Submitted by BuzzFlash on Wed, 01/09/2008 - 12:37pm. Dave Lindorff
Not one news story about this week's latest chapter in the administration's ongoing effort to gin up a crazy war with Iran -- the so-called "provocation" caused by Iranian naval speedboats approaching within 200 meters of a U.S. destroyer -- mentioned that the U.S., which sits some 7,500 miles away from Iran, has sent a whole fully-armed armada into the Persian Gulf just off Iran's coast.
Or that the Vice President actually flew out to an aircraft carrier that was part of that U.S. armada, and threatened, from the flight deck, to have the U.S. massively attack Iran.
Just who is provoking whom where?
Imagine, for a moment, that Iran had sent its navy to patrol in the Gulf of Mexico, in international waters just off of the coasts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and that its leader flew out to one of those ships and threatened to take out America's oil infrastructure.
That would be provided that Iran had an armada to match hat of the U.S.
How do you think the U.S. government would react? How do you think the American people would react?
Do you think the U.S. would send naval vessels out to provokingly sail close to Iranian ships? Do you think the U.S. might do more than that and maybe sink those ships? (Especially if at that very moment Iranian special forces were operating inside the U.S., creating havoc and supporting subversive elements, as U.S. special forces are already doing in Iran.)
Well duh! Of course they would.
So what do we expect the Iranians to do in this situation? Just keep their fleet moored in harbors and watch the U.S. fleet sail up and down the Gulf, and out in the Arabian Sea off their southern coast unchallenged?
I'm not saying that Iran's decision to move aggressively to challenge U.S. naval power off their shores is necessarily the wisest move, but at least American journalists and editors ought to have the decency and ethics to point out to readers and viewers that it is the U.S., not the Iranians, that are provoking things here.
If and when there is a U.S. attack on Iran, you can bet the pretext for it will be some act by Iran that the U.S. media will present as a "dastardly" attack on innocent U.S. forces. What we're seeing with this coverage of the latest confrontation between U.S. and Iranian vessels is that we will not be getting the real story.
Since when have we gotten the real story about anything from the U.S. media?
As long as the Bush/Cheney Administration continues to have that huge armada of war-primed vessels hugging Iran's coast, the U.S. is the aggressor, and the Bush/Cheney Administration must get the blame for the consequences.
The American corporate media will also be responsible though, for our domestic news organizations are playing the willing propagandists here as willingly as did Pravda or TASS in the old Soviet Union.
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Showing posts with label U.S. Navy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. Navy. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Adm. Fallon Visits Gulf States: Shoring Up Support Against Iran
Adm. Fallon Presses Case Against Iran
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
(09-18) 13:11 PDT MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) --
The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East is pressing Arab allies to form a more united front against Iran, seen by Washington as the region's long-term threat.
At military compounds and royal reception halls across the Persian Gulf, Adm. William Fallon is delivering personal appeals to Arab leaders to counter Iran's ambitions to expand its regional influence and move ahead with its nuclear program.
Fallon has carefully avoided publicly discussing any war contingency plans or making any direct threats against Iran, which sits in his sphere of operations. As head of U.S. Central Command, he oversees forces in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.
His current 10-day trip, which began Saturday in Bahrain, was more about seeking to quietly galvanize Gulf leaders while letting others sharply escalate pressure on Tehran. On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the world should prepare for war if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.
"We are not looking for a new NATO-type alliance against Iran," Fallon told The Associated Press after talks with Bahrain's defense minister, Sheik Khalifa bin Ahmad Al Khalifa.
But the U.S. wants that "when they (Iran) look to the Gulf, they see a group united in response to Iranian hegemonic behavior," Fallon said.
That's not such a simple task.
Many of the small Gulf nations, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have deep cultural, historical or business ties to Iran and increasingly look to Iran as a crucial source for oil and gas as their own fields begin to dwindle in coming decades. They also worry about angering local Shiite communities with affinity to Shiite heavyweight Iran.
In May, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was allowed by authorities in Dubai — the economic dynamo of the Emirates — to lead a rare anti-American rally a day after a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney aimed at countering Tehran's influence.
Still, strong forces pull Gulf states in Washington's direction.
The Gulf's main power, Saudi Arabia, worries about its regional rival Iran increasing its influence among Shiite Muslims, who form a majority in Iraq and have significant communities among the Sunni-dominated nations of the Gulf.
Washington also has forged close military alliances across the Gulf with about 40,000 U.S. troops on land bases — including Kuwait as a key staging ground for Iraq and an expanding presence in Bahrain as host of the U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters.
"These governments realize that they cannot make an enemy of Iran because they have to live with Iran right across the Gulf. On the other hand, they don't want to harm their ties with the United States, which has many interests in the neighborhood," said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington. "It's a very difficult spot."
