Americans will have no -- as in zero -- Shi'a support: no collaborators, no friends, no employees, no interpreters. Iraqi Arab Shi'a attitude toward Iranian Shi'a is, if not love/hate, at least like/distrust, but that wave function collapses into pure sympathy the moment we open a Pandora's box of whoop-ass on Iran. SIIC and Sadr will have a truce within hours, and will keep it for the duration.

[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!

Posted at September 5, 2007 11:08 PM in response to Staging Nuke for Iran?

About that Iran war game:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/02/wiran102.xml
It was held at Heritage of all places!!! And of course they are wildly optimistic about it... I love the part where they say they're gonna open ANWR for drilling to counteract the predicted spike in crude prices. It is really amateur hour (I mean it has been amateur hour for the past 7 years or so...).

BTW, I think it was this particular article that got TPM started on this whole Iranmongering trip. While I agree with Josh that one should not underestimate the delusion level at the White House and the OVP, I still think we are quite a long ways from an Iran run. I think they will do it, probably before the forced end of the surge (that would be April 2008), but not before January (they need to prepare us after all - and they need clouds and shorter days as well - remember January 91?)

[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!

Posted at September 5, 2007 5:21 PM in response to Staging Nuke for Iran?

I think we should all take a deep breath here. I prefer messages that are sent through USA today, rather than those delivered directly by B2s or B52s. I don't think we're quite there yet.
[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!

Posted at September 5, 2007 4:45 PM in response to Staging Nuke for Iran?

not. good.
BUT: crude oil futures for nov and dec. haven't moved significantly - except the open interest on Dec. contracts (but that can be attributed to seasonal factors: traders are like sheep, they expect a cold winter). So the markets say no Iran run for now. Then again, the markets are right until they're wrong...
[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!

Posted at September 5, 2007 3:48 PM in response to Staging Nuke for Iran?

FWIW:
A friend of mine who works for an alternative investment company (as they call themselves) told me to closely watch oil futures contracts to figure out when it's going to take place (if ever). He advised to specifically look at the open interest on the NOV07 and DEC07 contracts. I still think it's not going to happen because the administration has not decisively split Syria from Iran (yet). Or perhaps they don't care, or they gamed it out and they are confident that Syria risk profile is no longer an issue.
[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!

Posted at September 3, 2007 10:57 PM in response to Iraq with an N? Anatomy of a Rumor That Has to be Taken Seriously

I am even more concerned with curbing the next administration (be it Republican or Democrat). The executive and its bureaucracy will not easily relinquish all these newly acquired powers. A truth commission would go a long way, but as in South Africa, it would have to endowed with the legal capacity to mete out punishments. In essence, I think it would have to be sovereign on some level, outside and above normal constitutional practice. So I don't know. Perhaps a new 9/11 commission - with subpoena powers, and whose recommendations would have force of law?

[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!

Posted at August 9, 2007 3:17 PM in response to An Alternative to Impeachment: Transitional Justice for the Bush-ites

Based on today's NYT article regarding the TSA, there seems bo be something enormously ugly hidden behind the threats of resignation and the hospital room episode. Here's my hunch: they are so afraid that it may come out that even Gonzo, in a move that cannot be viewed as anything else but legal risk management, deliberately perjured himself. This has impeachment written all over.

Let's try to piece all the known elements together:

1) Timing: the hospital room showdown took place in March 2004, six months before the elections.

2) All the senior political appointees at Main Justice threatened to resign if the surveillance program was re-authorized. Why then? why not before? what made it unacceptable in March 2004? Am I missing something here?

3) We know that both political parties made extensive use of sophisticated data mining to pinpoint potential swing voters during the 2004 election cycle. Based on consuming patterns, credit records and various other publicly available data (race, gender, education, employment etc, etc), and a healthy dose of ensemble theory and discrete maths, one can accurately predict the political affiliation of a single person.

4) At the same time Ashcroft refused to sign the reauthorization of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, he seemed pretty cool with TALON, the DoD domestic counter-terrorism snooping program. That particular program seemed to have landed a lot of anti-war activists on various secret threat databases. The fact that most of these activists were of the liberal persuasion was entirely coincidental, and did not really seem to tick off anyone.

So here's my inference: a part of the TSA was used for political advantage - as in, snooping on political opponents. That is the only way I can imagine hard right, torture-happy authoritarians like Ashcroft threatening to resign over it, six months before the elections. That is the only thing that makes any sense, and why they are so desperate to hide it. I mean, Tricky Dick resigned over less than this...

the concern troll (and yes, I'm a little paranoid here)...

Posted at July 28, 2007 6:55 PM in response to Impeachment Open Thread

OK, perhaps it's been discussed already, but there was an op-ed in today's WaPo explaining in no uncertain terms that the executive order on CIA interrogation techniques is basically unlawful (as in: war crimes). So just on principles, in an ideal world (and tactical considerations notwithstanding) I think impeachment is not just legitimate but necessary.
Obviously, we don't live in that world.

Posted at July 26, 2007 6:21 PM in response to Impeachment Questions