← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · RowdyRoddyPiper
Thread ID: 16890 | Posts: 19 | Started: 2005-02-22
2005-02-22 12:16 | User Profile
[url]http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2295/2/[/url]
[QUOTE]Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.
Olympians like to call the Capitol Theater "historic," but it's doubtful whether the eighty-year-old edifice has ever been the scene of more portentous revelations.
The principal theme of Scott Ritter's talk was Americans’ duty to protect the U.S. Constitution by taking action to bring an end to the illegal war in Iraq. But in passing, the former UNSCOM weapons inspector stunned his listeners with two pronouncements. Ritter said plans for a June attack on Iran have been submitted to President George W. Bush, and that the president has approved them. He also asserted that knowledgeable sources say U.S. officials "cooked" the results of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.
On Iran, Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism.
The former Marine also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George W. Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom," were not so free after all. Ritter said that U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results in order to reduce the percentage of the vote received by the United Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%.
Asked by UFPPC's Ted Nation about this shocker, Ritter said an official involved in the manipulation was the source, and that this would soon be reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a major metropolitan magazine -- an obvious allusion to New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh.[/QUOTE]
2005-02-22 18:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE]President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million [/QUOTE]
I continue to be amused by 'patriots' who, with equal fury and sanctimony, support the Pax Judaica annexing the Middle East for 'freedom' while continuing to denounce Tha Eeeevil Knotsies for annexing Western Europe for 'tyranny'.
It's almost as funny as those 'geopolitical realists' who view every development since 9/11 as 'inevitable' in much the same way they write off the possibility that 9/11 was an inside job as 'alarmist fantasy'.
2005-02-22 18:51 | User Profile
Ritter has been consistently correct about events in greater Mesopotamia.
Tehran is dug in deep. Whether Emperor Junior or the porcine Sharon launches the first strike--the response am gwine be a lulu.
2005-02-22 19:01 | User Profile
That the US will invade another country is all but certain, at this point. The only questions remaining are whether it will be against Iran or Syria, and whether Pinky (the US) or the Brain (Israel) will launch the first strike.
2005-02-22 19:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]That the US will invade another country is all but certain, at this point. The only questions remaining are whether it will be against Iran or Syria, and whether Pinky (the US) or the Brain (Israel) will launch the first strike.[/QUOTE]
Music to my ears.
I've placed my bets on war with Iran.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
Go Shrub!
2005-02-22 22:59 | User Profile
One fears he may be right...
2005-04-03 09:52 | User Profile
Recent interview with Ritter where he buttresses his claims (link to mp3):
[url]http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2005-03-31-Charles-02.mp3[/url]
2005-04-06 21:30 | User Profile
Not reported in the text story above but found in the audio link above (also found at [url]http://www.antiwar.com/av/?articleid=5433[/url]) is Scott Ritter's assertion that the date of June 2005 has been essentially dictated by Israel. Sharon and his gang have in effect told Bush that June 2005 is the last date by which they can hope to destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity (which they are legally entitled to under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty {which Israel has not signed}[of course]) [I]not[/I] nuclear weapons manufacturing [I]per se[/I] . And something to the effect, if you don't do it, we will. It will be a bridge too far for both of them.
2005-04-06 21:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Music to my ears.
I've placed my bets on war with Iran.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
Go Shrub![/QUOTE]I'd fall out of my chair.
They just can't be that stupid.
Can they?
2005-04-07 14:03 | User Profile
[quote=Steamship Time]They just can't be that stupid.
Can they?
I wouldn't bet the farm on it. According to the War Nerd...
Everybody's asking me what'll happen if we attack Iran. To get a quick preview, just do what this guy in my eighth-grade class did: put a firecracker in your mouth, hold it between your front teeth, and light the fuse.
Your friends won't believe you'll go through with it. So when it blows up in your face, you'll expect them to be impressed. And you'll be surprised, just like this guy in junior high was surprised, when all you get is a perforated eardrum and a reputation as the biggest dumbass in the school.