Fallon carries the message that the Gulf states are an important front-line deterrent to Iran, which controls the entire northern coastline of the Gulf and could threaten critical oil tanker routes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Military officials with knowledge of Fallon's meetings also suggested that pressure from Gulf nations could dissuade Iranian naval forces from challenging U.S. and allies watching over Iraqi oil platforms and shipping lanes into Kuwait and Iraq. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
They said small vessels of Iran's Revolutionary Guard — operating independently from the regular Iranian navy — have apparently been increasing patrols just inside Iran's maritime borders near Iraq's tiny Gulf coast. This is the area where 15 British soldiers and marines were seized in March and held for 13 days by Iran, which claimed the Britons strayed into its waters.
The United States and other nations, led by Britain and Australia, currently have more than two dozen ships in the Gulf region, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and two amphibious ships with their strike groups.
The Enterprise arrived last month shortly after the departure of two carriers, USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz, which had been in the Gulf since February in a show of force against Iran.
Fallon's predecessor, retired Gen. John Abizaid, said in Washington on Monday that U.S. forces have the power to "deter Iran should it become nuclear."
"We want to send Iran a message that there are no cracks between the U.S. and its allies here," Fallon said.
His views have the ear of some of the top members of the Gulf's royal families.
In Bahrain, Fallon expressed support for a possible $300 million upgrade for the nation's F-16 fleet and met with Crown Prince Sheik Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, who also serves as commander in chief of the nation's military forces.
Fallon was in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday. Later in the day, he headed to Oman, and his tour will also take him to Qatar, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
U.S. Navy In High Places
Gates again turns to Navy for Joint Chiefs
The Defense secretary's pick causes unease especially with the Army, which is doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
June 10, 2007
WASHINGTON — In choosing to recommend an admiral as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has for the second time given a high-profile job to someone from the Navy — a service that has, for the most part, worked only on the fringes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The choice of Adm. Michael G. Mullen comes just five months after Gates surprised many in the military, including some members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by picking an admiral to become the new head of Central Command. Adm. William J. Fallon is the first Navy officer to head the Pentagon headquarters responsible for the Middle East, which now oversees the two major wars. Pentagon watchers said the choice of the so-called sea services — including the Marine Corps, whose Gen. James E. Cartwright was chosen as the Joint Chiefs' new vice chairman — for the military's most difficult assignments was a testimony to the Navy's growing reputation as the most intellectually rigorous of the services.
"There's no obvious reason a Navy guy would be put in charge of Centcom, or why we would have two sea service people replacing two other sea service people at the top of the Joint Chiefs," said Loren B. Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based military think tank. "But the reality is that they seem to be able to work with big ideas and big political leaders better than the other services."
The decision has caused some consternation within the other services, particularly the Army, which is doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. There also have been grumblings within the Air Force, whose only current regional command is in North America.
One command coveted by the Air Force was the headquarters of what is generally regarded as the second-most difficult regional command: the Pacific. For that position, Gates once again turned to the Navy, tapping Adm. Timothy J. Keating.
Although four-star Army generals are the ground commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, some Army advocates say that the service has been unfairly shortchanged because it was disparaged by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as a hidebound organization unable to adjust to modern, expeditionary warfare.
Asked what accounted for the lack of Army officers in high-profile interservice, or "joint," commands, retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey said simply: "Rumsfeld bias." Rumsfeld and his civilian aides "set in motion for five years a series of decisions that discredited Army leadership," McCaffrey said. "It strikes me as extremely unusual that the principal load-bearing institution of national defense is the U.S. Army; Rumsfeld thought it was irrelevant at best."
One example of a respected Army officer who has failed to be appointed to a top command, current and former Army officials said, is Gen. Richard A. Cody, a decorated Apache helicopter pilot who led the first attack on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff who has won widespread credit within the Pentagon for publicly acknowledging Army failures in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, was expected to be promoted to any number of recent command jobs. But Army officials said his independence and his repeated insistence that the Army should be enlarged antagonized Rumsfeld, costing Cody a command assignment.
The rise of Naval officers under Gates, some analysts said, is also a reflection of the growing administrative power of the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, who spent two years as Navy secretary early in the Bush administration. Because Gates has focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his brief tenure, England has been left to handle many of the department's internal operations.
Navy officers say their worldview is uniquely fitted for the current environment, in which threats are global and understanding foreign cultures is critical. Because Navy officers must constantly patrol the world's seas and regularly interact with international governments in ports abroad, they say, the Navy has developed a culture that is more open to a broader view of American power.
Gates cited that vision at a news conference Friday in which he announced Mullen's selection. He recounted a round of phone calls made to the service chiefs by his top military aide, who had just returned to Washington after a tour in Iraq. "He asked Adm. Mullen what was the thing he was most concerned about. The chief of naval operations said: the Army," Gates recalled. "He has a broad view of what the needs and requirements of the services are, and of the nation, and I think he brings also a tremendous strategic sense." One Navy officer, who asked not to be named when discussing interservice rivalries, said a broader worldview is bred into sailors early in their careers, adding that even relatively junior Navy officers can find themselves commanding a ship alone on the open seas and be forced to make quick decisions without the aid of superiors.
