"It's 1938 and Iran is Germany" (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/787766.html). Thus spoke Likud boss Benjamin Netanyahu, with a degree of hawkish-ness that most other civilized world leaders dare not attain to. Yet the war-hungry, bloodthirsty Netanyahu is not exactly more than a standard deviation away from the mean on the hawk scale. In fact, we are now living in the age of the warhawk.
Yesterday my aunt in Arizona and I got into our usual squabble about politics and world events. She's an nice woman, a retired nurse that sadly has drunk the kool-aid John Airbus McCain has put out. Well today she sent me an email with the subject line "John McCain would handle Russia". You can pretty much guess what the whole email was about. At first I thought I would respond with highlight the usual deficiencies in neo-con foreign affairs. Then it hit me, what's going between Georgia and Russia was indeed because of neo-conservative foreign policy!
There is a story taking place in America that is being buried by the media, the armed forces, and the politicians. This story is so frightening that no one wants to address it or even talk about it. This story has the potential to bring more violence to the streets of America than any terrorist attack. The frightening tale that is being ignored is the fact that we have ticking time bombs within our midst. They do not belong to al Qaeda or any other shady terrorist cell, they will not be profiled because they don’t have Mid-Eastern ancestry, nor are they Muslim extremists. These ticking time bombs are our own sons, daughters, fathers, and brothers. They are the returning soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We often talk about individuals on this site, but less attention has been given to movements, and networks. We know that certain individuals decide things, that they testify certain ways, etc., but we don't speak about the network. Much of what the administration says is indefensible, including Tony Snow's snowballing (when he was 'in power'), but in Tony Snow and, with others, who is 'the voice'? And is 'the voice' the criminal? Or is there a larger movement, a network? I believe the evidence suggests the latter.
When Tenet spoke at a university, shortly before he left the CIA, he looked very evasive and suspicious to me, but then, I later see Tenet do something else, after he leaves, and seems to be an intriguing, collegiate guy. Mueller, with the FBI, as well, has had his fair share of suspicious acts, as far as I'm concerned, but I see him talk about something else and I think, this guy seems on the level.
I think that's what makes the case for something larger. And when you start to look closer, you see a pattern, a web of people, interconnected, and an ideology that fuels it, based on the religious-like system of Leo Strauss, using many of the propaganda techniques hammered out over the early part of the 20th century.
Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed Douglas Feith. He is a neo-conservative who is considered one of the key planners of the Iraq war. Jon focuses a great deal of his attention on how the war was sold to us, the American public prior to the invasion.
Obviously, it's a little tense since Jon is such an outspoken critic of the pre-war spin as well as the invasion and occupation. Feith is about as polar opposite as it gets and is still trying to make those tired "things changed after 9/11" arguments that drive me nuts.
Anyways, its an important interview for anyone who cares about Iraq:
The Beltway Media have never been more out of touch with the rest of America, but even the netroots seem, on occasion, to miss some things because of insufficient dialog with or knowledge of folks on the far and fringe right.
It's true that supporters of Ron Paul include healthy chunks of Neo-Anarchists (Libertarians), the Everything's-a-Secret-Conspiracy types, anti-Bush-anti-Neocon-anti-Semitic folks, Government-is-Evil folks, white supremacists, the illuminati-Bilderburgers-CFR-Tri-Lateral Commission conspiracy group, fanatic fans of Whatever's On The Fringe Because It's On The Fringe, alien abductees, the he-was-a-quiet-type-never-caused-nobody-no-trouble loners, and high school boys in Ayn Rand fan clubs – in short, the Ross Perot brigade – but I don’t think they alone can account for the sudden appearance of an apparently substantial grassroots and very well organized unofficial Ron Paul campaign.
I think Scientologists have been responsible for a significant portion of that.
There have many declarations that "the surge is working" and that is a misleading understanding because it implies the surge in US forces in Iraq is all that's needed in order for us to leave.
This is a poem dedicated to our Commander in Chief--that valiant patriot and "decider" who fearlessly embrace the task of giving our last breath for his cause.
Iran is far from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and despite U.S. fears about its atomic intentions, an American military strike against the Islamic Republic is unlikely, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday.
"I think Iran is a long way from having anything that could be anything like a nuclear weapon," said Powell.
Asked if he sees a U.S. war on Iran coming, the retired U.S. general said although no American official will say the option was "off the table," he did not see prospects of a military conflict. There is no base of support among Americans for such an action, Powell said, adding that the U.S. military already has enough on its hands in Iraq and Afghanistan.
