Many critics have argued that there is a concerted effort to push the United States into a war with Iran by supporters of Israel. Patrick Clawson, director of research for the highly influential pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) think tank, seemed intent to prove those rumors true this week in comments as a luncheon on “How to Build US-Israeli Coordination on Preventing an Iranian Nuclear Breakout.” Clawson casually discusses how to create a false flag operation to push the U.S. into war to overcome any reluctance by the public. We have been discussing how many leaders like Senator Joe Lieberman had begun to use the same rhetoric that led to the last two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how the suggest timing of an attack has been tied to the presidential election.
In his remarks, Clawson helpfully lists a series of historical events used to push the country into war like the Gulf of Tonkin incident that gave us the Vietnam War. Clawson expressed his frustration in acknowledging that it is “[v]ery hard for me to see how the United States President can get us to war with Iran.” However, there is hope. Clawson explains that the “traditional way” to get the country into a war is through false flags or manufactured incidents where Americans are killed. Thus, he observes, “we are in the game of using covert means against the Iranians, we could get nastier about it. So, if in fact the Iranians aren’t going to compromise, it would be best if somebody else started the war.”
The fact that one of the leading analysis for the WINEP would feel comfortable in making such comments is itself quite chilling. It indicates that such discussions have become sufficiently regular that it has creeped into public discussion. It is a measure of the secret pressure building to push this country into a third major war despite our crippling economic conditions and losses in military personnel. The assumption in Washington is that neither Romney nor Obama could oppose such a war. Even if Obama does not publicly support Israel, the assumption is that political allies of Israel in Washington can guarantee that we would offer extensive military loans and intelligence. Even if there is a delay in such military loans and support, the assumption is that Israel can go to war with the understanding that the United States will cover a significant portion of the costs. Moreover, in his remarkably candid remarks, Clawson shows how the U.S. can easily be forced into direct combat by pushing Iran to simply kill some Americans or sink a few of our ships. Then members would be clamoring for revenge. Notably, the Israelis have been ratcheting up the war rhetoric in pushing Iran, which predictably has now reserved the right to engage in a preemptive strike not just against Israeli but U.S. interests. We would then, again, find ourselves in a war without any public debate or collective decision.
While Clawson adds a passing caveat that he is not advocating such an approach, his remarks are clearly designed to show how the group can get the United States into a war for Israel if only we can get Iran to kill some of our citizens or soldiers. Those people are of course expendable props in Clawson’s realpolitik.
By the way, Clawson has been enlisted to give his insightful analysis at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He is also a member of the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies. The World Bank connection is particularly interesting given the history with Paul Wolfowitz who pushed the U.S. into two disastrous wars in the Bush Administration and was rewarded with being made the head of the World Bank.
It is the callous disconnect that is most chilling in these remarks. Thousands of U.S. soldiers have died or have been crippled for life in these wars that have left the country near bankruptcy (and increasingly hostile “allies” in Afghanistan and Iraq). Those casualties and costs, however, appear immaterial in the discussion of supporting Israel in a war against Iran.
It’s now out ! Iran announces its lounging of a video, showing its new Drone, which has a reach of 2000 km !
Isn’t THAT a great reason for starting the war Lieberman, Netanyahu and all the rest of the war mongers ?
raff,
As any student of history knows, if you want to make a big messian, just add Hessians.
Ellsberg is a realist. He was voluntarily in the paddies with our troops in Vietnam. He had access to all that his boss had in his secret file cabinet. He KNOWS what happened.
===============
Mr. Ellsberg,
Given the tide of outrageous acts by the U.S. government, do you think change is even possible through existing public institutions?
——————————–
(He’s laughing at that-)
I’m going to act for the rest of my life as if as it’s possible. Since it’s so necessary. When you say “through public institutions,” obviously it will take enormous pressure by citizens on those institutions to change the way they operate. Every non-violent tactic that was used to put a lid on the Vietnam war and eventually shorten it is needed now, and that certainly includes massive civil disobedience, but it also includes the full range of public education, including organizing, lobbying, even letter-writing to congress and even (though many dispair of this), electoral activity and voting. The notion that it makes no difference who is in office is, in my opinion, mistaken. There’s no question that that the two parties are both corrupt and imperialist. But, one is even worse than the other.
