Did you read the uber-alarming op-ed in yesterday's NY Times??

Using Bombs to Stave Off War

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/19/DDIN11P3D9.DTL

I did hear about Burns attending the meeting - on a BBC broadcast.

I wasn't aware of this at all. Excellent post, RTBAG. Rec'd.

Here's a CommonDreams.org link from today:

Nationwide Protests to Oppose War with Iran

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/19/10473/

ReadytoBlowaGasket or anyone who might help:

would you please improve my skill in using html for links in these comments area? RTBAG uses it nicely above, and I can't find where to see how to do it here (and I've looked ...) thanks.

i.e., giving a link another name (shorter too) in this space (no buttons available as in reader blog posts) (and search didn't quite get it for me)

BTW at the end of the two weeks, if Iran has not come to the party, the threat isn't of war. Is there seriously anyone out there who believes the US can sustain *three* wars at once? And do you seriously believe that Bush & McCain would believe this election could possibly be won if they tried to launch a third one now?

The threat is heightened economic sanctions.

One might argue that we've been in a confrontation with Iran since at least 1979. I believe the official story is the Burns was there to observe and listen rather than to negotiate anything. I think you're right about Burns's attendance upping the ante. And it could as easily be an indication we're about to start playing rougher as it could be an indication that we're getting ready to talk.

Quinn, I think up the thread a little when you asked what the US interest is, you're grossly overestimating the Bush administration's capacity to understand ramifications or, if they do understand, to care.

The last couple of months, lost in all the focus on the campaign, has been the sort of talk that was common in the run up to the Iraq invasion and it scares the livin' daylights out of me.

once again ...

==The situation is, IMHO, too complex for rights and wrongs.==

I did not realize complexity obviated morality. Is this fully grown up people learn?

==We probably think the Iranian intelligence operatives helped us into Iraq where the Iranians have been kicking our ass by supplying training and weapons to militias, and probably setting an IED themselves every now and then.==

Maybe. Aren't we responsible for our own actions?

==In the end they will own or dominate Southern Iraq. I'm sure some of us, including those of us who run the government and the military right now would like to have an excuse to settle up.

Who would these "us" be? I certainly wouldn't advocate killing more people to "pay back" those who we think benefited from American killing lots of people in Iraq.

How would this "settling up" work, exactly? Did we not settle up with Iraq, expecting candy and flowers? Is this the "plan" for Iran as well?

--------------------

So...

Any ideas about the questions I have?

The British and Canadian media are mostly right-wing corporate whores as well, but independent objective journalism has not been entirely snuffed out.
The Guardian and Independent are pretty good, and the CBC also sometimes airs an expose.
But the NYT and CNN have become dead zones; of U.S. sources, only McClatchy has its own credible Mideast sources. And of course Seymour Hersh, via The New Yorker.
Consider for a moment that the U.S. media are relying on Der Spiegel for an account of what Maliki thinks about when U.S. troops should leave.
Der Spiegel!
American troops occupy the country -- and only Der Spiegel thinks to ask the prime minister if he thinks that's a viable long-term solution?
No, he talks to Der Spiegel because it will report his opinion accurately, not claim he was mistranslated or taken out of context.
Face it: the Iraqis want the U.S. out.
Obama wants the U.S. out.
A perfect confluence of opinion between allies!

What I wonder is, do we really have the same goal Iran does?

Is this really the relevant question? Really? That we have the "same" goal as Iran? I'd want "same" defined.

I truly hope that Hersh, McGovern and Ritter are wrong.

As for Obama, I don't know what his reaction will be but I cannot see what would or could change. These talks are not new news, I remember SoS Rice saying that talks would be held a month ago.

Thanks Gasket & Mr Ed & 1849. The lesson helped. Well, it helped me at least - I donno about you folks, as I may just endlessly link to music from here on out & drop the dialogue entirely!

William Kristol, speaking on Fox News Sunday, apparently just agreed with you. According to him, this is one of those [cynical] "go the extra mile" moves that you make right before declare the situation impossible and say you've done everything you could be expected to do. THEN you bomb the hell out of them. I think you're right about this, readytoblowagasket. It's political theater. They're just trying to get the PR right this time.

<a href="URLGoesHere.html">NameOfURLGoesHere</a>

==Nuclear weapons? Are you crazy? We don't need nuclear weapons to destroy their military capability.==

Ignorance is not an excuse. You are obviously not well informed. For example, you have missed reporting that nuclear weapons use was actively debated a year and a half ago, when their use was opposed at the high levels of military command, while the White House demanded that they be included in the plans for military action that were being actively developed at that time. The reasons for the use of tactical nuclear weapons, are far from "crazy", an uninformed person such as yourself may suppose - Iran's nuclear facilities are FAR underground, built to resist all manner of conventional strikes. Israelis at about the same time have leaked tactical details of their thinking on the subject, which combined extensive bunker buster use (they just bought a bunch from us at the time), followed up by tactical nuclear use into the resulting "tunnels".

