If You Think Bush Is Evil Now
Wait Until He Nukes Iran
By Paul Craig Roberts
6-7-7


The war in Iraq is lost.

This fact is widely recognized by American military officers and has
been recently expressed forcefully by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the
commander of US forces in Iraq during the first year of the attempted
occupation. Winning is no longer an option. Our best hope, Gen. Sanchez
says, is "to stave off defeat," and that requires more intelligence and
leadership than Gen. Sanchez sees in the entirety of our national
political leadership: "I am absolutely convinced that America has a
crisis in leadership at this time."

More evidence that the war is lost arrived June 4 with headlines
reporting: "U.S.-led soldiers control only about a third of Baghdad, the
military said on Monday." After five years of war the US controls
one-third of one city and nothing else.

A host of US commanding generals have said that the Iraq war is
destroying the US military. A year ago Colin Powell said that the US
Army is "about broken." Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn says Bush has "piecemealed
our force to death." Gen. Barry McCafrey testified to the US Senate that
"the Army will unravel."

Col. Andy Bacevich, America's foremost writer on military affairs,
documents in the current issue of The American Conservative that Bush's
insane war has depleted and exhausted the US Army and Marine Corps:

"Only a third of the regular Army's brigades qualify as combat-ready. In
the reserve components, none meet that standard. When the last of the
units reaches Baghdad as part of the president's strategy of escalation,
the US will be left without a ready-to-deploy land force reserve."

"The stress of repeated combat tours is sapping the Army's lifeblood.
Especially worrying is the accelerating exodus of experienced leaders.
The service is currently short 3,000 commissioned officers. By next
year, the number is projected to grow to 3,500. The Guard and reserves
are in even worse shape. There the shortage amounts to 7,500 officers.
Young West Pointers are bailing out of the Army at a rate not seen in
three decades. In an effort to staunch the losses, that service has
begun offering a $20,000 bonus to newly promoted captains who agree to
stay on for an additional three years. Meanwhile, as more and more
officers want out, fewer and fewer want in: ROTC scholarships go
unfilled for a lack of qualified applicants."

Bush has taken every desperate measure. Enlistment ages have been pushed
up from 35 to 42. The percentage of high school dropouts and the number
of recruits scoring at the bottom end of tests have spiked. The US
military is forced to recruit among drug users and convicted criminals.
Bacevich reports that wavers "issued to convicted felons jumped by 30
percent." Combat tours have been extended from 12 to 15 months, and the
same troops are being deployed again and again.

There is no equipment for training. Bacevich reports that "some $212
billion worth has been destroyed, damaged, or just plain worn out." What
remains is in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under these circumstances, "staying the course" means total defeat.

Even the neoconservative warmongers, who deceived Americans with the
promise of a "cakewalk war" that would be over in six weeks, believe
that the war is lost. But they have not given up. They have a last
desperate plan: Bomb Iran. Vice President **** Cheney is spear- heading
the neocon plan, and Norman Podhoretz is the plan's leading propagandist
with his numerous pleas published in the Wall Street Journal and
Commentary to bomb Iran. Podhoretz, like every neoconservative, is a
total Islamophobe. Podhoretz has written that Islam must be deracinated
and the religion destroyed, a genocide for the Muslim people.

The neocons think that by bombing Iran the US will provoke Iran to arm
the Shiite militias in Iraq with armor-piercing rocket propelled
grenades and with surface to air missiles and unleash the militias
against US troops. These weapons would neutralize US tanks and
helicopter gunships and destroy the US military edge, leaving divided
and isolated US forces subject to being cut off from supplies and
retreat routes. With America on the verge of losing most of its troops
in Iraq, the cry would go up to "save the troops" by nuking Iran.

Five years of unsuccessful war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel's
recent military defeat in Lebanon have convinced the neocons that
America and Israel cannot establish hegemony over the Middle East with
conventional forces alone. The neocons have changed US war doctrine,
which now permits the US to preemptively strike with nuclear weapons a
non-nuclear power. Neocons are forever heard saying, "what's the use of
having nuclear weapons if you can't use them."

