Pfffft. Look, I mostly agree with you guys, but come on. This was absolutely stupid and deserved to be laughed at. And if it were true, then this bitch would have been leaking military strategy and the “soldier” would have been put away.

I have no whistle and I must blow.

Bobaloo: It seems to me that attacking Iran would be a violation of American and international law. If the US military was planning an illegal attack on a sovereign nation, I would certainly hope that anyone aware of it would blow the whistle.

I mean, I didn’t even read the diary and have no idea whether it’s true or not. I don’t particularly care. But I also don’t particularly care if “military strategy” is “leaked.”

I think the point here is “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, and damned if you wash your hands of it.”

We are going to hit Iran bigtime…

And reading Trevino’s post on the subject leads me to believe he didn’t need to go through the Daily Kos archives to find older Maccabbe posts.

Trevino has demonstrated many times his is just that kind of person.

I’m surprised we haven’t sent up some drones w/Hellfire missiles to take out a dozen or so of those artillery pieces that are shelling the Kurd villages next to the border.

Remember August of 2002? Should we? Could we? Will we? Won’t we? Now there’s lots of us who claim we knew all along that attacking, invading and occupying Iraq was idiocy of the highest order.

Welcome to August of 2007. Anybody without a very strong sense of deja vu is either blind or crazy. I’m just hoping that a whole bunch of us smartypants lefties who “knew all along” that Iraq was going to be a deadly, disastrous quagmire might start hollering a little louder as this administration ratchets up the pressure for an attack on Iran.

But, where is it? Where is the outcry? You see it from Juan, from Justin, from Paul, the usual suspects. But folks, that didn’t work five years ago and it’s not going to work now. Bush/cheney WILL go to war against Iran before their term is ended unless there is a HUGE outcry. So suck it up. Either start making a lot of noise or plan on eternal war, terror attacks, a collapsing economy, 8 dollar gas, 12% unemployment and all the joys that come with being an empire in decline.

mikey

Dude!

That’s harsh.

I think we will hit Iran before The Crime Family leaves the White House. But this Kos story is indeed laughable. The wingers, who are so adept at being mocked themselves, deserved to mock this thing as an absurd fabrication. I don’t see how it changes anything though, because they WANT us to hit Iran anyway. They always get upset when people talk about evidence that points to what they openly espouse.

The Colonel has a good take on the feasibility of this.

It should be pointed out that strikes on Iran will solidify the position of the current leadership. Guaranteed. The GOP talking points after the fact, of course, will be “no one could have forseen …”.

As for the “leaking military strategy” bit … we have, at all levels of the civilian and military leadership, been semaphoring wildly that we are preparing to strike Iran. Iran has known this for years, and if all their preparations aren’t made by now, they’re bigger fools than we are. We were just war gaming right there last year. At this stage, we don’t really even have an interest in hiding it, other than a short term tactical interest in concealing the precise day and time. The DK diary didn’t compromise operational security … Iran sees all these carriers and support ships off their coast, and can easily judge their training schedules.

Another thing to keep in mind is that this may in fact be an orchestrated leak to either put more pressure on Iran, to judge the domestic response to a strike, or perhaps a move by the military to short-circuit a possible casus belli manufactured by the administration.

Most likely what we’re seeing here is a trial balloon. If there’s enough pushback from the “Serious Foreign Policy” group, perhaps Bush won’t pull the trigger.

If he does, and he is such a crazy mother he might just do it in spite of all the concerns and objections, there are significant concerns about the viability of our overland supply routes into the Green Zone. We can airlift about 25% of what the occupation requires. The rest travels by boat through the Gulf and by truck up through Iraq. That’s a long way under what will suddenly be a dramatically hostile environment. Worst case is that we lose the Army in Iraq. Then we draft some of you young pretty boys and throw you in the meatgrinder.

And we won’t have to suffer through Republican leadership for at least a generation.

I think the Kos diary actually said “we’re going to hit Iran with Big Time.”

As I understand it, the plan is to unleash Cheney on the mullahs.

And we won’t have to suffer through Republican leadership for at least a generation.