==Justification? That they attacked us.==

When did this happen? When our President "declared it"? Or when our military "accused them"? Several scheduled "smoking gun" demonstrations of Iranian weapons supplies in Iraq have been canceled, when the military finally had to admit that the weapons were not Iranian. The strange accusation of EFP's of Iranian origins is obviously a ruse for anyone who knows that business (I do) - local machine shops that build the liners were, of course, found.

It is far more logical to state that it is WE who attacked THEM. It is our President and Congress who are spending hundreds of millions of dollars destabilizing Iranian government, which by the way is an illegal act of war under international law. This program involves, among other interesting elements, direct support to separatist terrorist groups in the north of the country, who have been busy blowing up buses and setting up ambushes, much like the hated Al Qaeda in Iraq does.

==Please read and respond to my comments, not to your fantasies. I'm not going to bother with you further, dimitry. You're obviously not serious.==

Sir, you made absolutely no comments of informational content. What you did do is to parrot back a series of demonstratively false or dubiously sourced "talking points" which are routinely used by the President, Vice President and Israeli Likud officials to demand attack on Iran.
-------------------------------------

I do find it curious that on a supposedly liberal website, a strong number of folks, who are ostensibly against Iraq war and advocate ending it, as our party Presidential candidate promises, are nonetheless are not really interested in discussing ANOTHER war in the region in any way other than the framework created for them by the same government who started the first war they "oppose".

If the opinions of these "liberal-centrists" are typical, then the government of Bush and Cheney can start Iranian war in a near certainty of support from our midst for another illegal and barbaric attack on a country that did not attack us.

==We can, as Billy describes, prosecute an aerial campaign that does not entail occupation, but, from a military point of view would still be devastating. Occupation we don't have the manpower for, as Iraq has shown. A land campaign we don't have the manpower for (without switching it wholesale out of Iraq). But neither occupation nor a land campaign is necessary to achieve the aims that BushCo might have.==

I don't think this thread was meant as a detailed discussion of tactics, rather of the political dynamics in the US that is leading to war.

However, tactically, the "bomb and forget" school of Iranian warfare is plain silly and should be called out as such. That is simply bad tactics, masquerading as foolish strategy. First and foremost, if our aim is to setback Iranian nuclear programs by at least 10-15 years, we will need extremely large scale attacks with very specialized munitions that are not friendly to surrounding areas. Success of such an undertaking is highly dubious - underground nuclear infrastructure in Iran is very bomb resistant and hard to destroy. Iranian response is most certainly would be to draw in ground troops and to take the battle into the Straights of Hormuz. Therefore, if our initial aims would be for "clean" air strikes, we would find ourselves almost immediately in a ground and sea battle not of our choosing. Technical assessments of the balance of power in the theater IS NOT particular well slanted to the US side. The intermediate result is likely to be large scale involvement of US ground and naval forces in a protracted and bloody battle lasting for months.

==BushCo might very well see 'disarming' Iran as a means to limit their influence in the region and destabilize the regime. If he imagines secular forces taking over a vastly weakened state, he still has a chance, in his mind, to remake the Middle East, and salvage his legacy. If nothing else, I'm sure he'd be consoled by the more limited outcome of setting them back, "getting back," and striking a blow against an "intransigent state sponsor of terrorism."==

Again, tactically this is really a crapshoot, with highly uncertain outcome. Iran has three times the population of Iraq and large majorities will rally around the government after US/Israeli attack. I see no reason to expect any kind of government collapse in Iraq as a result of aerial bombardment, just the opposite. The Iranian response, both in the military theater and political response in the Shia government of Iraq would be highly negative to our side. Again, we see a perfect example of stupid wishful thinking on part of the administration, assuming that the enemy is plain stupid and will play the game like we want him to.

==To understand is not to agree or sanction. It simply means that "going to war" against Iran does not automatically mean "invasion and/or occupation." ==

One has to break out of the official framework for rational discussion. Attack on Iran can ONLY achieve even limited aims, if it IS followed up by invasion and/or occupation - our experience with Iraq has shown that "quickie" military victory are near meaningless unless followed up by years of further bloodshed and chaos. Anyone who understands the tactical equation in term of "air strikes alone" is a very poor tactician and even a poorer student of history.

==Okay, think what you like. Everything you just said has a moral cast too: you're making a value judgment about talking points and word choices. Right vs. wrong. But perhaps you misspeak? I have no idea what you mean other than by reading the words you choose and points you highlight.==

So...

