An invasion of Iran?

With whose army? Our troops in Iraq are stretched, there aren't many Reserves left. The UN won't have anything to do with an invasion. I don't believe at all that they'd use Israel, because we'd lose every other country in the region overnight, including Pakistan, which has nukes.

With whose vote? Congresspeople have constituents, and the constituents are freaked about Iraq already. The war is a mess, and they have more than enough political cover to say 'no' this time around. It isn't 2002 anymore.

With what money? Bush has spent hundreds of billions on Afghanistan and Iraq, and has failed (quietly on the first and spectacularly on the second). Because of Iraq, Congress can say no to Iran spending.

With which Pentagon? If you believe Sid Blumenthal...

One high-level military strategist told me that Rumsfeld is "detested", and that "if there's a sentiment in the army it is: Support Our Troops, Impeach Rumsfeld".

The Council on Foreign Relations has been showing old movies with renewed relevance to its members. The Battle of Algiers, depicting the nature and costs of a struggle with terrorism, is the latest feature. The seething in the military against Bush and Rumsfeld might prompt a showing of Seven Days in May, about a coup staged by a rightwing general against a weak liberal president, an artifact of the conservative hatred directed at President Kennedy in the early 60s.

In 1992, General Colin Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs, awarded the prize for his strategy essay competition at the National Defence University to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dunlap for The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012. His cautionary tale imagined an incapable civilian government creating a vacuum that drew a competent military into a coup disastrous for democracy. The military, of course, is bound to uphold the constitution. But Dunlap wrote: "The catastrophe that occurred on our watch took place because we failed to speak out against policies we knew were wrong. It's too late for me to do any more. But it's not for you."

The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 is today circulating among top US military strategists.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/051404A.shtml

...the brass is ready to roll tanks on the White House. You think they'll sit still for another war while their army is getting torn to pieces already? By 'torn to pieces,' by the way, I mean stretched, demoralized, overdeployed, beaten down and beaten up.

Iran was on PNAC's checklist...but I don't think the checklist anticipated what we are dealing with now. An invasion of Iran? I don't think so.

I know I have moments where it really worries me. But then I stop and think about everything you just said. And then I decide they'd have to be suicidally stupid to want to do this. And then I think about their record to date and I KNOW they're that dumb so I get scared all over again.

I console myself with the fact that they haven't started talking about or showing pictures of the hostages from back in 1979-1980. When they do that I'll start to really worry 'cause they're trying to grab people by the guts.

It causes me to wonder if some of these notions weren't behind all that ruckus about considering a conscripted army a while back. In a perfect world, the only people drafted would be those who are silly enough to admire the Bush Administration. In reality... Well, gosh...we no longer have a debtors prison...

but I actually miss your old avatar and the cognitive dissonance it caused me anytime I was on a thread with you and Will both at the same time. :)

:7

I understand. Maybe I'll go back to the Avatar avatar for a while and then try that other dude again down the road.

pray tell???

Please explain avatar you are talking about. YOu are a moderator now.

JetCityLiberal

high command. He did loose them over a year ago.

The sentiment before we moved out of Housing (Navy) as my husband
was in the process of retiring is ... BETRAYAL

Most people I know in uniform WILL NOT, I repeat, WILL NOT vote
for the kid

Oh and one more thing, I have said it, and now you are... the
conditions in the Coup of 2012 have been met... couresy of
BushCo.

I will also remind people, the Chief of Staff told the Congress
in '74 during the Watergate Crisis that they stood behind the
Constitution. This is an answer that still confuses most in
Congress, I'd hazzard even more now than then.

Go over the PNAC documents.

That would be the proper presense, and not Iran.

eom

they wanted Iran before Syria

Look at the axis of evil speech... Iraq, Iran and N. Korea

Syria, Egypt and even Jordan are on the list, but in a lower priority.

I think Will is right... and the High Command is going to SAY NO

Lately though, I have been holding my nose and listening to X-tian radio, meaning the fundies. More than once now when discussions leave the arena of end times, armageddon, the rapture blah, blah, then the conversations and sermons turn to Israel. They return back to Iraq and more than once a fundie preacher has said we should invade Syria to cut off the flow of Al Queda insurgents into Iraq and then going to Iran to clean out the whole nest and make them into Christians. Perhaps, we shouldn't listen to the rantings of wierdos, but when their rantings match the PNAC plans ones ears go up. We know Bush is being manipulated by them.

Now I know of the rantings and ravings of christian radio and the 700 club. In that sense they fit, though Megiddo fits even better.

Now Syria is in the list of countries to take over, so is Egypt, and Saudi Arabia... (yes it is in the PNAC papers), but Iran is in a higher priority because of the oil and Peak Oil.

