What we can expect to happen of we go to war with Iran?

Discussion in 'Freedom and Liberty' started by Dusty308, Feb 5, 2012.


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  1. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    How does the US government have the power to seize/freeze another countries assets?

    Who gives them that authority, the UN the World Bank?

    Curious more than anything not being arguementative.
     
    ColtCarbine, Feb 7, 2012
    #41
  2. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Look for basmati rice to go on sale and fill a bucket.
     
    ghrit, Feb 7, 2012
    #42
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  3. Redneck Rebel

    Redneck Rebel Monkey++

    Not sure if it's the case in this instance but one way they gained that power is a provision in the Patriot Act that allows them to seize money from any foreign bank that does business in the US.
     
    Redneck Rebel, Feb 7, 2012
    #43
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  4. Falcon15

    Falcon15 Falco Peregrinus

    Through the Department of the Treasury, specifically the Office of Foreign Asset Control.

    Being that every bank in the world is tied together and most major countries are members of the IMF, this makes sanctions exceedingly easy to enforce.

     
    Falcon15, Feb 7, 2012
    #44
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  5. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Easy CC... Since ALL Federally Chartered US Banks by definition, are members of the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Reserve System is responsible for our Monetary Policy, they can tell all their Member Banks to Freeze all Assets of a particular Foreign Country, that are in US Banks. This means they (US Banks) get to USE these assets, for their own purposes, (make loans against these assets) but do NOT have to honor ANY movement of those assets overseas. Great way to hijack some extra funds, and pay no interest on them, while using them to back other loans for other purposes. If they did that to any US outfit, they would find themselves in US Court, so fast it, it would cause whiplash. What can a Foreign Country do that has NO Diplomatic Ties with the USA, and the EU is backing the sanctions, with their Banks as well. This is a very BIG Deal, and Wars have been started over such actions in the past. .... YMMV.....
     
    BTPost, Feb 7, 2012
    #45
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  6. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    BTPost, Redneck Rebel and Falcon15 thank you for your replies


    .gov adding fuel to the fire, why am I not surprised.
     
    ColtCarbine, Feb 7, 2012
    #46
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  7. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    It sounds like piracy by men in pin striped business suits

    It sounds like piracy by men in pin striped business suits. Blue beard the pirate would have envied the business model of these men...filching billions of (insert currency here) and not a ship need be sunk...nor a pinstriped suited pirate ever need smell a whiff of grapeshot....and the kicker is...they get huge bonuses as well for their not too exhausting work. Who wouldn't like a job like that...just have to swap my sea boots for a pair of wingtips and eye patch and cutlass for a smart 'phone and Ipad.
     
    chelloveck, Feb 7, 2012
    #47
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  8. VisuTrac

    VisuTrac Ваша мать носит военные ботинки Site Supporter+++

    Proposed solution for Iran: BitCoins
     
    VisuTrac, Feb 7, 2012
    #48
  9. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    "Between 1994 and 2003, OFAC collected over $8m in violations of the Cuban embargo, against just under $10,000 for terrorism financing violations. It had ten times more agents assigned to tracking financial activities relating to Cuba than to Osama Bin Laden."

    So smuggling Cuban Cigars into the US is more of a threat than Al Qaeda? Oh, ok we lose the tax revenue on cigars. Got it.


    ​
     
    Minuteman, Feb 7, 2012
    #49
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  10. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    Congratulations upon your 3,000th post MM

    Actually, the difference in compliance activity can be attributed to quite simple business decisions. Al Qaeda is good for business...(good at least for the business of war, which the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is the principal benficiary thereof)...whereas Cuban cigars contributes very little to the MIC bottom line, possibly apart from surveillance technology....rule #1 of MIC business...never kill the goose that lays the golden defence contracts. That's the great thing about a war on terrorism...terrorism has such an vague, elusive definition that it can be a war of infinite duration...terrorism becoming redefined as each terrorist campaign is neutralised or defeated.