What was your point in starting this thread then?

Macho posturing?

Reinforcement of government fear mongering?

Or a rational discussion, whether there is or there isn't any reasons for the US to attack Iran?

Why is the latter considered "not serious", while the shrill "smash them and let neighbors pick over the bones" is equated to some kind of "serious" position?

==Dimitry, please don't be so wet. You've had it handed to you now a number of different ways by a number of different people. Go lick your ego and give the rest of us a break. Don't you have a term paper due or something?==

Did someone "hand something to me"?

I did hear some puerile posturing, dumb tactical thinking and some hard-core neocon belligerence from you and the strange schizophrenic author of this thread.

I certainly DID NOT hear any constructive discussion of the actual topic at the top of this, by now standard TPM anti-liberal rant line.

NONE of the arguments offered by me were even discussed, much less refuted.

And it is also typical of the right-wing nutjobs, having been bitch-slapped repeatedly by someone with an actual ability to think and argue, to claim "victory" and either run away themselves or suggest that the one who can think should "leave".

When you are ready for an actual discussion beyond chest puffing and growling, I will be happy to participate.

==What I said was that though Hiroshima was necessary and justified as a way to end the war without further American casualties,==

Just learn the subject, man. There is tons of archival information available now. Only lazy, stupid or ideologically blind (really another form of stupidity) sill abide by that view, which is truly laughable in light of currently available information.

==That kind of saber rattling is how Hussein ended up in a spider hole. I'm afraid you don't understand the nature of the American military. Killing armies is what they do. It's their thing. No matter how much they hate us, the Iranians are far too smart to let us kill their army. You are going to have to give up on your fantasy of seeing someone humble the American military. Interestingly enough, it appears they may not even be humbled in Iraq. They may be finally making the exit they should have made after apprehending Hussein.==

Ahh yes, the liberal neocon dream lives on!

Again, learn the subject. The true neocons DID NOT WANT to leave - they wanted to stay, control and project power. That WAS the dream, the one and only true justification to all the money and risk, from the neocon viewpoint. The fact that we are now LEAVING, with even the government we PROP up demanding that we get out, is the fitting humiliation to that neo-colonial dreams of our neocon dreamers.

As far as the chest beating about the invincibility of the American military - spare us the pathos. American military was brought to a standstill for years by a few tens of thousands of badly armed irregulars, without even significant state support - quite sad performance - a classic ineptitude of a second generation army in a fourth generation conflict. Same with Israel and Hezbolah. The lessons have been well learned in the ME - asymmetric warfare, decentralized C&C, reliance on close quarters ground combat. The exhaustion of our military in Iraq is plain to see. Our exit, which I welcome, is a defeat of the original neo-colonial aims of this war, which I detest.

==There will be no war with Iran, because Iran cannot attack us, even if we bomb their nuclear facilities.==

Are you not reading your own posts? Iran has been attacking us for years, messing up our plans for Iraq, with nary breaking a sweat, it seams. Now, if we actually attack them directly (instead of via terrorist proxies and regime change clandestine operations) they would loose this ability?

Asymmetric warfare, as we have seen both in Iraq and Lebanon is very cheap, and quite effective against limited bandwidth ground operations. One can only imagine the deference Iraqi shia will show our supply lines as we massively bomb their co-coreligionists in the heartland of their faith.

==Maybe you guys should stick to politics. World events doesn't seem to be your bag.==

I can't give you any similar advice, as you appear to be equally incompetent in both fields.

==I believe the US Military has the means to rapidly eliminate Iran's capability for a massive bombardment of anything==

Your trust in the capabilities of the US military seem boundless, however as someone who makes weapons for them, I tend to view these capabilities with a tad more realism. To wit - the US military hasn't able to eliminate massive attacks against ITSELF by a ragtag bands of irregulars in Iraq and only partially succeeded by buying them off with our money. There doesn't appear to be any reason to suspect that the Iranians will mount a "Picket's charge" with their soldiers or their missiles. And just as the US military found itself utterly dumbfounded by an Iraqi insurgency, there are many surprises awaiting us in our future "clean war" with Iran. Three times the population, three times the area and a military that is actually loyal to the nation. And one that had years to observe our tactics and doctrine from a nice close-up vantage point.

Unless we had an ability to start a draft and an all-out ground war with Iran, the wishful thinking that "we will annihilate them" while hanging out in our city-bases of Iraq is just another neocon crazy talk.

our excuse is the same as well ...

any more war we make in the ME surely cannot enhance Israel's security.