Syria has precious little if any oil, We need that to run our tanks.

The mileage of an MI is just lousy I tell you

I can't go any further with this because I don't know.

just go over to the PNAC site....

And by the way, in 2001 I had no idea who they were either...

It has taken way too much time to do the reading... heck I have
not read a novel in YEARS

:-)

looking forwards to a nice time by the music, reading somethign that
is not political

a long while ago and thank you. Let's hope all our new DU'ers do the same.

Utterly meaningless, but cryptic nonetheless.

Cryptic it is and I can't offer more because I can't really follow up on things.

give yourself some credit.

By the way, one thing I recomend you read is Leo Strauss.

Our boys are following him to a T... also Trotsky. Just recomended reading... that can help to understand Feith, Wolrowitz and Perle

I think there is something (venal) there. And I think the neocons had access to the information but either didn't want to see it (where the convenient intel was coming from a bunch of exiles led by a man who hadn't lived in the country since 1959)... or were so arrogant that they believed they were doing the using - and could a) control it (the Iran connection) and b) turn on it (as is there long standing pattern.)

I think there is something very venal - and if the leaky leaky news is correct - Chalabi (or his man Habib) have been continuing to feed intel to IRan... thus the neocons - once again to pursue their blind goals - appear to have (possibly? likely?) put US national security at risk. Those dots (if real) may be harder for the public to connect... but if true.. the idea that these folks had reason to know this (Josh Marshal has an item from a few days ago that indicates that some in intelligence knew of Habib's work for Iranian intelligence) - and gave access to Chalabi to intelligence that could be used against... who... troops his neocon handlers sent to Iraq? A lot of ifs that I propose - but not altogether unfounded. Just suggesting to keep an eye out for sources on this story there is MUCH more than meets the eye... and it appears that someone is pushing info to the LA Times and Newsday to keep a few more drips and drabs coming out. Just for fun... LA Times has a long reputation of planting CIA inspired items...

hitting "stop" doesn't actually stop the posting, does it...

worse than the worst of drivel. Was given a copy when it first was released - it was so pathetic that I closed it after about seven pages and it sat, intentionally unattended, until my next move when it was boxed up and given away.

I started responding before our dupe message... do ya know that DU has an automatic "trip wire" so to speak to prevent/catch freeper spammers. Found out one night when I didn't realize I was resting on the side number panel enter key - and a post kept posting. That little adventure tripped the du spam wire and I was automatically banned. Had to wait for an admin to be in the house before it could be corrected (and I could get back my posting ability).

They're sort of like cult members.

August 2, 2003
"My Alma Mater is a Moral Cesspool"
Neo-Cons, Fundies, Feddies and the University of Chicago

By FRANCIS A. BOYLE
Professor of Law, University of Illinois School of Law

It is now a matter of public record that immediately after the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001, U.S. Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld and his pro-Israeli "Neoconservative" Deputy Paul Wolfowitz began to plot, plan, scheme and conspire to wage a war of aggression against Iraq by manipulating the tragic events of September 11th in order to provide a pretext for doing so. Of course Iraq had nothing at all to do with September 11th or supporting Al-Qaeda . But that made no difference to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the numerous other pro-Israeli Neo-cons in the Bush Jr. administration.

These pro-Israeli Neo-cons had been schooled in the Machiavellian/Nietzschean theories of Professor Leo Strauss, who taught political philosophy at the University of Chicago in their Department of Political Science. The best expose of Strauss's pernicious theories on law, politics, government, for elitism, and against democracy can be found in two scholarly books by the Canadian Professor Shadia B. Drury: The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (1988); Leo Strauss and the American Right (1999). I entered the University of Chicago in September of 1968 shortly after Strauss had retired. But I was trained in Chicago's Political Science Department by Strauss's foremost protege, co-author, and literary executor Joseph Cropsey. Based upon my personal experience as an alumnus of Chicago's Political Science Department (A.B., 1971, in Political Science), I concur completely with Professor Drury's devastating critique of Strauss. I also agree with her penetrating analysis of the degradation of the American political process by Chicago's Straussian cabal.

<snip>

Just recently the University of Chicago officially celebrated its Bush Jr. Straussian cabal, highlighting Wolfowitz Ph.D. '72, Ahmad Chalabi, Ph.D. '69, Abram Shulsky, A.M. '68, Ph.D. '72, Zalmay Khalilzad, Ph.D. '79, together with faculty members Bellow, X '39 and Bloom, A.B. '49, A.M. '53, Ph.D. '55. According to the June 2003 University of Chicago Magazine, Bloom's book "helped popularize Straussian ideals of democracy." It is correct to assert that Bloom's rant helped to popularize Straussian "ideas," but they were blatantly anti-democratic, Machiavellian, Nietzschean, and elitist to begin with. Only the University of Chicago would have the unmitigated Orwellian gall to publicly claim that Strauss and Bloom cared one whit about democracy, let alone comprehended the "ideals of democracy."

http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle08022003.html

the largest intel failure since 9.11

In another era we could use the term TREASON... so more dribble
and drabble, and we will see more and more...