    Strenuous prosecution of Cuban Cigar smugglers gives the impression to voting rubes that the government is tough on illegal activity by foreign nationals, without having to do much substantively to address the far more dangerous villains and villainy that Al Qaeda represents.
     
    chelloveck, Feb 7, 2012
    #50
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  11. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    US mainstream media: Beating war drums?

    Published: 16 January, 2012, 10:14

    America's mainstream media is being accused of playing with fire and hyping-up global tension, while trying to steer public opinion to please their sponsors.
    *
    In a sensitive time with the military standoff in the Strait of Hormuz and looming sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, the MSM is cynically playing-up the prospect of war, between Iran and the West.

    RT’s Gayane Chichakyan reports from Washington that viewers in the States are repeatedly hearing how war is virtually inescapable.

    With tension between Iran and the West as high as ever, a host of hardline speakers on US mainstream media seem to be pushing the audience to believe that war is inevitable.

    There is constant warmongering all over the mass media in the US, although experts say war with Iran is far from being inevitable.

    “I don’t think that we are there yet, that is to say, at the precipice,” Dr
    Charles Kupchan from the Council on Foreign Relations told to RT.

    The media are already preparing the grounds for it – some by misinforming the public.

    The New York Times wrote that the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran’s nuclear program has a military objective.

    But that is not what the IAEA reported.

    The watchdog said Iran might have the technology to develop a nuclear weapon if it wants to.

    Or another public misconception due to a lack of information:

    “We would be saying to Iran if you to open up those facilities, you begin to dismantle them and make them available to inspectors or we will degrade those facilities through air strike,” Rick Santorum, US Presidential candidate from the Republican Party was saying recently.

    In fact, IAEA inspectors have already been in the country monitoring Iran’s nuclear facilities.

    “When the American people hear information over and over again, and sometimes it is often the subtleties you are not providing – the context for the IAEA report or not putting in some of the doubts back in 2002-2003 about Iraqi [Weapons of mass destruction] programs. That kind of slanting of the news have the affect of altering how the American public views an issue,” Investigative journalist Robert Parry explained to RT.

    The US mainstream media have proved to be cheerleaders for war.

    Jeff Cohen was a senior producer of a popular TV show, before the Iraq invasion. He says they were under pressure from their bosses to cheer for war, because their owners benefited from it.

    “It was a constant pressure campaign to make sure that the pro-invasion voice was dominant,” he told RT.

    Cohen says not much has changed in US mainstream journalism since the Iraq invasion.

    “There is no doubt that the mainstream media are crucial in this idea of selling that the US is going to be in a perpetual war,” he insists.

    Media analysts say, since the intervention in Libya, US media have been instrumental in making Americans get used to the idea that Washington will continue to intervene militarily in foreign affairs.

    “I’ve worked at Newsweek as well as at [the Associated Press] and other major US news organizations,” recalls Robert Parry. “And what I saw, especially at places like Newsweek was this idea that the media was actually part of the establishment, it was that the American people were to be guided more than even informed.”

    It seems most American media are so used to talking wars that when – after a decade of inconclusive war in Afghanistan – the White House announced the necessity to negotiate with the Taliban, the message and the words “political solution” came out as somewhat alien.

    It seems the words “political solution” do not belong in the US media’s vocabulary. Two main reasons: one, it’s boring. Two: some very powerful people are behind the kind of trigger-happy pro-war journalism.

    Too many times in history, the media have done the bidding of war profiteers.

    We can go back more than a hundred years and look at how the American public was primed for war with Spain over Cuba.

    The iconic media tycoon William Randolph Hearst falsely hyped up the story that the Spanish had sunk an American ship, when in fact it sank because of a coal bunker explosion. It was then that Hearst told his illustrator in Havana “You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war."

    More than a hundred years on, the phrase still sounds relevant. But it does not have to be that way, and some argue a “political solution”, although not a popular term media parlance, is better than “war” and “death”.