Virtually every public institution has failed us gravely. Not only the executive, but the courts, congress, most of the media and most of the churches. Radical reform is needed, even to the point of non-violent revolution. There was most recently – I mean, eleven years ago – what amounted to an executive coup against the constitution and this has had the complicity of both parties in congress and the media. The prospects of climate change and the continued of nuclear war actually bode ill for the survival of the human species, but as I said, I am going to act, and I hope that others will act, as if there is a possibility of averting our extinction.”
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10kggc/we_are_chris_hedges_daniel_ellsberg_other/
Gotta run. Typos uncorrected.
I’ll do what I can, and I hope I can get your help to complete the historical part.
Ellsberg uses Hitlet, and the catastrophical series of LAWFUL events which allowed a minority leader tto take away the power of the people to effect their fates and their government.
First I will go back in time and then forward.
Where in the 20th century (1900-1999) did we first see a big example of Hitler’s deeds. In October 1917, when the MINORITY Bolshevik party took over from the Menshevik. No details, we know where it lead. If you don’t there are many good books to read.
So let’s go nearer our time, in ca 1962, the Bay of Pigs operation was planned and put through by the CIA using as footsoldiers Cuban rebel refugees from Fidel Castro.
OK. Fine. It was DESIGNED to fail. (Some say so) Why, because the CIA and the Pentagon were prepared and askef Presient Kennedy to launch the next step to SAVE the loss of face, etc reasons. What was that stage?
First, the immdiate use of American military aircraft to protect and defenc the Cuban rebels in their invasion on Cuban territory. Desired results? Guaranteed abandonment of one or more aircraft under air rescue conditions, maybe even one “pilot” who was prepared to be captured and become Castro’s prisoner. Similar naval ops and special ops were with good certainty also planned.
What did we have here? A false flag operation. To provoke a war with Cuba. What could that have done if Russian nationals there in Cuba had been hurt by our actions.
KENNEDY REFUSED to do te bidding of the CIA and the Generals of the Joint Chiefs. War averted. Close call.
To close the story let us remember the Cuban Russian missile crisis, where the Russians did a tit for tat, matching our missiles in Turkey with theirs in Cuba.
Kenneby did not blink, Kruschev did.
But Kennedy was wise to the CIA and other forces in the USA and was determined to radically change things. He fired Sec of States brother who headed the CIA. Overnight.
Well, connections are not proven yet, but some people here say that we did have a revolution and a seizing of the reins of goverment when JFK was assassinated in November 1963.
Not long after came another false flag op in the Bay of Tonkin, where what the Prez LBJ told Congress and the public and the press was a pack of lies—several imporfant ones. Read about them in Ellsberg’s book “Secrets”. He was the man as special assistant on his first day standing in for the man in charge of SE Asia ops in he Pentagon, when messengers came sprining in with IMMY cables from the destroyer under “attack” in the Bay of Tonkin. (His boss was sitting with McNamara at the time for two hours)
What did we get? War. What did we want? Peace.
Oh yes, the Pentagon Papers. What were they. Some sneaked our pieces of random documents. The opposite.
McNamara, Sec of Defense DOD, had commissioned detailed study by the resident experts and ones loaned in from the Rand Corp. who had experienced and had Pentagon knowledge of what had transpired since 1046 and the resumption of the French to retain their control of the whole of SE Asia, excluding Thailand. This 1,000 page plus report of what had been done and how we got there and why was the Pentagon report that Ellsberg smuggled out at the risk of 114 years in prison. Publishing?
New Yort Times. But basically it was strangled by a controlled press, even the NYTimes yielded then, jsut as it does now: supporting the lies of pre-2003 WMD Iraq, and now limiting exposure of the contents of the Wikileaks which they accepted the responsibility to publish and analyze in full. Not done.
So all these false flag ops are not new. It is not only our enemies.
As Pogo said, “they are us”! They’ve done it to you.
before and are in the process of doing it again.
You have seen the loss of civil rights, increased power to detain indefitely without trial, etc. And the cementtion of a two-party system unresponsive to democratic movements, only the corps count.
