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Disaster on a Grand Scale

Comment by Larry Ross, December 23, 2006

Tariq Ali's brilliant article below, deals with the present unfolding disaster.

But not with what might soon follow.

A 'surge' of more US troops and increased US bombing of civilians will produce more desperate resistance and lead to more Iraqi and US casualties in Iraq. It is likely to be accompanied by more domestic US protest, and more US military testimony against the war, including more military resignations.

As the situation worsens in his wars , Bush may feel the time is right to start another war - his much heralded war with Iran .

With his wall-to-wall war propaganda about a so-called threat from Iran, widely trumpeted by his ever loyal mass media and many foreign news media echoing the new batch of lies, the Bush neocon regime constantly makes their own version of reality. The Bush regime and Israel want a war with Iran and are building toward that goal.

But they may need to stage a convincing 'terrorist attack' and blame it on Iran, in order to provide themselves with the triggering event they need to justify a huge war. Its called a 'False Flag' operation. The US has used this tactic before in Vietnam to justify escalation of that war in 1965, and the Pentagon planned a "False Flag' called "Operation Northwoods" in 1962  to blame Cuba, but President Kennedy vetoed it.

If successful, this could transform the situation in the US from a cosmetic 'democracy' to an outright form of fascism in one easy step. Liberals, critics and conservatives alike will rush to the Bush pro-war bandwagon and approve whatever he wants - as they did after the 9/11 attack in 2001. Few will dare suggest that the neocons staged the "False Flag' event to gain popular approval for a new much larger war. If a few courageous souls suggest that Bush staged a 'False Flag', no media would dare run the story. It would be drowned in the sea of pro-war propaganda and commentary.

The Bush regime is getting desperate, Pentagon support for the war is dwindling, Bush's popularity is dipping below 30%. He obviously needs some transforming event to swing  public approval his way. 9/11 performed that role on Sept 11, 2001.

He is likely to stage some kind of 'False Flag' event.

To prevent such a strategy from being used, or if used, from accomplishing its goals, a very large public education campaign is needed. Only if Americans become knowledgeable about "False Flag' operations; how the US and other nations have used them in the past, and why they might use such tactics again, is it possible that Americans won't be fooled, and will take preventative steps.

But it is information that must be widely disseminated and become a talking point of the crimes that Bush and his neocons might be expected to try and do.

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The War is Already Lost

Once a war goes badly wrong and its justifications are shown to be lies, to insist that a "democratic" Iraq is visible on the horizon and that "we must stay the course" becomes a total fantasy. What is to be done?

In the US a group of Foggy Bottom elders was wheeled in to prepare a report. This admitted what the whole world (Downing Street excepted) already knew: the occupation is a disaster and the situation gets more hellish every day. After US citizens voted accordingly in the mid-term elections, the White House sacrificed the Pentagon warlord, Donald Rumsfeld.

The warlord of Downing Street, however, is still at large, zombie-like in his denials that anything serious is wrong in Baghdad or Kabul. Everything, for him, can still be remedied by a dose of humanitarian medicine (a poison so powerful and audacious that no resistance is possible). His desperate attempts to play the statesman have made him a laughing stock in friendly Arab capitals and Baghdad's Green Zone. Iraq is the umbilical cord that ties him to his fate.

Meanwhile the old men in Washington recognise the scale of the disaster. Their descriptions are strong, their prescriptions weak and pathetic: "We agree with the goal of US policy in Iraq, as stated by the president: an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself." Elsewhere they recommend a deal with Tehran and Damascus to preserve post-withdrawal stability, implying that Baghdad can never be independent again. It was left to a military realist, Lieutenant-General William Odom, to demand a complete withdrawal in the next few months, a view backed by Iraqis (Shia and Sunni) in successive polls. The occupation, Kofi Annan informs us, has created a much worse situation than under Saddam.

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