John Pilger detects the Salvador Option ColumnistsJohn PilgerMonday 8th May 2006

The American public is being prepared. If the attack on Iran does come, there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no truth, writes John Pilger
The lifts in the New York Hilton played CNN on a small screen you could not avoid watching. Iraq was top of the news; pronouncements about a "civil war" and "sectarian violence" were repeated incessantly. It was as if the US invasion had never happened and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians by the Americans was a surreal fiction. The Iraqis were mindless Arabs, haunted by religion, ethnic strife and the need to blow themselves up. Unctuous puppet politicians were paraded with no hint that their exercise yard was inside an American fortress. And when you left the lift, this followed you to your room, to the hotel gym, the airport, the next airport and the next country. Such is the power of America's corporate propaganda, which, as Edward Said pointed out in Culture and Imperialism, "penetrates electronically" with its equivalent of a party line. The party line changed the other day. For almost three years it was that al-Qaeda was the driving force behind the "insurgency", led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a bloodthirsty Jordanian who was clearly being groomed for the kind of infamy Saddam Hussein enjoys. It mattered not that al-Zarqawi had never been seen alive and that only a fraction of the "insurgents" followed al-Qaeda. For the Americans, Zarqawi's role was to distract attention from the thing that almost all Iraqis oppose: the brutal Anglo-American occupation of their country. Now that al-Zarqawi has been replaced by "sectarian violence" and "civil war", the big news is the attacks by Sunnis on Shia mosques and bazaars. The real news, which is not reported in the CNN "mainstream", is that the Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq. This is the campaign of terror by death squads armed and trained by the US, which attack Sunnis and Shias alike. The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the break-up of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration. The ministry of the interior in Baghdad, which is run by the CIA, directs the principal death squads. Their members are not exclusively Shia, as the myth goes. The most brutal are the Sunni-led Special Police Commandos, headed by former senior officers in Saddam's Ba'ath Party. This unit was formed and trained by CIA "counter-insurgency" experts, including veterans of the CIA's terror operations in central America in the 1980s, notably El Salvador. In his new book, Empire's Workshop (Metropolitan Books), the American historian Greg Grandin describes the Salvador Option thus: "Once in office, [President] Reagan came down hard on central America, in effect letting his administration's most committed militarists set and execute policy. In El Salvador, they provided more than a million dollars a day to fund a lethal counter-insurgency campaign . . . All told, US allies in central America during Reagan's two terms killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands and drove millions into exile." Although the Reagan administration spawned the current Bushites, or "neo-cons", the pattern was set earlier. In Vietnam, death squads trained, armed and directed by the CIA murdered up to 50,000 people in Operation Phoenix. In the mid-1960s in Indonesia CIA officers compiled "death lists" for General Suharto's killing spree during his seizure of power. After the 2003 invasion, it was only a matter of time before this venerable "policy" was applied in Iraq. According to the investigative writer Max Fuller (National Review Online), the key CIA manager of the interior ministry death squads "cut his teeth in Vietnam before moving on to direct the US military mission in El Salvador". Professor Grandin names another central America veteran whose job now is to "train a ruthless counter-insurgent force made up of ex-Ba'athist thugs". Another, says Fuller, is well-known for his "production of death lists". A secret militia run by the Americans is the Facilities Protection Service, which has been responsible for bombings. "The British and US Special Forces," concludes Fuller, "in conjunction with the [US-created] intelligence services at the Iraqi defence ministry, are fabricating insurgent bombings of Shias." On 16 March, Reuters reported the arrest of an American "security contractor" who was found with weapons and explosives in his car. Last year, two Britons disguised as Arabs were caught with a car full of weapons and explosives; British forces bulldozed the Basra prison to rescue them. The Boston Globe recently reported: "The FBI's counter-terrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering that some of the vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed US troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior government officials." As I say, all this has been tried before - just as the preparation of the American public for an atrocious attack on Iran is similar to the WMD fabrications in Iraq. If that attack comes, there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no truth. Imprisoned in the Hilton lift, staring at CNN, my fellow passengers could be excused for not making sense of the Middle East, or Latin America, or anywhere. They are isolated. Nothing is explained. Congress is silent. The Democrats are moribund. And the freest media on earth insult the public every day. As Voltaire put it: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
This article first appeared in the New Statesman.For the latest in current and cultural affairs take out a print or online subscription

Iran is Bush's bogeyman

Click To Remove --- -------------------------------------> "AHBUSH " , naughty evils !!!!!!!!!!

