Bible Roulette--Are Ya Feeling Lucky Punk?

By Dennis Diehl
While Christmas may leave many with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, fundamentalist evangelicals and Bible prophecy nuts see dragons and beasts, men of sin and rebuilt temples.
They see that tiny little sliver of land that has linked Africa to Europe and across which our pre-human ancestors strode, now called Israel, as the Promised Land for the Chosen People. All others, of course, are not so chosen or special. That’s the problem with the concept of the chosen people. Everyone else has to be the unchosen. And that's the way it feels today when it comes to the Middle East and all her people.
These Bible literalists and prophecy geeks seek meaning for today from the Book of Daniel, with its statues of gold,silver, bronze and iron mixed with clay. They see rams and goats pushing their way across the Middle East and find meaning in the Kings of the North and of the South, though they can never quite figure out who’s who and when.
They just adore Daniel 11, which they read like a newspaper with its four great beasts of the lion, the bear, the leopard and something more astonishing than the others, crashing its way across the planet. It has ten horns all with eyes and a little horn to boot. The meanings of it all are endless but they keep churches full.
These beasts are world empires prophesied, except these descriptions were written after they had come and gone, but don’t bring that up to the read-the-Bible-as-a-newspaper crowd. Most Bible prophecy isn't prophecy at all, but that's for another time.
Later in the Gospels, we see that the end is really getting close now. Wars, rumors of wars, like that’s something new, are everywhere. Every earthquake, flood, tsunami, tornado and cold front just screams at us, “you can sure tell that Jesus has to return any day now.”
Weather can’t just be weather. It has to be prophecy come alive. Of course, it is just weather, but that won’t wash with those who play Bible Roulette with world news and natural disasters. It never dawns on them how God seems limited to expressing his wrath during the appropriate season or plate slippage in slippage-prone areas.
Enter the Book of Revelation. Written by who knows who under the influence of who knows what. Astro-theology at it's best. The Book of Revelation has been responsible for more insane Christian sects, cults and "send in your money because you won’t need it when this all happens", lunacy, than any book in the Bible. Replete with scrolls and lambs, seals and trumpets, vials and plagues, it’s a Fundamentalist preacher’s dream come true and not a bad fear mongering tool for government leaders who just know that Voice in their head is coming right from the throne room of God Himself.
I’ve kidded in the past about having met 23 of the Two Witnesses in my former life as a church pastor, lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about on this topic. I’ve met a few more since. These are the two great ones, two men actually or Elijah and Moses, Amos and Andy , depending on who you ask, who torment us sinners the last three and half years before Jesus comes.
Of all things, the Two Witnesses just returned from Jerusalem where they set off to start their mission, but it didn’t go all that well, so they came home. Actually it’s a minister, who has rather lost his mind, that I knew in the church. He said the trumpets and seals would break open in April of 2008 and get louder and louder, ending in planetary death on a huge scale and nuclear explosions in our port cities this summer. Hey, it could happen, but that would not be prophecy come alive, it just might be the government needing to cancel elections. Who knows anymore?
Conveniently, he declared his wife the other witness. God works in families, you know. Anyway, old Ron said that if by June of this year it was not obvious the Book of Revelation had come true as HE said, then he’d declare himself a false prophet because anything less would “be quite insane.”Well guess what? He changed the rules of engagement, kept his office as prophet, kept his dwindling church and kept the money. He’s also a liar.

