Here's the letter suggested/shared by Jeremy Hier: October 2, 2007
The Bush Administration is on track with its plans to attack Iran before George Bush Jr. leaves office in 18 months.
Unfortunately, few Americans think this is probable, let alone possible.
It is both.
I agree with Scott Ritter and Daniel Ellsberg (of "The Pentagon Papers" fame) that this attack will have negative consequences on the world and American citizens far in excess of 9/11 and the Iraq War.
It could very well be the final nail in the coffin of American democracy.
With that in mind...
Here are some facts to share with your friends and colleagues about the Iran situation to stop this war before it starts:
*** Reality check
The Bush propagandists are hard at work trying to draw a comparison between Nazi Germany and Iran.
There are a few major problems with their fairy tale.
For example:
1. Modern Iran has no history of military aggression
Fact: Iran has never invaded or attacked another country in the Middle East or elsewhere.
In contrast, the US has savaged Iraq causing the death of over 600,000 civilians since 2003 alone.
In the summer of 2006, Israel bombarded Lebanon in a "search for terrorists" killing over 1,000 civilians and causing billions of dollars in damage to the country's infrastructure (airport, ports, roadways, housing, and factories.)
In 1980, the US encouraged its ally Saddam Hussein to attack Iran and he did with terrible consequences for the Iranian people.
2. Who has nukes?
Facts:
a. Iran has no nuclear weapons
b. Iran lacks the ability to create nuclear weapons
c. Iran is permitted by international treaty to develop
a nuclear energy program.
In contrast, the US has the largest nuclear weapons stockpile on earth and has stated, under the Bush administration, its "right" to use them "pre-emptively" at President Bush's discretion. The US continues to develop new and "improved" nuclear weapons.
Israel has a well developed nuclear weapons program and is the only nuclear power in the Middle East.
3. The US attacked Iran in the 1980s using Iraq as a surrogate
Saddam Hussein, who was put in power by the US, was supported in his invasion of Iran with billions of dollars in US weapons shipped to him by Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. and coordinated
by people including Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
Over 300,000 Iranians were killed in this US-funded war and over 500,000 were wounded.
It was during the US supported-Iraq attack on Iran that the US transferred chemical and biological weapons technology to Iraq. There is evidence that the Bush family commercially
profited from these arms exports.
4. The US installed and maintained a tyranny in Iran that operated from 1953 to 1979.
In 1953, the US and CIA with help from the UK engineered a violent overthrow of the country's democratically elected government and then supported a brutal, anti-democratic dictator in Iran - the
so called "Shah of Iran" - who jailed thousands of dissidents and engaged in vicious torture.
*** Military considerations
1. Iran is the 18th largest country in the world by size - the area of the UK, France and German combined.
2. Iran has over 70 million people - three times the population of Iraq
3. The Iranian military
Unlike Iraq, which lost a war with the US in 1990 and was militarily attacked non-stop up to the US invasion in 2003, Iran has had approximately 20 uninterrupted years to build and refine it defense capacity
4. Iranians are as patriotic about their country as Americans are about theirs and will stand and fight
as they proved when attacked by Iraq in 1980.
When fighting Iraq, Iran used every human and material recourse it had including "human waves"
of poorly armed and equipped suicide troops who overcame the Iraqis with their sheer numbers.
We have 160,000 troops in the region. The Iranians have 70,000,000 people and they will be fighting
on their home turf for their homeland.
5. Invaders are always at a disadvantage no matter how technologically advanced.
Invaders who have a supply line many thousands of miles long are at an extreme disadvantage.
6. Iranian tactics and operations are up-to-date and formidable.
Iranian-trained militias in Lebanon were able to counter an all out attack on Lebanon by the
US-equipped Israel army and air force and compel the Israelis to retreat and agree to a cease-fire.
7. Potential Iranian responses to a US attack
Iran in a counterattack has the option of:
a. closing the Straits of Hormuz (through which over 20%
of the world's oil passes),
b. attacking Israel, and/or
c. attacking US military installations in Iraq
None of these operations would be difficult or expensive to carry out.
However, the financial and human consequences could be extreme.
Oil, already at $80 a barrel could, according to Wall Street analysts, hit $200 per barrel - or more - with a doubling of current gasoline prices.
Thousands of civilians and military personnel could be killed and wounded in a matter of days.
*** Is war with Iran possible?
Yes.
1. Bush has the legal authority
Bush secured the legal authority to attack any country any time for any reason post 9/11 and pre-Iraq invasion. Congress has never taken this power back from him.
They need to do it. NOW.
2. The troops, weapons and plans needed are already in place
The so called "surge" has put many extra thousands of US troops and equipment into the region. (For the geographically challenged Iran is right next to Iraq.)