The continuing crisis with Iran is a welcome distraction and blessing in disguise for the beleaguered Bush administration, writes Firas Al-Atraqchi---------

In February 2003, several thousand members of a Shia militia infiltrated Iraq from Iran and took up positions in anticipation of an imminent United States invasion.

Once US forces penetrated Iraqi defenses, the militia vanguard were joined by a heavily armed and fully mechanised Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), ideologically and financially supported by their host country Iran.

The infiltration of the Badr Brigade effectively breached an agreement between its late leader Ayatollah Mohamed Baqir Al-Hakim and the US military that his militia would not enter Iraq until well after Saddam Hussein had been deposed. But there was no complaint from Washington.

Instead, hoping to entice Iran to play a constructive role in controlling and stabilising Iraqi Shias, Washington made a dramatic concession to the Islamic Republic by shutting down its greatest internal threat -- the Mujahidi Khalq rebels.

Mujahidi Khalq, who had mounted attacks against the Tehran theocracy with the tacit support of Saddam Hussein, were disarmed and disbanded. Their bases were taken over by US forces and their Kurdish allies.

Iraqi Shia Ayatollahs and lesser clerics, who had been based in Iran (and to a lesser extent, Syria) were allowed to return to Iraq en masse.

Tens of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers, who had defected to Iran, as well as Iranian military advisers, took on security portfolios in the newly-liberated country.

Clerics immediately called for Iraq to become an Islamic state following Shariah law. Rules, regulations and civic codes were rewritten in municipalities to reflect this change as thousands of militia members patrolled the streets.

Revenge killings mushroomed and rights groups complained of abuses against women and minorities.

But Washington was silent, quietly hoping Iran, and its parade of Ayatollahs, such as Ali Al-Sistani, could help bring order to Iraq.

Three years later, the bizarre US-Iran nexus has been turned on its head and condemnation of Iran's involvement in Iraq is all the rage in US media.

How did this reversal of fortuitous friendship come about?

When Iraq was invaded by US forces in 2003, President George Bush's approval rating stood at 68 per cent and a majority of the public favoured military pre-emption in the oil-rich nation.

In January 2005, his approval rating stood at 57 per cent dropping to 45 per cent in August.

It was around this time that Iran's involvement in its neighbour began to be highlighted by US military leaders and Washington- based think tanks.

The flood of anti-Iran verbosity began to rise considerably as the president's numbers continued to decline. Last year, on 14 August, Bush told Israeli TV "all options were on the table" hinting a military option had not been ruled out in dealing with Iran's "support of terrorism" and nuclear programme.

"The use of force is the last option for any president. You know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country," he said. This was considered to be the most belligerent tone the president used against Iran to date.

When Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal addressed the Foreign Relations Council in Washington on 21 September and said the US had handed Iraq over to Iran on a silver platter, Bush's approval rating stood at 42 per cent.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was sitting by his side. Up to that point, Rice had given the Iranians "soft" warnings.

In July 2005, she said "The Middle East is changing, and even the unelected leaders in Tehran must recognise this fact. They must know that the energy of reform that is building all around them will one day inspire Iran's citizens to demand their liberty and their rights. The United States stands with the people of Iran."

So was Al-Faisal's tirade a sharp rebuke of Washington's policies in the region?

Hardly, rather it paved the way for a flurry of speeches and policies directly implicating Iran in the deterioration of security in Iraq.

On 1 October, Rice said "Any champion of democracy who promotes principles without power can make no real difference in the lives of oppressed people."

By 3 October, a CBS poll found Bush's approval rating at 37 per cent. On 6 October, British Prime Minister Tony Blair indicated Iran could be behind advanced explosive devices which had killed US and British troops.

Three days later, for the first time, US media began to report that death squads were suspected of operating in Iraq. "The murder of 22 men in one Baghdad neighborhood is being blamed on a corrupt police force with ties to Iran and the heart of the national Iraqi leadership," the Washington Times reported.

The above quote should not be taken lightly. It does two things: ties Iran to the violence and therefore corroborates Blair's statement and also belies Iran's infiltration in the Iraqi government.

On 12 October, US intelligence published a letter from Al-Qaeda leader Ayman El-Zawahiri purportedly to wanted Jordanian fugitive Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Among other things, the letter indicated several Al-Qaeda operatives were based in Iran and crossing over into Iraq. Al-Qaeda claimed the letter was fake.