Ah the humanity, following all these scandals is becoming a full
time job!

Which reminds me...

Be good boys and girls and listen to the DHS, as they try to scare
us once again into not asking questions, with TERRA alert.

I suspect we will be on Dilbert alert soon... or at least part of his tie.

By the way, anybody knows if we are still on Big Bird Alert, or have they moved up into Vitamin C Alert?

But Cuba will be numero uno.

Maybe the only reason to take out Cuba is to keep Jebby's wife happy? There is a two-tiered plan here. They need to get the Holy Land back for the fundies and the oil for the rest of them. Does that make sense?

I agree ...

The PNAC 'plan' failed because it was based on faulty assumptions ...

The 'plan' is dead, because executing that plan has caused the train to run off the tracks, and off the bridge, into the river ...

btw have you ever thought of a speaking tour of australia..maybe you could link up with john pilger..it would be a sell out..

If not, I'll never make it. I'll be doing my best Marge Simpson impression...

Lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out lemme out!!!

...up and down the aisle.

:)

to get you to quit. If you can make it through a flight down under without smoking...you can make it for the rest of forever. :)

like chicken. :evilgrin:

Not that I would ever suggest you quit smoking, but for those long international flights you should check it out! It totally takes away the cravings.


EDIT: Thank you for injecting your characteristic good sense into this whole Iran thing. I think this post is dead on.

They work...for a while. It's like 30 hours to Australia.

I'm tellin' ya.

unfortunately not...

JOHN PILGER: Well, certainly, historically, we've always depended on resistances to get rid of occupiers, to get rid of invaders.
........
Now, I think the situation in Iraq is so dire that unless the United States is defeated there that we're likely to see an attack on Iran, we're likely to see an attack on North Korea and all the way down the road it could be even an attack on China within a decade, so I think what happens in Iraq now is incredibly important.

TONY JONES: You mean defeated militarily?

JOHN PILGER: Yes.


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5134

pilger said US troops were legitimate targets for the resistance..it caused a huge outcry from the likes of Downer and Hill..but what Pilger said is correct..

which is one reason why he upsets the likes of Downer and Howard.

I'm worried Bush will nuke them.

NATURALIZED AMERICAN or not) buddy Ken Taylor may say "bring it on" to that idea, so they can speak out PLENTY against it.

strategy. (He actually has a viable, if not probable, solution.) I don't think the heavies are as enamored of the PNAC agenda as they once were.

Or was that Syria?

Some of them will serve time. The Plame traitors. The Chalabi traitors who shared state secrets. They are going down in flames. It's too late for Iran, too late for Syria, too late for the airbases on the moon and the race-specific bioweapons. The Fifty Years War of their dreams might become a reality, though, if we don't end their reign NOW.

I don't think they want to invade Iran.

and if they win in November they will try

They just don't have the human resources at the moment

They see the miliary as just resources to be used and abused

I am confident Iran will prevail as we always have against foreign invasion. We have a history of defeating foreign aggressors from genghis khan to saddam hussein.

However, the manpower issue could be solved with the stroke of a pen should * win in November.

Personally I think you're right on -- thankfully. They've exhausted a lot of political capital(at home and abroad), money and manpower during this little fiasco in Iraq. It's far more FUBAR than they could have ever imagined way back in 02.

98 years short of the mark. Not only won't they get their dream of world domination, but they have pretty much turned us in a 1st world Banana Republic.

The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/research_pubs/p087.pdf

If it is true that soldiers are reading this then perhaps they are beginning to realise what is going on in that their country of yours.

This paper is a cautionary tale about the corruption of institutions for political purposes.

For the reasons Will gives I too think the chances of the US military invading Iran are about zero.

But if they are to defy their political masters then what better way than to invesigate and find them guilty of treason.

911 here we come!!!!

