RUMORS FLY ABOUT AN IMPENDING ATTACK

RUMORS FLY ABOUT AN IMPENDING ATTACK An opinion from the Executive Editor of Rumor Mill News http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=121779 Five years into the ill-starred military incursion into Iraq there are now rumors floating that a plan is in the works to attack Iraq's neighbor -- Iran -- which is also largely Shi'ite. These rumors seem to pinpoint Vice-President Dick Cheney as being "the mastermind" behind such a plan, which is really more of a scheme than a plan, and the persistence of these rumors tend to confirm the opinions of those who think Cheney has been the actual "commander" of the undeclared Iraq war since 2003. The mentality which considers that such an attack might have any legitimacy at all, is a mentality which clearly has made haste directly into the center of a most complete madness. Iran today is not a confused, divided, and two-thirds wrecked shell of a country, as was Iraq in the spring of 2003. It is, however, an overwhelmingly Shi'ite and Persian country, with a small population of Arab Shi'ite Muslims on its coast and some Sunni Muslim Kurds living in the mountainous north ( bordering Kurdistan proper in Iraq ). All of the other religious minority groups who once lived peacefully in Iran have been expelled or marginalized by the revolutionary government there. Having said that, it is also true that Iran's people are more cosmopolitan than "the Iraqi people" were in 2003: clan and tribal loyalties persist in Iraq but are less in evidence just across that long border with Iran. The Persian speaking people there are intensely proud of their culture and their society, and yet they have often demonstrated their desire for a more active engagement in worldly affairs, even as war has sputtered and raged just over the mountains in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. True, Shi'ite Iran is much-despised by the oil soaked aristocracy of Sunni Saudi Arabia, and the favor is returned in spades, as Shi'ites are a minority within Islam, globally, itself. But an attack on Iran would probably do all that is needed to unite one billion Muslims against any country or group of countries foolish enough to pull the trigger. With something like 140,000 troops and service personnel inside of Iraq, and thousands more contractors and laborers there, the risk of having such a huge army and its support staff become totally isolated has to be enormous. Truly enormous. Only the most self-absorbed and deranged people in the top echelons of our States united could even consider such a thing. Are there absolutely no men or women of courage and vision left in Washington, D.C., these days ? Are there no conservative Republicans left alive there ?? Are there no ambitious anti-war Democrats left alive there ?? Have they all gone fishing ?? Any attack on Shi'ite Iran would be judged as being an attack on all of the Shia faithful anywhere in the world, which does include a substantial minority in the Detroit area in this country, and the dominant Muslim population of Iraq itself. There can be little doubt that such an adventure would create a rolling disaster for the United States, in the military posture in the Middle East, in Iraq, in much of the world beyond the borders of those two countries. It would push a troubled Muslim Turkey out of kilter and that would make it nearly impossible to operate an air bridge from Europe into Iraq via Turkish bases ( Incirlik, for example ). Already restive Muslim populations in France and Great Britain would be pushed into a radicalism that their most thoughtful leaders have long sought to avoid. In the last two years we have seen, quite dramatically, how a small segment of French society can create enormous problems -- and the majority of African immigrants in France have some affinity with Islam. An attack on Iran would permanently alienate Indonesia. The Japanese, with no oil and no natural gas resources of their own, would easily find it more sensible than not to immediately react very badly against such an attack. If such an idiotic move were conducted with nuclear weapons, the Japanese people at large might easily turn violently anti-American. They don't really like us very much anyway, despite the benefits of an enormous flow of manufactured goods across the Pacific. Worse yet, while our people here have been sleepwalking through the past five years, trying not to seem disloyal in the wake of the September 11th attacks staged by Muslim Arabs, when and if they do finally awake -- our people will discover that their homegrown National Guard units have been worn down by the Iraq adventure and are short of equipment. They will wake up to see that entirely too many Guard units and reserve personnel are still operating inside of Iraq itself !! There are enough Guards and reservists left to fight flooding or to respond to tornadoes and so on, but could they stand and fight against a coordinated invasion from outside of the U.S. itself ? One wonders and doubts that they could do so, at least not now. Staggering along under the enormous load of debt which the five years of an undeclared war has piled on to our country, it can be figured that a 'trade war' might slam our "global" economy straight into a severe depression ... and almost immediately. Realistic ? Definitely. Not long ago I was visiting a local Ford dealership while having some automobile maintenance done, and I noted that several of the 2008 models on display had as listings for source parts, both France and Japan, in regard to engines and transmissions. Can the automakers survive a cut off of parts and assemblies from other countries, especially since their own abilities to make things have been "outsourced" ?? And then there is the issue of the huge amounts of food which are now imported into the United States: disruptions by riots abroad, or by strikes, or by government-led boycotts could decimate the "just in time"delivery systems which service ALL of our major supermarkets and tin-roof discount chains. Then again, perhaps the Cheney neo-conservative cabal has made these calculations and has decided in favor of their allegiance to the Trotskyite political class which has long supported them. They are, in essence, delusional to the point of an absolute madness, a derangement so complete as to beggar the imagination of even the most rabid conspiracy freaks. They are, then, the Trojans inside the biggest Trojan Horse ever assembled A neo-con plan, led by the Vice-President in charge of evil, a fellow who apparently controls the First Idiot in the White House, could very well have a maximum amount of success in the early phases of such a bloody, dastardly plan. However, to attack Iran with atomic weapons will trigger so many unexpected consequences as to make even a savant turn speechless. One thing leads to another, of course. What happens after that attack is anyone's guess, and yet it is for certain that Phase Two of such a plan would be dictatorship. Whether that sorry development would last more than a day or a week, or a month, is anyone's guess. One thing is for sure, if Dick "the fat Demon" Cheney really is in charge of this insane proposition, it is going to be a long and a very hungry summer in these States united. Respectfully submitted -- Richard C. Green Executive Editor The opinions expressed here are solely those of the Executive Editor and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher or the news agents of this News Agency.