The Navy officer said that even senior Army officers, such as a colonel commanding a 3,500-soldier brigade, are constrained by other brigades on the battlefield and are trained to be part of a larger war effort, which occasionally inhibits their ability to see the bigger picture.McCaffrey disputed the view that the Army is narrowly focused on big set-piece warfare to the exclusion of broader global concerns, noting that the service has dealt with worldwide threats in the past.
"Iraq looks more like the Philippines in 1901 than some new form of warfare," McCaffrey said. "We've been doing counterinsurgency, humanitarian operations, peacekeeping for generations, and doing pretty well."
peter.spiegel@latimes.com
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
The Defense secretary's pick causes unease especially with the Army, which is doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
June 10, 2007
WASHINGTON — In choosing to recommend an admiral as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has for the second time given a high-profile job to someone from the Navy — a service that has, for the most part, worked only on the fringes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The choice of Adm. Michael G. Mullen comes just five months after Gates surprised many in the military, including some members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by picking an admiral to become the new head of Central Command. Adm. William J. Fallon is the first Navy officer to head the Pentagon headquarters responsible for the Middle East, which now oversees the two major wars. Pentagon watchers said the choice of the so-called sea services — including the Marine Corps, whose Gen. James E. Cartwright was chosen as the Joint Chiefs' new vice chairman — for the military's most difficult assignments was a testimony to the Navy's growing reputation as the most intellectually rigorous of the services.
"There's no obvious reason a Navy guy would be put in charge of Centcom, or why we would have two sea service people replacing two other sea service people at the top of the Joint Chiefs," said Loren B. Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based military think tank. "But the reality is that they seem to be able to work with big ideas and big political leaders better than the other services."
The decision has caused some consternation within the other services, particularly the Army, which is doing the bulk of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. There also have been grumblings within the Air Force, whose only current regional command is in North America.
One command coveted by the Air Force was the headquarters of what is generally regarded as the second-most difficult regional command: the Pacific. For that position, Gates once again turned to the Navy, tapping Adm. Timothy J. Keating.
Although four-star Army generals are the ground commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, some Army advocates say that the service has been unfairly shortchanged because it was disparaged by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as a hidebound organization unable to adjust to modern, expeditionary warfare.
Asked what accounted for the lack of Army officers in high-profile interservice, or "joint," commands, retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey said simply: "Rumsfeld bias." Rumsfeld and his civilian aides "set in motion for five years a series of decisions that discredited Army leadership," McCaffrey said. "It strikes me as extremely unusual that the principal load-bearing institution of national defense is the U.S. Army; Rumsfeld thought it was irrelevant at best."
One example of a respected Army officer who has failed to be appointed to a top command, current and former Army officials said, is Gen. Richard A. Cody, a decorated Apache helicopter pilot who led the first attack on Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff who has won widespread credit within the Pentagon for publicly acknowledging Army failures in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal, was expected to be promoted to any number of recent command jobs. But Army officials said his independence and his repeated insistence that the Army should be enlarged antagonized Rumsfeld, costing Cody a command assignment.
The rise of Naval officers under Gates, some analysts said, is also a reflection of the growing administrative power of the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, who spent two years as Navy secretary early in the Bush administration. Because Gates has focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his brief tenure, England has been left to handle many of the department's internal operations.
Navy officers say their worldview is uniquely fitted for the current environment, in which threats are global and understanding foreign cultures is critical. Because Navy officers must constantly patrol the world's seas and regularly interact with international governments in ports abroad, they say, the Navy has developed a culture that is more open to a broader view of American power.
Gates cited that vision at a news conference Friday in which he announced Mullen's selection. He recounted a round of phone calls made to the service chiefs by his top military aide, who had just returned to Washington after a tour in Iraq. "He asked Adm. Mullen what was the thing he was most concerned about. The chief of naval operations said: the Army," Gates recalled. "He has a broad view of what the needs and requirements of the services are, and of the nation, and I think he brings also a tremendous strategic sense." One Navy officer, who asked not to be named when discussing interservice rivalries, said a broader worldview is bred into sailors early in their careers, adding that even relatively junior Navy officers can find themselves commanding a ship alone on the open seas and be forced to make quick decisions without the aid of superiors.
The Navy officer said that even senior Army officers, such as a colonel commanding a 3,500-soldier brigade, are constrained by other brigades on the battlefield and are trained to be part of a larger war effort, which occasionally inhibits their ability to see the bigger picture.McCaffrey disputed the view that the Army is narrowly focused on big set-piece warfare to the exclusion of broader global concerns, noting that the service has dealt with worldwide threats in the past.
"Iraq looks more like the Philippines in 1901 than some new form of warfare," McCaffrey said. "We've been doing counterinsurgency, humanitarian operations, peacekeeping for generations, and doing pretty well."
peter.spiegel@latimes.com
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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