Photo of Mount Rushmore
with the words "Tyranny Prevails When Good People Do Nothing" written
across it.
25 July 2012
Major Shunn,
Please put this photo with the Prisoner 222305759 file. I don’t
know if it’s connected, but this type of graffiti has been showing up
all over since the execution. Are you certain we’ve accounted for all
the copies of his letter?
BND

Bush made it pretty clear at that "press conference" that Iraq is just "one theater in the war on terra." Problem is, like you pointed out - with what troops are we supposed to fight these other theaters? I honestly believe you will see a number of "news" stories come out in the weeks ahead meant to scare the American people into believing the threat is so great that a draft is the only way to protect the "homeland" (homeland/fatherland what's the difference). Two stories came out this morning that fit right into this - the warning of a big terrorist attack on US soil looming for the summer, and Al Qaeda's numbers "swelling" across the globe. You will hear more and more pundits bringing up the possibility of chemical, biological or radiological weapons in the hands of terrorists. The Republicans making the rounds will begin to bring this up regularly. This will be the new talking point. There will be news stories about dirty bombs and how they work, and probably some stories about chemical agents. Also heard talks of us starting nuclear testing again - propaganda about the increasing nuclear threat of rogue states and terrorist cells will accompany any US nuclear testing.

I majored in rhetoric with a minor in political science in college, not too hard to figure out the game plan.

To a man, they've all said he won't listen.

Blasts from the past (one, a year ago, the other a year and half):




Rumsfeld's choice for army chief stokes feud with generals
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
12 June 2003

Donald Rumsfeld, the United States Defence Secretary, has picked a new quarrel with the army establishment by summoning a former special operations general from retirement to take the post of army chief of staff, the service's most senior uniformed post.


<snip>


The move seems bound to add new tensions to those already existing between the Defence Secretary and senior army commanders at the Pentagon, one of whose number would normally be picked for such a position. "Rumsfeld is effectively telling all three and four-star army generals, they're not good enough," one officer was quoted as saying.


<snip>


General Schoomaker will succeed General Eric Shinseki, who has clashed repeatedly with Mr Rumsfeld - most notably over the scrapping of the $11bn (£6.5bn ) Crusader artillery system last year, and then when General Shinseki warned that "several hundred thousand" US troops would be needed to keep the peace in postwar Iraq.

That statement was hotly disputed by both Mr Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. But with 160,000 American troops struggling to impose order, events if anything are bearing out General Shinseki's fears.


more...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=414658


====


FROM OCT 2002



Rumsfeld's Style, Goals Strain Ties In Pentagon
'Transformation' Effort Spawns Issues of Control
_____Special Report_____


By Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 16, 2002; Page A01


<snip>


Senior military officers now recount Keys's demise to illustrate a pronounced civilian-military divide at the Pentagon under Rumsfeld's leadership. Numerous officers complain bitterly that their best advice is being disregarded by someone who has spent most of the last 25 years away from the military. Rumsfeld first served as secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977, in the Ford administration.

Indeed, nearly two dozen current and former top officers and civilian officials said in interviews that there is a huge discrepancy between the outside perception of Rumsfeld -- the crisp, no-nonsense defense secretary who became a media star through his briefings on the Afghan war -- and the way he is seen inside the Pentagon. Many senior officers on the Joint Staff and in all branches of the military describe Rumsfeld as frequently abusive and indecisive, trusting only a tiny circle of close advisers, seemingly eager to slap down officers with decades of distinguished service. The unhappiness is so pervasive that all three service secretaries are said to be deeply frustrated by a lack of autonomy and contemplating leaving by the end of the year.


<snip>


What makes this more than a bureaucratic dispute, however, is that it is influencing the Pentagon's internal debate over a possible invasion of Iraq, with some officers questioning whether their concerns about the dangers of urban warfare and other aspects of a potential conflict are being sufficiently weighed -- or dismissed as typical military risk aversion.

<snip>


"There is a nearly universal feeling among the officer corps that the inner circle is closed, not tolerant of ideas it doesn't already share, and determined to impose its ideas, regardless of military doubts," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute who has close ties to defense contractors and the military.


QUOTES:

"All of the bad blood of last year is coming back in a very big way," said one former Pentagon official.

"Things are more fouled up than I've ever seen them," said one former defense official sympathetic to Rumsfeld.

"The depth of disaffection is really quite striking," added one defense consultant. "I think Rumsfeld is courting a rebellion."



more....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32170-2002Oct15.html

I NEVER thought I'd see the day where I imagined a military coup might be necessary to save our Country, sadly I'm beginning to think so. Hopefully right before they try to pull their terra "attack" on America and I pray that spells the end of the extreme right FOREVER! The war criminals need to face trial for high crimes and treason and face punishment so that this cabal can NEVER harm this Country again.

- Your premise is faulty in that it makes the assumption that the Bushies would use GROUND FORCES in an attack on Iran.

- Defense Contractors For Bush* have been busy replacing all those bombs they dropped on Iraq. Now that the stockpile is nearly complete...they'll need another 'target' to destroy so that the Defense Contractors For Bush* can manufacture more of them.

- An attack on Iran would most likely be a 'hit and run' without deployment of troops.