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    ColtCarbine, Feb 8, 2012
    #51
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  12. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

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    ColtCarbine, Feb 8, 2012
    #52
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  13. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    I'm more afraid of the bobble heads having nukes than the rag heads!! If we can deal with Pakistan having them what is so dire and hand wringing with Iran having one or two? You can have all the nukes you want, delivering them is a whole different thing. Korea has them, so is Achmadinanut any worse than Kim Chi Dung? And of course Putin is a nice guy we can trust. But they want us to pee our panties because maybe, someday, a backwards third world country like Iran might, maybe use their domestic nuclear energy plants to produce some uranium that could, maybe, but nobody can say for sure, be turned into something dangerous.

    ohno
     
    Minuteman, Feb 8, 2012
    #53
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  14. UGRev

    UGRev Get on with it!

    I keep telling people that Iran is a nothing burger.
     
    UGRev, Feb 8, 2012
    #54
  15. Falcon15

    Falcon15 Falco Peregrinus

    Well, from the flip (US/Israel) side of the coin, it is very commonly held that IF Iran were to develop/build nuclear weapons, they would not hesitate to use it on Israel. Iranian leaders are so outspoken and anti-Israeli, that even the Chinese do not want Iran to develop or hold nuclear armaments. It is postulated that if Iran did indeed develop and use a nuclear weapon, Israel would not hesitate to launch in reciprocation and turn a majority of the mid-east Muslim cities into a glowing glass bowl. That has a secondary major effect on oil supplies. One of the major sticking points was Iran turning the IAEA away from one of their facilities and refusing an inspection, causing the IAEA crew to voluntarily leave Iran. The IAEA folks are due back in Iran on the 20th or 21st. That has given Iran, in the eyes of "Western" intelligence, time to hide any weapons grade material in a location that would not normally be inspected.

    This whole issue, MM, is a game of "what-if" (except the MSM, which seems to be pushing a war agenda). I found it extremely telling that the IAEA reported that Iran's nuclear program was not developing weapons grade material (however they could one day) and the very next day Israeli Intelligence stated in a rather "no question" manner that Iran has enough weapons grade fissile material to build 4 nuclear weapons and had developed a liquid fueled delivery platform capable of reaching the Eastern seaboard of the US.

    Iran already has a uranium enrichment program, ostensibly for their power plants. It would not take very long - months, perhaps a year at the outside - to enrich some material to weapons grade using the equipment they have now.

    I also find it rather fascinating that these are the exact measures on the behalf of the US that drove Japan into attacking us at Pearl Harbor. Japan, like Iran, would not back down from their position and were begging the US to come to the diplomatic table for talks. Again, like Iran. The Japanese had been gearing up for a major war, and so had stockpiled significant amounts of food, fuel, and raw materials prior to the sanctions and embargoes. Iran has not been stockpiling - therein lies the difference. Japan held off for 5 months, continually requesting through diplomatic channels to have talks with the US. Iran is doing the same however, they do not have 5 months of food, feed and raw materials.

    Trying to keep a balanced viewpoint on the whole matter is difficult. With the media blitz about how dangerous Iran is, and Iran insisting they want nuclear power for peaceful uses, the sanctions and other intimidation tactics being used by the US and her allies. I personally do not want to see our country involved in a war with Iran, however I also do not see the advantage to just letting Iran develop nuclear weaponry. It is a nasty catch-22. With Iran's major ally state, Syria, experiencing what could possibly be a regime change, Iran could end up with few real allies to support them in a conflict. Complex situations.

    My group is on ready-alert status. We are fairly certain that an attack on Iran will lead to reciprocal attacks on US and other overseas targets that could push organizations like Hezzieboller into an attack on "soft targets" on sovereign soil. That leads to a rather deep certainty that PDD 51 (Continuity of Government) would be invoked, and a full implementation of long term martial law instated. Not a good scenario any way you cut it.

    Any way, this whole situation is not about a nuclear program. It is about Iran circumventing the Petrodollar.

