Seymour Hersh: US Training Jondollah and MEK for Bombing preparation

Seymour Hersh: US Training Jondollah and MEK for Bombing preparation

(source: CASMII)
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
CASMII Press Release
8 July 2008

Seymour Hersh: US Training Jondollah and MEK for Bombing preparation
In an interview with NPR on his latest New Yorker Article, titled ‘Preparing the battlefield', the renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reveals more striking details of his findings on the aim of the $400 million budgeted US covert operations inside Iran. He provides valuable information on US military preparations to strike the country, on the total expansion of the Bush Administration's executive power, about the US recognition of Iran's overall positive role in Iraq and on the US support for the anti-Iran terrorist organisations Jondollah, PJAK and MEK.

Hersh explains that the aim of the US covert operations inside Iran is to create a pretext for attack with the goal of regime change. “The strategic thinking behind this covert operation is to provoke enough trouble and chaos so that the Iranian government makes the mistake of taking aggressive action which will give the impression of a country in acute turmoil”, he said. “Then you have what the White House calls the ‘casus belli', a reason to attack the country. That is the thinking and it is very crazy.”

On Iran's role in Iraq, Hersh points out: “There is absolutely no clear evidence known to the American government that the Iranian leadership has any interest in provoking trouble with the United States in Iraq by sending in people to cause mayhem or kill Americans. There is just no evidence for it.” He continues further on: “Frankly, the guys I know in the inside-- in the Special Forces, high up in DoD, high up in the intelligence community--if you push them hard enough, they tell you that Iran has been more of a force for stability in Iraq than negative”.

Hersh comments that the decision to launch these covert operations was prompted by the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate's verdict that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons programme and that the approval by the US Congress leadership of the $400 million budget for the operations “is totally an expansion” of the executive powers of the Bush Administration.

He explains how the Bush Administration's policy of “my enemy's enemy is my friend” has led the US to support the Baluchi organisation Jondollah and the MEK (Mujahideen-e-Khalq a.k.a PMOI), both of which have clear track records of terrorist activities including against the US. He reiterates that the US has been giving arms and cash to the terrorists in the MEK for years and reveals that “most of the [MEK] leaders have been taking our money and cashing it in an awful lot of bank accounts in London.” He also reveals for the first time that the US has trained MEK teams in the state of Nevada and that “they do a lot of crazy stuff inside Iran”.

Hersh warns that “we have been moving cruise missiles there for a few months now”, and that the US military is ready. “Our submarines are there, our destroyers are there with cruise missiles aboard, our aircrafts are there, our soldiers are there” to attack Iran within “10 to 12 hours” of the go-ahead order by President Bush, he says, stressing that troops have to go on the ground in Iran in order to destroy Iran's defensive systems.

He finally points out that Bush “is going to be a very active president, I am afraid, until 11:59:59 seconds on January 20, 2009” and raises the alarm about an “October surprise”, a military attack on Iran, in particular if Obama continues to have a lead in the polls.

Listen to the whole interview here .
For more information or to contact CASMII please visit http://www.campaigniran.org/
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Ha ha.


Two things struck me while reading the above and listening to, in part, the interview.

1) If everything is as Hersh says it is, forces in place, policy in play ... Hersh is violating several laws. He writes about policy, he does not create policy. That is, for better or worse, the authority of the president, not Seymour Hersh. By revealing what he has revealed, if accurate, he has broken at least two federal laws, and the First Amendment would not protect him.

BUT

2) If you are president, the Congress doesn't like you much, your military is stretched thin (due to the previous president slashing the military), you are working on the last six months of your administration and only four plus months before a new person is elected president, where historians and the media alike oppose everything you do and public opinion has so weakened your ability to accomplish anything - how do you sort out a country when it would require a great deal more will to become involved, and many more lives.

Hmmm. Let's think.

Well, why not pull out your old nemesis Hersh - who goes around revealing every dirty secret, real or imagined. He is known to not like Bush. He is known to oppose the war in Iraq and not very supportive of any US policy abroad ... get him. First, select a couple people in DOD, CIA, State, get them to reveal a planted story to someone that is known to speak with Hersh and or get them to speak to Hersh and reveal a story. Create a back story, create an entire fiction that has Bush active until January 20, noon. Not hamstrung, not tied down, not beholden to anyone - out there actively engaged in action against Iran. Get the military on board with ships and soldiers, get the whole story - terrorists, inside men, attacks within Iran, plants within the government - get the whole thing, and reveal it piece by piece to Hersh, KNOWING that a story he reveals, would be taken seriously by Iran. They will not ignore Bush, dismiss a threat, and will instead, spend the next four to seven months stressing - that stress will apply pressure within Iran and may contribute to a change caused from within Iran by the mullahs - who, as religious as they are, also want to survive, maybe even more than Amidinejad.

And you can do all that without the loss of a life. Without spending a dollar.

And in the end - Bush gets what he wants and Hersh looks like he has been HAD.

Bush wins on every level.




Bush




Hersh





Iran