3. The propaganda war has already started
A very well funded and well organized propaganda operation - Freedom's Watch - staffed by former
Bush administration officials has set up in Washington DC with a multi-million dollar budget to "sell" war with Iran to the American people.
Sadly, they are doing an excellent job and few Americans are aware of how they are being conned
(again.)
*** Who benefits from attacking Iran?
The people who will benefit from an attack on Iran are very same people who benefited - and continue to benefit - from the invasion of Iraq:
1. Oil companies - the price of their product will skyrocket
2. Weapons makers - including the Carlyle Group, which the Bush family owns a major stake in.
3. Virulent Anti-Muslim and Arab zealots in Israel and elsewhere - and the idiots in America who support them
4. Insiders with the financial resources place "bets" on the war: buy gold, buy oil, short the US dollar etc.
5. Anti-democratic forces in the United States
About this last point...
Starting with the Reagan administration and continuing unabated through the Clinton administration and accelerating after 9/11, the executive branch of the United States government has methodically been:
1. Destroying traditional rights and protections guaranteed to US citizens by the Constitution
2. Creating a police state apparatus designed to silence and suppress dissent with maximum force.
Simply by declaring you an "enemy combatant" or someone who "supports" a declared enemy, you can be arrested and held without charge indefinitely and without the right to counsel.
This means that should the Bush administration engage in a war of naked aggression against Iran openly killing thousands of innocent Iranian civilians with bombardment, including nuclear attacks, the very act of speaking out about the immorality of such an attack could land you in jail
for the rest of your life or until such time the President of the United States decides to release you.
Does this sound improbable?
It's not.
Imagine this possible scenario.
The US attacks Iran.
Iran counterattacks hitting Israel and US troops in Iraq.
Underestimating the capacity of the Iranians to defend themselves, the US finds its troops pinned
down in Iraq by a military that is capable of killing them by the thousands.
What would the US do if, in yet another Bush blunder, Bush put thousands of US troops at
the immediate risk of being killed?
How would the average uneducated American, coming late to the story, react to the news that
hundreds of US servicemen and women were being killed daily?
Would this give Bush the green light for what this administration has been creating the
military doctrine for: a unilateral, first strike nuclear attack?
You bet it would and in the perverse world of the Bush family and its allies, it's possible they
may welcome the chance to finally let that particular genie out of the bottle.
Bottom line:
Once a military attack against Iran gets started, there is no imaginable positive outcome and potential negative outcomes are worse than anything any of us have seen in our lifetime.
For example:
* The reputation and moral standing of the US, which has already been smeared by the blatant criminality of the Bush administration, will be ruined, perhaps beyond repair
* Thousands of civilians and troops - perhaps tens or even hundred of thousands - could be killed or
wounded. There could be casualties in ONE DAY that dwarf all the casualties in Iraq since the invasion.
* The world economy will be thrown into a tailspin and the US economy, the world's most dependent
on oil, will be hit especially hard.
* Underlying financial instability caused by a culture of corruption and fraud (Enron, WorldCom, sub-prime mortgages etc.) will be further strained perhaps to the breaking point.
* China and Russian, two very formidable potential enemies with human, natural and technological
resources equivalent to the US, may decide (if they already haven't) that they need to join forces
to "check" US power and may begin to do so in an aggressive way.
Again, this is all great news for the oil companies, the weapons makers, the anti-Muslim and Arab zealots, the opponents of civil rights and the Constitution and plugged in Wall Street operators.
It will be a disaster for American citizens.
Disasters for average Americans is what the Bush family has been about for four generations now:
1. The great grandfather *Samuel Bush* was Woodrow Wilson's liaison to the weapon's industry and profited mightily in that role. He was one of a handful of architects "present at creation" of the modern military-industrial complex which has steadily bled the US financially and morally for private
profit for decades.
2. The grandfather *Prescott Bush* was US banker to the Nazis, helping them before, during, and after World War II with their financial operations.
3. Bush Sr. was behind the Iran-Contra operation which illegally sent arms to Iran and siphoned
the profits for personal gain and to fund terrorist operations in Central America. He also worked
with the Bin Laden family and others to fund the so called Afghani resistance which became the Taliban and al Queda.
4. And finally, George W. Bush, who in seven years has done more lasting harm to to the United State than any group of external enemies, real or imagined, could ever do.
Undermining fundamental America values and strengthening US enemies been a lucrative business
for the Bush Family for four generations now.
*** Action items to stop the coming war
Let your friends and colleagues - and the media and your local representatives know that:
1. You don't buy the Bush administration's anti-Iranian propaganda
2. A war against Iran would be potentially catastrophic, much worse than the current disaster in Iraq
3. Advocacy for this war as practiced by Bush administration front groups like Freedom's Watch
is against American interests and needs to be exposed
4. Bush needs to have the war powers granted to him
post 9/11 taken away and taken away now.
Sincerely,
Name
Address
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