Neocons have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim
world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the
US government. Insurgency and terrorism cannot prevail against nuclear
weapons.

Many US military officers are horrified at what they think would be the
worst ever orchestrated war crime. There are reports of threatened
resignations. But **** Cheney is resolute. He tells Bush that the plan
will save him from the ignominy of losing the war and restore his
popularity as the president who saved Americans from Iranian nuclear
weapons. With the captive American media providing propaganda cover, the
neoconservatives believe that their plan can pull their chestnuts out of
the fire and rescue them from the failure that their delusion has
wrought.

The American electorate decided last November that they must do
something about the failed war and gave the Democrats control of both
houses of Congress. However, the Democrats have decided that it is
easier to be complicit in war crimes than to represent the wishes of the
electorate and hold a rogue president accountable. If Cheney again
prevails, America will supplant the Third Reich as the most reviled
country in recorded history.

Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary
of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of
the Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of
National Review. He is author or co-author of eight books, including The
Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous
academic appointments, including the William E. Simon chair in political
economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown
University, and senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford
University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and
testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S.
Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He
was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert
Mundell

___________
These are the words of someone who has been close to the power structure
in washington...so really I post this as a FYI....
personally I agree with Roberts...shouldnt surprize anyone on JSH...how
do the rest of you feel?...is he out to lunch?

davinci, just got on...read the whole piece slowly and I am in your camp
on this. Obviously, you shouldn't be surprised. I think, from my posts,
everyone knows how I feel about the current administration. I think
Roberts article should be an eye opener as to its truths and the danger
these idiots may put the entire world in...just to ATTEMPT to save face!
And, the fact that the Democrats were elected to try and force this
bunch into doing the RIGHT thing and then backing down...is just another
slap in the public's face! The result is the American people are left
with no voice....people continue to die on both sides...and Bush & Co.
do whatever they please, whenever they please!!!

You are so right Doc...
we are backed into a corner..no leadership from the dems or the
repubs...appears we have been sold out...I've been pretty active
politically my adult life..as a democrat but mostly independent...my gut
is telling me to get behind Ron Paul ...if we are even allowed to have
an election in 08?...dont know about you..but I dont think things have
been right since kennedy, MLK, and kennedy...does seem criminals have
the advantage...

Nope, I see it differently. In the post the following comment was
included "The American electorate decided last November that they must
do something about the failed war and gave the Democrats control of both
houses of Congress." The reality was more subtle than that. What
actually occurred was that a small percentage of swing voters moved from
one side of the fence to the other. This shift caused a larger swing in
the component makeup of the congress and senate. With our political
system, once the balance shifts from 51-49 to 49-51, that changes
whether one person or another is elected. So your clear message is a few
people changing their position and a few more too bored or undecided to
participate.
Moreover there is a lot more to what is going on in Iraq than either a
liberal or conservative mindset can define by its own individual
political slant. Same holds true for Iran. As for Colin Powell, that guy
never was much of a whiz kid. He was bumped up again and again because
it was politically expedient for one reason or another until he suddenly
had some modicum of respect. He has been unsatisfied with the
restrictions placed on him and the fact that the leadership was strongly
conservative for some time. I would consider anything he said at this
point to be entirely motivated by his dislike of the current
administration and his own basic discontent in general.

Let's not miss the point that a military is not a police force. Using
the military as a police force is a bad idea in my opinion. It would be
better to line them up in preparation for an assault on Iran and Syria
in my opinion. If you undermine the funding for the insurgency, then you
will undermine the insurgency itself. Right now Iran and others help
fund and weaponize the insurgents. You may have another way to stop that
process than taking away Iran's power, but I doubt it willbe effective.

