Attacking Iran would be the act of a lunatic. But it is clear that, at a minimum, the Bush administration is currently bent on making Iran think we are going to attack them. There was Bush’s speech last week, and now this from the Times of London:
THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.
Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes” against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,” he said.
Debat was speaking at a meeting organised by The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal. He told The Sunday Times that the US military had concluded: “Whether you go for pinprick strikes or all-out military action, the reaction from the Iranians will be the same.” It was, he added, a “very legitimate strategic calculus”.
This is corroborated in a diary at Daily Kos.
I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth…
…I asked her about the attack, how limited and so forth.
“I don’t think it’s limited at all. We are shipping in and assigning every damn Tomahawk we have in inventory. I think this is going to be massive and sudden, like thousands of targets. I believe that no American will know when it happens until after it happens.</blockquote
Is this all a big bluff? I don’t know. How could I know? No ‘serious’ person in the Establishment is raising alarm bells. Barack Obama is too busy pandering to the pro-Israel constituency to provide any leadership.
Meanwhile, chief war-with-Iran advocate Michael Ledeen is still claiming that the administration is not serious about getting tough on Iran. I think it is just his way of goading them on. The UK Telegraph, which was so instrumental in catapulting the propaganda for the invasion of Iraq, seems to be on board for the attack on Iran. Can anyone verify their claims?
Iran seems to be getting the message. They just replaced the head of their Revolutionary Guard with an experienced war fighter.
Have a nice weekend.
Planning to. More and more it’s looking like any particular weekend might be our last.
Attacking Poland and France wasn’t enough? He had to go off and attack the Russians?
Oh, sorry, wrong war. Wrong psychopath.
The scary thing is that psychopath was a hundred times more competent than the current psychopath, and he still brought ruin to friend and foe alike.
Of course, that’s the problem with fascists. In the end, they are always playing out fantasies of their own grand demise, and dragging everyone else down with them.
And what play does this get in the media here (and UK)?
The top story on Iran in the biggest MSM – corroborating the case for going to war. Disgusting!
CNN: Iran ‘reaches nuclear target’
BBC: Iran ‘reaches key nuclear goal’
Yeah for all their(MSM)talk about not asking enough questions in the run up to the Iraq invasion they’re now doing exactly the same damn thing. Not a surprise but as you say disgusting.
My understanding is that Iran is about as nuclear as far as nuclear weapons go as I am…nuclear for energy is different story but MSM isn’t making that differential and of course ignoring completely what the Atomic Energy Commission keeps reporting.
I think MSM is salivating over another shock and awe campaign that will give them no doubt huge ratings. Sorry ass bastards who apparently love death and destruction as much as bushco…if it bleeds it leads right. (unless it’s honest reporting about the horrible deaths to our troops and Iraqi civilians)
And, we MUST hold the Democrats responsible, too. For doing NOTHING.
NANCY PELOSI, in particular, had a chance to advance legislation that required Bush/Cheney to get Congress’ approval BEFORE attacking Iran. That would have brought forth debate….at least.
But NO…..she went to the AIPAC Jewish Lobby luncheon, gave a talk, was booed off the stage…..and went promptly back to her office and stopped that legislation.
SHE NEEDS TO BE HELD TO ACCOUNT FOR THIS! Had she put impeachment ON THE TABLE….where Americans want it for Bush/Cheney…..we might have avoided what will surely be THE biggest disaster this country ever undertook. It will (finally) ruin the economy, solidify that the United States of America IS THE TERRORIST NATION we accuse everyone else of…..and will put the final nail in our coffin in terms of any future for the young people of this country.
It is scandalous…..shocking…..outrageous……and yet we sit here and wait for it to happen.
It will happen. Chimp and Darth have “decided” it. No one dares challenge them. No one has balls enough. Not even the generals who will carry out what they know is wrong.
Hard to sit here and wait for it to happen.
I think AIPAC is playing a much more significant role in the upcoming US attack on Iran than it did in the invasion of Iraq. At least a case can be made that controlling Iraqi oil is good for US interests, if you ignore the fact that colonialism doesn’t work any more. The only reason for attacking Iran is Israel’s obsession with eliminating any significant military powers in the region other than itself, other than those firmly in the US-Israeli orbit.
On a flight from the US to Germany around Christmas 2002, I was sitting next to a girl in the Air Force, and she told me that the invasion of Iraq was a done deal.
A story in the London Times is one thing. Detailed military plans being in place and soldiers/sailors being told the decision has already been made is another.
Just like in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, any reporter could talk to people who would be involved in the upcoming attack on Iran and find out what’s in the works. They just don’t bother, because we don’t have a free press in this country.
Booman,
Maccabee got pounded by Kos as a confabulist. Apparently he’s been creating stories.
In the coming days, we must be careful in viewing the media and other net information as well.
Cons will stop at nothing to sell the Petreaus Report.
The “diary” link will not load at the Daily Kos site.