What is Bible Roulette? Bible Roulette is the misuse of the Bible by religious zealots to promote governmental insanity on the world scene so that perhaps out of all the chaos of, say an attack on Iran and the ensuing explosion in the Middle East, Jesus, who loves all the little children of the world, well except Palestinian, Iraqi or Iranian, evidently, will come back and bring Peace.
Our President plays Bible Roulette every time he listens to the likes of John Hagee and his beer belly prophecies about what surely are his accurate views of the Bible and what it means for the Middle East and Christians all over the world. John Hagee plays Bible Roulette for a living.
Most fundamentalists and Bible literalist pastors do. You can get an amazing amount of mileage out of the Book of Revelation and spin it into a career. So do all the ministerial advisors to the candidates. Scary people actually whose mouths needs be shut at times, it seems to me, lest we end up, not with the return of Jesus, but only a large sanitation problem on a major part of the planet and world chaos.
Bible Roulette is currently responsible for more bad decisions in high places than one might ever wish to contemplate. It’s also quite possible that religious zealots who think they have influence in high places are being played the fool so that the narcissists and psychopaths in government can do what they want and prophet, or rather profit, from it all.
Hey, if it didn’t bother our country enough when the President said God told him to strike at Sadaam or that God wanted him to be President, nothing is going to bother us. If your eyebrows have not been raised by now over this President's abuse of power and psychopathic leanings, there is not much more to say. I guess I could say, you reap what you allow to grow.
Another problem we face as humans becoming (human beings may still be a stretch at this time in history and under this administration), is the meme that the nation of Israel is the center of the world for how it’s all going to go for the rest of us. Uzbekistan... not so much. But Israel.. you got to be kidding? Soooooooo special. It’s not. They just know how to play the game of how does a small people survive in a nasty environment.
First of all, you get to have all the nuclear weapons you want. Secondly, you make sure others don’t have any to keep you humble. And thirdly, you make every effort to promote Evangelical Christian zeal for the chosen people so they are taken care of when push comes to shove or we have to vote on something that benefits them over everyone else.
God did not literally establish the nation of Israel. The American taxpayers bought it for them. I bet if we cut off the funding and let God pick up their support, Israel would feel as special, finally, as Uzbekistan.
Time and space would fail me to show how the story of the Israelites in the Old Testament might just be a wee bit exaggerated to give a hopeless people, no different than the people around them, an amazingly more interesting pedigree.
As I was told recently, “God won’t tolerate anyone picking on the Nation of Israel. They are the Chosen People.” Argh, argh and half an argh (you have to know the Book of Revelation to understand that…).
I guarantee you, if Israel, alone or with the aid of the Bush administration, attacks Iran in the next few months and leaves the mess to the next President, you will not think Israel is so special anymore. When the results of such a fool’s game as that hits the fan, you may never want to look at your Bible again or hear one more yelling, ignorant preacher tell you how it all is and that prophecy is coming alive.
You can create your own outcomes when you have such a crazy blueprint in your head. It might not go as you planned however.
So here we sit. The summer of ’08 and it feels really dangerous on the planet as far as I can tell with Bible Roulettesters spinning the cylinder and hoping for a bang instead of a click. Of course, they are pointing the gun at others.
Will the Bush Administration attack Iran, almost as a last cynical and in your face America game? Will this administration go out with a bang just as they came in? Cancel elections maybe or declare it’s too dangerous to not have the powers that be still be for the foreseeable future? Can’t happen, you say?
Here’s how it’s done.
You load your gun with one bullet from Daniel. Drop two bullets from Matthew 24 and three from the Book of Revelation into the cylinders. Now ALL the cylinders are full. Someone is going to die. There is no chance it won't go off.
Get some fundamentalist preacher of note to spin it and then tell the God haunted members of the Congress and Executive Branch and the simple psychopathic narcissists, where to point it and why. Pull the trigger. Its that simple. There is no empty chamber. Lots of people are going to die. The world will never be the same and life as you know for you and your kids will change.
Bible Roulette...Coming to a planet near you, if someone doesn't speak up quickly.

Authors Bio:
Dennis Diehl is a former pastor of 26 years, who outgrew the Literalism of Fundamentalism. He writes about Pastoral and Church abuse and is available to speak on such topics or be helpful to any church suffering under abusive religion or pastors.

