Iran, Iraq, and other handbasket destinations
Like apparently everyone else in the blogosphere, I spent yesterday musing over this business with Iran. If you’re just getting up to speed, I recommend Bush invaded Iran last night at Americablog and The President’s intentions towards Iran need much more attention from Glenn Greenwald.
Increasingly the world media is reporting this as a back-door declaration of war; note the two lead grafs from the Independent this morning:
American forces stormed Iranian government offices in northern Iraq, hours after President George Bush issued a warning to Tehran that was described as a “declaration of war”.
The soldiers detained six people, including diplomats, according to the Iranians, and seized documents and computers in the pre-dawn raid which was condemned by Iran. A leading UK-based Iran specialist, Ali Ansari, said the incident was an “extreme provocation”. Dr Ansari said that Mr Bush’s speech on future Iraq strategy amounted to “a declaration of war” on Iran.
There were indications yesterday that Congress would push back on this, but how much can they do? El Comandante controls the military, his administration has shown no reluctance to raid the rest of the federal budget for funds (so much for the power of the purse), and impeachment is too slow.
What do you do when the world’s scariest rogue dictator is the president of your own country?
At this point you’re probably thinking, “Well, I don’t know, Violet, but this is a pretty half-assed post. No analysis, hardly any commentary; just some links, a blockquote, and question marks. Geez.”
But see, that’s because you’re in the reality-based community. I, on the other hand, am one of history’s actors. I create my own reality. And my reality says this isn’t a half-assed post; it’s an open thread.
Have at it.
P.S. I’ve just seen that our embassy in Greece has been attacked, so hey, maybe Armageddon will come early this year.
18 Responses to “Iran, Iraq, and other handbasket destinations”
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Paul Tergeist says:
Taking over a consulate is an act of war by any standard. Jimmy Carter didn’t respond when Iran took ours and held hostages for 444 days and Iran is not going to respond to this militarily. So Dubya will do something else to provoke them until they do. Then he will bomb the shit out of them. Then we WILL be in an all-out war but our military is too exhausted to fight it and there will be only one option left. We will have to nuke the middle east (minus Saudi Arabia of course!)
A lot of people, including myself, think that would be a great idea, and toss in the Vatican, Israel, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, the Blue States, Russia, Georgia, China, France, Libya and Sweden while we’re at it. We might as well get it over with. Why let global warming kill us over a period of years when we have the technology to end it all in an hour?
I don’t think there is any way to stop him without making Cheney President and no one will ever sign off on THAT nightmarish scenario. I am trying to see light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe, if we live through the next few years, people will start taking voting and education seriously again.
Nahhhhh.
January 12th, 2007 at 4:43 am EST -
simply wondered says:
well we haven’t had one of those armageddoi (can it exist in the plural?) for eons. plus it might be fun… don’t let’s be so negative about it until we’ve tried it.
like marmite.
actually i don’t like marmite.
rigt vi, i’m off to fix your link…wonder if there’s a woman somewhere i can persuade to do it for me
(waving the remote control vaguely and looking very pathetic and helpless…..) -
therealUK says:
Have your Democrats not got any power to stop Bush and his puppet masters ? Or is this now headlong into yet more stupid war and destrucion.
Of course Tony poodle frigging Blair is giving his usual support, thus ensuring that we (the Great British public) will get it in the neck as an easy target for stray hate and retaliation.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Have your Democrats not got any power to stop Bush and his puppet masters ? Or is this now headlong into yet more stupid war and destrucion.
-truIn a parliamentary system we would be rid of the bastard by now but this is a….a….well, I’m not sure anymore. Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court judges his father appointed, even though he lost the popular vote by half a million, so he stole the election and never looked back. And the Republican congress simply rubber-stamped everything he sent to them. Finally he began to ignore them entirely and started using ‘signing statements’ to make whatever he wanted into law. Even then congress didn’t act. That’s why the basic tenets of our Constitution are in the toilet already.
Now he has usurped enough power, by virtue of owning the Supreme court and ignoring congress, that he is basically a totalitarian who can do anything he wants until November, 2008. He can nuke Iran. He can nuke North Korea. He can, and already has, sent all of our available military forces to the Persian Gulf. So if Cuba wanted to invade Florida, the only thing in their way would be a couple Coast guard cutters and an armed militia.
