SEYMOUR HERSH, GEORGE BUSH AND HULAGU KHAN

In the fall of 1969 I hurried over the forbidding passes and trackless wastes-- well, there were tracks, just no roads-- of Eastern Turkey on my way to Tabriz in northwest Iran. Even if there are roads now, the absolute nonsense in today's Haaretz is as unlikely as anything else emanating from the Bush Regime propaganda machines. "NATO leaders are urging Turkey to open its airspace for an attack on Iran as well and to also open its airports and borders in case of a ground attack." Because even if there are roads, where is Bush going to get the soldiers to attack over them? From Fiji, Latvia, Guatemala and that hot air balloon Cheney has been sitting out the Libby trial with?

This absurd report, apparently meant to frighten someone in Iran-- although I can't imagine who-- claims that Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates have given Israel a green light to overfly their territory on the way to bomb Iran. Iranians know what a map of the region looks like better than Bush and there's an awful lot of Jordan and Saudi Arabia between Israel and Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, none of whose governments would survive their own peoples' fury if this silliness was true.

Seymour Hersh sounds a lot more credible to me than Haaretz. His appearance on CNN and his article, The Redirection, in this week's New Yorker indicates that the latest hideous and inhumane goal of Bush Regime foreign policy in the Middle East is to recreate the civil war they sparked in Iraq all over the region, the goal of which is to... well that should be obvious to anyone paying attention. The goal of the Bush Regime is to utterly and violently destroy anything and everything they perceive as a potential threat to American corporate hegemony.

We got our first hint when Rumsfeld presided-- very matter-of-factly, if not overtly jovially-- over the looting of Baghdad, without a doubt a war crime. "Oops, shit happens," is not a valid defense and if there is Justice in the world Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Bush and rest will be tried and dealt with appropriately. As the "reconstruction" billions went straight into the pockets of the Bush Regime's most notorious cronies and political financiers, Iraq's civil society was turned into the worst catastrophe that country has suffered since Hulagu Khan's Mongols sacked Baghdad in the middle of the 13th Century. Like Cheney, Hulagu Khan also considered the innocent civilians "collateral damage." And like Bush's unprovoked attack, Hulagu Khan's caused the deaths of at least a quarter million civilians. In the wake of the Mongols-- and in the wake of the Bush Regime-- mosques, palaces, museums, libraries, and hospitals were looted and destroyed. Hulagu Khan ordered the Caliph and his sons killed, as did Bush with Saddam and his sons and both tyrants turned Shi'a against Sunni to help them destroy the country.

Bush is more than happy to assist his family's tyrannical Sunni business partners preserve their corrupt, tottering monarchies and crush Shi'a aspirations in the process. But for the Neocons in the Bush Regime this is about sending a message... to Korea, China, Russia, Pakistan... anyone who would dare challenge American hegemony: Resist us and we will slaughter your people and devastate your nation.