I'll remind you of another thing. There is a large amount of revenue
being generated in the Iraqi oil industry from sales of petroleum
products. Where this revenue goes is very important to stability in the
region. Throughout history when people were unemployed and unable to
support themselves they have rebelled, witness the French revolution. In
Rome 2000 years ago the leaders were wise enough to see to the social
issues of starvation and such. You are going to have to get the people
in Iraq employed and paid if you want them to accept their lifestyle.
Managing oil revenues is part of the solution.

Managing Iran's oil revenue should, in my opinion, be accomplished by
destroying it. Then let them rebuild over a few decades. In the meantime
they would not have the revenue to build, purchase and export weapons to
terrorist groups around the middle east and other places.

As for the term 'neocons', people love to toss that around, but I can
tell you that after watching the debates recently, democrat and
republican, nobody in the batch looked like a 'neocon' to me. I would
say that the democrats mostly looked goofy. Hillary was the leader in
opinion and intelligence as far as I could tell. She presented a good
front compared to everyone else in the field. Hillary was the best of
the batch in the democrats by far, in my opinion. As for the
Republicans, the only one who looked goofy was Ron Paul. Surprisingly. I
would have thought he learned his lesson from the last debate when he
came out as a democrat in republican clothing. I'm not moved by any of
the Republicans in the debate in particular, though I thought most of
them were better than Hillary. I think even liberal democrats are going
to have a hard time voting for anyone in the democrat field. When a
clear front runner comes forward in the republican primary you are going
to see the differences between the right and left shrink slightly and
move towards the right on the democrat side. If you get a leading
democrat front runner who wants fo fold up the game and hand Iraq to
Iran I sincerely doubt you will see a democrat elected president.

Nope, I see it differently. In the post the following comment was
included "The American electorate decided last November that they must
do something about the failed war and gave the Democrats control of both
houses of Congress." The reality was more subtle than that. What
actually occurred was that a small percentage of swing voters moved from
one side of the fence to the other. This shift caused a larger swing in
the component makeup of the congress and senate. With our political
system, once the balance shifts from 51-49 to 49-51, that changes
whether one person or another is elected. So your clear message is a few
people changing their position and a few more too bored or undecided to
participate.
Moreover there is a lot more to what is going on in Iraq than either a
liberal or conservative mindset can define by its own individual
political slant. Same holds true for Iran. As for Colin Powell, that guy
never was much of a whiz kid. He was bumped up again and again because
it was politically expedient for one reason or another until he suddenly
had some modicum of respect. He has been unsatisfied with the
restrictions placed on him and the fact that the leadership was strongly
conservative for some time. I would consider anything he said at this
point to be entirely motivated by his dislike of the current
administration and his own basic discontent in general.

Let's not miss the point that a military is not a police force. Using
the military as a police force is a bad idea in my opinion. It would be
better to line them up in preparation for an assault on Iran and Syria
in my opinion. If you undermine the funding for the insurgency, then you
will undermine the insurgency itself. Right now Iran and others help
fund and weaponize the insurgents. You may have another way to stop that
process than taking away Iran's power, but I doubt it will be effective.

I'll remind you of another thing. There is a large amount of revenue
being generated in the Iraqi oil industry from sales of petroleum
products. Where this revenue goes is very important to stability in the
region. Throughout history when people were unemployed and unable to
support themselves they have rebelled, witness the French revolution. In
Rome 2000 years ago the leaders were wise enough to see to the social
issues of starvation and such. You are going to have to get the people
in Iraq employed and paid if you want them to accept their lifestyle.
Managing oil revenues is part of the solution.

Managing Iran's oil revenue should, in my opinion, be accomplished by
destroying it. Then let them rebuild over a few decades. In the meantime
they would not have the revenue to build, purchase and export weapons to
terrorist groups around the middle east and other places. if you think
that can be done without a war with Iran, I would not be too surprised.
Place your troops well.

