Here Comes War With Iran

Weird... I wonder if THIS story

Military Ties Iran To Arms In Iraq
Explosives Supplied To Shiite Militias, U.S. Officials Say
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 -- Senior U.S. military officials in Iraq sought Sunday to link Iran to deadly armor-piercing explosives and other weapons that they said are being used to kill U.S. and Iraqi troops with increasing regularity.

During a long-awaited presentation, held in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the officials displayed mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and a powerful cylindrical bomb, capable of blasting through an armored Humvee, that they said were manufactured in Iran and supplied to Shiite militias in Iraq for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.

"Iran is a significant contributor to attacks on coalition forces, and also supports violence against the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi people," said a senior defense official, who was joined by a defense analyst and an explosives expert, both also from the military. The analyst's exact titles and full names were not revealed to reporters. The officials released a PowerPoint presentation including photographs of the weaponry, but did not allow media representatives to record, photograph or videotape the briefing or the materials on display.

Could possibly have anything to do with THIS story?

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan passes two fishermen in their small boat as it leaves for its second deployment in a year from North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, California January 27, 2007. The Reagan is the third aircraft carrier headed to the Persian Gulf to support war efforts in Iraq. REUTERS/Fred Greaves

Naaah... I mean, big deal, so Bush is sending 3 out of our 10 aircraft carrier groups that currently cover the entire world to an area the size of my backyard just off the coast of Iran. That doesn't NECESSARILY mean that he's "secretly" planning to bomb the shit out of Iran... right? Oh, look over there, Anna Nicole Smith just died! Pay no attention to the war about to break out over here, look at the dead "celebrity"!!!

Huh, well, it worked for most people and almost all the Mainstream News Media... you must be one of those people who have that irritating habit of "thinking." Well, read on, then, smartass.

Sadly, though, even if America DOES decide to bomb the shit out of Iran using our mighty aircraft carriers, we might find that they're one HELL of a lot more capable of fighting back than Iraq ever was. See, the Iranians own several Russian-made SUNBURN anti-ship cruise missiles which will hurl 750 pounds of explosives towards our "mighty" aircraft carriers at an unstoppable Mach 2.1 -- you've heard of the sub-sonic French Exocet missile which sank British ships during the Falklands war? Compared to the super-sonic Sunburn, the Exocet is like a birthday candle compared to an atomic bomb. Here's a really horrifying article which makes clear what awaits our Navy should Bush think that he's Tuff Enuff™ to take on Iran... we're going to get our asses HANDED to us, courtesy of modern Russian missile design. Each of those carriers has 3100 US sailors on it plus the thousands more on the surrounding ships... I wonder what America's reaction will be when over 10,000 American sailors are killed in a single day by the Iranians after Bush starts his new, illegal war?

Worse, take a look at a map of the Persian Gulf... it's a GODDAMNED LAKE, with the Straights of Hormuz at the mouth. Iran controls the Straights of Hormuz, the only way in or out of the Persian Gulf... and with Iran's Sunburn missiles at the ready, whose Navy is going to come to our rescue? No one's... not even ours.

The writing has been on the wall for the Aircraft Carrier Battle Group concept for a LONG time... there's a reason that China hasn't built a bunch of them: they don't work in a world where a supersonic Sunburn cruise missile (which costs less than a single jet fighter on that aircraft carrier) can sink an entire carrier within a matter of seconds.

Sadly, though, we have an idiot for a President, a warmongering fool intent on defying all reality. Every foreign policy problem we have today can be directly tied back to Bush's desire to impose his fanciful visions onto the real world. When Bush desired to invade Iraq, he folded Saddam and Osama together into one Arch Enemy and he lied to the American people about Saddam having nuclear weapons. We all know how well THAT turned out.

Similarly, when Bush wanted to hide his intent to invade Iraq from the American people, he concocted the "Axis of Evil" starring Iraq, Iran & North Korea. The second he did so, he put Iran and North Korea on notice that he intended to invade them next (even if he didn't mean to), and he put us on the path to inevitable war with these two countries. He also silenced Iran's moderates who were seeking reapproachment with America... possibly permanently.

When Bush bombs Iran (or allows Israel to overfly Iraqi airspace in order to bomb Iran), we will give the Mullahs the excuse they need to crack down on their own people and to strike out against us. They're very likely to kick our ass in the process, a humiliation for which jingoistic, militarized America is VERY unready.

Our economy is increasingly based solely on Military Keynesianism. Given our outrageous foreign debts and the fact that we have offshored all manufacturing jobs, we now command our forefront in world finance based solely on our perceived military might as the world's last remaining Superpower. With our ground military currently devastated and almost defeated in Iraq, our Air Force & naval air power are the last remaining legs of our military might. A stinging rebuke in the Persian Gulf via Sunburn missile will shatter the world's perception of us, revealing our military as a paper tiger, and our economy will vanish overnight. Likewise, the sinking of 3 aircraft carriers will either force a humiliated America to embrace navel-gazing isolationism, or perversely make Americans so militaristically aggressive that we go on a rampage of unilateralist war to prove once again our will and means to fight. Neither solution is an appealing one.

Congress must act NOW to stop Bush's saber-rattling, they must act BEFORE Bush concocts a bullshit excuse to declare war on Iran, and they must decisively act to PREVENT this war at any cost. Otherwise, we can kiss America as we know it GOODBYE FOREVER.

Jesus Is Coming... on a Wave of Nuclear Fire!

Born-Again psychotics across the South can rejoice today as news comes that Israel is secretly planning to attack Iran with nuclear weapons.

My initial reaction is to say "So What? The United States has a contingency plan for invasion and/or destruction of every country on Earth, including contingency plans which include first-strike nuclear bombing. Just because Israel has such a plan for a nuclear Iran, doesn't mean they intend to carry it through."