Don’t Give Your Consent to Slavery – Fight Fascism!

by pete chamberlin on Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:33 pm

Normal folks do not want to believe that the human race is dominated by dark forces. But, there is a small group of people who know that it is true, the human race is considered to be livestock, cattle for the real owners of this world, the elite. Since the day of our creation, mankind has been dominated and shaped by inhuman entities, to behave more like cattle. The shapers themselves know this to be true. They also know that if we are not kept ignorant many of us will one day learn to ask the proper questions, until we finally locate the evidence that proves it is all true. Through diligent research, various people have discovered proof of the machinery that controls America’s economy, its political system, its military, its educational system, its medical system, every facet of life. This knowledge is a direct threat to the elite. The elite power game is designed to wear the people down, as they move the nation slowly toward a predicted outcome, where the majority becomes exhausted from fighting a losing struggle and completely submits to total elite domination of all resources. When the American masses freely surrender their free will to the dark overlords, in the name of security, the fate of the world will be sealed by this lawless tyranny. Destruction and suffering, such as has never been witnessed by the eyes of man, will be unleashed upon the helpless victim populations of the earth. Very few people can see this future (no one wants to see it) outside of the elite, who gladly accept it as the price of saving whatever is left of the world for themselves. The masters of humanity count on our blindness and willful ignorance, in order to carry-out their conspiratorial plans. They join in secret organizations, where they are free to openly discuss their schemes amongst their own kind. The documentation of their plotting is kept locked away from the public in corporate vaults and private libraries. Occasionally, someone on the inside discovers their conscience and leaks word of the devilish plans to the outside world, or maybe they simply slip-up and lose track or control of sequestered documents. In order to deceive us and to stall the day of our realization of the multitude of their crimes against humanity, intensive disinformation is introduced into the webstream, discrediting the truth by impersonating it. We have to be diligent in our research to ascertain the veracity of any documents that we might come across. If their revelations cannot be confirmed by multiple sources, then they must be suspect. The “Pentagon Papers” and “Operation Northwoods” come quickly to mind. Both of these major leaks were later partially corroborated by reports of past deceptive military PSYOPS and CIA covert wars. Then there are the out of the blue revelations offered by researchers who claim to have obtained inside information, or in the case of former MI6 agent John Coleman, a training manual from the Tavistock Institute (British mind control research). - , Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300 - http://www.barefootsworld.net/tavistok.html Coleman’s research is automatically suspect because of his previous government involvement. But this research on social scientists and psychologists at Tavistock, founded in studies by British “Operational Research” at the end of World War II (on the psycho/social impact of bombing upon civilian populations), provided valuable insight to me on the mechanisms for studying and manipulating human cattle. http://www.mortyscabin.net/modules.php? ... e&sid=1769 Another very insightful document of questionable origin, which seems to corroborate Coleman’s work, entitled, “Silent Weapons for a Quiet War,” (an Operations Research Technical Manual) is alleged to be a document from the highly-secretive elitist Bilderburg Group.” http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/ha ... etwars.htm This document may be legitimate, or it may also be a carefully constructed piece of disinformation. Whatever it is, it opens even more insights into the potential opinions of the elite towards the American sheeple, or anyone not living up to their lofty cruel standards and ideas for forging a global dictatorship:“The general public refuses to improve its own mentality and its faith in its fellow man. It has become a herd of proliferating barbarians, and, so' to speak, a blight upon the fate of the earth. They do not care enough about economic science to learn why they have not been able to avoid war despite religious morality, and their religious or self-gratifying refusal to deal with earthly problems renders the solution of the earthly problem unreachable by them. It is left to those few who are truly willing to think and survive as the fittest to survive, to solve the problem for themselves as the few who really care.”“This public demand is incredible, so the human god, the political, meets incredibility with incredibility by promising the world and delivering nothing. This public behavior is surrender born of fear, laziness and expediency. It is the basis of the welfare state as a strategic weapon, useful against a disgusting public. They hire politicians to face reality for them.” Silent Weapons builds upon the British work begun at Operations Research and by its offshoot studies, in studying the effects of planned shocks upon the “cattle,” in particular the economic effects of specific psychological shocks. From this research they constructed what they called an “economic amplifier,” for stimulating the economy in various ways, by shocking the populace and using the information obtained to control the people, thereby manipulating their free will.