Right now, Bush is standing there with a lit match and a big firecracker labeled "Iran" in his mouth. Except it's more like an M-80 or a whole stick of dynamite than a firecracker. Nobody believes he'll be dumb enough to light it, to actually attack Iran. Even the Iranians don't believe it; Khameini, their head Mullah, said last week "America is in no position to invade Iran."
He's right about that. Even the US Army brass admits we're "overstretched." We don't even have enough troops to control Iraq; a war with Iran would mean calling up every National Guard unit we have. Even then, it would take years to get them combat-ready.
And this time the Brits won't come with us. They've been making that clear, on the quiet. If we go in, it'll be as a coalition of one.
So Khameini's right; we can't attack Iran. But that doesn't mean we won't. Khameini was making the same mistake everybody's been making: assuming Bush and his cronies have a lick of sense.
The best way of guessing what Bush will do is asking, what's the worst thing he could do to America? Whatever it is, that's what he'll do. I think he's been possessed by bin Laden, because everything he's done has been exactly what Al Quaeda hoped for. Right now, bin Laden is praying to Allah that we'll be stupid enough to attack Iran. That would be the cherry on his halal sundae, the one thing that could actually finish us off as a Superpower.
2005-04-07 19:17 | User Profile
Interesting, MST.
2005-04-08 06:28 | User Profile
[QUOTE=SteamshipTime]I'd fall out of my chair.
They just can't be that stupid.
Can they?[/QUOTE] Hey, I thought for sure Shrub was bluffing on Iraq. I couldn't imagine an America president would lie his way into a war in Muslim South Asia.
But there you have it.
I think Shrub really is that reckless, which is why I voted for him this last election. Twice.
2005-04-08 08:05 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis].....
I think Shrub really is that reckless, which is why I voted for him this last election. Twice.[/QUOTE]
Can you elaborate on this?
Is the expected result of another military disaster that the masses turn on Cheney/Bush and the neocons and the Republicans in the next election? Or even sooner? Not likely.
The stakes are much higher here, with the possibility that China and Russia would back Iran; that there wouldn't be any quick victory, but instead the beginning of a huge regional and even world war; that the world financial situation would collapse, with [I]de facto[/I] blockade of the straits of Hormuz; that economic depression would affect this country, and that the masses acquiesce in a more fascist regime even than present, etc. etc.
To continue the analogy presented above, it's more like the dumbest ass kid in school not just lighting a firecracker in his teeth but playing around with a bomb that will destroy the whole school and everybody in it.
2005-04-08 14:07 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sather_Gate]To continue the analogy presented above, it's more like the dumbest ass kid in school not just lighting a firecracker in his teeth but playing around with a bomb that will destroy the whole school and everybody in it.[/QUOTE] SG -- Walt is OD's foremost proponent of the 'worse is better' theory, meaning that, to continue with your analogy, after the school is destroyed, the survivors would climb out of the wreckage to hold class on the lawn in the sunshine.
2005-04-08 15:51 | User Profile
Ritter in the interview repeatedly stated that June is the date when the US will be [I]ready[/I] to drop bombs. It may not actually happen and anyway we all know an attack on IRanian nuclear plants is coming. No surprise there. The ground war will not go into Iran. That would be insane. :)
2005-04-08 16:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]Ritter in the interview repeatedly stated that June is the date when the US will be [I]ready[/I] to drop bombs. It may not actually happen and anyway we all know an attack on IRanian nuclear plants is coming. No surprise there. The ground war will not go into Iran. That would be insane. :)[/QUOTE]
Yes, there is some inconsistency in his claims. He originally predicted the attack would happen in June, now he is backing away from that prediction. Or perhaps the original article was an inaccurate paraphrasing of what he said at the Capitol Theatre? Who knows. I agree with you, an aerial attack is almost inevitable, a ground war unlikely.
