanging on to political power.
See, I don’t think that is this administration’s goal (partly why, I think, we are seeign more republican politicians not in the administration itself starting to break away). If they were really interested in hanging on to power, Cheney would never have been VP for the second term. The designated political successor would have been the VP. That Bush did NOT choose someone to succeed him tells me that they don’t care about hanging on to the political power base.
Therefore, the political power they have/had was a means to an end in of itself. What end? I think it’s clear enough — this admin has been about lining pockets with as much money as possible, using the neocon’s gibbering nonsense to propel us into war whereby contracts, worth $$ and lasting for years regardless of who is in power in Washington, seems to have bee much more the focus.
Just a thought.
SecDef Rumsfeld on the Middle East just after 9/11: “Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” http://www.outragedmoderates.org/2006/02/dod-staffers-notes-from-911-obtained.html …This has been the guiding philosophy that made this “war on terr-er” make a detour into Iraq, now they wanna expand into Iran and Syria. Now this raid on the Iranian consulateHere we go. This is happening, folks. BushCo is setting up the Iranins to attack the US, so as to justify missile strikes on their nuke sites. Freakin’ scary. And all of this for profit of a few and sacrifice of the many.
My first instinct is usually to poo-poo these kinds of conspiracy theories; I think they often overestimate the potency of government and the intelligence and cruelty of people in power. Real life isn’t like The Prisoner, after all.
I was all set to say something like that, but then I realised that I absolutely agree with you.
Really, I can’t think of any other way to read this then as a poke in the eye directed at Iran.
There’s no way even George W. Bush is dumb or ignorant enough not to realise the ramifications of attacking a consulate.
It is possible, though, that he (And the rest of the goons running things) is dumb enough to think that Iran will pretty much roll over, and if he keeps fucking with them in little increments, that they’ll go completely where he wants them to without actually putting up a fight.
And if they do, hey, that’s their fault for being evil, not his.
Honestly, I think that that’s the most likely interpretation; He had to know that it could be considered an unprovoked act of war, and he had to have been at least semi-concious of possible Iranian responses.
It’s possible there was a really bang-up, airtight reason to attack the embassy, but given his administrations past record in regard to… everything, really, that’s an exceedingly small possibility.
And even if true, his thinking is still probably along the lines outlined above; the only difference is how flimsy his rationale is and what the underlying motives are.
I have to say I think you’re theory is pretty far stretched for one reason only. I don’t doubt that BushCo would do anything and everything to hold on to power, and that they would be so reckless, etc. etc. However, I think the electoral calculus is a bit off.
Obviously 9/11 did great things for Bush - he was well on his way to becoming a national joke on September 10th and it pretty much saved his presidency. But the situation these days is considerably different. The American people have grisly evidence of his gross incompetence - Katrina, Iraq - and I think a terrorist atrocity on US soil would be viewed as emblematic of his government’s - and his party’s - failure rather than a reason to unite behind the commander-in-chief. That said, I’m not an American and you guys frequently surprise me…
Nick,
We agree on your central point: I believe that, instead of gearing up for more war, the American public would be terrified and furious if another terrorist attack occurred on American soil. I think it would fuel the “let’s get the hell out of there” mentality as much or more than any bloodlust.
But this is where I think the wingnuts running the show have blinders on. To them, if it worked once, it could work again. And I sincerely believe many of them hope it does.
I realize this may be a completely crazy suggestion, but that doesn’t necessarily invalidate it — not with these hooligans pulling the strings.
I tend to agree with Anon on this. I have read quite alot (albeit a while ago) written by many that pointed up the history of the neocons regarding their intention to ‘take the middle east’. The imperialist ambitions of Bush’s first advisors (wolfowitz) and the wingnut parade of the likes of that guy Pearl and others has left its impression. That they have skirted out the door when things got messy in Iraq does not mean that others in the administration didn’t share their greedy, loony ambitions.
Also, like Anon says, one cannot ignore that regardless of the political weather in Washington or the US, there are those who stand to make millions and have made millions from this preemptive aggression policy. In fact, I’d say that the entire preemptive strike language, the Patriot Act, shuttling of the Geneva Conventions have all been in preparation of the Grand Scheme which is to over run the oil dominions of the Middle East — and to be enabled to do so without public consent or dissent.
It is very difficult to not waiver into the world of conspiracy theories when history tells that most tyrants run by conspiracy of one kind or another. They call it strategy.
I’d also like to add that the class divisions in the country are so absolutely stark that the upper classes regard the masses as nothing more than fodder for their own gain. Conveniently removed from the daily grind of the average citizen, they can easily ignore the price others pay for their gain. In addition, class separation and economic priviledge tend to lend to most of the upper echelons and highly connected, the misquided notion that their actions are guided by an almost divine, god given intelligence that us lowers haven’t the ability to grasp. Therefore, regardless of the churnings among the masses, they press on, convinced that they alone, know what’s best.
Bush has indeed encapsulated within his two terms the closest I think this country has ever seen to an Imperial Presidency, not only evident by what he and his administration chooses to do, but how they do it, when and why. The intentional dysfunctional public education system in America has led to a population of nodding donkeys, most of whom don’t have the slightest notion of how this government is supposed to work, how tenuous their ‘freedoms’ really are, or how to make critical assessments of the most rudimentary civic activities, including their own. Now we all shall pay the piper.
And like Anon, I think often these days about the impending disaster of our country without basic infrastructure such as gas and electricity, where currency has no value and refugees clamour and fight for every morsel of survival possible. It would be a certain nightmare that too few people even bother to consider possible.