Who's planning our next war? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Who's planning our next war?

Pat Buchanan: Israel-encouraged Bush attack on Iran would be 'criminally irresponsible'

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Posted: June 27, 2008
1:00 am Eastern



By Patrick J. Buchanan



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Of the Axis-of-Evil nations named in his State of the Union in 2002, President Bush has often said, "The United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

He failed with North Korea. Will he accept failure in Iran, though there is no hard evidence Iran has an active nuclear weapons program?

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard said Sunday a U.S. attack on Iran after the election is more likely should Barack Obama win. Presumably, Bush would trust John McCain to keep Iran nuclear free.

Yet, to start a third war in the Middle East against a nation three times as large as Iraq, and leave it to a new president to fight, would be a daylight hijacking of the congressional war power and a criminally irresponsible act. For Congress alone has the power to authorize war.

Yet Israel is even today pushing Bush into a pre-emptive war with a naked threat to attack Iran itself should Bush refuse the cup.

In April, Israel held a five-day civil defense drill. In June, Israel sent 100 F-15s and F-16s, with refueling tankers and helicopters to pick up downed pilots, toward Greece in a simulated attack, a dress rehearsal for war. The planes flew 1,400 kilometers, the distance to Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

Ehud Olmert came home from a June meeting with Bush to tell Israelis: "We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. ... I left with a lot less question marks regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American resoluteness. ...

"George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term. ... The Iranian problem requires urgent attention, and I see no reason to delay this just because there will be a new president in the White House seven and a half months from now."

If Bush is discussing war on Iran with Ehud Olmert, why is he not discussing it with Congress or the nation?

On June 6, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened, "If Iran continues its nuclear weapons program, we will attack it." The price of oil shot up 9 percent.

Is Israel bluffing – or planning to attack Iran if America balks?

Previous air strikes on the PLO command in Tunis, on the Osirak reactor in Iraq and on the presumed nuclear reactor site in Syria last September give Israel a high degree of credibility.

Still, attacking Iran would be no piece of cake.

Israel lacks the stealth and cruise-missile capacity to degrade Iran's air defenses systematically and no longer has the element of surprise. Israeli planes and pilots would likely be lost.

Israel also lacks the ability to stay over the target or conduct follow-up strikes. The U.S. Air Force bombed Iraq for five weeks with hundreds of daily runs in 1991 before Gen. Schwarzkopf moved.

Moreover, if Iran has achieved the capacity to enrich uranium, she has surely moved centrifuges to parts of the country that Israel cannot reach – and can probably replicate anything lost.

Israel would also have to over-fly Turkey, or Syria and U.S.-occupied Iraq, or Saudi Arabia to reach Natanz. Turks, Syrians and Saudis would deny Israel permission and might resist. For the U.S. military to let Israel over-fly Iraq would make us an accomplice. How would that sit with the Europeans who are supporting our sanctions on Iran and want the nuclear issue settled diplomatically?

And who can predict with certitude how Iran would respond?

Would Iran attack Israel with rockets, inviting retaliation with Jericho and cruise missiles from Israeli submarines? Would she close the Gulf with suicide-boat attacks on tankers and U.S. warships?

With oil at $135 a barrel, Israeli air strikes on Iran would seem to ensure a 2,000-point drop in the Dow and a world recession.

What would Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria do? All three are now in indirect negotiations with Israel. U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq could be made by Iran to pay a high price in blood that could force the United States to initiate its own air war in retaliation, and to finish a war Israel had begun. But a U.S. war on Iran is not a decision Bush can outsource to Ehud Olmert.

Tuesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullins left for Israel. CBS News cited U.S. officials as conceding the trip comes "just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran's nuclear complex."

Vice President Cheney is said to favor U.S. strikes. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Mullins are said to be opposed.

Moving through Congress, powered by the Israeli lobby, is House Resolution 362, which demands that President Bush impose a U.S. blockade of Iran, an act of war.

Is it not time the American people were consulted on the next war that is being planned for us?

Navy attorney in USS Liberty investigation dies

We just lost one of the good guys :(


By CHELSEA J. CARTER, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 18, 4:15 PM ET



SAN DIEGO - Ward Boston, a former Navy attorney who helped investigate the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 crewmen and years later said President Lyndon Johnson ordered that the assault be ruled an accident, has died. He was 84.

Boston, a retired Navy captain from Coronado, Calif., died June 12 of complications from pneumonia at a San Diego-area hospital, his wife, Emma Boston, said Wednesday.

Boston was assigned as a legal adviser to a military board of inquiry investigating the attack on the Liberty, an electronic-intelligence-gathering ship that was cruising international waters off the Egyptian coast on June 8, 1967. Israeli planes and torpedo boats opened fire on the Liberty in the midst of the Israeli-Arab Six-Day War.

In addition to the 34 Americans killed, more than 170 were wounded.

Israel has long maintained that the attack was a case of mistaken identity, an explanation that the Johnson administration did not formally challenge. Israel claimed its forces thought the ship was an Egyptian vessel and apologized to the United States.

After the attack, a Navy court of inquiry concluded there was insufficient information to make a judgment about why Israel attacked the ship, stopping short of assigning blame or determining that it was an accident.

In 2002, Boston said Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, told those heading the Navy's inquiry to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary," according to a signed affidavit.

Boston said he kept his silence because he was a military man, and "when orders come ... I follow them." He said he felt compelled to go public following the publication of the book "The Liberty Incident," which concluded the attack was unintentional.

Boston said in a legal declaration that he was certain the Israel pilots knew the Liberty, which clearly displayed American flags and had markings in English instead of Arabic, was a U.S. Navy ship.

Ret. Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who investigated the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials, wrote in 1997 that he believed Israel intentionally attacked the Liberty to conceal that it was preparing to seize the Golan Heights from Syria.

A. Jay Cristol, a U.S. bankruptcy court judge who wrote "The Liberty Incident," said in the book that 10 U.S. and three Israeli investigations have found no evidence of any Israeli intent to attack an American ship.

Boston is survived by his wife and three children.

Israel spying on the United States of America - new article by Philip Giraldi now LIVE on website

June 9, 2008 Article is now live on The American Conservative website.

Click here to read it.

Many thanks to TAC for putting it up on the website, and especially to Philip Giraldi for writing it.

Excellent piece.

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It has not been made available online yet, but the latest (June 2) issue of The American Conservative has on its cover the title of a story - "The Spy Who Loves Us" by former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Giraldi.

Be on the lookout for it folks, it is a doozy. It mentions the art students, neocons, the Israelis caught celebrating at Liberty Park on 9/11, Dominik Suter, industrial espionage, and much more.

Make some noise about it, and most importantly SUBSCRIBE TO THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE. It is imperative that we all support voices like Philip Giraldi, Pat Buchanan, and many more.

Almost all of Giraldi's columns deal with Israel, its lobby (including the neocons) or some combination thereof. That's why it is very important that we all show our support to keep these voices heard.

Israel spying on the United States of America - new article by Philip Giraldi

It has not been made available online yet, but the latest (June 2) issue of The American Conservative has on its cover the title of a story - "The Spy Who Loves Us" by former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Giraldi.

Be on the lookout for it folks, it is a doozy. It mentions the art students, neocons, the Israelis caught celebrating at Liberty Park on 9/11, Dominik Suter, industrial espionage, and much more.

Make some noise about it, and most importantly SUBSCRIBE TO THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE. It is imperative that we all support voices like Philip Giraldi, Pat Buchanan, and many more.

Almost all of Giraldi's columns deal with Israel, its lobby (including the neocons) or some combination thereof. That's why it is very important that we all show our support to keep these voices heard.