Father Roy writes: Is it not curious? Pat Buchanan … Mr. Conservative Republican … does not trust the most powerful people in his own party. I refer, of course, to the NEOCONs. My Allies and I don’t trust them either. Read PNAC’s Statement of Principles and notice the signatories. Listen to PNAC’s ideology on FOX News.
Here’s another essay on the subject: Neocon Imperialism, 9/11, and the Attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. Notice the date it was written. I’ve pasted that essay’s first two paragraphs below Pat’s essay for everybody’s convenience. I suggest that everybody scroll down and read the two paragraphs first. Please notice how frugal I was with the highlights while you read. Try not to be alarmed if all this information is new to you. Peace, Roy
Click here: Is Romney Being Neoconned Into War?:Information Clearing House: ICH
Is Romney Being Neoconned Into War?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
July 31, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — –
Has Mitt Romney given Israel a blank check for war?
So it seemed from the declaration in Jerusalem by his adviser Dan Senor, who all but flashed Israel a green light for war,signaling the Israelis that, if you go, Mitt’s got your back:
“If Israel has to take action on its own in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respectthat decision.”
“No option would be excluded. Gov. Romney recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself and that it is right for America to stand with it.”
What does “stand with” Israel, if she launches a surprise attack on Iran, mean? Does it mean the United States will guide Israeli planes to their targets and provide bases on their return? Does it mean U.S. air cover while Israeli planes strike Iran?
This would make America complicit in a preemptive strike and a co-belligerent in the war to follow.
What Senor said comes close to being a U.S. war guarantee for Israel, while leaving the decision as to when the war begins to them.
This country has never done that before.
And what does Senor mean by Israel’s need to act “to stop Iran from developing [the] capability” to acquire nuclear weapons?
The collective decision of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007 that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon — reportedly reaffirmed in 2011 — has never been rescinded. Nor has the White House produced any hard evidence Iran is building a bomb.
Moreover, Iran’s known nuclear facilities are under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Does the government know something the American people are not being told?
Undeniably, Iran, by enriching uranium to 3.5%, then up to 20%, has a greater “capability” than five years ago of building a nuclear weapon. But Japan, South Korea, and Brazil also have that capability — and none has decided to build a nuclear weapon.
Gov. Romney did not go as far as Senor, but he, too, seems to be saying that not only is Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon a casus belli for the United States, even an Iran that is capable of building such a weapon is intolerable.
“The regime in Iran is five years closer to developing nuclear weapons capability,” said Romney. “Preventing that outcome must be our highest national security priority.”
Preventing what outcome is “our highest national security priority”?
Stopping Iran from building a bomb? Or stopping Iran from being able to build a bomb years from now?
The governor seems to be aligning himself with Israel’s hawks who are demanding that not only must Iran swear off nuclear weapons forever, Iran must cease all enrichment of uranium and dismantle the facilities at Natanz and Fordow.
Romney’s policy is zero enrichment, said Senor. Tehran must understand that “the alternative to zero enrichment is severe, and that’s why the threat of military force has to be critical.”
This is tantamount to an ultimatum to Tehran: Either give up all enrichment of uranium and any right to enrich, or face war.
Here we come to the heart of the issue, which may be impossible to resolve short of war.
Unlike its neighbors Israel and Pakistan, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has no nuclear weapons. The ayatollah has said they are immoral and Iran will not acquire them.
But under the NPT, Iran claims the right to enrich uranium and seek the benefits of nuclear technology. And in that decision, the people of Iran stand behind their government.
Is denying Iran the right to enrich uranium a reason for America to plunge into its fifth war in that region in a generation?
That appears where we are headed. Reportedly, Obama’s national security adviser recently briefed Bibi Netanyahu on the specifics of U.S. contingency plans to attack Iran.
Has Congress been briefed? Have the American people been consulted? Or are we simply irrelevant?
A decade ago, this country sent an army up to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam and strip Iraq of a vast arsenal of chemical and biological weapons we were told it had and was preparing to use.
We were misled; we were deceived; we were lied to.
Before we outsource to Bibi and Ehud Barak the decision to take us to war with a country three times the size of Iraq, we need to know:
Was the U.S. intelligence community wrong in 2007 and 2011? Is Iran hell-bent on building nuclear weapons? If so, where are they constructing and testing these weapons?