I digress. No. Congress cannot stop him from launching the military or dropping nukes. All they can do is refuse to fund any further insane budget requests. Everyone in the world hopes it is enough to stop him.
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therealUK says:
and, where is he getting the extra (20,000) troops from ? Maybe if the soldiers all just refused to go or something, then Georgie Porgie would be left having an impotent foot-stomping tantrum all on his own.
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Violet says:
therealuk, here’s this from the Boston Globe:
Q: When we talk about a “surge,” what are we really talking about? Are these new troops?
A: Since the end of major combat operations in 2003, the Army and Marine Corps have maintained about 15 brigade-size combat units in Iraq. Under that commitment, the size of the Army and Marine Corps has enabled the services to provide each unit about 14 months recovery for every one year of deployment. Since 2003 the Army has surged combat forces into Iraq three times by delaying the departure of units already in Iraq after their replacement units arrived. This method of increasing the number of troops – temporarily overlapping arriving and departing units – is the only way to increase the number of combat units in Iraq. Each time the surge increased the number of units by 2-3 brigades (7,000-10,500 troops).
Q: How can the 20,000-troop “surge” be accomplished?
A: A surge of 5 brigades and 2 Marine battalions (about 21,500 troops) can be accomplished by a combination of accelerating the arrival of scheduled units and delaying the departure of existing units in Iraq after their replacements arrive. The surge can be sustained into the future only by continuing to overlap units as they switch. The defense department has announced that the overlapping of units will begin in January and be fully achieved by May of this year.
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Kaitlyn says:
Can we start running around like chickens without heads, or should we pretend to act like rational adults about this?
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Paul Tergeist says:
When in danger or in doubt..
Run in circles scream and shout.Why act rational if the guy with his finger on the button isn’t?
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therealUK says:
Thanks Violet. I am also reminded of a statistic that I read somewhere that US military personnel total 1.4 million.
This now makes the US military one of the world’s biggest employers – Chinese army tops the list, then the Indian railways with about 1.5 million, your lot next and the the Britiah NHS with 1.3 million or so.
And another one, that is easliy forgotten bearing in mind the mpact that America has globally – you are only 5% of the world population.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Here’s some more good news.
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B. Dagger Lee says:
A couple of years ago, me and my friend ‘K’ made a pact wherein if the US went to war against Iran, we would meet at the McDonalds on First Avenue and engage in some property damage, rioting and civil disobedience.
We were supposed to huff glue (before rioting), too, but I don’t remember why we were supposed to do that, and frankly, it sounds pretty icky, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to agree to disregard that part of our pact.
But otherwise, see you all at the McDonalds.
yrs, B. Dagger Lee
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simply wondered says:
BDL – you are truly the ella fitzgerald of political protest, scatting your way into prison – or probably camp x-ray, given the way opposition to bad things is regarded these days.
you surreal unglued ee cummings of a thinker, you. i only wish i could be there. -
Violet says:
Sorry for the MRA spam. I deleted it.
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simply wondered says:
as the world is obviously about to end, i bestirred myself and your link is now fixed – now let’s watch the fireworks secure in the knowledge that the empty set of people who visit there’s a place for us (TM) and don’t know how to get to reclusive leftist will now be able to die happy.
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Paul Tergeist says:
I blame the British. If the whingeing pommies had proper uniforms and officers they might have won the revolutionary war and none of this would be happening.
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Violet says:
This now makes the US military one of the world’s biggest employers – Chinese army tops the list, then the Indian railways with about 1.5 million, your lot next and the the Britiah NHS with 1.3 million or so.
For the next war I vote for Indian Railways vs. British NHS.
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therealUK says:
For the next war I vote for Indian Railways vs. British NHS.
I have this vision of it being fought like the Batley Townswomen’s Guild re-enanctment of the Battle of Pearl Harbour. Except instead of handbags they could waft a bit of red tape and antiquated equipment around and then we’d all sit down and have a nice cup of tea.
Quite civilised really.
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simply wondered says:
they can throw wet spnges at each other and stop for tea – i reckon the doctors will do it; don’t mess with doctors, they learn to work 80 hour weeks you know and then they become consultants and play golf. the british civil service would have been a good bet but they have to remain neutral and not get off their arses or their heads explode.