So there IS an upside.

So there IS an upside.

Only if the Democrats have the brains and spine to get us out.

Heh, Democrats with spines … I made a funny

Yeah, that diary smacked of bullshit from beginning to end. There wasn’t anything in the Mystery LSO’s tale that couldn’t have been gleaned from recent think-tank projections of the contours of a massive aerial attack on Iran. Besides, aviators practice traps all the time: it’s called “landing.”

The LSO’s tiny-violin aside about the risks of exposing operational secrets and familial shame was also bullshit, but it smelled like red-meat bullshit, i.e. bullshit meant to draw accusations of treason from the ready wingnut chorus. Overall, the diary reminded me of the infamous forged Air National Guard docs that burned Dan Rather. KOS has been marked for destruction by the Right, so it would not surprise me if the LSO’s diary proved to be another poison-pill forgery, one designed to make KOS look bad and obscure the big picture by creating a mini media scandal. What was lost in the Rathergate scandal was the essential accuracy of the information in the forged docs: Bush was a shirking cock-up in the ANG. So, perhaps the recent projections of how an Iran strike will play out are accurate, and the KOS diary yet another BSO (Bright Shiny Object) forgery.

Of course, it’s equally possible that some dumb hippie really is that fucking clumsy.

Overall, the diary reminded me of the infamous forged Air National Guard docs that burned Dan Rather. KOS has been marked for destruction by the Right, so it would not surprise me if the LSO’s diary proved to be another poison-pill forgery, one designed to make KOS look bad and obscure the big picture by creating a mini media scandal. What was lost in the Rathergate scandal was the essential accuracy of the information in the forged docs: Bush was a shirking cock-up in the ANG. So, perhaps the recent projections of how an Iran strike will play out are accurate, and the KOS diary yet another BSO (Bright Shiny Object) forgery

Bingo. You won a set of steak knives.
It also reminds me of the Scott Beauchamp thingy with the Weekly Standard versus TNR.
Looking at Bush’s Labor Day trip to Iraq I got a sinking feeling that the powers that be at the Pentagon have given up on trying to influence the fool in chief out of the Iraqi quagmire and are now all onboard for anything, including pro administration propaganda
It’s a little scary when the Pentagon conducts psy ops inside the USA.

would be a violation of American and international law

Oh, well then…

Mikey says,

“…plan on eternal war, terror attacks, a collapsing economy, 8 dollar gas, 12% unemployment and all the joys that come with being an empire in decline.”

Just think about all that fine “Fiddling” we’re gonna get to enjoy!

And the oppo sheets on dem congressmen who go to the green zone
And the ‘f you traitor’ reponse hillary got when she asked the pentagon for its withdrawl provisions.

Something is rotten.

And we won’t have to suffer through Republican leadership for at least a generation.

Hey, whatever did happen to the Federalist Party, anyway? Hartford convention, anyone? We may see the same phenomenon once a lot of conspiratorial communications get unearthed by the Obama administration.

I know they are trying to shred everything, but it is such a large conspiracy they will never completely cover their tracks. They were too sloppy for too long.

Oh, well then…

Sorry, I missed your point. Are you in favor of illegal wars of aggression?

Xenos: You’re assuming that said hypothetical administration would have an interest in obliterating the Republican party. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that; all the evidence suggests that the existence of Republicans is currently vital to the existence of the Democratic Party as well.

Holy Mount Zion…

They’re not just jammin’. They’re jammin’ in the name of the Lord!

hello? is this thing on?

Bingo. You won a set of steak knives.

I was told there would be crack.

Sorry, I missed your point. Are you in favor of illegal wars of aggression?

No, my point was, “As if being being violations of American and international law has ever been a reason for these guys to stop doing anything.”

Worst case is that we lose the Army in Iraq. Then we draft some of you young pretty boys and throw you in the meatgrinder.