On 15 October, US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton accused Iran of lying about its nuclear programme and that it was secretly developing nuclear weapons. And, on 19 October, testifying before a Congressional Committee, Rice refused to rule out a military option against Iran.

A Zogby poll on 21 October found Bush's approval rating had rebound to 45 per cent. On 26 October, US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad begins to increase the rhetoric against Iran. At a White House briefing he says: "Of course, we are opposed to Iranian policies with regard to Israel, we're opposed with regard to their nuclear policy, with regard to their support of terror, with regard to their negative policies in Iraq."

But since October, violence in Iraq had catapulted to frightening levels. The US military listed improvised explosive devices as the leading killer of US troops -- more than 100 servicemen and women were killed in Iraq breaking the 2000 mark, a "grim milestone", according to US media.

A disturbing phenomenon had also been introduced to the Iraqi landscape, scores of bound and executed men, mostly Sunnis, started to turn up in ditches, near mosques, etc.

Despite the passing of the referendum, violence did not abate and sectarian warfare skyrocketed.

After Iranian President Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be wiped off the map in late October, Blair said "If they [Iran] continue down this path, then people are going to believe that they are a real threat to our world security and peace."

On 7 November, Blair accused Iran of supporting terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere saying "There is a reason why Iran and Syria do their best to destabilise the situation in Iraq because they know that if Iraq is allowed to develop as a strong, Muslim state but with secular democratic government, then it's the best argument you can possibly have for people in Iran and in Syria to say 'Why don't we have some of that democracy? Why don't we have proper civil and human rights, too.'"

By 14 November, Bush's approval rating dropped to between 35 and 37 per cent. In the same period in 2001, his approval rating was 87 per cent. By 17 November, reports of death squads associated with Shia militia in turn associated with Iran were now hogging media headlines.

"One such group, the Volcano Brigade, is operating as a death squad -- under the influence or control of Iraq's most potent Shiite factional militia, the Iranian-backed Badr Organisation, said several Iraqi government officials and western Baghdad residents," wrote the Seattle Times.

This followed a spectacular US raid on several detention centres, some run in buildings belonging to the Interior Ministry, where dozens of Sunni Iraqis were freed from torture at the hands of the Badr Brigade.

A virtual blitz enveloped as pictures of emaciated, tortured, and murdered Sunni men were published in the media and on blogs.

The finger of blame was again pointed at Iran. On 27 November, former interim Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Al-Shaalan said Iran was running affairs in Iraq.

A careful charting of the steady decline of Bush's approval rating plotted against the rise in Iran-centric rhetoric reveals an inversely proportional relationship at work; the lower the president's approval rating, the louder the rhetoric against Iran gets.

Six months later, the same formula still holds true. Bush's approval rating has fallen to 32 per cent and now there is open talk of military action against Iran.

Khalilzad has upped the ante on Iran, blaming its allies in Iraq for sectarian violence, and directly implicating it in arming Ansar Al-Sunna, a major terrorist organisation in Iraq according to the US military, with advanced explosives.

That notion that Shia Iran is arming Sunni fighters in Iraq -- who are also targeting Shia militants -- is nothing short of an outrageous flight of fancy.

But to the US public it rings true. Translation? Every time a US serviceman is killed by IEDs, the public is meant to direct its anger at Iran.

In addition to its alleged meddling in Iraq, the Iranian nuclear programme has been the source of much speculation and paranoia in the US media for the past two years. Iran, we were told, was two years away from having the means and technical expertise to build an atomic weapon.

In the past two weeks that estimate was reduced to an astonishing 16 days by some US pundits after Iran declared it had successfully enriched uranium.

For the Bush administration, the focus on Iran is a welcome, if not contrived, distraction from the woes that continue to shame and blame the White House and the planners of the Iraqi invasion.

In recent weeks, Bush administration policy has even been rocked by criticism from former senior US generals.

Therefore, blaming and targeting Iran fulfills several US strategic imperatives in the region.

Firstly, with the threat of a nuclear holocaust played up in the media and aired by "expert" talking heads, the public will turn its focus away from Iraq to dealing with Iran.

Furthermore, it has become abundantly clear that the US has no viable exit strategy in Iraq and has on the contrary made contradictory statements regarding the duration of the US military presence in Iraq. Will US forces be out by the end of the year or will they remain for a decade ... or more?

That question can be answered by examining the expansive military bases, campgrounds, and runways being built by a horde of military contractors throughout Iraq.

