- Taken completely off-guard by the speed of the Russian
counteroffensive in South Ossetia and shocked when he realized the implications
of the total inability of the United States to support the anti-Russian
government they jobbed into place in Georgia, Bush and his neo-con advisors
hit on another plan that they felt would boost America's image as a great
military world power.
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- Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) 08-4 'Operation Brimstone'
commenced on July 21 in North Carolina and off the Eastern US Atlantic
coast from Virginia to Florida. Of significance was the participation of
British, French, Brazilian and Italian naval forces as part of a multinational
US naval exercise specifically directed against Iran by Presidential Order
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- This vast naval and air armarmada consists of more than
40 naval units, including carriers, warships and submarines, some of the
last nuclear-armed, is in opposition to the Iranian Islamic Republic,
a concentration last seen just before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003
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- Four US aircraft carriers and strike forces are, or will
be, positioned in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea.
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- The backbone of Operation Brimstone are the USS Theodore
Roosevelt, USS Ronald Reagan. USS Abraham Lincoln, and the USS Peleliu
Strike Group. The US has also sent to the Middle East, the Iwo Jima Expeditionary
Strike Group
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- With accompanying frigates and submarines, some 40 war
ships will be in a state of readiness, in the region and/or or directly
off the Iranian coastline.
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- In addition to these 40-odd war ships, there are some
36 US and allied war vessels operating under USCentcom as part of a Combined
Maritime Force (CMF) involved in Maritime Security US Central Command
(CENTCOM) under the command of General Petraeus, coordinates out of Bahrain,
the Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in Middle East waters ( Gulf of
Aden, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, Red Sea and Indian Ocean).
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- Although the American media has agreed not to publish
any information on this task force, the Russians, and others, have. Now,
the entire composition of this huge armada is known to many and the political
motives for it are also known.
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- In essence, George Bush and his Israeli neocon "advisors"
are livid that their puppet state of Georgia was invaded by the Russians,
after Georgia, with American assistance and certainy, full foreknowledge,
invaded one of their provinces that was trying to join Russia. The subsequent
debacle highlighted by U.S. media film clips of burning or wrecked Georgian
tanks (falsely indentified by American media sources as Russian) and reports
of the panic stricken flight of the US -trained Georgian army enraged both
Bush and his Israeli allies. It has become well-known that the Israelis
were planning to attack Iran from two air bases in Georgia but the unexpected
rout of the Georgian army forced them to rapidly flee the country, leaving
their intelligence drones and trucks full of top secret papers behind for
the Russians to capture. Naturally, none of this was ever reported in the
American media.
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- Though there was no realistic way that either Bush or
his neocon manipulators could put a good face on this collapse of their
plans, nevertheless, they both have tried. Bush has threatened Russia with
international shame and desirion but his hoped-for "strong response"
by NATO was a dismal failure. NATO might be able to fight a war,
with a reasonable chance of success, against Andorra but none of the original
members of NATO have even the slightest desire to engage in warfare with
Russia. They have muttered softly and done nothing.
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- Enraged by NATO's inaction, Bush has decided to show
Russia, and Israel (with massive American helpas usual) his is to be taken
seriously, which he no longer is, and convince Iran that they will no longer
tolerate being thwarted, frustrated and, even worse, ignorerd. Bush and
the lunatic Cheney hit on the moronic idea of establishing a partial naval
blockade of Iran in the Persian Gulf to deny Iran imports of benzene and
other refined oil products.
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- The plan, which has been leaked, both from Washington
and Isreali sources, is that beause Iran imports at least 40% of its refined
fuel products from Gulf neighbors, will retaliate for the embargo by shutting
the Strait of Hormuz oil route chokepoint, in which case the US naval and
air force stand ready to reopen the Strait and fight back any Iranian attempt
to break through the blockade. An Iranian attack on the massive armada
would then be used as an excuse to obliterate Tehran and areas where Israel
claims that "atomic weapons" are being produced.
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- From intercepted diplomatic messages, it is very clear
that Israel views these huge forces as back-up for a possible Israeli military
attack on Iran's nuclear installations.
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- The Israelis are hysterical because of the failure of
their Georgian adventures and the Bush people are too obsessed with losing
face to realize that by sending a huge, lumbering task force into the Persian
Gulf, they have put their ships, the security of Israel and the entire
fighting capabilities of the U.S. Navy at serious risk.
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- The frantic planners of this nonsense do not seem to
realize that that there is only a narrow navigible channel in the Persian
Gulf allowing the deep draft super tankers to pass through. At the choke-point
of the Hormuz Strait, the blockage of this specific area would seal in
the American task force and leave it entirely at the mercy of batteries
of Surface-to-Surface Russian missiles, sold by that country to Iran, [but
in fact, manned by Russian specialists]. If the Straits of Hormuz are blocked,
not only will the entire taskforce be trapped but no Gulf oil can get out
to the waiting world markets. The Iranian/Russian plans to block these
vital straits in the case of attack have had years in which to be polished,
and given their nature, would be impossible to either halt or neutralize.
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- If Iran is attacked by either the United States or the
Israeli Air Force, there will be retaliation by the Iranians. Iranian leaders
have made it clear repeatedly that an attack on Iran by the Israeli Air
Force will be regarded as an attack by the United States. The potential
consequences of Bush's ill-thought and unhinged actions could very well
ignite a major war, and since any kind of diplomacy on the part of the
Bush administration is non-existent, such a war is by no means impossible
to contemplate
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- If the Israeli Air Force attacks Iran, this will create
an instant unified resistance movement by Muslims throughout the Middle
East. This will include Sunni Muslims. The hatred of the Israelis by Muslims
in the region is so intense that even though the Israeli Air Force attacks
at Shi'ite nation, Sunni leaders will not be in a position to publicly
justify such an attack. They would risk a revolution in their own countries
if they did this. The best that the Israelis could expect would be silent
neutrality. Retaliation on the part of Iran will be expected by all Muslim
nations in the Middle East. The Russian weapons that most concern Israeli
officials are the S-300 surface-to-air missile and the Iskander-E, a surface-to-surface
missile with a reported maximum range of 170 miles. Iskander (NATO reporting
name SS-26 Stone) is a short range, solid fuel propelled, theater quasiballistic
missile system produced in Russia The launching equipment is mobile, easy
to disperse from satellite observation and capable of quick response.
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- In essence, the trapped U.S. fleet would be like ducks
in a bathtub and the potential damage to our naval units would be catastrophic.
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- http://tbrnews.org/Archives/a2872.htm
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