The assumptions most Americans hold about Iran and its policies are wrong

Thursday is a fateful day for the world, as the U.S., other members of the United Nations Security Council, and Germany meet in Geneva with Iran in a bid to resolve outstanding issues. Although Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had earlier attempted to put the nuclear issue off the bargaining table, this rhetorical flourish was a mere opening gambit and nuclear issues will certainly dominate the talks. As Henry Kissinger pointed out, these talks are just beginning and there are highly unlikely to be any breakthroughs for a very long time. Diplomacy is a marathon, not a sprint.

But on this occasion, I thought I’d take the opportunity to list some things that people tend to think they know about Iran, but for which the evidence is shaky.

Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the U.S.

Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the U.S. or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of “no first strike.” This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Iran’s military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.

Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to “wipe it off the map.”

Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of ‘no first strike’ to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel.

Continue reading: SALON

Audio of luncheon with media military analysts posted on Newsvine

The blogosphere has been abuzz about the Internet posting of audio of a luncheon former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld held with media military analysts that provides insight into the relationship between those analysts and the Pentagon.

The Pentagon released the audio in response to requests filed by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

On April 20, The Times published “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” in which reporter David Barstow detailed a “Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance.”

The government released the audio, which lasts nearly an hour, on May 8. Jack Gillis, a 55-year-old self-described news junkie, downloaded it over the past weekend and analyzed it.

His findings, which he posted Monday on his Newsvine account (MSNBC is the owner of Newsvine), include a review of eight clips totaling nearly 10 minutes. Gillis, an adjunct professor of composition and rhetoric at a community college, also provides a link to the full audio.

The luncheon was held in December 2006, a month after Rumsfeld resigned as defense secretary.

(Continue reading: MSNBC)

by Scott Ritter

As someone who has been urging focused citizen activism for some time now, I find it heartening that there are those in the United States who put action to words and seek to lead by example. This is the case with Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, who, together with seven of his 49 colleagues (Toni Preckwinkle, Sandi Jackson, Eugene Schulter, Robert Fioretti, Freddrenna Lyle, Ricardo Munoz and Mary Ann Smith), has prepared a resolution for the Chicago City Council opposing war on Iran. By itself, this resolution most probably will not serve to alter the policies currently being pursued by the Bush administration. But when a great American city such as Chicago takes the lead in expressing its rejection of irresponsible national policy, other cities should, and will, take notice.

(Continue reading: Truthdig)

Pentagon Wary Of Tehran’s Expanding Nuclear Program And Support Of Iraqi Insurgents

A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the “increasingly hostile role” Iran is playing in Iraq – smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops.

“What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq,” said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

U.S. officials are also concerned by Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf as well as Iran’s still growing nuclear program. New pictures of Iran’s uranium enrichment plant show the country’s defense minister in the background, as if deliberately mocking a recent finding by U.S. intelligence that Iran had ceased work on a nuclear weapon.

No attacks are imminent and the last thing the Pentagon wants is another war, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen has warned Iran not to assume the U.S. military can’t strike.

“I have reserve capability, in particular our Navy and our Air Force so it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability,” Mullen said.

Targets would include everything from the plants where weapons are made to the headquarters of the organization known as the Quds Force which directs operations in Iraq. Later this week Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to confront the Iranians with evidence of their meddling and demand a halt.

If that doesn’t produce results, the State Department has begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell the Iranians to knock it off – or else.

(CBS News)

America’s top military officer has ratcheted up the pressure on Iran by issuing an unusual public warning that the Pentagon is planning for “potential military courses of action”.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, blamed the Iranian government and Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for its “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq. He said conflict with Iran would be “extremely stressing” for America’s overstretched forces, but added: “It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability.”

Mullen said he was increasingly concerned about Iran’s growing involvement in supplying munitions and training to rebel Shi’ite militias and “killing American and coalition soldiers in Iraq”.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference late on Friday, he said recent operations in the southern port city of Basra had revealed “just how much and how far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability”. A Pentagon source said the admiral’s frankness was “extremely significant” and could pave the way for some form of attack on Iran. However, Mullen said: “The solution right now still lies in using other levers of national power, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure.”

(Continue reading: Times Online)

A ship contracted by the US military fired warning shots towards two Iranian boats, American defence officials said today.