    NewAmericaNow: How Will The American Economy Die?
     
    Falcon15, Feb 8, 2012
    #55
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  16. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    If Iran executes a retaliatory or preemptive strike on American soil I would run to the nearest airport and stop the Mossad agents from boarding the next El Al flight out!! Just sayin. YMMV


    Israel has over 20 nukes, whose secrets their spies stole from us, and the missile systems (given to them by us) to use them, and they have actually launched an attack against us, and killed Americans. (google USS Liberty). And we are not clamoring and wringing our hands about that. Maybe a preemptive strike on Tel Aviv would put an end to this whole thing. If we go to war with Iran it will be Israel who benefits, not us. Let them fight their own battles!!
     
    Minuteman, Feb 8, 2012
    #56
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  17. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    When Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking American officer, was asked recently on NBC’s Meet The Press whether the United States has a military plan for an attack on Iran, he replied simply: “We do.”
    General staffs are supposed to plan for even the most unlikely future contingencies. Right down to the 1930s, for example, the United States maintained and annually updated plans for the invasion of Canada—and the Canadian military made plans to preempt the invasion. But what the planning process will have revealed, in this case, is that there is no way for the United States to win a non-nuclear war with Iran.
    The U.S. could “win” by dropping hundreds of nuclear weapons on Iran’s military bases, nuclear facilities and industrial centres (i.e. cities) and killing five to 10 million people, but short of that, nothing works. On this we have the word of Richard Clarke, counter-terrorism adviser in the White House under three administrations.
    In the early 1990s, Clarke revealed in an interview with the New York Times four years ago, the Clinton administration had seriously considered a bombing campaign against Iran, but the military professionals told them not to do it.
    “After a long debate, the highest levels of the military could not forecast a way in which things would end favourably for the United States,” he said. The Pentagon’s planners have war-gamed an attack on Iran several times in the past 15 years, and they just can’t make it come out as a U.S. victory.
    It’s not the fear of Iranian nuclear weapons that makes the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff so reluctant to get involved in a war with Iran. Those weapons don’t exist, and the whole justification for the war would be to make sure that they never do.
    The problem is that there’s nothing the U.S. can do to Iran, short of nuking the place, that would really force Tehran to kneel and beg for mercy. It can bomb Iran’s nuclear sites and military installations to its heart’s content, but everything it destroys can be rebuilt in a few years. And there is no way that the United States could actually invade Iran.


    There are some 80 million people in Iran, and although many of them don’t like the present regime they are almost all fervent patriots who would resist a foreign invasion. Iran is a mountainous country, and very big: four times the size of Iraq. The Iranian army currently numbers about 450,000 men, slightly smaller than the U.S. Army—but unlike the U.S. Army, it does not have its troops scattered across literally dozens of countries.
    If the White House were to propose anything larger than minor military incursions along Iran’s south coast, senior American generals would resign in protest. Without the option of a land war, the only lever the United States would have on Iranian policy is the threat of yet more bombs—but if they aren’t nuclear, then they aren’t very persuasive. Whereas Iran would have lots of options for bringing pressure on the United States.
    Just stopping Iran’s own oil exports would drive the oil price sky-high in a tight market: Iran accounts for around seven percent of internationally traded oil. But it could also block another 40 percent of global oil exports just by sinking tankers coming from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the other Arab Gulf states with its lethal Noor anti-ship missiles.
    The Noor anti-ship missile is a locally built version of the Chinese YJ-82. It has a 200-km range, enough to cover all the major choke points in the Gulf. It flies at twice the speed of sound just metres above the sea’s surface, and it has a tiny radar profile. Its single-shot kill probability has been put as high as 98 percent.
    Iran’s mountainous coastline extends along the whole northern side of the Gulf, and these missiles have easily concealed mobile launchers. They would sink tankers with ease, and in a few days insurance rates for tankers planning to enter the Gulf would become prohibitive, effectively shutting down the region’s oil exports completely.
    Meanwhile Iran would start supplying modern surface-to-air missiles to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and that would soon shut down the U.S. military effort there. (It was the arrival of U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles in Afghanistan in the late 1980s that drove Russian helicopters from the sky and ultimately doomed the whole Soviet intervention there.)
    Iranian ballistic missiles would strike U.S. bases on the southern (Arab) side of the Gulf, and Iran’s Hezbollah allies in Beirut would start dropping missiles on Israel. The United States would have no options for escalation other than the nuclear one, and pressure on it to stop the war would mount by the day as the world’s industries and transport ground to a halt.
    The end would be an embarrassing retreat by the United States, and the definitive establishment of Iran as the dominant power of the Gulf region. That was the outcome of every wargame the Pentagon played, and Mike Mullen knows it. So there is a plan for an attack on Iran, but he would probably rather resign than put it into action. It is all bluff. It always was.
     
