Brent Colton is a retired CIA operations officer now in the employ of the Creighton Corporation, a privately owned think tank that advocates various opinions on world issues, but it’s his clandestine job to solve the dirty problems for their private clients for a million dollar fee with no questions asked. When recovering stolen technology from a Vietnamese industrialist, Colton obtains evidence that he secretly partnered with a U.S. Senatorto rig the recent presidential election and elect him to the nation’s highest office.

THE GUNS OF AUGUST: TO BE REVISITED?
by Terry Heath, 2005

The award winning writer Barbara Tuchman published in 1962 the Pulitzer Prize honored non-fiction book entitled 'The Guns of August,' that detailed the events of the month of August, 1914; in which the countries of central Europe declared war on each other following the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by Serbian anarchist Gavrilo Princip on June 28th of that same year. The politicians of each country eagerly sent their soldier sons into battle that summer month as they expected a quick and easy victory over their enemies, in what each leader believed to be their own just and noble cause.

But the conflict, to be initially known as 'The Great War' and would later be referred to as World War One, took a four cruel years to complete and claimed millions of unnecessary lives on that continent, leaving large tracts of Europe in ruin for a decade.

So why this rumination from forgotten 20th Century history? Because during this same month of August in the year 2005 there are rumblings amongst blog writers on the Internet who are suggesting that our government, under the direction of President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, are planning a pre-emptive 'shock and awe' bombing strike against military targets in the country of Iran by our Air Force that would include nuclear weapons, all in the guise of the continued 'war on terror' against the second of the three countries that the president had previously labeled as part of the global 'Axis of Evil.'

These cryptic references of an another possible Middle East war involving the United States began with the issuance of the August 1, 2005 edition of The American Conservative. In that magazine, writer Philip Giraldi, a former officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, stated in a one paragraph article of a column entitled 'Deep Background' that the vice-president has ordered senior officers of the Pentagon to instruct the United States Strategic Command to develop contingency plans to bomb targets inside Iran as a response to an another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Giraldi describes the plan, as being developed by what he claims are reluctant Air Force officials at the demands of the intransigent vice-president, would involve the bombing of over 400 strategic military bases and possible nuclear weapon development sites in that Muslim country. The ex-CIA man claims that many military officials are appalled at what they are being asked to plan as the bombing against Iran would begin once a terrorist attack occurs, even if it is later determined that the Iranian government played no part in such an attack.

The alternative news publication American Free Press had a front page story in its August 8, 2005 edition that expanded on Giraldi's column over the possible retaliatory attack and perennial presidential candidate Lyndon Larouche has been warning his group of political followers to prepare for nuclear strikes to take place against Iran by the end of this month, according to postings on his various websites, saying that Cheney and his Neo-Conservative cronies realize their tenure in the White House is running out so they must strike now while Congress is on its summer vacation.

The president spoke to a news reporter for the Israeli public television network on Friday August 12, 2005 while on vacation at his Crawford, Texas ranch; stating that when it came to dealing with Iran's possible nuclear weapons network that, "all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president. You know we have used force in the recent past to secure our country. I have been willing to do so as a last resort in order to secure the country and provide the opportunity for people to live in free societies."

Then, on his closing remarks from his Saturday August 13, 2005 radio broadcast to the nation, he said the following. "The terrorists cannot defeat us on the battlefield. The only way they can win is if we lose our nerve. That will not happen under my watch. Withdrawing our troops from Iraq prematurely would betray the Iraqi people, and would cause others to question America's commitment to spreading freedom and winning the war on terror. So we will honor the fallen by completing the mission for which they gave their lives, and by doing so we will ensure that freedom and peace prevail." So that would indicate that the president would have no problem with taking on yet another country in that region of the world if he believes it to be in this country's best interests.

The United Nations task force assigned to monitor Iran's restarted nuclear program just issued a report that expresses 'serious concern' over that Middle East country's resumption of its nuclear research program in fear that the Tehran government will use the material to develop an atomic bomb. They have issued a September 3, 2005 deadline for Iran to stop their nuclear program or face a referral to the U.N. Security Council. Iran's newly inaugurated President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is expected to travel to the United States next month and appear before the U.N. to explain and possibly defend his country's actions of late in this potentially volatile endeavor.

Could the revelations of this leaked plan have been done on purpose by sources in our government to put an apocalyptic fear into the minds of the Iranians? Possibly, but our bluffs to use nuclear weapons to coerce enemy nations into doing what we want them to do has not been that successful when attempted by our chief executives in the past half century.

President Harry Truman was the first American chief executive to use the nuclear bluff in March, 1946 to force the leaders of our recent World War Two ally Soviet Union to recall its troops from northern Iran that had been sent there to help start a communist revolution in that region of the Middle East. The one time Missouri haberdasher gave Uncle Joe Stalin a mere forty-eight hours to get their troops back into the perimeter of Russia or face nuclear destruction. Stalin got the message and reluctantly pulled his troops out in just one day in fear of devastation but resolved to get his own atomic weapons in response which he did a mere three years later.

America's next president, Dwight Eisenhower, considered using tactical nuclear bombs to end the continued stalemate in the Korean War in the spring and summer of 1953 but a cease-fire was reached with the Chinese and North Korean enemy before the smaller yield battlefield weapons could be utilized. Later attempts to use nuclear bluffs against mainland China over Taiwan's sovereignty and independence were also let than successful for the one-time five-star army general.

Lyndon Johnson probably wished on more than one occasion during his five years in high office that he had used our entire arsenal of atomic weapons to end the military quagmire he created that was known as the Vietnam War. His successor, Richard Nixon, in his early attempts to end the stalemate in that same conflict in 1969 developed the 'madman strategy,' that his aides later confided to historians would consist of implying to the negotiators for the stubborn North Vietnamese government that their boss, the president, was obsessed with communism and with not being the first American leader to lose a war and could do anything, including the usage of atomic weapons on the battlefield despite the world outcry it would cause, to end the war on American terms. That bluff was apparently ignored by the North Vietnamese and a cease-fire in that conflict was not reached until 1973 in a manner that favored the North Vietnamese who ultimately conquered their southern cousins once Nixon was out of office.

Are we getting close to going to war with yet another Muslim country in the Middle East? Only our president and his top military advisors know now for sure. But, if these plans are being developed as a strategic bluff in the wild chance that some terrorist group on orders of the Iranian government attacks us, it seems that the implied use of all our most destructive weapons, including small yield tactical nuclear devices, would be an overreaction to the physical damage we could receive from such a lowly terrorist plot versus the political fallout we would incur from our allies all over the world. Or does the president and his minions know more about such a situation than what they are currently telling us masses?

What do we do if Iran decides to challenge our nuclear bluff if an attack occurs? Where would that leave the president besides being trapped inside a box of his own choosing without lesser options as an out for him to consider first? As the summer of 2005 begins to wind down we have but one question to ask our president and his advisors. Are additional war clouds gathering in the Middle East?

Terry Heath California E-Mail readermail@terryheathbooks.com