The near view is too near, we have difficulty “seeing it” for all the incidents. Most “events” in our lives are well-prepared and scheduled. Have you ever thought about that possibility. That they don’t need to burn down the Congress to achieve fascism, they can create it step by step.
But a nuke on a desert underground site will, as Ellsberg says, usher in a new era. Such an event certainly can be regarded as a basis for the President to declare a state of national emergency. And then special powers are activated. Your powers of liberty and “life” will be strongly curtailed.
What is important now is to realize and to fight the seizure of power under a false flag op. And as now being pointed out, ops can be done by others. That is why the FF warned of foreign and endangering alliances.
With friends like that……
Ellsberg has been succeede by men who have fought various parts of the system. That should be discussed.
And in the mass tangle of bureaucrats, we can hope that there are several more ready to “leak”. People who put principle ahead of career. The nation before their lives. Daniel Manning is one.
Be warned!
“People who put principle ahead of career. The nation before their lives. Daniel Manning is one. Be warned!”
ID707,
Your history going back to the Bolsheviks seizure of power is correct in illustrating how minor factions assume power. While the influence on US foreign policy by an imperialist cabal has its roots in the latter 19th Century, I personally believe its stranglehold began with the creation of the CIA and reached fruition in the Kennedy murder.
Much of America’s “infrastructure” needs to be re-regulated. Starting with breaking up Israel’s most valuable ally the hear no evil, see no evil, speak only evil MSM..
We’re in a situation today that demands a lot of people in this country. We have to create a political situation like that in 1969 where 5,000 people went to jail rather than serve in Vietnam. I met some of those people on their way to jail, and they put in my mind that they were doing everything they can truthfully and nonviolently, they are changing their lives, they are giving up their future and their career. They are doing everything they can to end the Vietnam war.; That’s the correct thing to do what can I do? I was contemplating releasing documents, which could have carried a sentence of 115 years. Was that too much to take on? I’d been to Vietnam. In combat it’s very common for people to risk their lives and their bodies for a lie. Bravery in a bad cause is not uncommon, and often we see it on both sides. Often both sides are bad causes.
==================================
I was too young for Vietnam. I don’t have any brothers, so I could have gotten out of it. I would have gone anyway.
Daniel Ellsberg: “What we need at home of course is people who will change their lives, risk their careers and their jobs and their relationships with their families and their bosses and their church groups by taking a stronger stand than most people are ready to take; by saying truths that most people are not ready to hear.”
http://www.refuseandresist.org/article-print.php?aid=2459
“This is an excerpt from a talk by Daniel Ellsberg to the World Can’t Wait organizing meeting in San Francisco September 7th. Daniel Ellsberg worked in the Defense Department during the 1950s and 1960s but came to oppose the war against Vietnam and exposed the true nature of US foreign policy by providing classified memoranda (the ‘Pentagon Papers’) to the news media.
The [Boston] Globe is very mistaken when it criticizes World Can’t Wait for analogizing between Hitler’s regime and the present one. The aggression has already happened [in Iraq] and is looming again in Iran. The holocaust is not planned in terms of gas chambers. But nuclear weapons bring the gas chambers to the people. Every nuclear weapon is a portable Auschwitz. The first ones used may only kill hundreds depending on where they are used. This would be extremely ominous because people would say, “See, they can be used easily.” The use of nuclear weapons even in a deserted field against underground sites by this country would bring us into a new era of history, the consequences of which would so dwarf the holocaust as there would be simply no comparison. The nuclear wars of the future will be started by an act that has already been planned by this country [as revealed by Seymour Hersh writing about Iran]. These are Hitler-like to the 100th degree.
Domestically, this country is not Germany in 1938 or 1931. It’s not Germany in 1934. Let me be very specific. It’s not the Germany of July 1933. In January of 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of Germany as a minority candidate. He represented the largest Party with about 36% of the vote. By July, it was a one party state, virtually every leader of the social democrats, which had now been banned, had been jailed or put in camps. They hadn’t put in camps many Jews yet. The first people put in camps were labor union leaders, but especially Social Democrats and Communists. Thousands or even tens of thousands had been killed or put in camps by that time, six months after Hitler was in power.