The Westward Venture, a cargo vessel chartered by the US department of defence, was travelling north in international waters in the central Gulf at around 8am local time yesterday when the incident took place, the US navy said.

“They were able to avoid a serious incident by following the procedures that we use,” said Commander Lydia Robertson, a spokeswoman for the US navy’s Bahrain-based fifth fleet.

The ship was approached by two unidentified small boats and its crew issued “standard queries” to the vessels by radio but did not receive a response, she said. The ship then fired a flare. The boats continued to approach the cargo ship and its security team fired “a few bursts” of machine gun and rifle warning shots, Robertson said.

“The small boats left the area a short time later,” she added.

However, Tehran played down the incident, saying there was no confrontation.

A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the boats were believed to be Iranian. Shortly after the incident, the ship received a radio query from a ship identifying itself as an Iranian coast guard vessel, Robertson said.

“It is not clear if this was one of the small boats or a separate boat,” she said.

The US said Iranian boats threatened its warships on January 6, along a vital route for crude oil shipments.

The incident coincided with a sharp warning to Iran over its alleged support for Iraqi militias by the Pentagon. Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, accused Tehran of boosting its support for Iraqi militias and said Washington could resort to military means to force Iran to stop.

(Continue reading: The Guardian)

India has rebuffed a call by the United States for it to ask Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.

The foreign ministry said neither India nor Iran needed external guidance on how to conduct bilateral relations.

It said relations between the two spanned centuries, and they were capable of handling them with due care.

Earlier, a senior US official said Washington would welcome India telling Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to curtail Tehran’s nuclear programme.

President Ahmadinejad is due to visit Delhi next week.

(Continue reading: BBC News)

The US rationale for war in Iraq has morphed from ousting strongman Saddam Hussein, to countering Al-Qaeda militants to its latest incarnation — facing down what officials in President George W. Bush’s administration call the Iranian “threat”.

“Iraq is the convergence point for two of the greatest threats to America in this new century: Al-Qaeda and Iran,” Bush said last week, renewing accusations that the Islamic republic is backing Iraqi militias hostile to US forces and covertly seeking nuclear weapons.

With Saddam dead and Al-Qaeda weakened — according to Bush — Iranian-financed extremists, which top US commander in Iraq David Petraeus has called “special groups,” have emerged as a key reason for maintaining US troop levels in Iraq.

However, exactly what steps the United States may take to counter this “threat” remain unclear, and depend largely on Bush’s decisions in his remaining nine months in the White House.

(Continue reading: AFP)

All the talk is about Iraq, but concern about Iran is mounting

By Warren P. Strobel

Arabs keen to see the end of George W. Bush’s presidency fear that a win for likely Republican candidate John McCain will bring little change to U.S. policies they blame for destabilizing the Middle East.

For Arab politicians who have gained from U.S. policy in countries including Iraq and Lebanon, continuity may be a good thing.

But Bush’s many critics in the Arab world worry that McCain will continue current U.S. policies, which they fault for unleashing chaos in Iraq and providing unflinching support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.

McCain wants to keep troops in Iraq until it is more stable, setting him at odds with Democratic rivals who want to withdraw from a country which has been wracked by violence since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein five years ago.

During a Middle East tour this month, McCain’s statements on Israel also sounded alarm bells for Arabs who have long criticized Washington for not exercising enough pressure on the Jewish state to withdraw from occupied Arab land.

“The first time McCain started to catch attention was when he visited … Israel and committed himself to recognizing Jerusalem (as its capital) and not pressuring Israel,” Mohamed al-Sayed Said of Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told Reuters in Cairo.

“This confirms the natural inclination of Arabs to think that whatever the next administration is, it will be a tool of the Israelis.”

But while Arabs see little difference between candidates when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict — with all repeatedly committing themselves to Israel’s interests and security — Iraq is seen as a different story.

IRAQ

The 2003 U.S.-led invasion, which was opposed by Washington’s Arab allies including Egypt, empowered Shia factions such as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council — a group with longstanding ties to Shia Iran.

Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, a cleric and senior member of the group, said a McCain presidency would be a good thing. “I believe it is a positive matter if the Republican candidate wins in the coming election. We know now how the Republicans think.”

“McCain is so close to the Bush administration and they both adopted the same policy.”