    Quigley_Sharps, Feb 8, 2012
    #57
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  18. Falcon15

    Falcon15 Falco Peregrinus

    Actually Quigs, the way it is working down, Israel will be the primary aggressor. The US and NATO would rush in to support them. Of course, the US could not do it alone. The whole purpose of cutting Iran off economically is to force Iran into the agressor role thereby eliminating culpability from the US, and we are stepping in to take out a "hostile state" potentially armed with WMd's. We could garner worldwide support for that. Could.

    Basically at the least, English, French, and Israeli support would be vital. Of course we are repositioning literally hundreds of thousands of personnel along with material in a ring around Iran. Yemen, Saudi, and our "other" allies in the region may well step in and support us, considering that there is no love lost between Iran and those states. Saudi alone has billions of dollars worth of top of the line US fighter/bombers and literally tonnes of munitions.

    An all out ground war is a no-go, until Iran has been "softened" by carpet bombing and precision strikes. Once we have sufficently dealt with their Navy (tiny) and their Air Force (equally tiny and woefully outdated), continuous bombardment, drone strikes and precision weapon strikes (smart bombs) would weaken and reduce ground based resistance (Army). Once sufficiently weakened, it would be a roll in the heavy ground troops (armor and support infantry) and take the cities. One hope would be to kill the leadership in a planned, precision strike, drone or smart bomb. Cut off the serpents head and the serpent will die. We would be left with strong pockets of resistance, yes just like in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is exactly what has been discussed with me by someone "in the know".

    Throw another factor on the fire: if the sanctions are successful in cutting Iran completely off from food, raw materials, and other hard goods, the people of Iran may well be incited to rise up against the current Regime before the first shot/bomb/missile is fired. This further divides and weakens internal resistance.

    In just this short post I have discussed well practiced (now) strategies that have worked in toppling a regime. Air superiority, Attrition Warfare, Blitzkrieg, Blockades (economic sanctions and embargoes, cutting off their port facilities), Coercion (targeting religious centers, political centers, universities, etc.), clear Command of the Sea, Counterforce (targeting industrial and warehouse centers reducing the ability to rearm, repair or field new equipment), Decapitation (take out the leadership directly or indirectly), Denial (destruction of the enemy's war equipment), Encirclement (they are surrounded by nations and military forces unfriendly to them), Exhaustion (decimation of the enemy's will to fight through denial of basic goods like food), Incentive (making the enemy deal on your terms), Limited War (attacking military and strategic targets to soften the resistance), Punishment (pushing a society beyond it's breaking point through use of denial), Raiding (precision strikes on supply lines, depots etc.)...the list is near endless.

    The powers that be know that these sanctions, seizures and embargoes will end in one of three ways: capitulation, Iran attacks, or Israel attacks. The hope is for capitulation. Iran cutting off their oil deliveries now, not later, could be viewed as an act of war against Europe and that option is on Iran's table right now. If Israel attacks Iran, we are not the aggressor state, they are and we would, of course, rush to support and aid our ally. YMMV.
     
