Tricounty DFA Update: Wednesday Meeting Reminder & More
Hello Everyone!

In This Update:

1. DFA Monthly Meeting Reminder
2. Iran War Fever?
3. Sheriff's Debate Thursday
4. Friday Night Film Fest


1. DFA Monthly Meeting Reminder

Summer is over so it is time for a new season of Greater Glens Falls link-ups or "meetups." This Wednesday, September 5th, we'll be back at our usual meeting site at 7pm at the Rockhill Bakehouse Cafe in downtown Glens Falls.

On the agenda will be our calendar of activities for the fall-- people are writing me saying they want to start protests again and DFA National is asking us to counter Republican attempts to spin the upcoming September report on Iraq as some sort of success.

2. Iran War Fever?

In relation to our meeting, our 2004 Congressional candidate Doris Kelly sends along this alarming piece from the London Sunday Times-- is the Bush administration preparing to start a war of aggression against Iran? (Full story at the bottom.)

"Are we going to sleep through this one too? Congress has to stop this megalomaniac!! Or are we all crazy?
"Doris

"The Sunday Times
"September 2, 2007

"Pentagon 'three-day blitz' plan for Iran

"Sarah Baxter, Washington

"The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians' military capability in three days, according to a national security expert. Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities. "They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," he said."

And don't miss Greenwald's detailed analysis on that is actually going on in the halls of the White House in relation to Iran. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/29/iran/index.html

3. Sheriff's Debate Thursday

Doug Auer and Kathy Sonnabend want to alert everyone about the Sheriff's candidate debate Thursday -- they also want to talk about this some Wednesday night.

"Hi everyone,

"The newly reactivated local chapter of the League of Women Voters is hosting a debate this Thursday night at 7pm in Room 206 at the Scoville Learning Center at ACC. Current Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland will debate challenger Bud York.

"This is one of the most important races this fall. This is your opportunity to ask the candidates any questions that you may have, and to hear their thoughts on a variety of topics. They are competing on the primary ballots for the Republican and Independence parties to determine which candidate, respectively, will appear on those party lines in the general election. Bud York will also appear in the general election on the Conservative line.

4. Friday Night Film Fest

Sep 7 AMERICA: FREEDOM TO FASCISM (2006) Aaron Russo 105 min.
Paying taxes ranks pretty highly On most people's "Least Favorite Things To Do" lists, but according to filmmaker Aaron Russo, U.S. citizens aren't actually legally obliged to pay federal income tax at all. This is the premise on which Russo's Libertarian documentary is based, and he speaks at length with various former IRS employees and people from financial institutions to back up his point. Russo contends that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allows Congress to levy and collect taxes on incomes, was never properly ratified. He then proceeds to explain how this is the case, presenting all his facts and theories in a fun, easy-to-understand manner that will be familiar to fans of Michael Moore's movies. But after setting out his stall, Russo really goes for the jugular, making claims that America is becoming a police state in which citizens are gradually having their freedoms eroded.
(Note from LD-- this has been litigated quite a bit and the feds have always won. As they say on TV, don't try this at home!)

Thanks, everyone! See you Wednesday at the Cafe. The full Sunday Times article is below.

Larry

********

The Sunday Times
September 2, 2007

Pentagon 'three-day blitz' plan for Iran

Sarah Baxter, Washington

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians' military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities. "They're about taking out the entire Iranian military," he said.
Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: "Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same." It was, he added, a "very legitimate strategic calculus".
President George Bush intensified the rhetoric against Iran last week, accusing Tehran of putting the Middle East "under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust". He warned that the US and its allies would confront Iran "before it is too late".
One Washington source said the "temperature was rising" inside the administration. Bush was "sending a message to a number of audiences", he said to the Iranians and to members of the United Nations security council who are trying to weaken a tough third resolution on sanctions against Iran for flouting a UN ban on uranium enrichment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week reported "significant" cooperation with Iran over its nuclear programme and said that uranium enrichment had slowed. Tehran has promised to answer most questions from the agency by November, but Washington fears it is stalling to prevent further sanctions. Iran continues to maintain it is merely developing civilian nuclear power.
Bush is committed for now to the diplomatic route but thinks Iran is moving towards acquiring a nuclear weapon. According to one well placed source, Washington believes it would be prudent to use rapid, overwhelming force, should military action become necessary.
Israel, which has warned it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, has made its own preparations for airstrikes and is said to be ready to attack if the Americans back down.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which uncovered the existence of Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, said the IAEA was being strung along. "A number of nuclear sites have not even been visited by the IAEA," he said. "They're giving a clean bill of health to a regime that is known to have practised deception."
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, irritated the Bush administration last week by vowing to fill a "power vacuum" in Iraq. But Washington believes Iran is already fighting a proxy war with the Americans in Iraq.
The Institute for the Study of War last week released a report by Kimberly Kagan that explicitly uses the term "proxy war" and claims that with the Sunni insurgency and Al-Qaeda in Iraq "increasingly under control", Iranian intervention is the "next major problem the coalition must tackle".
Bush noted that the number of attacks on US bases and troops by Iranian-supplied munitions had increased in recent months "despite pledges by Iran to help stabilise the security situation in Iraq".
It explains, in part, his lack of faith in diplomacy with the Iranians. But Debat believes the Pentagon's plans for military action involve the use of so much force that they are unlikely to be used and would seriously stretch resources in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- posted by Larry Dudley @ 11:42 PM