To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them»

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/31/cheney-proposal-for-iran-war/

EXCLUSIVE: To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them»


Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker — revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.

In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources.

Interviewing Hersh during the journalism conference event, I asked him specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.

Watch it/read transcript at link~

Hersh argued that one of the things the Bush administration learned during the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz was that, “if you get the right incident, the American public will support” it.

“Look, is it high school? Yeah,” Hersh said. “Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran.”

[no_hypocrisy]

1. What a copycat! Hitler dressed up his soldiers as Polish soldiers

who "attacked" other German soldiers in order to justify his invasion of Poland.

[provis99]

34. you're right; I wish Hersh had pointed this out

Bush has stolen so many ideas from Hitler, with his "Homeland Security", "extraordinary rendition", and now this false flag operation, that calling him a Nazi isn't being facetious anymore.

[BreweryYardRat]

43. Actually, Hitler pulled a bunch of concentration camp inmates out of those hellholes...

...stuck 'em in Polish uniforms, gave them lethal doses of a drug called Skophedal (sp?), spread the bodies out around a Nazi border post, then filled them full of lead to fake a firefight.

After all, that evil little fucker wouldn't have used German soldiers when he could kill innocent people instead.

***

Getting back to modern times now that we've got all the details... Why do I get the feeling we're lucky attacking a ship requires people in good health? God knows there are plenty of Iraqis who were tossed in jail for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In any sane administration, the person who proposed this disgusting scheme would have been shot in the face about two minutes later.

[SpiralHawk]

2. Republicon strategery from a clown with Five Military Deferments

I pity our sons and daughters in uniform having to follow orders from this chickenhawk republicon VP, and Commander AWOL Bush - the Notorious Failure.

[EFerrari]

3. Some people have come to see Hersh as a sensationalist

or an alarmist. But, nothing that he has reported as fact has turned out to be wrong. And no horrible thing that we have speculated about Cheney has turned out to be as horrible as the things he's actually done.

[NightWatcher]

4. Kinda like Operation Northwoods or another Reichstag???

[bdf]

17. Or even, to use a more recent example, another 9/11 (n/t)

[Just-plain-Kathy]

28. I'm with you on that one. Welcome to DU :) ...n/t (no text)

[TNOE]

5. Yea, but these same people

would NEVER fake a terrorist attack & kill 3,000 american citizens for their own selfish gains. That's just conspiracy crap.

[seemslikeadream]

6. NEVER

;)

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. Can we incarcerate this tyrant yet?

How much is too much, Nancy? Harry? Bueller? Anybody?

[Prefer]

8. HAHA - You Conspiracy nuts make me laugh

Cheney would never do anything bad against America... HA hA HA
:sarcasm:

[sabra]

9. Bush 'plotted to lure Saddam into war with fake UN plane'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bush-plotted-to-lure-saddam-into-war-with-fake-un-plane-465436.html

George Bush considered provoking a war with Saddam Hussein's regime by flying a United States spyplane over Iraq bearing UN colours, enticing the Iraqis to take a shot at it, according to a leaked memo of a meeting between the US President and Tony Blair.

The two leaders were worried by the lack of hard evidence that Saddam Hussein had broken UN resolutions, though privately they were convinced that he had. According to the memorandum, Mr Bush said: "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

He added: "It was also possible that a defector could be brought out who would give a public presentation about Saddam's WMD, and there was also a small possibility that Saddam would be assassinated." The memo damningly suggests the decision to invade Iraq had already been made when Mr Blair and the US President met in Washington on 31 January 2003 ­ when the British Government was still working on obtaining a second UN resolution to legitimise the conflict.

The leaders discussed the prospects for a second resolution, but Mr Bush said: "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'. But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway." He added that he had a date, 10 March, pencilled in for the start of military action. The war actually began on 20 March.

[RebelOne]

10. How does he know this? Was he in the meeting? n/t

[sabra]

11. "according to one of Hersh’s sources."

[Overseas]

12. These possibilities are yet another reason I wrote to Pelosi to insist on impeachment.

She told me it would be too divisive, I think. I've written regularly so I've gotten various replies that paled in comparison to the destructive plans of Dick Cheney.

[seemslikeadream]

13. because you can’t have Americans killing Americans.

[RufusTFirefly]

14. Wouldn't have worked

Americans already tried something like that in Michael Moore's 1995 movie, Canadian Bacon, but John Candy and Rhea Perlman caught 'em.

[robertpaulsen]

15. A False Flag Operation? Initiated by AMERICA?!

Surely you jest! :sarcasm:

[suffragette]

16. Probably only rejected it because they wouldn't let Cheney

be the one doing the shooting.