As for the term 'neocons', people love to toss that around, but I can
tell you that after watching the debates recently, democrat and
republican, nobody in the batch looked like a 'neocon' to me. I would
say that the democrats mostly looked goofy. Hillary was the leader in
opinion and intelligence as far as I could tell. She presented a good
front compared to everyone else in the field. Hillary was the best of
the batch in the democrats by far, in my opinion. As for the
Republicans, the only one who looked goofy was Ron Paul. Surprisingly. I
would have thought he learned his lesson from the last debate when he
came out as a democrat in republican clothing. I'm not moved by any of
the Republicans in the debate in particular, though I thought most of
them were better than Hillary. I think even liberal democrats are going
to have a hard time voting for anyone in the democrat field. When a
clear front runner comes forward in the republican primary you are going
to see the differences between the right and left shrink slightly and
move towards the right on the democrat side. If you get a leading
democrat front runner who wants fo fold up the game and hand Iraq to
Iran I sincerely doubt you will see a democrat elected president.

Back to the point of losing the war in Iraq. Follow Napolean's example
and march the Iraqi's to the borders of Syria and Iran, arm them and
send them in with some semblance of national pride in saving their own
necks and that of their country. After they kick Iran's ass they will
have some reason to appreciate their own country and less foreigners
meddling in their lives. Iraqis in the border of Iran preparing for a
battle will not be in Baghdad blowing up innocent people

Wondering, do I appear to be a neocon? I certainly am not.

As for Paul Craig Roberts, clearly he has an agenda. You can find
agendas all over the place. Choose the one you like the best and promote
it if you want. It remains an agenda though. In this case I would say
that the position he takes starts with a mistaken assumption, that Bush
is about to nuke Iran. When you start with a wrong premise, clearly
unjustified, anything you say after that point should be suspect. Bush
has plenty alternatives to nuclear weapons to use against Iran. I doubt
seriously he would want to cross the line of using nukes. The political
fallout around the world would be too intense. He knows better than to
go down that road. Besides that they are not necessarily.

I will say that if Iran starts using any radiological devices or other
WMD all bets are off. How many of those sorts of devices would you
suggest Iran be allowed to use before retaliation.

What surprises me most in this article, is that he never raises the
other side by asking the question, "What will be done to stop Iran
sending weapons to Iraq for use by the insurgency?" Did anyone else
notice the obvious absence of a balanced analysis? If so why not speak
about that as well.

The war is lost? The media is lost and confused too.

Oops, not sure how I managed to post in the middle of my comments,
probably some control character got me there. Sorry

And if they rush things a bit?

Will the next elections even happen?

If they do not then it matters not who is running.

Philosopher...
We all own our perspective on things...and I disagree with you on a
couple points...I do think the election past was a referendum on the
war..and clearly the dems have missed their opportunity to show they
have the "nads" to do what the american people want..tke a stand and end
the mess of the war...

I agree our military are not police...but that is all they will ever be
in that area of the world..we do not have the resources or the will for
an all out war of ideologies...reagan sid it best long ago.."we will
never understand the politics in that place"..
which is why he pulled out of Lebanon..

I was a little unclear about what a neocon was until I saw a very good
BBC documentary about the roots of the neocon movement...just google bbc
documentary neocon..you may like it..it definitely cleared some things
in my mind after seeing it.

Doubt if I would consider destroying the oil industry as a good
policy..unless we are prepared to pay $8 a gal for gas...sure we dont
get our oil from them but the effects of such an act would surely put
the price of oil thru the roof IMO...

As far as candidates are concerned...all polls show that Ron Pauls
message is well received...he began in the libertarian party..and moved
to the GOP...his record is clearly cut along constitutional lines..if it
is in violation of the constitution he votes no..in my mind he is more
conservative than any of the GOP ...adittedly a throw back to the
Goldwater era..but closer to Reagan philosophy than anyone
else...definitely has not flip flopped on issues like all the
others...to my mind it has nothing to do with party affiliation but
rather conviction ...

To say that Roberts has an agenda..and should be dismissed...well then
who doesnt have an agenda?...do we dismiss everyone?...Are you sure Bush
wouldnt use nukes?...I'm not so sure...pre-emptive strikes should not be
a policy ..under an condition...