McCain, speaking during a visit to close U.S. ally Jordan, said that a premature withdrawal from Iraq would enhance Iran and Sunni Islamist militant group al Qaeda — both foes of America — and endanger the region.

But Mudhafer al-Aani, a senior member of the largest Sunni bloc in Iraq’s parliament, urged a correction of “the great mistakes of the administration.”

“McCain’s statements on the U.S. presence in Iraq represent the same policy as the current president’s,” he said.

An Iranian political analyst, who declined to be identified, said that while the authorities were publicly keeping their distance from the U.S. election campaign, their preference appeared to be for Democratic candidate Barak Obama.

“I guess they look at McCain as some sort of continuity of the present situation. I can’t say for sure, but from their positions, I gather they will not like a repetition of Republican rule,” the analyst said.

“McCain has confirmed the American intention to keep American troops in Iraq. This is something that is against the wish of Iran. They want the Americans to be gone, and the issue to be sorted our regionally, in which Iran will play a big part,” the analyst said.

Syrian political commentator Thabet Salem said McCain’s pro-Israeli stance and comments against Syria, as well as a commitment to keep U.S. troops in Iraq could lead to more Middle East instability.

“McCain has exhibited little willingness to depart from the foreign policy of the neocons, which encourages spread of fundamentalism and terrorism,” he said.

//reuters//

Iraq: the candidates’ stances, then and now

Democrats have rounded on John McCain’s claim to be the uniquely qualified presidential candidate to deal with Iraq after he embarrassingly confused key players in the conflict.

During a Middle East tour intended to highlight his foreign policy acumen, the Republican nominee mistakenly claimed that Iran was training al-Qaeda in Iraq, seemingly unaware that the Shia nation and the Sunni militant group represent opposing interests.

Speaking in Amman, Jordan, after his first trip to Iraq as the Republican nominee, Mr McCain said it was “well-known” that Iran was training al-Qaeda in Iraq.

We continue to be concerned about Iranians taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back,” he told a news conference.

Challenged about the claim, he continued: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

It was not until Joseph Lieberman, an independent senator travelling with Mr McCain on the congressional trip, whispered in his ear that the candidate corrected himself.

“I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda,” he said.

It was the second time that Mr McCain had made the mistake, having made similar comments during an interview with Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host. Speaking to the show on Monday, he said: “As you know, there are al-Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they’re moving back into Iraq.”

The Democrats immediately jumped on the error as evidence that Mr McCain did not understand the nuances of the conflict in Iraq.

“After eight years of the Bush Administration’s incompetence in Iraq, McCain’s comments don’t give the American people a reason to believe that he can be trusted to offer a clear way forward,” Karen Finney, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement. “Not only is Senator McCain wrong on Iraq once again, but he showed he either doesn’t understand the challenges facing Iraq and the region or is willing to ignore the facts on the ground.”

The McCain camp immediately embarked on a damage limitation exercise, issuing the following statement:

“In a press conference today, John McCain misspoke and immediately corrected himself by stating that Iran is in fact supporting radical Islamic extremists in Iraq, not al-Qaeda – as the transcript shows. Democrats have launched political attacks today because they know the American people have deep concerns about their candidates’ judgment and readiness to lead as commander in chief.”

It did not, however, address why the candidate had made the same error in the Hugh Hewitt interview.

The Republican candidate will no doubt be braced for further attacks from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are both due today to discuss their plans to withdraw US troops from Iraq.

Mr McCain was also pressed at the same news conference as to whether he would support strikes against Iran if Tehran didn’t cease its alleged nuclear activities.

He refused to say explicitly whether he would do so, saying only: “At the end of the day, we cannot afford having a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Mr McCain found himself in difficulty last year when he joked about bombing Iran during a campaign stop. Asked by a member of a South Carolina audience what he would do about Iran, he jibed: “Remember that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?” and launched into a rendition of the band’s hit Barbara Ann with the words changed to “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran”.

//times-online//

At a news conference in Jordan yesterday, John McCain mistakenly accused Iran of “taking al-Qaida into Iran, training them and sending them back” to Iraq.

Attacks all over the planet by U.S. Predator planes suggest Bush thinks he has the “right” to kill civilians.