==Have you crossed the line from anti-Bush, anti-neocon to anti-American? You seem to take pleasure in the idea of America being defeated in the ME. The occupation of Iraq is a great tragedy, but hardly the end of America.==

May I suggest some renewed focus on my Russian name, with pointed questions as to my "loyalty"? Perhaps some interest in my immigration status? Who knows? Perhaps even liberal sites should institute a loyalty "litmus" test to their participants, in order to remove the portion of the population which doesn't subscribe to the reining philosophy of America Uber Ahles.

I take pleasure in defeat of neo-colonialism, which I detest, and every liberal minded individual should as well.

To hide behind a false veneer of "patriotism" while you country is kidnapped by a treasonous, authoritarian gang, which lies shamelessly, manufactures "consent" using every black PR trick known, is to become a fellow-traveler in reverse, a shameful and ignorant position and an anathema to a true patriot.

I believe the illegal and aggressive attack on Iraq was the true tragedy, the occupation was merely an expected and predicted outcome of the policy which begot the war in the first place. To continue to discuss tactics of that and future wars, while remaining ignorant of the INTENT and STRATEGY of the people who started it is to continue being pawns at best and enablers at worst.

To the Empress. For what it's worth - my guess is Billy & I are (fairly often) here for the same reasons. Which may be why people mistook me for a BG creation when I started. (Because there sure as hell aren't many stylistic similarities - Billy writes short/pointed things, I sprawl.) Early on I said I really wanted "us" to raise our game. I think that's his aim as well (though he speaks for himself.)

Why do I think we need to do this? Well, the/we Democrats - and not just our leader - have been an appalling party for a lonnnnng time now. Lousy ideas, weak imagination, wrong frames, emotionally off-course, stupid debates, humorless, and yes.... just plain not tough enough. We fear conflict, and we fear meat-eaters. But the world has meat-eaters. And so do the Republicans.

So I guess I figure BG wants to raise our game on the toughness score, amongst others. That's his call. I focus on some of the other stuff more often. But he knows something about the killer instinct, throwing a punch & taking a hit, and also - he tests people's words. And them. Can they take a hit on their ideas & keep coming? He's asking. Maybe nobody appointed him to that job, fair enough. Maybe they feel it's too much or too often or too personal or too sour. Sometimes, I suspect they're right. but they're big kids, they let him know. And the one thing I agree on fully is that... we better be ready this time. In 2000 & 2004 we sure weren't. Carville gets it. And I think even Obama gets it. He's got his War Room. He's "skinny but tough." We'll see.

So that's my take. And I don't mind a good scrap, oddly enough. What people here don't know is that I've almost certainly fought more than 99% of 'em. Kamikaze was my name, and game. Endless brawls. Alleys, schoolyards, bars, rinks, didn't matter. Didn't stop. So violence doesn't frighten me - I just know it well enough not to like it, and to know it doesn't make things a whole heck of a lot better. And conflict? Hell, that was mother's milk for me. My job for 25 years has been to walk into meetings, halls, whatevers, and fire. Pleasantly & with laughs if I could; facts & figures if that looked like it would help; but there's never any mistake why I'm there. To get something done.

And over time, I learned - chose - to play life a little differently. Had some meetings with the Reaper, recognized who gets the last laugh, and I gotta play my cards differently now. Like how? Well... I think humor's got some legs. Stories too. Big ones, myths, even better. I'd like to see more of that here. Finding silver bullet facts to drill the MSM idiots. New frames. Better economics. Less fluff.

And still, even now, maybe 1 in 10.... I'm happy to drop the gloves. And I still have that old stupid confidence - I'm not gonna lose. But I need to keep that approach down low in me. Because 9 out of 10, pleasant is better. If it's smart. Laughing is way better. Music best of all. For me, I learn better & people seem to listen more that way. But thanks for your thoughts. And I hope we get to speak more as we travel these pages. Night.

thanks, quinn; very interesting to me, and some surprises too! I too hope to speak more with you ...

laughter, yes essential; and music necessary.

I don't like and cannot accept the notion that one needs to become just as ruthless as one's enemies, or perhaps inhuman is the meaning I'm after, because ruthlessness may be required too sometimes.

I really appreciate your personal candor and mention about some of the changes and aspirations you now experience and hold dear.

I'd even say that's grace of some sort you're receiving (I read some of your notes on Mandela on your profile page!). I'm into receiving all the grace that's possible -- for all of us actually ... it's very real, I'm sure; and some people are receiving it, I have no doubt ... I can't see humanity surviving without it ...

almost morning (somewhere!)

==Sending Josh emails is about all this one is capable of. ==

Unlike the "mover and shaker" of the Northwestern Free World Bar Debate Association, B. Glad?