You know what would be great? It would be really great if people in this country understood what a stupid idea it is to attack Iran. I mean, there are other adjectives I could use to describe such an attack, including immoral, unjustified, criminally insane, etc. But I’d like to emphasize that in addition to all those things, attacking Iran would be very, very stupid, speaking strictly from an American ethnocentric viewpoint.
According to Scott Ritter, there’s an 80% chance of war with Iran. Ritter is hardly the only person who thinks so, but since he’s been right about all sorts of important things and gives us a probability estimate, let’s stick with him.
Scott Ritter, former head of weapons inspection in Iraq who protested there were no weapons of mass destruction to justify an invasion, believes the same is true for Iran. But there is an 80 percent chance of war with Iran, he told about 200 people Wednesday at Middlebury College as part of a series of talks facilitated by the Vermont Peace and Justice Center. The pattern of preparations for such a conflict has been steadily developing and involves Congress as well as the Bush-Cheney administration, he said.
According to William H. White (and also, again, many others), a war with Iran would have many immediate and disastrous consequences, including economic ones.
Presumably, if there are policy level debates within the administration about the wisdom of attacking Iran, the central question before the National Security Council is likely to be whether the attacks on Iran will result in an ongoing war between the US and Iran as well as other likely global consequences, with the Cheney/Israel lobby neo-con faction pressing for an attack and suggesting few consequences, and the Gates/Rice/Paulson realist faction opposing attacks and predicting grave consequences. Because of the ongoing economic crisis, Secretary of Treasury Paulson is expected to play a more prominent role in the deliberations than he might otherwise, lending additional weight to serious consideration of at least some near-term consequences. We assume expected damage to the US and global economies, as well as a de facto world trade embargo against US goods, will likely become increasingly important compared to the concerns advanced by Cheney and the Israel Lobby, such as the dangers Iran presents to the US and Israel from its “support of terrorism” and “nuclear weapons ‘programs and knowledge’”.
OK. So thus far we have an 80% chance of war, and therefore an 80% chance of severe economic consequences. The kind of economic instability (collapsing dollar, gas costs through the roof, food disappearing off of shelves, etc.) we’re talking about could very easily lead to civil unrest. It could get ugly.
If only the death of innocent civilians in Iran or anywhere were enough to rouse us to care, but we’ve become a heartless nation. So that’s why I’m emphasizing that you, Citizen, yes YOU! Personally, will be negatively affected, and very quickly, if Bush decides to attack Iran. At a minimum such an attack would finish off our deathbed economy. Would you be upset if you had no gas to put in your car because it became so scarce and so expensive, and therefore you lost your job because you could no longer get to work, and you had no money to buy food, and anyway the grocery stores were empty because all our food is shipped from far off using trucks (return to gas problems), and your kids were hungry and cold and probably couldn’t even go to school? That could happen. You’d be angry.
Ding!
That’s what martial law is for. I just hope people understand that. Attack on Iran = tremendous economic instability = civil unrest = martial law. Therefore, an attack on Iran can lead quite directly to martial law in the United States. George Bush, that thin-skinned mentally ill person living in the White House, is just the ‘man’ to take advantage of all this swell legislation:
Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), “Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies,” gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.”
The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of “terrorist” organizations, or who speaks out against the government’s policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike. (Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg, “Rule by Fear or Rule by Law?” San Francisco Chronicle, February 4, 2008; Page B-7)
Do I exaggerate? Please click through that last link and read the whole thing. Bush and Cheney, with the help of fellow psychopaths like John Yoo, have been planning this for years. Do you really think they’re going to ride off quietly into the sunset without taking this plan out for a spin? I don’t. Look at the evidence. When have they ever held back, and why should they start now when they’re so close to clinching their ultimate goals of complete, megalomaniacal domination?
I just want people to understand that if these things take place, they can’t be undone easily. This will change our country forever.
Bonus reading: To understand how flimsy the case against Iran really is, read this.
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