Imagine, for a moment, that you live in a small town somewhere near the Southern California coast. You’re going about your daily life, trying to scrape by in hard times, when the missile hits. It might have come from the Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — its pilot at a base on the outskirts of Tehran — that has had the village in its sights for the last six hours or from the Russian sub stationed just off the coast. In either case, it’s devastating.

In Moscow and Tehran, officials announce that, in a joint action, they have launched the missile as part of a carefully coordinated “surgical” operation to take out a “known terrorist,” a long-term danger to their national security. A Kremlin spokesman offers the following statement:

“As we have repeatedly said, we will continue to pursue terrorist activities and their operations wherever we may find them. We share common goals with respect to fighting terrorism. We will continue to seek out, identify, capture and, if necessary, kill terrorists where they plan their activities, carry out their operations or seek safe harbor.”

A family in a ramshackle house just down the street from you — he’s a carpenter; she works at the local Dairy Queen — are killed along with their pets. Their son is seriously wounded, their home blown to smithereens. Neighbors passing by as the missile hits are also wounded.

As it happens, there are no terrorists in the vicinity. Outraged, you organize your neighbors and march angrily in protest through the town, shouting anti-Russian, anti-Iranian slogans. But, of course, there is nothing you can really do. Iran and Russia are far away, their weaponry powerful, your arms nonexistent. The state of California is incapable of protecting you. This is, in fact, at least the fourth time in recent months that a “terrorist” has been declared “taken out” from the air or by a ship-based cruise missile, when only innocent Californians have died.

As news of the “collateral damage” from the botched operation dribbles out, the Russian and Iranian media pay next to no attention. There are no outraged editorials. Official spokesmen see no need to comment further. No one is held responsible and no promises are made in either Tehran or Moscow that similar assassination strikes won’t be launched in the near future, based on “actionable intelligence,” possibly even on the same town. In fact, the next day, seeing UAVs once again soaring overhead, you load your pick-up and prepare to flee.

Swatting Flies in Somalia

Philip K. Dick meet George W. Bush. When it comes to such a thing happening in the United States, we are, of course, at the wildest frontiers of science fiction. The U.S. is a sovereign nation. We guard our air space and coastal waters jealously. Any country violating them for purposes of aggressive action, no less by launching a missile against an American town, would be committing an act of war and would certainly be treated accordingly.

If, somehow, such an event did occur, it would be denounced in Washington and on editorial pages across the country as a shocking contravention of international legal conventions and a crime of war unless, of course, we did it in a country where sovereignty has been declared meaningless.

In fact, an almost exact replica of the above fictional incident — at least the fourth of its kind in recent months — did indeed take place at the beginning of March in the embattled failed state of Somalia. (For that country’s most recent abysmal collapse, the Bush administration, via an invasion by Ethiopian proxy forces, can take significant credit.) One or two houses in Dobley, a Somali town, were hit, possibly by two submarine-launched Tomahawk Cruise missiles in what a U.S. official termed “a deliberate strike against a suspected bed-down of known terrorists.”

The missiles were evidently meant for Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, an al-Qaedan suspect in the bloody bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He was, however, not in Dobley, despite the “actionable intelligence” on hand. Accounts of the dead and wounded in the town vary. One report claimed only wounded Somalis (and two dead cows); most spoke of anywhere from four to ten dead civilians. Local district Commissioner Ali Nur Ali Dherre told CNN that three women and three children had been killed and another 20 people wounded. While a “U.S. military official said the United States is still collecting post-strike information and is not yet able to confirm any casualties. He described [the] strike as ‘very deliberate’ and said forces tried to use caution to avoid hitting civilians.”

For the dead Somalis, not suprisingly, we have no names. In stories like this, the dead are regularly nobodies and, though the townspeople of Dobley did indeed march angrily in protest yelling anti-American slogans, just about no one noticed.

In our world, only the normal smattering of small news reports dealt with this modest sidebar in the President’s Global War on Terror (GWOT). On the GWOT scorecard — if you remember, for a long time George Bush kept “his own personal scorecard” of top terror suspects in a desk drawer in the Oval Office, crossing off al-Qaedan figures as U.S. forces took them down — this operation hardly registered. One terrorist missed, and not for the first time, possibly a few dead peasants in some god-forsaken land. Please, move on

In a recent Pentagon briefing for reporters featuring Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Michael Mullen, who had just returned from a trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, 4,500 words of back-and-forth were interrupted by this question from a reporter:

“Secretary Gates, the strike on Somalia two days ago — did the missiles that were fired — did they strike their target? And was the target Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan? Do you have a report back from the field? And Admiral Mullen, what message did you give to President Musharraf, and why did you meet with him?”