The US military has budgeted $74 million for the extension of the Al-Asad military base in Balad, Iraq. Spanning 49 square kilometres, it is so large that it requires bus transportation (routes have already been built). US military engineers have also been reinforcing Iraq's aging runways to sustain F-16 and other US air force use.

And this is just one of several similar military bases and expansions concurrently underway in Iraq.

This may appear puzzling at first -- why build bases if the US intends to withdraw as soon as security and military control is handed over to the Iraqis?

Iran, of course, is the most available answer. With its sponsorship of terrorism and active pursuit of fuelling sectarian violence -- as espoused by both US and UK officials -- the most logical recourse is for the US to maintain a near-permanent presence in Iraq to protect it from Iranian intervention.

Iranian dissidents have also upped the ante waxing imploringly of the dire situation in Iran declaring to the world to come to the salvation of the Persian peoples shackled by the evil Islamist Mullahs.

"Prince du jour" Amir Taheri, former editor of Kayhan, Iran's largest daily newspaper and current "exile" in Europe said last week that Iran was out to dominate the Middle East, threaten both Israeli and US interests in the region, and manipulate world economies in its stranglehold of vital oil resources.

"The Iranian plan is simple: playing the diplomatic game for another two years until Bush becomes a "lame-duck", unable to take military action against the mullahs, while continuing to develop nuclear weapons," he writes.

All at once, Iran has become the main instigator of all that is wrong in Iraq and the justification for an extended US military presence in the country.

It has also, more disturbingly, become the poster "rogue nation" validating the notion of pre-emption with some hinting that tactical nuclear weapons could be used for the first time since 1945.

The fear that the US could very well implement a nuclear option prompted 13 prominent US scientists to send an open letter to Bush saying a tactical nuclear strike would have "disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world".

White House officials are hoping that the strategy of focusing on Iran as the next greatest, most imminent threat will resuscitate Bush's flagging popularity and place in history.

Writing in Rolling Stones magazine, Sean Wilentz, Dayton- Stockon professor of history and director of the programme in American studies at Princeton University, says Bush is a strong candidate for worst-ever president in US history.

"Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents."

Nothing rallies a country around a leader like a war built around the defence of principle.

Iran is that event, particularly when it is played up as the next big bogeyman in the Middle East that is not only threatening Israel -- America's only stalwart democratic ally in the area -- but also undermining the democratic flowering of neighbouring Iraq.

In October 2002, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd said: "The administration isn't targeting Iraq because of 9/11. It's exploiting 9/11 to target Iraq. This new fight isn't logical -- it's cultural. It is the latest chapter in the culture wars, the conservative dream of restoring America's sense of Manifest Destiny."

The threat of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme is very much fomenting in the shadow of 9/11. With Iran having considerably developed its nuclear capabilities, the fear-mongering of a mushroom cloud over a US city is very much still valid in the average American's psyche.

Beyond the Iraqi quagmire, Iran also provides the justification for cutting off financial aid to Hamas, billed as an Iran proxy, as well as pressuring Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hizbullah to disarm.

It also allows more indirect pressure to be heaped on Syria, one of the three countries (Iran and Hamas being the others) Israel labelled as the axis of evil in the Middle East.

Iran, unfortunately, is the glue (and target) that ties all US Middle East policy together.

A cloud over civilisation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Corporate power is the driving force behind US foreign policy - and the slaughter in Iraq

JK Galbraith
Thursday July 15, 2004
The Guardian


At the end of the second world war, I was the director for overall effects of the United States strategic bombing survey - Usbus, as it was known. I led a large professional economic staff in assessment of the industrial and military effects of the bombing of Germany. The strategic bombing of German industry, transportation and cities, was gravely disappointing. Attacks on factories that made such seemingly crucial components as ball bearings, and even attacks on aircraft plants, were sadly useless. With plant and machinery relocation and more determined management, fighter aircraft production actually increased in early 1944 after major bombing. In the cities, the random cruelty and death inflicted from the sky had no appreciable effect on war production or the war.

Article continues

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These findings were vigorously resisted by the Allied armed services - especially, needless to say, the air command, even though they were the work of the most capable scholars and were supported by German industry officials and impeccable German statistics, as well as by the director of German arms production, Albert Speer. All our conclusions were cast aside. The air command's public and academic allies united to arrest my appointment to a Harvard professorship and succeeded in doing so for a year.
Nor is this all. The greatest military misadventure in American history until Iraq was the war in Vietnam. When I was sent there on a fact-finding mission in the early 60s, I had a full view of the military dominance of foreign policy, a dominance that has now extended to the replacement of the presumed civilian authority. In India, where I was ambassador, in Washington, where I had access to President Kennedy, and in Saigon, I developed a strongly negative view of the conflict. Later, I encouraged the anti-war campaign of Eugene McCarthy in 1968. His candidacy was first announced in our house in Cambridge.