“The low class elements of the society must be brought under total control, i.e., must be house-broken, trained, and assigned a yoke and long term social duties from a very early age, before they have an opportunity to question the propriety of the matter...In order to achieve such conformity, the lower class family unit must be disintegrated by a process of increasing preoccupation of the parents and occupationally orphaned children...The quality of education given to the lower class must be of the poorest sort, so that the ... ignorance isolating the inferior class from the superior class is and remains incomprehensible to the inferior class. With such an initial handicap, even bright lower class individuals have little if any hope of extricating themselves from their assigned lot in life. This form of slavery is essential to maintaining some measure of social order, peace, and tranquility for the ruling upper class.” “Economic engineers...study the behavior of the economy and the consumer public by carefully selecting a staple commodity such as beef, coffee, gasoline, or sugar and then causing a sudden change or shock in its price or availability, thus kicking everybody's budget and buying habits out of shape...They then observe the shock waves which result by monitoring the changes in advertising, prices, and sales of that and other commodities...The objective of such studies is to acquire know-how to set the public economy into a predictable state of motion or change, even a controlled self-destructive state of motion which will convince the public that certain "expert" people should take control of the money system and reestablish security (rather than liberty and justice) for all. When the subject citizens are rendered unable to control their financial affairs, they of course, become totally enslaved, a source of cheap labor.” “Labor strikes deliver excellent test shocks to an economy, especially in the critical service areas of trucking (transportation), communication, public utilities (energy, water, garbage collection), etc...By shock testing, it is found that there is a direct relationship between the availability of money flowing in an economy and the psychological outlook and response of masses of people dependent upon that availability...For example, there is a measurable, quantitative relationship between the price of gasoline, and the probability that a person would experience a headache, feel a need to watch a violent movie, smoke a cigarette, or go to a tavern for a mug of beer.” “It is most interesting that, by observing and measuring the economic modes by which the public tries to run from their problems and escape from reality, and by applying the mathematical theory of Operations Research, it is possible to program computers to predict the most probable combination of created events (shocks) which will bring about a complete control and subjugation of the public through a subversion of the public economy (by shaking the plum tree).”“Keep the public undisciplined and ignorant of basic systems principles on the one hand, while keeping them confused, disorganized, and distracted with matters of no real importance on the other hand.Disengaging their minds, sabotaging their mental activities, by providing a low quality program of public education in mathematics, logic, systems design, and economics, and by discouraging technical creativity.Unrelenting emotional affrontations and attacks (mental and emotional rape) by way of a constant barrage of sex, violence, and wars in the media - especially the T.V. and the newspapers.Shift their thinking from personal needs to highly fabricated outside priorities.Preclude their interest in and discovery of the silent weapons of social automation technology.The best approach is to create problems and then offer the solutions.Keep the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think; back on the farm with the other animals.”The elitists’ control over information, made possible by the creation of a global computer network, allowed them to absorb all available data from both voluntary and involuntary sources and incorporate the latest facts into their studies for manipulating the unsuspecting masses. The computer-modeling they developed allowed them to accurately predict the real world effect of certain shocks through computer simulations. “A silent weapon system operates upon data obtained from a docile public by legal (but not always lawful) force...The number of such forms submitted to the I.R.S. is a useful indicator of public consent, an important factor in strategic decision making...When the government is able to collect tax and seize private property without just compensation, it is an indication that the public is ripe for surrender and is consenting to enslavement and legal encroachment. A good and easily quantified indicator of harvest time is the number of public citizens who pay income tax.” The move to expand their acquisition of personal information led them to take the risky step of sharing their global computer/communications network, the Internet, with the people, even with the sheeple. But, the document reveals that the controllers were well aware of the risks and accepted it as the necessary price of aggregating all that juicy input. “It was only a matter of time, only a few decades, before the general public would be able to grasp and upset the cradle of power, for the very elements of the new silent weapon technology were as accessible for a public utopia as they were for providing a private utopia.As time goes on and communication and education improve, the lower class elements of the social labor structure become knowledgeable and envious of the good things that the upper class members have. They also begin to attain a knowledge of energy systems and the ability to enforce