2005-04-08 16:52 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sather_Gate]Can you elaborate on this?
.[/QUOTE]
Yggdrasil is an occasional poster here on OD, and I've been much influenced by his ideas.
Ygg has a very developed theory of collapse, see for example Joseph Tainter's [URL=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/052138673X/qid=1112978610/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-2763389-2923164]Collapse of Complex Societies [/URL] on Ygg's list of "must read" books that he calls the [URL=http://home.ddc.net/ygg/cwar/index.htm]Seven Pillars.[/URL] Tainter states that collapse is at bottom an economic phenomenon - it's what happens when energy investments in additional complexity reach the point of diminishing or even negative returns. When that point is reached, the society collapses back down to the next lowest economically-viable energy quantum. It's an extremely interesting book, I can't recommend it more highly.
Anyway, the idea is that the American Empire will collapse back down to the ethnic state level once enough of Tainter's "stress vectors" are piled on to the Imperial structure and the magic collapse point is reached.
War - especially losing and unpopular wars - are extremely stressful, and it is hoped that this present war will hasten the collapse of the Empire.
Ygg also talks a great deal about [URL=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471979546/qid=1112979092/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-2763389-2923164?v=glance&s=books]Robert Prechter's [/URL] theories based on Elliot Wave analyses, which predicts a cyclical downturn of mammoth proportions in the next few years, meaning that stress vectors are waiting for us down the road even in the best of times.
I support the war in the Mideast because I think it may hasten the downfall of the Empire and the reemergence of European, Christian and English-speaking American nation state.
I don't doubt that there's a significant element of wishful thinking in this, but it is a plausible theory, and one that many of us haters of the Empire have adopted.
2005-04-09 02:38 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Tainter states that collapse is at bottom an economic phenomenon - it's what happens when energy investments in additional complexity reach the point of diminishing or even negative returns. When that point is reached, the society collapses back down to the next lowest economically-viable energy quantum. It's an extremely interesting book, I can't recommend it more highly.[/QUOTE]
Are you talking about "energy" in a strict physical sense - coal, oil etc, or in a more metaphorical sense here? (e.g. stength of cultural bonds, civilisational inertia etc).
If you haven't come across it before, the [URL=http://dieoff.org/page125.htm]Olduvai Theory[/URL] contains the ominous prediction that this civilisational cycle (in the sense that Spengler talks about) will be the last one where a viable post-industrial civilisation will be possible. If we collapse down to a more primitive pre-industrial society at this stage we won't be able to drag ourselves back up by our bootstraps because we have plundered the easy non-renewable energy sources that allowed us to scale the technology tree to where we are today. According to the theory, it's one shot, all or nothing. If society undergoes a general collapse now, we're stuck in the Stone Age for good.
It's a bit dire, and I don't find it 100% believeable, but it's an interesting throught.
2005-04-09 05:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=RowdyRoddyPiper]Are you talking about "energy" in a strict physical sense - coal, oil etc, or in a more metaphorical sense here? (e.g. stength of cultural bonds, civilisational inertia etc)..[/QUOTE]
Energy in the "strict physical sense," as you say.
The notion is that all activity requires energy inputs, and energy production forms the economic matrix within which any society can develop. All human works can be seen as crystallized engery of one kind or another.
I think that there are other factors, of course, such as human talent, initiative, and indeed perceptions, and I think that Tainter would agree with that. But in economics you can't measure things like that so you're forced to use proxies. And energy inputs are so fundamental to everything that they form a fair measure for general human activity.
One point is that collapse can best be forestalled by increased energy inputs by, say, inventions that improve the efficiency of energy use like superconductors or new sources of cheap power like a breakthrough in solar or fusion energy technology. That's why all of these productivity gains are so worrisome for those of us who want to see a collapse.
I can't recommend this book more highly. You may not agree with it, but I think you'll never look at the world quite the same way again.