My second reaction is that with this psychotic in the White House, Israel might be stupid enough to carry through on a nuclear first-strike on Iran.

While some might think this is the height of madness, let's not forget what the Israelis have to gain from a rash first-strike using nuclear weapons: erhm... uh... oh, right, nothing but the enmity and disgust of the entire world community.

To be the first country to use nuclear weapons in combat since the US bombed Nagasaki isn't the kind of "We're Number One!" slogan that Israel should want for itself. Firstly, any sort of unprovoked attack of this nature simply gives permission for all of the nuclear Islamic countries in the region (Turkey, Pakistan, probably Saudi Arabia and whomever else over there bought bombs from A.Q. Khan) to nuke the holy fuck out of Israel in retaliation. Secondly, if Israel thinks it has a tough time in the United Nations now, try going it alone without the support of the United States. I have no doubt that American public opinion would be overwhelmingly against ANY nation which used nukes without serious provocation.

Let me reiterate: "Iran -might- build a bomb in two years or so" is NOT serious provocation. Not when Israel has between 100 and 300 nuclear bombs. It's not like the lessons of Mutual Assured Destruction are lost on the Persians... why else do you think they're so eager to build nuclear bombs? To defend themselves against a perceived threat from Israel, of course.

Everyone in the Mainstream Media likes to pretend that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is some sort of crazy person determined to obtain nuclear weapons so he can nuke Israel. He doesn't help deter this kind of thinking when he hosts Holocaust Denial Parties. The fact remains, though, that the Iranian Presidency is primarily a domestic governance position. Ahmadinejad won't ever even SEE one of those nukes. The control of the military, foreign policy, nuclear policy, and Iran's main economic policies are clearly within the power of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad's election represented three things: (1) the ascendancy of the Iranian generation who fought the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war (and who therefore hate America for sponsoring Iraq in that war), (2) his campaign promises to increase direct financial aid to the country's poor & working poor residents, and (3) the fact that the Supreme Leader wanted Ahmadinejad to be the next president because he didn't want an equal partner or rival as president. The Iranian presidency was the last holdout of Iran's reformists, and the victory of Ahmadinejad gave total control of Iran's state institutions to hard-liners. Khamenei controls the Parliament, the judiciary, the army, radio and television, and he now controls the presidency as well.

This allows the Supreme Leader to play a subtle game, the same subtle game that Dr. Martin Luther King played in the 60's with Malcolm X: use your enemy's fear of a crazy person to obtain the common-sense things that you -really- want. It's a time-honored tactic of negotiating: Good-Cop-Bad-Cop. The crazier that Ahmedinejad acts, the more that the Supreme Leader seems like a reasonable alternative to bargain with. It's all a matter of shifting perception of Iran from out-of-control country ruled by dictatorial clerics to Iran as a right-of-center country ruled by an out-of-control madman where the clerics are the moderating influence. Israel surely knows this, as do the smarter elements of the US State Department. The question now is will those who understand what's really going on have any influence over the reactionary Right-Wingers who are running things in both countries?

As to the question of whether or not Bush would back an idiotic Israeli nuclear first-strike, it's probably a "Yes." Why? Because this administration -ALWAYS- backs ideology over reality. Bush probably thinks that Americans will rally to him and celebrate his starting a nuclear war in the Middle East. Perhaps some of them will, too... after all, right-wing fundamentalists have flooded Israel with cash over the last eight years in an attempt to influence Israeli domestic and foreign policy, and I'm sure that fundie nutjobs like Pat Robertson are on the phone with Tel Aviv every day assuring them that "America" is behind a nuclear strike.

Why? Because Christian nutjob literalists think that Isreal must stand together as one country in order for Armageddon to come and for Jesus to return to Earth in a fiery battle to the finish with Satan's son, The Beast 666. I'm not going to dignify these stupid Fairy Tale beliefs except to point out that their precious Bible states that The Beast 666 will rise from "The Eternal Sea" which many Bible "scholars" have taken to mean the eternal roiling sea of politics, that The Beast 666 will profess to be a heavily religious person, that he will support Israel at all costs, and that The Beast 666 will rule for Seven Years before his final battle with Jesus happens. I can only think of ONE current world leader who that prediction describes, and his name is George W. Bush.

Have fun in Hell, Christians!

I also feel that Bush would welcome an Israeli nuclear first strike as a testing-ground for using the same technology himself. He's been developing these weapons in secret over the objections of Congress and against long-standing nuclear treaties himself, so no doubt Bush will be eager to see these nuclear bunker-busters tested in real-world situations. It's a win-win for The Bush 666: he gets to test out his battle strategies and the ensuing nuclear war in the Middle East will bring about his final battle with Jesus Christ. Yay!

UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR BOMB EXPLOSION FOOTAGE

Yeah, those Iranians won't be mad if we help do this to them. It's not like they're terrified of Earthquakes or anything. Setting off thermonuclear bombs underground certainly couldn't trigger a loose fault line or anything, could it? I'm sure that Bush's planning has considered the world repudiation which would arise from our allies accidentally triggering a massive quake...

Meanwhile for those of us who find nuclear war to be an unappetizing alternative to negotiation, take comfort in the news that our new Bush-sponsored generation of nukes might not even fucking work. Yes, Bush manages to even screw up stupid shit that he WANTS. The NYT reports that America's first new nuclear warhead in over twenty years will likely end up a sort of Frankenbomb hybrid of two competing designs. Instead of choosing between designs submitted by teams at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Reliable Replacement Warhead (TP loves the name) will fuse elements of both designs, an approach that some believe is as likely to result in a dud as a functional weapon. "It's one thing to have all the components working and another to have them all working together," said one Berkeley scientist.