Posted on 02/25/2007 5:13:11 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
The Talk Shows
Sunday, February 25th, 2007
Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:
FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.
FACE THE NATION (CBS): California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.
THIS WEEK (ABC): Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former President Carter; actor Patrick Dempsey.
LATE EDITION (CNN) : Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie; former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright; Reps. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.; investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.
here is the relevant part, with highlighting
So essentially, I quote -- I saw Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, and he described it this way, as fitna, the Arab word for civil war. As far as he is concerned, we are interested in recreating what's happening in Iraq in Lebanon, that is, Sunni versus Shia.
And in looking into that story -- and I saw him in December -- I found this. That we have been pumping money, a great deal of money, without Congressional authority, without any Congressional oversight -- Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia is putting up some of this money -- for covert operations in many areas of the Middle East where we think that the -- we want to stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.
They call it the "Shiite Crescent." And a lot of this money, and I can't tell you with absolute assurance how, exactly when and how, but this money has gotten into the hands, among other places, in Lebanon, into the hands of three, at least three jihadist groups.
There's three Sunni jihadist groups whose main claim to fame inside Lebanon right now is that they are very tough. These are people connected to al Qaida who want to take on Hezbollah. So this government, at the minimum, we may not directly be funneling money to them, but we certainly know that these groups exist.
My government, which arrests al Qaida every place it can find them and sends -- some of them are in Guantanamo and other places, is sitting back while the Lebanese government we support, the government of Prime Minister Siniora, is providing arms and sustenance to three jihadist groups whose sole function seems to me and to the people that talk to me in our government, to be there in case there is a real shoot-'em-up with Hezbollah and we really get into some sort of serious major conflict between the Sunni government and Hezbollah, which is largely Shia, who are basically -- as you know, there is a coalition headed by Hezbollah that is challenging the government right now, demonstrations, sit-ins. There has been some violence.
So America, my country, without telling Congress, using funds not appropriated, I don't know where, but my sources believe much of the money obviously came from Iraq, where there's all kinds of piles of loose money, pools of cash that could be used for covert operations.
All of this should be investigated by Congress, by the way, and I trust it will be. In my talking to the membership, members there, they are very upset that they know nothing about this. And they have great many suspicions.
It's easy to see from this why the fast post by sleuth got the Shiite and Sunni backwards. As she said Hersh was talking in a very circular and confused manner. I wish we had an edit function for our posts short of getting the mods to do something. I know her feeling of wanting to go back and correct something I posted in a rush but not wanting to confuse matters further.
I do think that it is significant that Nasrallah is his source on this. He is a tool of the enemies of America and has been his entire career. I had a Spanish teacher in High School who was the senior military intelligence analyst for the region that include My Lai. "Exposing" that "massacre" was Hersh's claim to fame. This teach agreed that the troops had killed lots of people there, but he denied that they were "innocent civilians." He said that he knew from first hand knowledge that the village of My Lai sat on top of a major underground VC/North Vietnamese supply base and staging area and that everyone in that village was part of the terrorist operation (he didn't use that word at the time) that was slaughtering South Vietnamese villagers who opposed the communists by the thousands.
Someday someone will break that story and, if people like Hersh or Jon Carry are still alive, they will be given a Mussolini retirement party.
I know. Nothing. You all are far to sure of your infallibility to consider that YOUR personal dogma might require some tweaking in order for you to actually accomplish any movement towards your goals. No much better to sit around screaming how everyone else is wicked and evil and only you 100%ers hold the light of political truth to which all us poor dumb political heretics must covert
God Help the Republic. It will be President Hillary as long as Conservative Establishment, such as Luntz, would rather play footsie with the Junk Media then fight them.
I don't crave your advice or need your immediate correction just because you disagree with something I said.
Thank you ...you are very sweet to help cover for my embarrassment of mixing up the Sects...
I am also so grateful that you posted the whole interview..because I missed so many of Hersh's "gems".
You specifically say "in the Gulf," but I've always thought that the narrowness and shallowness of the Gulf limited what our Carriers could do in this regard. I definitely defer to your knowledge. It still concerns me, however.
Rather than the particular Hersh statement that "they have to" turn into the wind he may have taken a comment that the carrier will turn into the wind when not in combat (to minimize wear and tear on the planes, pilots and crewmen) and conflated it himself with the fantasies of an unprovoked American attack on Iran.
The nightmare scenario for me has been that they have a crude nuke or something they bought from the old Soviet Union stockpile, however crude, anchored to the bottom of the Straights of Hormuz and are waiting for a carrier group to be transiting.
During the peanut farmers time the commander of the task force in the Gulf was supposedly asked what would happen if Tehran executed the American hostages. It is said that he commented only "Tehran will have a second sunrise."
If there is a direct attack on our forces in the region I'm convinced that there will be no restraint, no argument over rules of engagement. I personally think that Hersh is right in his reporting that we are making these plans to attack Iran. Hell, we're probably making plans to attack Long Island. It's what the Pentagon REMFs do. However, I also think that these plans are being fine tuned and updated much more rapidly than normal as tensions ratchet up. We are not planning on launching an attack on Iran. We are planning a massive and decisive response to an Iranian attack on us or our allies. Kind of like a sub calling a "snapshot" torpedo launch. They hit us and we want to have a big response already laid on.