their rise through the class structure.This threatens the sovereignty of the elite.If this rise of the lower classes can be postponed long enough, the elite can achieve energy dominance. Until such energy dominance is absolutely established, the consent of people to labor and let others handle their affairs must be taken into consideration, since failure to do so could cause the people to interfere in the final transfer of energy sources to the control of the elite.It is essential to recognize that at this time, public consent is still an essential key to the release of energy in the process of economic amplification.”Whether this document is a fraud or not, its characterizations of elitist contempt for the sheeple resonates as truth. This means that they are vulnerable, if we are diligent in our investigations, but only for a limited time. Our window of opportunity is very limited, as we watch it slowly close before us. If the American people capitulate before we can educate them to the dangerous future awaiting us all, then all hope is lost (outside of divine intervention). The people are irrelevant until we learn to organize and to fight back. Until we learn how to disrupt their plan by generating our own reverse shock waves, generated by explosive revelatory truths, we will remain irrelevant. Until we can blow-away the foundations of lies that empower the cover-ups, the truths that could set us all free will remain useless data, lost in the webstream, hidden in executive vaults and private libraries. As long as the people remain compliant to elitist molding, there remains little hope. It is time to strike a blow for hope. We must launch our own counter-offensive, in order to capture the people’s minds, in time to repel the final wave of conformation. We must begin to see the elitists who dominate us as the vile scum that they truly are, alien to all decent human beings. It is our last call for making the American people relevant to those who have been elected to represent us in our fake democracy.In my quest to understand what is needed to avert the catastrophic future that awaits us, and to formulate a workable alternative vision to it, I turned to one of the most-often quoted figures in America, Noam Chomsky. In a recent interview he did with Al-Jazeera Network, “Chomsky: US public irrelevant,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuHAqjI3CY Chomsky described our plight and compared it to recent third world revolutions, carried-out by simple folks in similar predicaments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biyK7NgdCDA “For the majority of the population real wages have stagnated or declined for the past 30 years, there's been growth but it's going to the wealthy and into very few pockets, benefits which were never really great have declined, work hours have greatly increased and there isn't really much to show for it other than staying afloat.” “The elite strategy for managing the electorate is to ignore the will of the people as...interpret[ed] through polling data?... We have models right in front of us. Like pick, say, Bolivia, the poorest county in South America. They had a democratic election a couple of years ago that you can't even dream about in the US. It's kind of interesting it's not discussed [in our press]...A large majority of the population became organised and active for the first time in history and elected someone from their own ranks on crucial issues that everyone knew about – control of resource, cultural rights, issues of justice, you know, really serious issues... A couple of years before this they managed to drive Bechtel and the World Bank out of the country when they were trying to privatise the war. It was a pretty harsh struggle... Well, they reached a point where they finally could manifest this through the electoral system - they didn't have to change the electoral laws, they had to change the way the public acts... Actually if we look at the poorest country in the hemisphere – Haiti - the same thing happened in 1990. You know, if peasants in Bolivia and Haiti can do this, it's ridiculous to say we can't.” The only thing that will save us and the world from the great plundering that is planned for us is another revolution, a revolution of free will. Everyone must stop surrendering their will to the dishonest men and women who claim to represent us. We must reclaim our fading and lost heritage."To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them.” Michael Parenti, author. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Fascism.html Americans can stop the overlords from carrying-out the final step for ending human freedom, expanding their global war into Iran, escalating it beyond the nuclear threshold. Advancement of their geopolitical plan through the use of terrorism by our own government and through their proxies in foreign intelligence services remains the immoral center of their unholy schemes. We stop this hypocrisy by making this common knowledge.Revelations of “silent weapons” being used in a secret war against them and their families will go a long way towards opening many eyes and convincing people to resist. What is needed is massive resistance, on a scale not seen in this country for a very long time. People have to be convinced to resist cooperating with government and private efforts to collect personal data and conform with illegal mandates. Organize to stop the war, to end the illegal progressive tax system, the submission to intrusive government measures. In the end, we must bring down the corrupt Federal Reserve System. Soldiers must refuse to lay down their freedom and their lives for the war machine. Everyone must stop playing along with our farcical electoral system. Don’t vote on November 6, send them a static-filled signal of our own.

Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense in their homes, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms restrictions intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington's requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns.

Scalia noted that the handgun is Americans' preferred weapon of self-defense in part because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, "In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas."

Joining Scalia were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. The other dissenters were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter.

Gun rights supporters hailed the decision. "I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom," said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.

The NRA will file lawsuits in San Francisco, Chicago and several of its suburbs challenging handgun restrictions there based on Thursday's outcome.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a leading gun control advocate in Congress, criticized the ruling. "I believe the people of this great country will be less safe because of it," she said.

The capital's gun law was among the nation's strictest.

Dick Anthony Heller, 66, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection in the same Capitol Hill neighborhood as the court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in Heller's favor and struck down Washington's handgun ban, saying the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to own guns and that a total prohibition on handguns is not compatible with that right.

The issue caused a split within the Bush administration. Vice President Dick Cheney supported the appeals court ruling, but others in the administration feared it could lead to the undoing of other gun regulations, including a federal law restricting sales of machine guns. Other laws keep felons from buying guns and provide for an instant background check.

White House reaction was restrained. "We're pleased that the Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment protects the right of Americans to keep and bear arms," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Scalia said nothing in Thursday's ruling should "cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings."

In a concluding paragraph to the his 64-page opinion, Scalia said the justices in the majority "are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country" and believe the Constitution "leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns."

The law adopted by Washington's city council in 1976 bars residents from owning handguns unless they had one before the law took effect. Shotguns and rifles may be kept in homes, if they are registered, kept unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks.

Opponents of the law have said it prevents residents from defending themselves. The Washington government says no one would be prosecuted for a gun law violation in cases of self-defense.

The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.

Forty-four state constitutions contain some form of gun rights, which are not affected by the court's consideration of Washington's restrictions.

The case is District of Columbia v. Heller, 07-290.

Wasteful Weapons and the Politicians Who Love Them

Posted on Jun 24, 2008
By Robert Scheer

Remember Curtis LeMay, the Air Force general played to chilling effect by Sterling Hayden in the 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove”? If you’re too young for that reference, you probably don’t recall when the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) dominated our military posture toward our Soviet enemy. I bring this up because the midair refueling tanker that the MAD warrior LeMay commissioned suddenly has become a controversy in the presidential campaign.

MAD was based on a triad of air, land and sea forces that would punish a Soviet first strike, ending all semblance of life on the one-sixth of the planet that composed the old Soviet Union. Toward that end, we needed not only thousands of land-based weapons but thousands of other weapons on ships and on airplanes. It was LeMay’s insistence that nuclear-armed bombers be in the air 24/7 that gave rise to the midair refueling tankers that were in the news this past week. Controversy arose when the Government Accountability Office questioned an Air Force decision to award the contract for a new generation of those “gas stations in the sky” to one defense contractor instead of its rival.

The news was presented in a Wall Street Journal front-page story focusing on the profit potential rather than the military significance of the tanker. So, too, the account that led the New York Times business section, which detailed the good news in Boeing’s revived chances to secure the refueling tanker contract. This deal would initially cost $35 billion, but, as the Times pointed out, “The tanker contract, which could eventually grow to $100 billion to build a fleet of 179 refueling planes, is one of the most lucrative ever awarded by the Pentagon.”

Neither newspaper indicated why we needed $100 billion in tankers, other than in a revealing photo in the Times showing one of the airplanes refueling a B-2 bomber, which brings us back to Gen. LeMay and his MAD doctrine. The B-2 was designed to be the modern bomber in the triad confronting the Soviets. Its very expensive stealth cover would be able to penetrate a sophisticated Soviet radar system—which was never built. That also assumes that the B-2’s stealthy cover would stop deteriorating in the rain, as it was wont to do, but the test for this technology never occurred because of the untimely fall of the Soviet menace.

Despite having lost its purpose, production of the B-2 continued for a while as a jobs and profit program supported by key legislators from both parties, as has been the case with the tanker designed to fuel the planes. Woe to the legislator who dares take on any weapons program, and that is why John McCain has become the subject of criticism from the Democrats.

In one of his better performances as a senator, McCain distinguished himself by challenging a swindle that would have rewarded the Boeing company with a contract worth $100 billion for leasing Boeing aircraft that were converted to refueling tankers from a model that was not selling in a depressed market. Thanks to McCain’s insistence on a criminal investigation, the chief financial officer of Boeing and the top procurement officer in the Air Force wing of the Pentagon were sent to serve time in federal prison. The contract was canceled, and a new contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman and a European partner.