Finally, if Iran is willing to permit intrusive inspections of its actual and suspected nuclear sites but insists on its right to enrich uranium, should we go to war to deny them that right?
But if we are going to go to war again, this time with Iran, the decision should be made in America, according to our Constitution, not by any other country.
Filed under israel and palestine articles, map of israel and palestine by on Aug 3rd, 2012. Comment. 
Father Roy writes: Ray McGovern does not trust Israeli intelligence. McGovern (born 1939) is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them. I’ve done some highlighting in his essay pasted below. Peace, Roy
Is Israel Fixing the Intelligence to Justify an Attack on Iran?
By Ray McGovern
July 31, 2012 “The Baltimore Sun” —
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s strong pro-Israel statements over the weekend, including his endorsement of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (a reversal of long-standing U.S. policy), increases the pressure on President Barack Obama to prove that he is an equally strong backer of Israel.
The key question is whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will interpret the presidential campaign rhetoric as an open invitation to provoke hostilities with Iran, in the expectation that President Obama will feel forced to jump in with both feet in support of our “ally” Israel. (Since there is no mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel, “ally” actually is a misnomer — at least in a juridical sense.)
As we saw 10 years ago with respect to Iraq, if one intends to whip up support for war, one needs to find a casus belli — however thin a pretext it might be. How about juxtaposing “weapons of mass destruction” with terrorism. That worked to prepare for war on Iraq, and similar rhetorical groundwork for an attack on Iran is now being laid in Israel.
Mr. Netanyahu broke all records for speed in blaming Iran and Hezbollah for the recent terrorist attack that killed five Israelis in Burgas, Bulgaria, and in vowing that “Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror.”
But what is the evidence on Iranian or Hezbollah involvement? Bulgarian officials keep saying they have no such evidence. More surprising still, government officials in Washington and elsewhere keep warning against jumping to conclusions.
So far the “evidence” against Iran consists primarily of trust-me assertions by Mr. Netanyahu. On Fox News Sunday on July 22, Mr. Netanyahu claimed Israel has “rock-solid evidence” tying Iran to the attack in Bulgaria. The same day onCBS’s Face the Nation, Mr. Netanyahu said, “We have unquestionable, fully substantiated intelligence that this [terrorist attack] was done by Hezbollah backed by Iran,” adding that Israel gives “specific details to … responsible governments and agencies.” Did the Israelis somehow forget to give “specific details” to Bulgarian and U.S. officials?
At a joint news conference with White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan in Sofia early last week, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov admitted that he was aware of no information concerning the terrorist or those who dispatched him.
Mr. Brennan’s July 25 talks with top Israeli officials, it appears, were similarly unproductive. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on July 26: “A week after the Burgas attacks, Israeli, Bulgarian, and U.S. [officials] still have no leads regarding the identity of the suicide bomber.”
These events took place against an historical backdrop pregnant with relevance. July 23 was the 10th anniversary of a meeting at 10 Downing Street, at which the head British intelligence casually revealed the fraudulent origins of the coming attack on Iraq.
The official minutes of that meeting were leaked to London’s Sunday Times, which ran them on its front page May 1, 2005. No one has disputed their authenticity.
This is how the minutes record the core of the briefing by Sir Richard Dearlove, the British intelligence chief, who had just conferred with his U.S. counterpart, George Tenet, at CIA headquarters on July 20, 2002, on what was in store for Iraq:
“… Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. …”
The “fixing” of intelligence is bad enough. But note Mr. Dearlove’s explanation that war with Iraq was to be “justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” Translation: We will claim Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and that he might well give them to terrorists — unless he is stopped forthwith.
Mr. Netanyahu is now taking the same line on Iran. On Face the Nation on July 22, he pointedly asked: “Just imagine what the consequences would be if these people [terrorists] and this regime [Iran] got a hold of nuclear weapons. … [We need to] make sure that the world’s most dangerous regime doesn’t get the world’s most dangerous weapons.”
Never mind the elusive evidence on the perpetrators of the attack in Bulgaria. Never mind that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta posed a question to himself on Face the Nation on January 8 and then answered it: “Are they [the Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.” Never mind that 10 days later Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barack said essentially the same thing during an interview on Israeli Army Radio.
The likelihood of hostilities with Iran before the presidential election in November is increasing. Beware of “fixed” intelligence.
Filed under Israel and Palestine, israel and palestine articles, map of israel and palestine by on Aug 2nd, 2012. Comment.
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