It is also okay to be 'predictable' when surrounded on all sides and above and below, by more US firepower than was used in the entire WWII.
Everything Iran has been saying about what they can do to us is pure propaganda, as though our Navy has just been sitting on their hands without solutions to what Iran can think up.
The actual best scenario is for Iran to attempt to attack one of our ships, because we will just light that country up like a candle.
First, we are at war. Most Americans realize this, even if they want to try to ignore it. We are currently wallowing in a media induced fantasy that if we just "give peace a chance" everything will be fine, but no one really believes that. I give it weeks, not months, before someone stands up and slaps a John Murtha or Nazi Pelosi very publicly (in the fashion our VP just did, but it will need to be someone else to have the effect I imagine). The Washington Post came close this last week with their vicious comments about Murtha's "slow bleed" plan.
The majority of Democrats do not agree with the Dhimmicrats who are in charge, but they have been able to delude themselves into denying that their party leaders were flat out traitors because of their collective hatred of Bush. Well Bush isn't running in this next election. And the contrast between the American position and the Dhimmicrat position will be bared for all to see. I expect the Joe Lieberman liberal but American wing of the Democrat party to stand up and spit in the eye of the George Soros moonbat wing of the Dhimmicrat party.
By front loading the primaries this time around they may end up stuck with a Soros Dhimmicrat as their candidate before they come to their senses. If so, I will expect the lowest turnout by Democrats in history. I don't think their party will survive intact if that scenario plays out.
But what about the effects of an Iranian nuke tethered to the bottom in the Straights of Hormuz? Even a crude one will decimate a carrier battle group if it catches it in the wrong place, conducting flight operations or not.
The actual best scenario is for Iran to attempt to attack one of our ships, because we will just light that country up like a candle.
I wouldn't use the phrase "best scenario" for that eventuality, but clearly I agree with your description of our response. From my point of view the best scenario is for the Iranian people to rise up and depose Ahmanutjob and restore sanity to that benighted country before anything more drastic happens.
Again, that would be way too risky for Iran. How would you control such a device? Remote control? Nope, too many radio and sonar emissions. They would always run the risk of blowing up the wrong ship, or detonating the thing on its own by accident.
Then, there is the larger reality of the fact that any nuclear explosion means Iran as a country, becomes a glowing crater within 20 minutes. Iran wont do anything that America can use to justify us obliterating them.
Nor would Russia or China allow Iran to do anything to risk the free flow of oil, so it just aint going to happen. What Iran wants is for their to be some sort of terrorist action that cant be tied back to them, but the problem is that Bush and Cheney's public statements were designed to make sure that Iran understands that we would LOVE to light them up, and are just looking for a reason.
The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133...
1,245 in 1993;
1,109 in 1994;
1,055 in 1995;
1,008 in 1996.
Assuming that there were few deaths oustide of the war zones that's 4,417 killed in four years in "peacetime" under Clinton and 3,133 in the all out war in the middle east. I assume that we have other servicemen who have died outside those combat zones, but I need to find a number to quantify that and add to the deaths in the combat zone so that we can talk about this without leaving ourselves open to attack for not covering all of the bases.
One correction to your post, altura. I am not the "finder of truth." I am at best a "searcher for truth," perhaps a bit like a latter day Demosthenes (though certainly not with his gifts for oratory or logic, I will admit). I often fail, but I never stop trying or hoping.
"The actual best scenario is for Iran to attempt to attack one of our ships, because we will just light that country up like a candle."
Seems strange to me to think of a Carrier Strike/Battle Group as nothing more than a tripwire, but you may have a point there, judge.
OTOH, I see the reaction to an attack on one of the CSG's as infinitely more measured and thought out than "light...up like a candle".
If we only used the stuff that I saw come on line thirty years ago, those F/A-18 pilots on ONE carrier could still gut every Iranian military target within two hundred miles and not even break any windows in the towns around them.
....and the IRG knows that down to their boot heels.
There aint enough crazy in most people to go up against survival instinct. People in the middle east have had the opportunity to see what our military can do even when it is only half trying.
Also, most Iranians remember that Iraq kicked their Persian asses all over the desert, yet the U.S. was running Baghdad within two weeks of dropping the first bomb. They dont want none of what we've got for them.
Well, that's just Pukin-speak. I tend to get excited about the prospect of the Navy going all Jack Bauer on those bitches.
The Persian Gulf is larger than the state of Florida. Even the Strait of Hormuz is 35 miles wide.
I think we're basically on the same page, analytically. I have many contacts (and in fact friends) from Persia, so I know something about the mind set there. My concern, and where I think I differ with you, is that I think that there is a madman in charge in Iran (if not a whole cadre of them) and I don't have any faith in the institutions in that country being able to restrain the crazy ideas.
Think Chancellor Hitler in 1933. Most sane people didn't believe he could set in motion the forces that he did. The Germans were too smart, too modern, too much like us, too sane. We learned to our sorrow that no people are above that type of lunacy. Now remember that the basic ethos of the current Iranian government is from around 700 AD.
My own opinion is that we have come all too close to that same insanity ourselves more than once, most recently with Nazi Pelosi (for different reasons). Fortunately she's not in complete control here.
PING
I know this is the Sunday talk show thread..but I wondered if you guys are going to watch 60 minutes right now..???
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