Let me be very specific. Hitler was a fascist and his Party was a fascist Party. But Germany was not a fascist state in January of 1933 when Hitler came to power although Hitler was a fascist and signaled what he wanted to do pretty clearly. But he had only two ministers in the cabinet. It was a fascist state two months later. In between was the Reichstag fire which Hitler and Goering blamed on the Communists. Whoever did it, and it may have been the Nazis, it was not the Communists, that history is clear on. That night the leaders of the Communist Party were imprisoned, scattered, and many – thousands – were killed. The next day was the Reichstag Fire Decree, signed by Hindenburg, which explicitly suspended all provisions of the constitution which had provided for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press. It also ended privacy of the postal system and telecommunications, which ended here four years ago but we didn’t know it.
Despite the Patriot Act and other things that have come along we haven’t had the Reichstag decree yet. Before the Fire everything was constitutional, after Hitler became a dictator and the Social Democratic Party was outlawed. The Social Democrats could have pulled off a General Strike up to the time of the Reichstag fire. After that it ws too late.
We’re in a situation today that demands a lot of people in this country. We have to create a political situation like that in 1969 where 5,000 people went to jail rather than serve in Vietnam. I met some of those people on their way to jail, and they put in my mind that they were doing everything they can truthfully and nonviolently, they are changing their lives, they are giving up their future and their career. They are doing everything they can to end the Vietnam war.; That’s the correct thing to do what can I do? I was contemplating releasing documents, which could have carried a sentence of 115 years. Was that too much to take on? I’d been to Vietnam. In combat it’s very common for people to risk their lives and their bodies for a lie. Bravery in a bad cause is not uncommon, and often we see it on both sides. Often both sides are bad causes.
What we need at home of course is people who will change their lives, risk their careers and their jobs and their relationships with their families and their bosses and their church groups by taking a stronger stand than most people are ready to take; by saying truths that most people are not ready to hear. Without that courage things like this can’t be changed. With it, they may still not be changed, they may fail, but without it, and without mass mobilization there is no chance.”
(The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009) – The Trailer
http://video.pbs.org/video/1403016313/
bettykath 1, September 27, 2012 at 9:01 am
It worked on 9/11/2001.
==================
I was on a freeway to Chicago when I heard that.
In his remarks, Clawson helpfully lists a series of historical events used to push the country into war like the Gulf of Tonkin incident that gave us the Vietnam War. Clawson expressed his frustration in acknowledging that it is “[v]ery hard for me to see how the United States President can get us to war with Iran.” However, there is hope. Clawson explains that the “traditional way” to get the country into a war is through false flags or manufactured incidents where Americans are killed. Thus, he observes, “we are in the game of using covert means against the Iranians, we could get nastier about it. So, if in fact the Iranians aren’t going to compromise, it would be best if somebody else started the war.”
=======================================
Who else is going to start the war? Israel? Without the United States, Israel will get their asses kicked.
Gene and Lotta,
The name Hessians come to mind.
Found it.
In the hope of enlightenment I looked for the link to Savage. What time was it posted? Lots of links today.
Chutzpah! or what? if a Muslim had uttered this, the western media would have a mega field day & American outrage would hit the fan. How are these statements not treachery of the highest order? The silence is deafening.
AP,
I seldom call on God, but thank god for Daniel Ellsberg.
He showed unequivocally that they lie to us, to Congress, to the media (then!) in the belief that consent is not needed. They know best. Apparently Ellsberg’s message did not go home.
So we are surprised and skeptical when Assange and Wikileaks publishes our own materials which show our lies.
And a young soldier is waiting in near torture conditions fof 20(?) monthe for trial for releasing those combat reports which show how general our war crimes are, and how generally they are accepted in the whole theater of operations, in effect the whole armed forces.
Thanks for the link.
SwM,
My questions were not rhetorical. Quotes from Savage won’t answer them. Don’t dodge. Stop evading that we are victims of the system. And nobody knows how many enhanced torturers we have working now. Just as we don’t know how many civilians who are killed by drones either.
Making in fact any statement of fact with regard to our “government” is in the current context a ridiculous assertion.
I trust you can read the respect with which I address you. But ideas I will oppose, no matter who utters them.
Gene H.
1, September 27, 2012 at 2:04 pm
****
You got that right; it’s an old dispute and the rest of the players are just hired hands. Hired hands with a stake in the outcome but hired hands none the less.