The Drumbeats For War Grow Louder
August 9, 2010 by Bob Livingston
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Can you hear it?
It’s the drumbeat for war. And it’s beating louder by the day.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Eleven United States and one Israeli warships pass through the Suez Canal.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Former CIA Chief Michael Hayden says a United States military strike against Iran “seems inexorable” because diplomacy is failing.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen says the U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives last week introduced Resolution 1553 which would give Israel the go-ahead to attack Iran. The resolution grants support for Israel to “…confront nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force…”
The neocons have never seen a war they couldn’t support, no matter the President’s party affiliation.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The end is near—so President Barack Obama tells us—for former President George Bush’s incursion into Iraq. He said last week that America’s combat mission in Iraq will end by Aug. 31. But that doesn’t mean all troops will come home. There will still be 50,000 there as August turns into September. And it’s going to be 18 more months before they all come home… if he sticks to his timeline.
We can only hope 50,000 troops are enough to prevent that governmentless nation from descending further into chaos.
For those troops that do come home, it appears they will only be home long enough to change their underwear and restock their ammunition belts before heading off to another Mideast hellhole to die… for what?
To blow up suspected nuclear sites, even though a 2007 U.S National Intelligence Estimate said that Iran had halted work on developing a nuclear warhead in 2003. Meanwhile, an unclassified military report submitted to Congress in April concluded, “Iran is developing technological capabilities applicable to nuclear weapons and, at a minimum, is keeping the option to develop nuclear weapons,” as The Washington Post reported.
A May report by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran hasn’t sufficiently cooperated to allow the agency to determine if Iraq’s nuclear activities are solely for peaceful activities.
Conflicting stories of weapons of mass destruction: Haven’t we heard this before… during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq?
If HR 1553 were to pass and Israel does strike at Iran’s nuclear reactors and nuclear sites, what then? If Iran strikes back—which President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad has said they would—and is joined by Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah, would the U.S. then be obligated to intervene?
It would seem so. And what would be the result of such a conflagration?
Obama has pledged America’s undying support of Israel no matter what… even if he did treat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu badly during his visit to the White House earlier this year. And Israel maintains it is convinced that Iran is working to acquire nuclear weapons.
Much of the international community also seems convinced Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. The feckless U.N. Security Council has been trying to agree on sanctions against Iran for some time. China and Russia continue to hold out.
But aren’t Americans growing sick of war? Apparently the political class isn’t.
Nine years later we remain in Afghanistan, NATO allies are abandoning us and more and more of our troops are dying. Obama, with no clear-cut strategy to fight what he considers the good war, vows to continue fighting on, and any timelines he may mention mean little.
Seven years later we are still in Iraq, and at least a few thousand troops will remain there for the foreseeable future. Nineteen years later we’re still in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, even though the first Persian Gulf War supposedly ended with a good outcome.
Sixty-four years later we still have troops stationed throughout Eastern Europe and in Japan. Fifty-seven years later we still have troops stationed in South Korea. That war has not ended—no official peace treaty ever signed—and there have even been some drumbeats sounding from there. Just not as loud… yet.
But the recent U.S.-South Korea joint air and sea military exercises in the Sea of Japan intended to send a message to a recalcitrant North Korea—who has been accused of torpedoing a South Korean ship—antagonized China. And who can blame them?
What would we think if China or Russia conducted military exercises in the Gulf of Mexico or off the coast of New York or San Francisco? Either Obama and the Pentagon were naive to the implications of conducting war games in the area, or they conducted them intending to raise tensions in the area.
Boom. Boom.
According to the think tank Foreign Policy In Focus, there were 865 Pentagon-confirmed U.S. troop base sites located off U.S. soil in 2009. But this number doesn’t include all of the bases being used in Iraq and Afghanistan—as many as 150 more.
There are 268 bases in Germany, 124 in Japan and 87 in Korea. Others are scattered around the globe in Aruba, Australia, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Colombia, Greece, Djibouti, Egypt, Qatar, Romania, Singapore and Cuba, to name just a few.
The bases are draining our economy of billions of dollars a year. Isn’t it time we ended Empire America? Isn’t it time we brought our troops home?
There would still be work for them to do. Our border with Mexico is under assault.
But the military-industrial complex might not be as happy about that. Stopping Mexican paramilitary units and drug cartel thugs isn’t as lucrative as dropping bunker busters on Iran and North Korea… and maybe China.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
You can opt-out at any time. We protect your information like a mother hen. We will not sell or rent your email address to anyone for any reason.
