Meeting With the House Judiciary Committee Staff on Impeachment Thursday Morning

Please deliver this message to the Judiciary Committee.

Thoughts on Iraq, Iran and U.S. Empire
The failure of the Democratic Congress to initiate impeachment hearings for the President and Vice President has left the American people with a broken government and all the peoples of the world in jeopardy because the rule of law is no longer even given token consideration by the world’s military superpower.

U.S. military commander in charge of the Middle East, William Fallon resigns after publicly stating that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch”.

"The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," this from a Russian Intelligence official.

After Cheney’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Shura Council -- the elite group that implements the decisions of the autocratic inner circle -- is preparing "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts' warnings of possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors,"

The aircraft carrier battle group USS John C Stennis, with its 80 fixed-wing aircraft, crew of 3,200, 8 support ships and 4 nuclear submarines is steaming to the Persian Gulf to join a similar battle group led by the USS Dwight D Eisenhower.

Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Russian 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.

The failure of the Bush offensive ‘surge’ in Iraq is underscored by the subsequent failure of the Maliki government’s military offensive against Moktada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Maliki broke the cease fire that Sadr had imposed upon himself and which was the major reason for a decrease in violence in Iraq. Bush announced his enthusiastic support for the offensive claiming it would be a “defining moment”. Maliki went to Basra to personally direct the offensive as the US occupation army supported it with air power. Iraq observers recognized it as move at the political power of al Sadr who currently controls the largest bloc in Iraq’s Parliament before the upcoming October elections. Government forces deserted and Maliki was forced to flee Basra where he had been personally directing the fighting. Demonstrators by the thousands chant for the US to leave Iraq. A parliamentary delegation from Maliki’s own coalition negotiates a cease fire with Sadr and the US is left supporting a government which cannot govern and an army which cannot defeat a popular militia and its leader.

Moktada al Sadr who has been demonized by the US Administration for years has come out of this offensive looking more and more like the kind of nationalist that Iraq needs to unite the country. Of course his first demand is that the US occupation forces must leave. It was Sadr who called the cease fire which resulted in the appearance that the ‘surge’ was somehow working to our non-inquisitive press. It was Sadr who has for years been able to mobilize huge peaceful demonstrations. It was Sadr whose followers peacefully passed out olive branches and copies of the Koran to soldiers on the other side. Our government’s problem with Sadr is that he stands for a strong central government and Iraqi reconciliation and not for some division of the country into sectarian states. He stands for Iraqi control of Iraqi oil and not for the proposed Iraqi Oil Law which will allow for the privatization of more than 80% of Iraqi oil fields and subsequent profits to Western oil companies to the tune of more than $20 trillion over the 30 year span of the Production Sharing Agreements featured in the Oil Law.

One is left to wonder if the offensive was not meant to pave the way for an attack on Iran and now that it has failed that the Bush Regime may not feel all the more, the necessity to ‘double down’ and attack Iran.

Of course there is no legal reason to go to war with Iran, just as there was no legal reason to invade Iraq. The US is an imperial power and it will attack who it wants, when it wants to, for whatever reasons those in power have, without the slightest regard for morality, federal or international law or the will of people, either in the US, the country being attacked or anywhere else in the world. Evidence of this attitude was on display recently when V.P. Cheney on a TV news show recently was told by his interviewer that 2/3 of Americans disagree with the Administration’s Iraq policy and he replied “So.”

Can the US Congress find the will to impeach the criminals in charge of our government before they attack Iran? Or will they continue their criminal acquiescence if Bush goes before the TV cameras with trumped up charges against Iran as our planes are delivering their deadly payloads on yet more innocent people?

Nick Egnatz
Munster, IN
NW Indiana Veterans For Peace

Selected readings
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/16/fallon-carrier/
Centcom Commander Fallon: Attack on Iran will not happen on my watch

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html
Russian Intelligence sees US military buildup on Iranian border

http://dissentmag.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/saudis-prepare-for-sudden-nuc...
Saudis prepare for sudden nuclear hazards

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/32354
Bush’s defining moments in Iraq and back home

http://www.alternet.org/story/80580/?page=entire
Joshua Holland and Raed Jarrar “5 things you need to know to understand the latest violence in Iraq”