AB...Moves by Bush recently to place all power in his hands in case of
national emergency makes me wonder...thats why I mention the possibility
of no election...martial law?...it has a historical precedence...and we
shouldnt rule it out for this country either..and yeah..if that happened
it doesnt matter who runs for election..

It all makes me feel creepy...

Good Post Divinci,

At first glance this appeared to be a politically slanted, biased piece
of journalism but after looking into PCR's background a little further,
I can see he has a history of being pretty fair across the political
spectrum.

Some of the things he mentions about recruitment and retention are spot
on but they've been that way (Drug users, Criminal backgorunds) for at
least the last 12 years. Let's hope he's wrong about the "last desperate
plan". We need to attack or NUC another country like we need a hole in
the head.

Here in Washington, even our remaining neocons (or at least those who
will now openly admit they are neocons) are privately admitting the war
in Iraq is lost. They blame the Bush administration for poor
implementation of the war, in order to save face and not have to admit
that it is their original conception of attacking Iraq that was at fault
from the beginning.

The problem is one of face-saving, in their view. Who will come out
looking bad? Who will be blamed? When the dust settles and the American
people realize that a combination of bad thinking and bad leadership has
left the US in a terrible position in the world, who will be able to
wring what advantage from the situation. The fact that we are losing
soldiers and money while these people worry about saving face for
themselves is not on their minds.

I know this all because some of these neocons are among my friends and a
few have been from days back in college. I am not telling tales here
behind their backs: we have had many debates and discussions about this
over the last years. Please understand, lots of them are 'nice, decent
guys'. They are just dead wrong, and have lost both their moral and
practical compasses.

It is a saddening, angering situation. People are counting down to the
end of the Bush administration...but it will be a long time before we
get the pieces glued back together again.



Oceans

If in fact that the last election was a referendum on Iraq then I would
say that there has been a shifting opinion regarding the war. Lots of
people want out, there are large differences about how to actually do
so.

Shifting opinion is not a landslide though and if Democrats do not act
reasonably people will reject them in turn. There remain strong
conservative movements. Unfortunately conservative means different
things to different people.

I think that there has to be movement out of Iraq, The people there need
to set up some form of government and see to their own security. We
would have effective means of managing foreign insurgents than
patrolling the streets in Iraq looking for them.

I will repeat a comment that I made here "Moreover there is a lot more
to what is going on in Iraq than either aliberal or conservative mindset
can define by its own individual
political slant."

I should say that I did not mean that you should discount the article by
Roberts. I meant that when you read such articles it is important to
keep in mind that they have a political slant. So get the information,
digest it and make your own opinions.

My opinion about the statement that the war is lost is that the
statement in itself is a charged comment, and that it is made as a part
of an agenda, and the agenda is not necessarily correct or reasonable.

Consider for example the war recently fought against Hezbollah by
Israel. Israel is largely considered the loser in the encounter, and
reality is different. So reality is in the words of the media? Is
popular reality more correct than unpopular reality? It seems so. People
love to complain anyway.

Eight dollar oil does not concern me as much as radical islam. Maybe a
little cooling of the oil supply might generate some new technological
development and conservation.

But don't give me 8 dollar oil and radical islam. That is where we are
headed now.

Iran is a rat's nest, and creating trouble for the rest of the middle
east. I think you need to sort out the rats. If you think you can
negotiate with them to reach a meaningful solution you are wrong. That
is my opinion of course and I am not promoting it as fact. There are a
lot of decent people there subjected to the current regime. Tolerate the
leadership of Iran at your peril.

Ron Paul as a Libertarian needs a different scrutiny than Ron Paul as a
Republican. I'm not going to be in his camp, whichever party he is in. I
do not think he looks at things rationally. That's my opinion again. So
conviction may be fine, Bush certainly has plenty of that, yet he is
criticized every day. I'm thinking a little rationality needs to be
mixed with conviction. A lot of people in Washington could use a dose of
rationality.

