10/31/06:
Chris Hedges started his speech at the “It’s Worse Than You Think” teach-in last night in NYC with the following:
As I speak to you tonight, the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason, and fast-attack submarine US Newport News are arriving in the Straights of Hormuz off of Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it. The chances of a war with Iran, a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East, are not only real, but probably by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as a few weeks.
Yesterday, the United States military, along with over two dozen other countires, held practice operations just 20 miles outside of Iranian territorial waters. The operations are said to be practice for searching for and preventing trafficking of unconventional weapons. But anyone who’s been hearing what Bush has been saying in recent weeks cannot help but be afraid when practice military operations off the coast of Iran.
The warning signs are there. The question is, what are we going to do to stop a war on Iran?