    Falcon15, Feb 8, 2012
    #58
  19. ColtCarbine

    ColtCarbine Monkey+++ Founding Member

    Let's just hope that is what will actually happen, just more sabber rattling. If a simple minded person like myself looks back at the history of how our government has handled past confrontations/occupations and/or decision making. I am not so sure I have faith in them making the best decisions. Keep in mind this is coming from somebody that is not all that religious and definitely does not have a Tinfoil Hat on. I despise Alex Jones, hearing him speak makes me want to vomit.

    The entire situation in the Middle East is quite volatile and convoluted and one that I do not see changing no matter how much presence we have over there. These people have been fighting amongst one another for centuries. Let them fight there own battles, we have no business meddling in other people's affairs.

    If this is all about sabber rattling, then our intentions towards Iran is not about the War on Terror and something of a different flavor.

    I have been trying to keep an unbiased viewpoint and watch media sources from both sides and one thing is for certain. What you see on the other side of the pond is brought forth in a different light than how it is broadcast here.

    One of these days a situation could very well unfold into a confrontation that ends up being more than we bargained for.
     
    ColtCarbine, Feb 8, 2012
    #59
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  20. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    The war began as planned. The Israeli pilots took off well before dawn and streaked across Lebanon and northern Iraq, high above Kirkuk. Flying US-made F-15 and F-16s, the Israelis separated over the mountains of western Iran, the pilots gesturing a last minute show of confidence in their mission, maintaining radio silence.

    Just before the sun rose over Tehran, moments before the Muslim call to prayer, the missiles struck their targets. While US Air Force AWACS planes circled overhead--listening, watching, recording--heavy US bombers followed minutes later. Bunker-busters and mini-nukes fell on dozens of targets while Iranian anti-aircraft missiles sped skyward.

    The ironically named Bushehr nuclear power plant crumbled to dust. Russian technicians and foreign nationals scurried for safety. Most did not make it.

    Targets in Saghand and Yazd, all of them carefully chosen many months before by Pentagon planners, were destroyed. The uranium enrichment facility in Natanz; a heavy water plant and radioisotope facility in Arak; the Ardekan Nuclear Fuel Unit; the Uranium Conversion Facility and Nuclear Technology Center in Isfahan; were struck simultaneously by USAF and Israeli bomber groups.

    The Tehran Nuclear Research Center, the Tehran Molybdenum, Iodine and Xenon Radioisotope Production Facility, the Tehran Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Laboratories, the Kalaye Electric Company in the Tehran suburbs were destroyed.

    Iranian fighter jets rose in scattered groups. At least those Iranian fighter planes that had not been destroyed on the ground by swift and systematic air strikes from US and Israeli missiles. A few Iranian fighters even launched missiles, downing the occasional attacker, but American top guns quickly prevailed in the ensuing dogfights.

    The Iranian air force, like the Iranian navy, never really knew what hit them. Like the slumbering US sailors at Pearl Harbor, the pre-dawn, pre-emptive attack wiped out fully half the Iranian defense forces in a matter of hours.

    By mid-morning, the second and third wave of US/Israeli raiders screamed over the secondary targets. The only problem now, the surprising effectiveness of the Iranian missile defenses. The element of surprise lost, US and Israeli warplanes began to fall from the skies in considerable numbers to anti-aircraft fire.

    At 7:35 AM, Tehran time, the first Iranian anti-ship missile destroyed a Panamanian oil tanker, departing from Kuwait and bound for Houston. Launched from an Iranian fighter plane, the Exocet split the ship in half and set the ship ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz. A second and third tanker followed, black smoke billowing from the broken ships before they blew up and sank. By 8:15 AM, all ship traffic on the Persian Gulf had ceased.

    US Navy ships, ordered earlier into the relative safety of the Indian Ocean, south of their base in Bahrain, launched counter strikes. Waves of US fighter planes circled the burning wrecks in the bottleneck of Hormuz but the Iranian fighters had fled.

