MSNBC-TV exposes Bush administration as manipulating Americans into nuclear war against Iran

Compiled by Oliver Jones

	Keith Olbermann

MSNBC's very eloquent Keith Olbermann opened up his Countdown news programme on February 15, 2007, by indicating that "For more on the seemingly persistent intelligence failures plaguing the administration and lending itself to that boy who cried wolf stuff, let's turn now to Larry Johnson, former CIA officer, and former deputy director of the State Department Office of Counterterrorism."

Keith Olbermann presented to Mr. Johnson that, "With the prewar intelligence on Iraq, the White House, at best, cherry-picked the parts it liked, threw out the parts that it did not like. At worst, it outright lied about the whole package. Is this-and we've asked this question of almost everybody that's been on the show the last month, is this thing happening again with Iran? Is there a lie, a cherry-pick? What's going on now?"

Saudi-backed Sunnis and NOT Iran-backed Shia have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of "terrorist" related military destabilization activities in Iraq

Mr. Johnson's response was to criticize the apparent mass-deception that is being presented about Iran's as being a "global terrorist threat", concerning the "War on Terror", that had allegedly been responsible for singularly arming terrorists against U.S. and U.S.-sponsored troops in Iraq.

Most of the casualties that U.S. troops have incurred, however, come NOT from the Iranian-backed Shia, BUT instead from Sunnis, who are backed by Jordanians, who are backed by Saudis. In other words, Iran is being falsely demonized by U.S. neo-conservatives, toward an apparent military expansionist agenda. Mr. Johnson indicated that most U.S casualties and other "terrorist" destabilization is entering Iraq from Sunnis based in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which are in fact U.S. allies.

Quality-of-Living and Human Development is a book for further reading on this subject.

Mr. Johnson further indicated that Mr. Bush is attempting to "mislead" the American people on Iran (toward a prospective fabricated reason for launching a mischievous and globally catastrophic pre-emptive nuclear attack against Iran), by giving the impression that "most of the casualties our troops are incurring are coming from these dastardly Iranians, when the exact opposite is the case. Iran, according to the statistics released the other day, Iran is responsible for less than 8 percent of the fatalities since June of 2004, and less than 4 percent of the wounded."

"At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable, a nuclear holocaust which could potentially spread, in terms of radioactive fallout, over a large part of the Middle East," says Canadian Professor Michel Chossudovsky, in relation to the U.S. Bush administration's apparent reactionary agenda against Iran, supported by incendiary rhetoric.

"All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as "a weapon of last resort" have been scrapped. "Offensive" military actions using nuclear warheads are now described as acts of "self-defence," adds Professor Chossudovsky.

Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best seller The Globalization of Poverty which published in eleven languages. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His most recent book is entitled, America's "War on Terrorism, Global Research, 2005.

Back to the MSNBC-TV interview on Mr. Olbermann's Countdown, Mr. Johnson also wisely further indicated that "Now, we need to be concerned about that, but I would rather focus our effort on the 92 percent that are attributable to the Sunnis."

The political theatre of demonization and mass-deception in the "War on Terrorism"

Mr. Olbermann then asks, "Now, when it comes to which of the pro-Iranian agents inside Iraq are being portrayed as villains and which ones are being portrayed as allies, is there cherry-picking there going on by the administration as well?"

"Absolutely. You know, they've caught the Hollywood bug," Mr. Johnson then responded. Billions of dollars in the United States are thus being funnelled away from such vital needs as healthcare; education; Katrina and other disaster victims; environmental protection; and other vital quality-of-living related areas, toward an apparent scripted pro-war agenda.

The "War on Terror" is based around demonizing individuals, organizations, and selected countries to incite mass hysteria and fear, in order to legitimate the need for war. The "War on Terror" is an apparent ruse designed to grab power (from the conquest of resources like oil, cheap labour, i.e "human capital" in areas with weak or non-existent labour laws, thanks to "Globalization", and also "strategic land operations"), and in turn, to oppress "the masses".

The "War on Terror" is an attempt to destroy America from within, with fear and mass-deception. Through fascist techniques of mass-deception, elites present the "War on Terror" as advancing the defence of "freedom" and "democracy", while it seeks to destroy "freedom" and "democracy", in an atmosphere of cultivated fear and manipulation.

As Mr. Johnson former CIA officer, and former deputy director of the State Department Office of Counterterrorism says,"You've got to have a good villain. Last year we had Zarqawi, Zarqawi dies. So the new villain is Muqtada al-Sadr. Unfortunately, Muqtada al-Sadr, among the Shia clerics - yes, he doesn't like us, but he is the most pro-Iraqi nationalist in the group. The guy who is the most pro-Iranian, al-Hakim - Aziz al-Hakim, was sitting in the Oval Office in December of 2006 doing a grip-and-grin with President Bush."

"That guy, when you have - when you run a group called the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and you are closely tied to Iran, and a few weeks ago, one of the Iranians that the United States picked up and is accusing of being involved with this bombing, is, in fact, he was in al-Hakim's compound."

"So it's complete disconnect. We're trying to fight Muqtada al-Sadr, when the real threat from the United States comes from Saudi-Jordanian Sunni sources, NOT Iranian-supported Shia sources," Mr. Johnson further elaborated.

Do U.S. right-wing ideologues intentionally refuse constructive collaboration with Iran, against the Taliban, as part of a demonization strategy against Iran?

	Capitalism is Not Democracy is a book for further reading on this subject.

Keith Olbermann then indicated that, "There is, of course, the whole question of what Iran's point of view had been at a critical time in this - our experience in the area, in 2003, and Secretary Rice testified last week she had never seen the overture from Iran in '03 for talks with the U.S. that would have perhaps provided some assistance regarding Iraq."

"Today, the former aide to the secretary, Flynt Leverett, said that was unthinkable that she did not see it. Are we- once again, just- is this just blatant, headfirst, ram-it-through-the-wall kind of misinformation being passed off by the administration? Are they just denying something that's obviously true?"

Mr. Johnson then responded to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann indicating that, "It's one of two things, Keith, either it's incompetence, and we saw an element of that with her handling of the information prior to 9/11, or she has a medical problem, perhaps early-onset Alzheimer's. You know, I can't figure it out."

"The lead-in to your show tonight, about Afghanistan, is particularly important. One of the issues that most concerns Iran is the resurgence of the Taliban. This is one of those areas in which both the Iranian Islamists and the United States agree on. Neither of us want to see the Taliban back. So that was an area that could have been negotiated. The Iranians wanted to negotiate. And, you know, frankly, Condoleezza Rice is lying about this," charged Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson then added, "But she's gotten away with it now for six years, so why should she change?"

Recommended Readings:

Capitalism is Not Democracy, Part I, ISBN: 1894934636, Agora Publishing Consortium, 2006.

Quality-of-Living and Human Development as the Outcome of Economic Progress, ISBN: 1897036353, Agora Publishing Consortium, 2006.