Which is the Repub idea of a “solution” to that 12% unemployment problem Mikey mentioned. Dinesh D’Sousa and William Kristol don’t want a bunch of young, strong, angry, armed ex-contractors and former sales reps showing up at their gated communities hungry for… answers. Better, by their lights, to ship the most dangerous potential troublemakers halfway around the world to bring grief to a lot of furrin brown people. And if turning every healthy working-class minion under the age of 40 into a merc also turns out to be very, *very* profitable for Exxon-Mobil and Kellogg Brown Root — bonus!

Which is the Repub idea of a “solution” to that 12% unemployment problem Mikey mentioned.

All hail big government.

I hate to say this mikey, but I have to. You just made the same point HTML has been for a long time, basically. The Yglesians won’t raise that outcry, because their primary concern is their career, or they’re idiots, or some combo thereof. A real lefty in the right place, say Digby at the Atlantic instead of a selfish, spoiled child-woman like McArdle, would be in position to start raising that outcry among the more empowered old guard, who are much less likely to read blogs or take them as seriously as we here do.
I’m not saying we told you so, I’m saying that you’re touched on why me, and I think HTML, want the liberal hawks to lose a few jobs. Not because they violated a commandment, but because we need those positions filled by folk who’ll make positive, effective, use of them.

N yas, Clem done gone to the heart of it, methinks. I question the strategy, tho, because the only people who care what happens at Kos are people who have some basic understanding of the structure of it. One fooled diarist is like one middle reliever getting smacked around. Unfortunate in the immediate context but not really gonna hurt the team. Plus, now they’ll start developing antibodies, n be that much less likely to fall for it a second time.
Unless, of course, someone at Kos is about to post legit leaked info, in which case it was an intelligent move, I guess.

See, diffb, I have utterly failed, over and over again, to communicate. I wouldn’t mind a BIT if they lost their jobs. I just don’t think holding people who write words in popular journals responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq makes any sense. I am just a whole lot more comfortable blaming the people who, as government officials, actually chose to send our military on this stupid adventure.

If the journals would like to fire the idiots who were, as you say, clearly wrong, I don’t have any problem with that. If they, further, would like to hire people who have been wrong significantly less of the time, even better.

But I’ll just keep saying it. Propagandists SUPPORT government policies. They do not MAKE policy. If you want to know who’s responsible for the blood and waste in iraq, look to the white house. If you want to piss about, blaming journalists for deploying our military in a crime against humanity, you’re climbing a greased rope.

I’ll just keep trying to be clear. Someday maybe I’ll figure out how to make my point clearly…

mikey

So how do we stop it? If the dems in Congress won’t do anything, and if the journalists who have the biggest audience won’t raise an outcry, what do we do to stop this insanity?

There’s teh rub, ain’t it?

Turns out we CAN’T stop it.

Fucker can do it, get away with it, and laugh.

See ya in The Hague in 2015? We’ll see.

I reckon no matter what, 2015 is gonna look a LOT different than this….

mikey

Put that way I almost fully agree with you. I think, and I don’t want to pretend to speak for him, I’m just guessing, HTML was frustrated that you keep warning against turning it into a pogrom or witch hunt. Fair concerns, but you gotta remember who’s talkin here.
Where I disagree is probably best summed up by Karl Rove, who is little but a propagandist, but has set massive amounts of policy. More on point, without propogandists those policies have a much harder time becoming reality. I’m not talking about blame, I’m talking about responsibility. Everyone in the press who didn’t do their jobs and ask the obvious, if risky, questions helped allow the Iraq war to happen. That’s not the same as making it happen, but it’s still not good.

Fat white punks who are willing to sacrifice other people’s kids but, they’re not willing to be there themselves. Hmmmmm, do you spell that aWol? Nah, he rides a mountainbike and he’s not fat. Must mean he is the ober leader. Seig, seig heil.
Excuse me while I go and evacuate.

I don’t want to count the number of times I’ve read how Bush is screwing things up but Iran (nee Iraq) is a clear and present danger to the region.

Every member of the Serious Liberal Foreign Policy Club is on the record identifying Iran as a menace to world peace. Once Bush pulls the trigger on this attack, all the SLFPC’ers will fall in line. They’ve already set the frame that Iran is bad, bad, threatening, terrible baddy bad bad people. How can you condemn Bush when he’s acting to protect us from teh bad people?