    At 9 AM, Eastern Standard Time, many hours into the war, CNN reported a squadron of suicide Iranian fighter jets attacking the US Navy fleet south of Bahrain. Embedded reporters aboard the ships--sending live feeds directly to a rapt audience of Americans just awakening--reported all of the Iranian jets destroyed, but not before the enemy planes launched dozens of Exocet and Sunburn anti-ship missiles. A US aircraft carrier, cruiser and two destroyers suffered direct hits. The cruiser blew up and sank, killing 600 men. The aircraft carrier sank an hour later.

    By mid-morning, every military base in Iran was partially or wholly destroyed. Sirens blared and fires blazed from hundreds of fires. Explosions rocked Tehran and the electrical power failed. The Al Jazeerah news station in Tehran took a direct hit from a satellite bomb, leveling the entire block.

    At 9:15 AM, Baghdad time, the first Iranian missile struck the Green Zone. For the next thirty minutes a torrent of missiles landed on GPS coordinates carefully selected by Shiite militiamen with cell phones positioned outside the Green Zone and other permanent US bases. Although US and Israeli bomber pilots had destroyed 90% of the Iranian missiles, enough Shahabs remained to fully destroy the Green Zone, the Baghdad airport, and a US Marine base. Thousands of unsuspecting US soldiers died in the early morning barrage. Not surprisingly, CNN and Fox withheld the great number of casualties from American viewers.

    By 9:30 AM, gas stations on the US east coast began to raise their prices. Slowly at first and then altogether in a panic, the prices rose. $4 a gallon, and then $5 and then $6, the prices skyrocketed. Worried motorists, rushing from work, roared into the nearest gas station, radios blaring the latest reports of the pre-emptive attack on Iran. While fistfights broke out in gas stations everywhere, the third Middle Eastern war had begun.

    In Washington DC, the spin began minutes after the first missile struck its intended target. The punitive strike--not really a war said the harried White House spokesman--would further democracy and peace in the Middle East. Media pundits mostly followed the party line. By ridding Iran of weapons of mass destruction, Hillary declared confidently on CNN, Iran might follow in the footsteps of Iraq, and enjoy the hard won fruits of freedom.

    The president scheduled a speech at 2 PM. Gas prices rose another two dollars before then. China and Japan threatened to dump US dollars. Gold rose $120 an ounce. The dollar plummeted .

    CNN reported violent, anti-American protests in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Dublin. Fast food franchises throughout Europe, carrying American corporate logos, were firebombed.

    A violent coup toppled the pro-American Pakistan president. On the New York Stock Exchange, prices fell in a frenzy of trading--except for the major petroleum producers. A single, Iranian Shahab missile struck Tel Aviv, destroying an entire city block. Israel vowed revenge, and threatened a nuclear strike on Tehran, before a hastily called UN General Assembly in New York City eased tensions.

    An orange alert in New York City suddenly reddened to a full-scale terror alarm when a package detonated on a Manhattan subway. Mayor Bloomberg declared martial law. Governor Cuomo ordered the New York National Guard fully mobilized, mobilizing what few national guardsmen remained in the state.

    President O looked shaken at 2 PM. The scroll below the TV screen reported Persian Gulf nations halting production of oil until the conflict could be resolved peacefully. Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, announced a freeze in oil deliveries to the US would begin immediately. Britain offered to mediate peace negotiations, between the US and Israel and Iran, but was resoundingly rejected.

    By 6 PM, Eastern Standard Time, gas prices had stabilized at just below $10 a gallon. A Citgo station in Texas, near Fort Sam Houston Army base, was firebombed. No one claimed responsibility. Terrorism was not ruled out.

    At sunset, the call to prayer--in Tehran, Baghdad, Islamabad, Ankara, Jerusalem, Jakarta, Riyadh--sounded uncannily like the buzzing of enraged bees.
     
    Quigley_Sharps, Feb 8, 2012
    #60
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