Gates responded to the Somali part of the question in eight words: “You know we don’t talk about military operations.” He might have added: …unless they’re successful.

That was evidently all that the incident and its minor “collateral damage” deserved in such a global war. So Gates and Mullen moved on immediately. So many matters more important than a single “decapitation” strike that didn’t succeed to consider.

The Decapitation Strike as Global Policy

Minor as that Somali mis-strike might seem, this is not, in fact, a small matter. Think of that strike and the many like it around the world over these last years as reflections of George Bush’s post-9/11 update of globalization. After all, the most basic principle of his Global War on Terror has been the erasure of global boundaries and whatever international agreements about war-making might go with them.

Across the Islamic world, in particular, boundaries simply no longer matter. In fact, in such regions no aspect of sovereignty can now constrain a U.S. president from acting as he pleases in pursuit of whatever he may personally define as American interests.

“Assassinations by air” are, writes David Case in Mother Jones magazine, “a relatively new tactic in warfare.” By the beginning of 2006, however, U.S. Predator drones “bearing Hellfire missiles — the preferred weapon in decapitation [strikes] — had already hit ‘terrorist suspects overseas’ at least 19 times since 9/11.” Such strikes and other similar operations by air, land, and sea have been a crucial follow-on to the Bush administration’s proclamations, immediately after 9/11, that there would be no “safe havens” for terrorists on the planet, nor safety for those countries which housed them, inadvertently or otherwise. Within days of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, Bush administration officials were already identifying up to 60 countries-cum-targets.

This aspect of the Bush Doctrine, of what the President likes to call staying “on the offensive,” when mixed with a couple of decades of “advances” in air warfare, including the development of sophisticated, missile-armed drones, “smart bombs,” “precision-guided munitions,” and the like, has resulted in a lethal globalizing brew of assassination and destruction. It recognizes neither boundaries, nor sovereignty across much of the planet. With all its “actionable” possibilities, it will surely be with us long after George W. Bush has left office.

Of course, those few nameless dead or wounded Somali civilians — swatted like so many flies and forgotten as quickly as flies would be — don’t faintly match up against the “dozens” of Iraqi civilian deaths that, according to Human Rights Watch, were caused by 50 decapitation strikes launched against the top officials of Saddam Hussein’s regime back in March 2003. (Not a single official was harmed.) Nor do they quite make it into the company of the “Afghan elders” being taken to President Hamid Karzai’s inauguration back in 2001, who were mistaken “for a Taliban group” and bombed, with 20 killed; nor the 30 or more guests at an Afghan wedding party back in 2002 blown away by 2,000-pound bombs after celebratory gunfire was evidently mistaken for an attack (no apologies offered); nor that wedding party in the Western desert of Iraq near the Syrian border wiped out in 2004 with 42 deaths, including 27 in one extended family, 14 children in all. They were, of course, taken for terrorists. (As U.S. Major General James Mathis put the matter in offering an explanation: “How many people go to the middle of the desert… to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization?”) And these are just a few prominent cases, not including the civilians killed in periodic Predator and other strikes in Pakistani border areas, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere whom no fuss is ever made about — not here, anyway.

After all, there’s always going to be “collateral damage” when you keep your eye — and your 2,000-pound bomb or Hellfire missile — focused on the prize.

The “Right” to Kill Civilians

Remember back in the 1990s, when the glories of an economically borderless world were being limned? Just after September 11, 2001, the Bush administration proudly declared us to be in a far darker world without borders (except, of course, when it came to our own). In this new world, whether we knew it or not, whether we cared or not, we granted our highest officials — specifically our military and intelligence services — the full powers of prosecutor, defense counsel, judge, jury, and executioner, as well as the right to report on such events only to the extent, and as, they wished. This was the sort of power that monotheistic religions normally granted to an all-powerful god, that kingdoms generally left to absolute rulers, and that dictators have always tried to take for themselves (though just, of course, in the domains under their control).

