THE RUN-UP TO WWIII: A BIT OF LIGHT READING

I have a desperate need to write many things, but with so much going on (and having an actual day job) in the news, it’s all I can do just to keep up with it in my off-work hours. So for now, here is some light reading to tide everyone over.

So close to war we can taste it….

From PBS–

TONY BLAIR, Prime Minister of Britain: What we’re trying to do at the moment is to pursue this through the diplomatic channels and make the Iranian government understand that these people have to be released and that there is absolutely no justification whatever for holding them. And I hope we manage to get them to realize they have to release them; if not, then this will move into a different phase.

JIM LEHRER: Blair did not say what that “different phase” might involve.

From Yahoo News–

Before the video was broadcast, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said any showing of British personnel on TV would be a breach of the Geneva Conventions.

“It’s completely unacceptable for these pictures to be shown on television,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement after the broadcast. “There is no doubt our personnel were seized in Iraqi territorial waters.”

From Voice of America– US Calls for British Sailors Release

I can’t avoid commentary here. The Geneva Conventions?! These lying, scheming people have the sheer audacity and hubris to complain about Geneva conventions violations after spending the last four years (plus) condoning, supporting, and engaging in worldwide rendition and torture. It is also amazing that this drivel is allowed to escape from their lips unchallenged, as US national televised media in general quietly helps them in promoting selective amnesia by failing to remind everyone that the US captured/kidnapped a number of Iranian diplomats a few months ago. The British media seems to be bringing this fact up a bit more in their articles, but that doesn’t matter in the US, where most people don’t even know where Britain is.

Moving on.

From ABC–

The U.S. Navy is offering a huge show of military might near the location where Iran seized 15 British sailors and marines five days ago, in what is seen as a clear effort to send a message to Iran, a senior military official told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz in Bahrain.

….

U.S. naval officials in Bahrain told ABC News that the operation was hastily planned after the 15 Britons were seized Friday, yet the Bush administration would not say publicly that this is the case.

From RIA Novosti–

MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran’s borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.

….

Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure in the near future.

And lastly on the subject of impending WWIII, the Jerusalem Post–

Several foreign embassies in Teheran are updating their emergency evacuation plans should a Western or Israeli attack on Iran occur.

Things are so ratcheted up at this point, it’s barely even a question of “if” anymore, as it looks like the aggressors finally have the Gulf of Tonkin they have been seeking for so long. If you actually believe that the heads of US, Britain, and Israel are trying to avoid war, you are sadly deluded. Please take your head out of the sand before it gets ripped out by $8/gallon gasoline, along with a host of other tragedies both physical and economic that are (and very much will be) a natural consequence of world war.

Oh, right. That won’t be our fault. It will be the fault of the dirty, Jew-hating terrorists who aren’t anywhere near to being a nuclear power but might be someday who also hate our freedoms.

(Note to those who will read this and automatically assume that I, also, am some sort of pro-Iranian terrorist: I am not saying that Iran is a great and benevolent state full of goodness. What I am saying is that we have no business attacking them, morally or practically. Start seeing reality instead of being caught up in the “You’re an anti-Semite terrorist lover” rhetoric that means less than nothing.)