[Seen the light]

18. K&R

[Judi Lynn]

19. The Bush-supported Colombian military rigs bodies of dead farmers to look like rebels

Colombian Troops Kill Farmers, Pass Off Bodies as Rebels'

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 30, 2008; A12

~snip~
Funded in part by the Bush administration, a six-year military offensive has helped the government here wrest back territory once controlled by guerrillas and kill hundreds of rebels in recent months, including two top commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

But under intense pressure from Colombian military commanders to register combat kills, the army has in recent years also increasingly been killing poor farmers and passing them off as rebels slain in combat, government officials and human rights groups say. The tactic has touched off a fierce debate in the Defense Ministry between tradition-bound generals who favor an aggressive campaign that centers on body counts and reformers who say the army needs to develop other yardsticks to measure battlefield success.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/29/AR2008032901118_pf.html

[Disturbed]

20. VP Cheney is an evil Sociopath. Congress is afraid of him.

Justice Dept. Attorneys feared for their lives. The Busholini Regime is murderous.

[riverdeep]

36. I thought you meant the first Bush until I looked at the date.

Like father, like son.

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. Just makes me sick, these people.

[DemoTex]

22. Cheney provoke war?

[robertpaulsen]

23. I want to know how many people were in that meeting.

And how many were against it. We know Cheney wasn't. He probably came up with the proposal.

[DailyGrind51]

24. If Hersh has evidence that will stnd up in court, Pelosi has no alternative,

but to draw up articles of impeachment on Dick Cheney, at least.

[formercia]

25. I guess the twin towers on 9/11 didn't do the job after all.

It would have to be something spectacular like sinking one of our own Carriers with loss of all hands. The speedboats get vaporized to eliminate the witnesses and it's party time. Of course, there would be a fast attack sub with a loyal crew to finish off the carrier.

[Wilms]

26. K&R n/t

[Canuckistanian]

27. Nahh... Too "Gulf of Tonkin"-like

Americans aren't likely to fall for another naval "emergency" in a foreign port.

But if it happened in BOSTON HARBOR, well......

[cliffordu]

29. Can we dress up Cheney as an Iranian and drop him downtown Tehran???

[Ichingcarpenter]

30. And the Anthrax suspect just committed 'suicide"

Come on people

Wake up!!

[nashville_brook]

31. what conspiracy nonsense. everyone knows that there's no such thing as conspiracies!

insert sarcasm tag.

[Wizard777]

32. That's how Hitler started what would become WW II.

[Juche]

33. That would be amazing

What would be really really really great though is if Cheney had gone through with it, everytime someone posted a thread on that subject here on DU pointing out how the event that tricked us into that war was based on a lie, the thread would get moved to the conspiracy forum by the mods.

We never learn from the past.

[JohnyCanuck]

35. Wouldn't be surprised

if the real reason this particular false flag op was rejected was there is so much widespread knowledge and information posted on the web about the US role in past false flag ops, planned false flag ops and war provoking incidents in general (e.g. Operation Gladio/Strategy of Tensio, Operation Northwoods, Gulf of Tonkin incident )that it was felt too many people in the US and other countries just wouldn't buy it. Plus of course there is also widespread skepticism about the government's official conspiracy theory (the only CT we are authorized and expected to accept without question) as to what really happened on 9/11.

[riverdeep]

37. Have we actually found some line they won't cross?

"And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans."

Actually, Cheney would cross that line and many more if he could get away with it. It's not actually about Americans being killed, it's about the possibility of people finding out about it the resultant backlash.

[JohnyCanuck]

40. Agreed n/t

[FedUpWithIt All]

38. Sounds like the British soldiers rescued after their arrest in Iraq.

Apparently they shot at Iraqi officers after they were stopped. Initial reports all claimed that they were costumed in Iraqi civilian clothes and had wigs. It was claimed that they possessed bomb materials and remotes.

Later reports claimed the contents of the car to be more consistent with the items British special forces might carry.

After the arrest, the military "tore down the walls" of the prison in a rescue mission. They released many Iraqi prisoners in the process.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-09-19-british-basra_x.htm

[Z_I_Peevey]

39. Glad to see someone still remembers that episode.

I was afraid it had gone down the memory hole.

[redqueen]

41. I'm sure the so-called "liberal" media is ALL OVER THIS.

They'll be harping on it for WEEKS!

Nonstop!

:sarcasm:

[redqueen]

42. ...

:kick:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

44. Kick!