Our domain, it seems, is now much of the globe, when it comes to the bloody work of assassinating individuals via bombs or missiles that, however precise, surgical, and smart, are weapons meant to kill en masse and largely without discrimination.

There are still limits of sorts on such actions. These put bluntly — though no one is likely to say this — are the limits imposed, in part, by racism, by gradations, however unspoken, in the global value given to a human life.

The Bush administration has, so far, only been willing to carry out “decapitation” strikes in countries where human life is, by implication, of less or little value. It has yet to carry one out in London or Hamburg or Tokyo or Moscow or the Chinese countryside, even though “terrorist suspects” abound everywhere, even (as with the Anthrax attacks of 2001) in our own country. On the other hand, given the impetus of this kind of globalization, who knows when such a strike might come. After all, the CIA has already carried out clearly illegal, sovereignty-violating “extraordinary rendition” operations (kidnappings of terror suspects) on the streets of European cities.

In this country, we still theoretically venerate the sovereign self (“the individual”) and that self’s right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Despite George Bush’s “Freedom Agenda,” however, the sovereignty, not to say the life, liberty, and happiness of other peoples, individually or collectively, have not really been much on our minds these last years. Our freedom of action, our safety, has been the only freedom, the only “security,” to which we have attached much global value. And don’t for a second think that, when the “actionable intelligence” comes in to John McCain’s, Hillary Clinton’s, or Barack Obama’s Oval Office, those Predators won’t be soaring or those cruise missiles leaving subs lurking off some coast — and that innocent civilians elsewhere won’t continue to die.

In places like Somalia, we deliver death, and every now and then an American bomb or missile actually obliterates a terrorist suspect. Then we celebrate. The rest of time, it’s hardly even news. When the deeper principle behind such global strikes is mentioned in our papers, in some passing paragraph, it’s done — as in a recent Washington Post article about a Predator strike, piloted from Nevada, that killed a suspected “senior al-Qaeda commander” in Pakistan — in this polite way: “Independent actions by U.S. military forces on another country’s sovereign territory are always controversial” (Imagine the language that the Washington Post would use, if that had been a Pakistani drone strike in Utah.)

This version of globalization is already so much the norm of our world that few here even blink an eye when it’s reported, or consider it even slightly strange. It’s already an American right. In the meantime, other people, who obviously don’t rise to the level of our humanity, regularly die.

And here’s the thing: In our world, there is a chasm that can never be breached between, say, a Sunni extremist clothed in a suicide vest who walks into a market in Baghdad with the barbaric intent of killing as many Shiite civilians as possible, and an air or missile attack, done in the name of American “security” and aimed at a “known terrorist,” that just happens to — repeatedly — kill innocent civilians. And yet, what if you know before you launch your attack, as American planners certainly must, that the odds are innocents (and probably no one else) will die?

Not so long ago in the United States, presidentially sanctioned assassinations abroad were illegal. But that was then, this is so now. Nonetheless, it’s a fact that the “right” to missile, bomb, shell, “decapitate,” or assassinate those we declare to be our enemies, without regard to borders or sovereignty, is based on nothing more than the power to do it. This is simply the “right” of force (and of technology). If the tables were turned, any American would recognize such acts for the barbarism they represent.

And yet, late last week, like clockwork, the Associated Press brought us the latest notice: “In Afghanistan, a spokesman for the American-led coalition said troops had used ‘precision-guided munitions’ to strike a compound about a mile inside Pakistan…” This operation was, as they all are, said to be based on “reliable intelligence”; in this case, “senior” Taliban commanders were said to be in residence.

As it happened, according to the Pakistani military and the AP reporter who made it to Tangrai, a village of about forty houses, the residence hit was that of “Noor Khan, a greengrocer who said the house was his family home.” The AP reporter added that “only one of its four walls was standing amid a tangle of mud bricks, bedding and cooking pots.” And Noor Khan, who was quoted saying, “We are innocent, we have nothing to do with such things,” claimed that six of his relatives, four women and two boys, had been killed. (The Pakistani military, on investigating, reported that two women and two children had died.)

This was but the latest minor decapitation strike, and — we can be sure of this — not the last. Philip K. Dick move over. We’re already in your future.

[Note: Let me strongly recommend David Case's article, "The U.S. Military's Assassination Problem," in the March/April issue of Mother Jones magazine, quoted in the above piece. A well researched, thoughtful, and rare discussion of what we know about the Bush administration's global assassination campaign from the air, it is an accomplishment. I have relied on it in writing this essay.]

Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch.com, is co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of The End of Victory Culture.

//alternet//

Last week, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino downplayed Fallon’s possible retirement, decrying “rumor mills that don’t turn out to be true.”

Fallon opposed the “surge” in Iraq and has consistently battled the Bush administration to avoid a confrontation with Iran, calling officials’ warmongering rhetoric “not helpful.” He rejected the praise in the Esquire piece, calling it “poison pen stuff.”

A reporter noted to Gates there was a “line in that Esquire story that said basically if Fallon gets fired, it means we’re going to war with Iran. Can you just address that?” Gates responded, “Well that’s just ridiculous.”

Sources at the Pentagon said that Fallon was worried the White House would “perceive the magazine piece as a challenge to the president’s authority, and insisted that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Last year, Fallon vowed that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch.”

//alternet//

Fallon Resigns As Mideast Military Chief

The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East resigned Tuesday amid speculation about a rift over U.S. policy in Iran,” the AP reports.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Adm. William J. Fallon had asked for permission to retire and that Gates agreed. Gates said the decision, effective March 31, was entirely Fallon’s and that Gates believed it was “the right thing to do.”
Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush’s Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Fallon, who is traveling in Iraq, issued a statement through his U.S. headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

“Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president’s policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region,” Fallon said.

“And although I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there,” Fallon added.

Gates described as “ridiculous” any notion that Fallon’s departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran. And he said “there is a misperception” that Fallon disagrees with the administration’s approach to Iran.

“I don’t think there were differences at all,” Gates added.

As ThinkProgress notes, Fallon opposed the “surge” in Iraq and has consistently battled the Bush administration to avoid a confrontation with Iran, calling officials’ saber-rattling “not helpful.” Privately, he vowed that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch.”

A blockbuster Esquire article published last week predicted that Fallon would be removed to make way for a general who was more “pliable” to war with Iran:

If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it’ll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it’ll come down to the same man. He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. His name is William Fallon, although all of his friends call him “Fox,” which was his fighter-pilot call sign decades ago. [...]
Just as Fallon took over Centcom last spring, the White House was putting itself on a war footing with Iran. Almost instantly, Fallon began to calmly push back against what he saw as an ill-advised action. Over the course of 2007, Fallon’s statements in the press grew increasingly dismissive of the possibility of war, creating serious friction with the White House.

Last December, when the National Intelligence Estimate downgraded the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, it seemed as if Fallon’s caution was justified. But still, well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don’t want a commander standing in their way.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) quickly released a statement: “I am concerned that the resignation of Admiral William J. Fallon, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and a military leader with more than three decades of command experience, is yet another example that independence and the frank, open airing of experts’ views are not welcomed in this Administration.”

More from AP:

Fallon has had a 41-year Navy career. He took the Central Command post on March 16, 2007, succeeding Army Gen. John Abizaid, who retired. Fallon previously served as commander of U.S. Pacific Command.
President Bush issued a statement saying that Fallon “has served our Nation with great distinction for forty years. He is an outstanding sailor — and he made history as the first naval officer to serve as commander of Central Command. “

Gates said that until a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed by the Senate, Fallon’s place will be taken by his top deputy, Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey.

The secretary called Fallon a very able military strategist and said his advice will be missed at the Pentagon.

“I think this is a cumulative kind of thing,” said Gates, speaking of the circumstances leading up to Fallon’s decision. “It isn’t the result of any one article or any one issue.”

“As I say, the notion that this decision portends anything in terms of change in Iran policy is, to quote myself, ‘ridiculous,’ ” he said.

//huffington post//

related press coverage//
Cent Com Chief Admiral Fallon resigns -Crooks and Liars
Adm. Fallon, top U.S. commander in Middle East, retiring early -Salon.com
Fallon quits as Middle East commander -Washington Times

CentCom Chief Admiral Fallon Resigns -Think Progress

Corporate media were quick to downplay this important event. NY Times stated that Fallon was taking [the perk of] early retirement-as if. Shake up in US Command read Fox News while Bloomberg stated, simply, that Fallon was stepping down–both giving it a it’s a routine thing sense of feeling.