At this time the military establishment in Washington was in support of the war. Indeed, it was taken for granted that both the armed services and the weapons industries should accept and endorse hostilities - Dwight Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex".

In 2003, close to half the total US government discretionary expenditure was used for military purposes. A large part was for weapons procurement or development. Nuclear-powered submarines run to billions of dollars, individual planes to tens of millions each.

Such expenditure is not the result of detached analysis. From the relevant industrial firms come proposed designs for new weapons, and to them are awarded production and profit. In an impressive flow of influence and command, the weapons industry accords valued employment, management pay and profit in its political constituency, and indirectly it is a treasured source of political funds. The gratitude and the promise of political help go to Washington and to the defence budget. And to foreign policy or, as in Vietnam and Iraq, to war. That the private sector moves to a dominant public-sector role is apparent.

None will doubt that the modern corporation is a dominant force in the present-day economy. Once in the US there were capitalists. Steel by Carnegie, oil by Rockefeller, tobacco by Duke, railroads variously and often incompetently controlled by the moneyed few. In its market position and political influence, modern corporate management, unlike the capitalist, has public acceptance. A dominant role in the military establishment, in public finance and the environment is assumed. Other public authority is also taken for granted. Adverse social flaws and their effect do, however, require attention.

One, as just observed, is the way the corporate power has shaped the public purpose to its own needs. It ordains that social success is more automobiles, more television sets, a greater volume of all other consumer goods - and more lethal weaponry. Negative social effects - pollution, destruction of the landscape, the unprotected health of the citizenry, the threat of military action and death - do not count as such.

The corporate appropriation of public initiative and authority is unpleasantly visible in its effect on the environment, and dangerous as regards military and foreign policy. Wars are a major threat to civilised existence, and a corporate commitment to weapons procurement and use nurtures this threat. It accords legitimacy, and even heroic virtue, to devastation and death.

Power in the modern great corporation belongs to the management. The board of directors is an amiable entity, meeting with self-approval but fully subordinate to the real power of the managers. The relationship resembles that of an honorary degree recipient to a member of a university faculty.

The myths of investor authority, the ritual meetings of directors and the annual stockholder meeting persist, but no mentally viable observer of the modern corporation can escape the reality. Corporate power lies with management - a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards can verge on larceny. On frequent recent occasions, it has been referred to as the corporate scandal.

As the corporate interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves the corporate interest. It is most clearly evident in the largest such movement, that of nominally private firms into the defence establishment. From this comes a primary influence on the military budget, on foreign policy, military commitment and, ultimately, military action. War. Although this is a normal and expected use of money and its power, the full effect is disguised by almost all conventional expression.

Given its authority in the modern corporation it was natural that management would extend its role to politics and to government. Once there was the public reach of capitalism; now it is that of corporate management. In the US, corporate managers are in close alliance with the president, the vice-president and the secretary of defence. Major corporate figures are also in senior positions elsewhere in the federal government; one came from the bankrupt and thieving Enron to preside over the army.

Defence and weapons development are motivating forces in foreign policy. For some years, there has also been recognised corporate control of the Treasury. And of environmental policy.

We cherish the progress in civilisation since biblical times and long before. But there is a needed and, indeed, accepted qualification. The US and Britain are in the bitter aftermath of a war in Iraq. We are accepting programmed death for the young and random slaughter for men and women of all ages. So it was in the first and second world wars, and is still so in Iraq. Civilised life, as it is called, is a great white tower celebrating human achievements, but at the top there is permanently a large black cloud. Human progress dominated by unimaginable cruelty and death.

Civilisation has made great strides over the centuries in science, healthcare, the arts and most, if not all, economic well-being. But it has also given a privileged position to the development of weapons and the threat and reality of war. Mass slaughter has become the ultimate civilised achievement.

The facts of war are inescapable - death and random cruelty, suspension of civilised values, a disordered aftermath. Thus the human condition and prospect as now supremely evident. The economic and social problems here described can, with thought and action, be addressed. So they have already been. War remains the decisive human failure.

· This is an edited extract from The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time, by JK Galbraith, published by Allen Lane. To order a copy for £8 (RRP £10) plus p&p, call the Guardian Book Service on 0870 836 0875