It’s called being a useful idiot.

A third of the country will support Bush even if he goes on national tv and rips the still-beating hearts from the chests of children and drinks their blood. So bombing Iran is okay with them.

Another third is ready to impeach now.

The middle third will be, like the SLFPC pundits, frozen into inaction, which is all Bush really needs.

He’s the Cinc. We can’t stop him.

The Hague, 2015, baby.

N yas, Clem done gone to the heart of it, methinks.

Thanks, Different Brad. I used my new set of steak knives. As for what we might do to stop the impending Iran war, I have a new set of steak knives.

If Bush declares war on a third state, he will have officially entered Milosevic territory. The Yugoslavians were willing to spot Slobo his disastrous campaigns in Croatia and Bosnia, but the Kosovo debacle was just too much. When the rising tide of domestic disenchantment was coupled with humiliation by NATO, the Serbs finally threw Milosevic out. Killing thousands of Muslim civilians, torturing others and throwing the region into turmoil was okay, but three-time losing wasn’t.

Is the three chances rule a Western construct? It’s time to junk it. Just ask all the fieldmice clobbered by Little Bunny Foo-Foo.

Calm down people. No matter what Bush wants, there just is no way that we can attack Iran. With what, folks? All the planes, soldiers, tanks, etc., are pretty much spoken for.

And by “spoken for” I mean: broken, blown up, dead, worn out, being repaired, exhausted & used up.

The GoOPers know that the one thing that would lose them the support with the soccer moms is reinstating the draft. Duhbya can order all he wants, there simply ain’t nobody left to do anything. Even the spineless ninnies he’s stocked the JCoS with are in touch enough with reality to tell him “no” this time around.

Deep breaths, folks, deep breaths.

Check the Colonel zsa links above. Wouldn’t surprise me any if Bush just bombs the shit out of Iran, whether or not it’s followed w/ an invasion & occupation. Like in the week before he leaves office, if he can keep it in his pants that long. And see what one of Rupert Murdoch’s rags has to say about the whole deal.
Pimpin’ ain’t E-Z: The whole Daily Schnozz thing, as well as some de-bunking thereof, by myself & others, is available chez moi, as well as plenty of links (mmm, sausage) going back to May about the desire of & preparations for an Iranian beat-down.

Let’s have a war/So you can go die
Let’s have a war/We can all use the money

wordyeti, I’m sure there are plenty of bombs left. If not, BigTime has a sweet connection for more JDAM’s, Daisy-cutters, cluster bombs and whatnot.

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention he can get some kine tactical nukes too.

Deep breaths, folks, deep breaths.

Thank you, Mayor Vaughn.

The Army is near the breaking point. The Air Force and Navy are not. We can’t invade and occupy Iran, but we are fully capable of launching a combined aerial assault against Iran’s nuclear and military sites using AF and Navy bombers, air-, surface- and submarine-launched cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. That’s exactly the sort of operation that’s been wargamed by the Pentagon and projected by civilian analysts outside the government. Of course, it’s the soldiers in Iraq that will suffer most from proxy reprisals, but Rumsfeld never did like our big Army. There is no reason to believe that cautious and sober voices will carry the day, and ample (seven years worth) evidence to the contrary. Those who say “no” are ignored, marginalized or forced into early retirement. Sobriety and caution are career killers. That’s how this dry drunk’s Adminstration works.

Who’s this HTML guy?

And what, exactly, are ‘Democrats’ supposed to do about this ‘spine’ thing?

Reid and Pelosi didn’t vote FISA or war supplemental funding in…

Of course, it’s the soldiers in Iraq that will suffer most from proxy reprisals
So this would be a good time for the British army to pull out of Basra.
No, wait, they’re doing that already.

Crissa,

HTML is one of the proprietors.

“Spine” … they need to grow one.

Clem said,
September 5, 2007 at 2:22

Bingo. You won a set of steak knives.
I was told there would be crack.

Well, only in the Minneapolis Airport; gop members only.