The Democratic National Committee now has criticized McCain for having opposed the Boeing deal, charging that McCain had “sent American jobs abroad.” The DNC’s attack on McCain speaks volumes to the bipartisan gut-checking in favor of military waste that has led us to squander trillions of taxpayer dollars since 9/11.

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers responded to the scurrilous attack from the DNC, saying:

“Let’s get this straight: John McCain led the charge to uncover the biggest boondoggle in Pentagon history, saved the taxpayers over $6 billion, helped send corrupt execs and government officials to jail, and the Democrats say he’s the bad guy? It’s absurd. Apparently to Barack Obama and the Democrats, corruption is OK, so long as it helps them politically. That’s not change we can believe in.”

Now, of course, McCain has done his bit to waste egregious amounts of taxpayer money by cheerleading for an Iraq war that has already burdened us with trillions in future debt, but that hardly exonerated the Democrats in once again attempting to one-up the Republicans in throwing money at defense contractors.

The Coming Catastrophe?

The finishing touches on several contingency plans for attacking Iran

Global Research Editor's note:
We bring to the attention of our readers David DeBatto's scenario as to what might occur if one of the several contingency plans to attack Iran, with the participation of Israel and NATO, were to be carried out. While one may disagree with certain elements of detail of the author's text, the thrust of this analysis must be taken seriously.


"Israel has said a strike on Iran will be "unavoidable" if the Islamic regime continues to press ahead with alleged plans for building an atom-bomb." (London Daily Telegraph, 6/11/2008)
"Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany joined President Bush on Wednesday in calling for further sanctions against Iran if it does not suspend its uranium enrichment program." Mr. Bush stressed again that "all options are on the table," which would include military force. (New York Times, 6/11/2008)

We are fast approaching the final six months of the Bush administration. The quagmire in Iraq is in its sixth painful year with no real end in sight and the forgotten war in Afghanistan is well into its seventh year. The "dead enders" and other armed factions are still alive and well in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan again controls most of that country. Gas prices have now reached an average of $4.00 a gallon nationally and several analysts predict the price will rise to $5.00-$6.00 dollars per gallon at the pump by Labor Day. This, despite assurances by some major supporters of the decision to invade Iraq that the Iraq war "will pay for itself" (Paul Wolfowitz) or that we will see "$20.00 per barrel" oil prices if we invade Iraq (Rupert Murdoch).

One thing the Pentagon routinely does (and does very well) is conduct war games. Top brass there are constantly developing strategies for conducting any number of theoretical missions based on real or perceived threats to our national security or vital interests. This was also done prior to the invasion of Iraq, but the Bush administration chose not to listen to the dire warnings about that mission given to him by Pentagon leaders, or for that matter, by his own senior intelligence officials. Nevertheless, war gaming is in full swing again right now with the bullseye just to the right of our current mess – Iran.

It’s no secret that the U.S. is currently putting the finishing touches on several contingency plans for attacking Iranian nuclear and military facilities. With our ground forces stretched to the breaking point in Iraq and Afghanistan, none of the most likely scenarios involve a ground invasion. Not that this administration wouldn’t prefer to march into the seat of Shiite Islam behind a solid, moving line of M1 Abrams tanks and proclaim the country for democracy. The fact is that even the President knows we can’t pull that off any more so he and the neo-cons will have to settle for Shock and Awe Lite.

If we invade Iran this year it will be done using hundreds of sorties by carrier based aircraft already stationed in the Persian Gulf and from land based aircraft located in Iraq and Qatar. They will strike the known nuclear facilities located in and around Tehran and the rest of the country as well as bases containing major units of the Iranian military, anti-aircraft installations and units of the Revolutionary Guard (a separate and potent Iranian para-military organization).