I do not think there is any reason to use Nukes in Iran. Bush will be
unlikely to use them. In spite of the perception otherwise, I am certain
that he is concerned with international opinion of the US.

I do not have a strong opinion about the centralizing of the gov't in
times of crisis. I do not think there are enough police to watch
everybody and micromanage them. Even if there were to do so would just
make the world more restrictive and less productive. It is somewhat
intuitive that such a manner of governmental tyranny would be a bad idea
for everyone, the leaders as well as the subjects.

Small places in the world like to go against the grain in this regard,
Iran, N.Korea, Venezuela, Iraq a couple decades ago, China a few decades
back, Russia 50 to 100 years back. It seldom manifests itself into a
pleasant society and it is unlikely to be attempted here anytime so.

Does anyone here realize how many hardened targets in Iran would have to
be nuked in order to nuetrulize Irans nuclear threat?































37, everyone is near a major pop. center.

Thats not saying they still wont do it, but man the loss of life will be
incredible.
Even if you tone the number of nuclear facilities to the low number of
20:

taking out Iran's nascent weapons factories will take a lot more than a
single bombing raid or a few missiles. Drawing the obvious lesson from
the attack on Osirak, Iran's leaders have spread their country's nuclear
facilities between at least 20 known sites and buried many of them deep
underground. Inflicting serious damage would require multiple surgical
air strikes. "We are speaking about a large program dispersed over a
very large area," says Yiftah Shapir, a military analyst at the
University of Tel Aviv's Jaffee Center and a retired air force officer.

They estimate between 450 and 1000 possible air defence and conventional
missle sites dispersed throught Iran as well.
Also Iran has satellites, launched in Russia with Russian rockets.

American troop loss is believed will equal the casulty fiqures from
Iraq, in just 3 months time.
Bad thing is I think it will happen, and undisclosed British sources say
the end of March is the date!!!

Does anybody here realize how few targets would have to be hit in Iran
to neutralize the current regime? Open the door for some of the more
rational people in the country to move forward.

No, Do you?????

My 'overall' feeling of reading the topic starter, left me feeling as
though I was reading yet another sensationalized version of one persons
own opinions, whose only purpose was to sell propaganda to a portion of
the public who hold the same views.

Then, of course, one must read between the lines to find the truth that
created the sensationally enhanced argument.

While I have not verified for myself the actual numbers of those
dropping out of West Point, or those not choosing to re-up, or those
choosing to stay out of ROTC or Reserve commitments, from other sources
I have seen agreement in this information. Here is were I question the
why of this particular situation?

Since we can not be present or even have the time, were it available, to
review every word spoken by every person within house and congressional
meetings, we must rely on the reports we are given. As far as sources
go, this source seems to have a distinguished and knowledgeable
background.

Does that mean, he will not slant statements in favor of his personal
beliefs?

While his statements have a basis in truth, I feel a bit like
philosopher on this one. I don't like the manner in which he offers the
statements. Although I hate to admit this, because I rather think I
would side with this authors views, were it not for the overall aura of
propaganda this writing takes. Too much rope there left dangling to get
a good grip on.

Philospher you posted...

Does anybody here realize how few targets would have to be hit in Iran
to neutralize the current regime? Open the door for some of the more
rational people in the country to move forward.
----------------------------------------------------------------
No offense intended but...

Are you absolutly mad.

Do you realize that a nuclear strike on just one 'leader' would insure
that NO ONE IN THAT COUNTRY WOULD EVER BE RATIONAL WHERE THE US WAS
CONCERNED FOR THE REST OF THE FORSEABLE FUTURE And more than likley
neither would the rest of the world.

If you are talking about conventional weapons that also would have the
effect of lighting the fuse to a conflageration the likes of which this
world has never seen.

It should be obvious to even the most die hard warmonger that WAR is not
the answer to this situation.

Well,

I do not think striking Iran with nukes is a reasonable idea, nor
practical, nor likely, for much the same reason you have mentioned. I
have stated this in other posts. Without looking back specifically I
have probably stated this in this topic somewhere.

