On 9/22/06, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The right-wing site, Newsmax, says, "Karl Rove has been promising Republican
insiders an "October surprise" to help win the November congressional
elections."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/9/20/141615.shtml
What could it be, an invasion of Iran?
This is 99% psy-op, putting pressures on the Russians, Chinese,
Europeans, Japanese, etc. as well as the Iranians, but with Washington
you never know, which is why it works as psy-op.
<http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092006M.shtml>
What Would War Look Like?
By Michael Duffy
Time Magazine
Sunday 17 September 2006
A flurry of military maneuvers in the Middle East increases
speculation that conflict with Iran is no longer quite so unthinkable.
Here's how the US would fight such a war - and the huge price it would
have to pay to win it.
The first message was routine enough: a "Prepare to Deploy" order sent
through naval communications channels to a submarine, an Aegis-class
cruiser, two minesweepers and two mine hunters. The orders didn't
actually command the ships out of port; they just said to be ready to
move by Oct. 1. But inside the Navy those messages generated more buzz
than usual last week when a second request, from the Chief of Naval
Operations (CNO), asked for fresh eyes on long-standing U.S. plans to
blockade two Iranian oil ports on the Persian Gulf. The CNO had asked
for a rundown on how a blockade of those strategic targets might work.
When he didn't like the analysis he received, he ordered his troops to
work the lash up once again.
What's going on? The two orders offered tantalizing clues. There are
only a few places in the world where minesweepers top the list of U.S.
naval requirements. And every sailor, petroleum engineer and
hedge-fund manager knows the name of the most important: the Strait of
Hormuz, the 20-mile-wide bottleneck in the Persian Gulf through which
roughly 40% of the world's oil needs to pass each day. Coupled with
the CNO's request for a blockade review, a deployment of minesweepers
to the west coast of Iran would seem to suggest that a much discussed
- but until now largely theoretical - prospect has become real: that
the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