Clem is right. The Army be broke but the USAF and NAVY are ready and willing. Plus when you use up all them munitions you gots to replace it and Cheney’s palls will all earn a fat commission, so its all good for the “good guys”

Me I donno. Can’t tell if it is a massive head fake to scare the Senate Democrats into swallowing the surge until bush leaves office or if Ameirca is about to experience its Dr. strangelove moment. I just can’t tell. Crafty propaganda is like that.

Northern, I think the neocons are very aware that, once Bush/Cheney leave office, it’s going to be a loooong time before they get this much control over our military and foreign policy again.

So there’s a strong argument to make to go for it all now, while they still can. These arguments are always framed as “are you a Man or are you a pussy?”, and weak character types like Bush always have to choose the Manly way, even if it’s a false dichotomy.

He’s definitely going to do it, and it’s going to backfire horribly.

All this political stuff is important but not as important as the question, “What air guitar chord are those guys supposed to be playing?” Dm? F9? H2O?

I was on Gonzo Station (North Arabian Sea) on USS Constellation when we were flagging Kuwaiti tankers and escorting them through the Straits of Hormuz. We were in Diego Garcia when the Stark got hit by 2 exocet missiles fired by Iraqi planes. We went hell bent for leather to the straits but even after we got there we weren’t there looking for trouble with Iraq. It was the chinese silkworms Iran had placed on the straits that was the concern. I remember seeing bombs in the aft bomb transfer where the ao’s had painted taunts against the Ayatollah (not even sure he was in charge then). Everyone was on edge thinking we were going into action. Photos circulated that were purported to be our F-18s over Iran. Nothing happened.

Just curious here; has Iran actually, you know, done anything to justify an invasion from the world’s biggest bully, i mean superpower?
Did Iraq?

Sadly, no.

Just curious here; has Iran actually, you know, done anything to justify an invasion from the world’s biggest bully, i mean superpower?

They’re being all Iranian and stuff.

I’m pretty sure it’s an axiom of authoritarian regimes that in order to distract the people from the fact that you are stealing them blind, taking away their rights and throwing them in camps, you need to choose an external enemy, demonize him and begin beating the war drums. That way your people will feel their nationalism swell, and they will pull together.

If you do not do this, the people will rise up and kick yer ass…

mikey

has Iran actually, you know, done anything to justify an invasion
They’ve been cooperating lately with the IAEA to allay concerns about their nuclear program. Making ElBaradei a happy man. Hostile activities like that.

Thought experiment.

You’re the lord-high leadership of iran.

You’re in the crosshairs.

What do you do?

Play that one out for long enough and you’ll develop a genuine sympathy. What CAN they do? There’s not even any clear path to surrender.

mikey

They’ve been cooperating lately with the IAEA to allay concerns about their nuclear program. Making ElBaradei a happy man. Hostile activities like that.

Just like Saddam! Case CLOSED!

They can’t avoid it.

But they can plan (much as Hezballah planned) to make it as expensive as possible for us. So, while they can’t do much about the big infrastructure thing (power grid, facilities, etc) they can distribute quite a bit of military gear and supplies to places where they’ll be just about impossible to bomb.

Plus they can cause us serious grief in Iraq. Right now they probably have numerous caches of goodies (RPGs, mines, etc) just waiting to run across the border, along with a large number of Arabic-speakers trained up on just how to take out a Bradley or an Abrams. Come to think of it, they can also cause us some serious problems in Afghanistan as well. Doesn’t take too much to destabilize Afghanistan.

And if they can lure us into a land war, which is quite likely since air power has never lived up to the hype, then they’ve got us in a hard spot. We’re going to bomb the shit out of them, and then come to the realization that no amount of bombing (short of massive carpet bombing of civilians) is going to be effective. And since we have troops stationed on both sides, in they go.

But those troops are already overtaxed. No one’s going to help us, not even the Brits, since clearly we will be the aggressor. So we’ll have to draft the kids.

Maybe this whole exercise is kabuki to force us into a draft, since the M/I complex needs young bodies to fuel the machine.