However. You have a situation where a hundred American soldiers have
been killed in the month of May, largely promoted or facilitated by
intervention and meddling of Iran. Proof is becoming more and more
obvious. Iran is an enemy and striking against and killing our soldiers.
So long as they are allowed to do so with impunity they will continue.

It should be obvious to even the most determined peace activist that
when your enemy is killing your soldiers you must strike back.

I would suggest your solution is certainly at least as mad as my own.
Furthermore, looking down the road to thousands more Americans killed by
the support of the Iranian efforts, yous solution looks much madder.

Let me remind you that the American soldiers who dies in Iraq almost all
died after the cessation of formal military action, once they were
involved in the process of maintaining "peace".

A limited military action against Iran would have no more or slightly
more of an effect upon American forces than the initial action against
Iraq. I would propose limiting the size of the assault against Iran to
something under 400,000 forces.

Where would you propose setting the limit? Zero? If so I would
respectfully suggest your assault would be considerably less successful.

Hello, everyone!

As the neocons take their last swing under the Bush administration at
Muslim/Arab countries -- all in the delusion that it will protect Israel
-- we can expect the Bush administration to continue its 'run-up'
against Iran. 'Run-up' is the neocon term for it: a campaign of
disinformation coming out of the neocon media outlets and with
statements from Cheney and Bush as the big artillery.

(There was some earlier confusion in one or two of the postings in this
thread about the term 'neocon.' It stands for neo-conservative, and is a
term that the neocons use for themselves. Most prominently the neocons
are: Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libbey, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser, Doug
Feith, John Bolton, James Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Norman Podhorets,
Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Elliott Abrams, Steven Handley,
Laurie Mylroie, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, Bernard Lewis, Samual
Hintington, Francis Fukuyama (though he has now denounced his fellow
neocons), etc. They were long active before Bush became president, and
they are all first and foremost loyal to Israel.)

I do not see Bush as a neocon, but as a mouthpiece for them. Rice seems
to waffle between being one and not. Powell was not, which is why they
isolated him from Bush. Cheney, to me , is an enigma when it comes to
being a neocon or not. He espouses neocon views, but I think he may be
following an agenda of his own that has nothing to do with Israel. I
wish I knew more about him and his views and motives. At least we know
that he has served as one of the largest liars about the invasion of
Iraq and is now doing it again in the anti-Iranian run-up. But WHY he
is doing this is unclear to me.

But with the removal of the senior military commanders who were most to
blame for being yes-men to the neocons regarding Iraq, with the debacle
in Iraq now fully evident, with the looming debacle in Afghanistan just
starting to show up on the American public's radar screen, and with the
growing realization that Iran poses no threat with its nuclear power
activities, the neocons are left with little ammunition with which to
fuel the run-up.

The thing they are pushing now is that Iran is supporting the Iraqi
fight for liberation against US occupation. But the reality is that this
aid is tenuous at best, and minor in any case.

Iraq is a beehive of explosives and personal weapons thanks to the
dispersal of the Iraqi military depots as the US invaded. The US has
found and seized only a trivial portion of these supplies. Since the US
invasion, the Iraqis have improved the weapons and tactics for deploying
them. The only real indication we have that ran has helped the Iraqi
resistence is that some of the designs of the latest versions of IEDs
seem to have come from Iran. But it is unclear whether this is an
Iranian governmental effort, or that of individual Iranians who
sympathize with the Iraqi resistence.

In any case, it does not add up to anything near a cause for war with
Iran.

The neocons have shown, of course, that they are willing to say just
about anything to get the US government to go to war, and there is no
reason to think that they are acting in better faith now.

But we know enough from their bahavior on the 'run-up' against Iraq to
look with great suspicion on anything they say or Bush say about Iran.

Let's not be taken in a second (or is it 3rd?) time by the neocons.



Oceans

Today, quick note: this morning, some US senior military in a private
hallway discussion used the term 'Iraq is lost.' No equivocation.

Reality sets in....