Will this military action stop Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons? Probably not. It will probably not even destroy all of their nuclear research facilities, the most sensitive of which are known to be underground, protected by tons of earth and reinforced concrete and steel designed to survive almost all attacks using conventional munitions. The Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard will most likely survive as well, although they will suffer significant casualties and major bases and command centers will undoubtedly be destroyed. However, since Iran has both a functioning Air Force, Navy (including submarines) and modern anti-aircraft capabilities, U.S. fighter-bombers will suffer casualties as well. This will not be a "Cake Walk" as with the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when the Iraqi Army simply melted away and the Iraqi Air Force never even launched a single aircraft.

Not even close.

If the United States attacks Iran either this summer or this fall, the American people had better be prepared for a shock that may perhaps be even greater to the national psyche (and economy) than 9/11. First of all, there will be significant U.S. casualties in the initial invasion. American jets will be shot down and the American pilots who are not killed will be taken prisoner - including female pilots. Iranian Yakhonts 26, Sunburn 22 and Exocet missiles will seek out and strike U.S. naval battle groups bottled up in the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf with very deadly results. American sailors will be killed and U.S. ships will be badly damaged and perhaps sunk. We may even witness the first attack on an American Aircraft carrier since World War II.

That’s just the opening act.

Israel (who had thus far stayed out of the fray by letting the U.S. military do the heavy lifting) is attacked by Hezbollah in a coordinated and large scale effort. Widespread and grisly casualties effectively paralyze the nation, a notion once thought impossible. Iran’s newest ally in the region, Syria, then unleashes a barrage of over 200 Scud B, C and D missiles at Israel, each armed with VX gas. Since all of Israel is within range of these Russian built weapons, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and virtually all major civilian centers and several military bases are struck, often with a result of massive casualties.

The Israeli Air Force orders all three squadrons of their F-16I Sufa fighter/bombers into the air with orders to bomb Tehran and as many military and nuclear bases as they can before they are either shot down or run out of fuel. It is a one way trip for some of these pilots. Their ancient homeland lies in ruins. Many have family that is already dead or dying. They do not wait for permission from Washington, DC or U.S. regional military commanders. The Israeli aircraft are carrying the majority of their country’s nuclear arsenal under their wings.

Just after the first waves of U.S. bombers cross into Iranian airspace, the Iranian Navy, using shore based missiles and small, fast attack craft sinks several oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, sealing off the Persian Gulf and all its oil from the rest of the world. They then mine the area, making it difficult and even deadly for American minesweepers to clear the straits. Whatever is left of the Iranian Navy and Air Force harasses our Navy as it attempts minesweeping operations. More U.S casualties.

The day after the invasion Wall Street (and to a lesser extent, Tokyo, London and Frankfurt) acts as it always does in an international crisis – irrational speculative and spot buying reaches fever pitch and sends the cost of oil skyrocketing. In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iran, the price of oil goes to $200.00 - $300.00 dollars a barrel on the open market. If the war is not resolved in a few weeks, that price could rise even higher. This will send the price of gasoline at the pump in this country to $8.00-$10.00 per gallon immediately and subsequently to even higher unthinkable levels.

If that happens, this country shuts down. Most Americans are not be able to afford gas to go to work. Truckers pull their big rigs to the side of the road and simply walk away. Food, medicine and other critical products are not be brought to stores. Gas and electricity (what is left of the short supply) are too expensive for most people to afford. Children, the sick and elderly die from lack of air-conditioned homes and hospitals in the summer. Children, the sick and elderly die in the winter for lack of heat. There are food riots across the country. A barter system takes the place of currency and credit as the economy dissolves and banks close or limit withdrawals. Civil unrest builds.

The police are unable to contain the violence and are themselves victims of the same crisis as the rest of the population. Civilian rule dissolves and Martial Law is declared under provisions approved under the Patriot Act. Regular U.S. Army and Marine troops patrol the streets. The federal government apparatus is moved to an unknown but secure location. The United States descends into chaos and becomes a third world country. Its time as the lone superpower is over.

It doesn’t get any worse than this.

Then the first Israeli bomber drops its nuclear payload on Tehran.

David DeBatto is a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Special Agent, Iraqi war veteran and co-author the "CI" series from Warner Books and the upcoming "Counter to Intelligence" from Praeger Security International.


Global Research Articles by David DeBatto

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