Your Iranian Slip Is Showing

Maliki Stalls US Plan to Frame Iran

Early this month, the George W. Bush administration’s plan to create a new crescendo of accusations against Iran for allegedly smuggling arms to Shiite militias in Iraq encountered not just one but two setbacks.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to endorse US charges of Iranian involvement in arms smuggling to the Mahdi Army, and a plan to show off a huge collection of Iranian arms captured in and around Karbala had to be called off after it was discovered that none of the arms were of Iranian origin.

Ooops.

The Myth of the Iranian Sanctuary

The Iranians have already achieved political victory in Iraq. All they want now is to create long-lasting stability. The last thing the Iranians would do is create a new “Viet Cong” to undermine the government of Iraq. Thus, if one accepts the premise of the United States that it is Iran which is responsible for funding and training forces hostile to the government of Iraq, then one would have to accept the notion that Iran is at war with…Iran. This is, frankly speaking, absurd in the extreme.

Tangled Web of Allegiances Leads Back to Tehran

Declarations by both the US and al-Maliki’s government about Iranian sponsorship of Sadrist activities are often used to paint Iran as a destabilizing force in Iraq – the meddling neighbor encouraging unrest to boost its own influence. US-backed Iraqi government excursions against Sadr are defended by citing unsubstantiated evidence of Iranian agents’ influence.

But this perspective has yet to be explained in terms of one of Iran’s closest allies in Iraq, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), who, as part of al-Maliki’s ruling coalition, also happen to be one of the US’s closest partners.

Just so you know these things.

I think the larger picture of the Likuditics is to create an Israeli hyper power in the MidEast, which has short term policy advantages I suppose, but basically the shell game is to get the US to do the heavy lifting for the project.

With over 200 warheads of the proscribed kind alledgely in their arsenal it would seem that Israel already has acheived that goal.

What is germane to me, is how do we guarantee the long term security of Israel when conventional war is not the war it will face in the future? How much less assymetrical will any of these policies make the current hostile activities. They are already confronting a situation where their adversaries are using the tactics and MO of a weaker force against a larger stronger force. Increasing the strength of the stronger will not reduce those efforts of the weaker.

So what is the real goal of all of this propaganda and bombast? How does any of this improve US national security?

I guess a large part of the question for me is, what would Israel do if it didn’t have the skirt of the United States to hide behind? the US wasn’t part of the equation? ( I really phrased that poorly.)

US Navy Bombs Florida

Let’s see here. Some dude gets arrested for throwing a molotov cocktail and starting a small fire, and the US Navy drops a laser guided bomb in the wrong place, (which ought to be a story in itself, collateral damage being what it is to COIN operations,) starting a large one.

Qatari Prime Minister Other Appeasers End Lebanon Violence

Arab Mediators Reach Deal to End Lebanon Violence

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Arab League mediators announced a deal on Thursday to end Lebanon’s worst internal fighting since the civil war, after the U.S.-supported government backed down in its conflict with Hezbollah.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani also summoned Lebanon’s government and Hezbollah-led opposition to Qatar for talks to resolve a broader political showdown which has paralyzed the country for 18 months.

“We declare an agreement sponsored by the Arab League to deal with the Lebanese crisis,” said Sheikh Hamad, who led the Arab mediators. “The parties pledge to refrain from returning to the use of weapons or violence to realize political gains.”

Talking to the Hezbollah.

Crazy Man, Crazy Ants

Since it is news now, we have had those crazy ants for a couple of years now. They are really fast little critters. They seem to me to stand up and move like daddy long legs on speed, but with a body like sugar ants,  (piss ants in some places.)   I killed the local colony when I inadvertantly spilled a cup of gasoline on them during the swarm season this spring.

Being In A Big Hurry

Instead of eating a tuna fish sammich with eggs and relish, I’m just going to us potato chips and eat it right out of the can.

Mmmmm. Taste like chicken!

DOH! I could have had a free Micky Ds

McCain’s Base Starting To Crumble

McCain campaign threatened to cut off Newsweek’s access.

Earlier this week, after Newsweek published a cover story examining the hardball tactics conservatives might use in the general election, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) “true partner” and longest-serving aide, Mark Salter, fired off a stinging retort that accused the magazine of being “biased.” Today, a Wall Street Journal profile of Salter reveals that he also “threatened to throw the magazine’s reporters off the campaign bus and airplane“:

I think because he’s gone green McCain is looking for excuses to get smaller planes. When it gets it down to using Denny Hasterts old plane, then IMO things will be just about right.

And It Only Took Seven Years

Bush administration has reportedly cut off Chalabi.

NBC News reports “that as of this week American military and civilian officials have cut off all contact with controversial Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi” due to “‘unauthorized’ contacts with Iran’s government, an allegation Chalabi denies.”

Let’s see here. Democrats are appeasers because they will engage in diplomacy with bad people, like Iranians, even though the Bushco has engaged in diplomacy with bad people, like Iranains.

Chalabi suckers them into the biggest strategic mistake in our history and they keep him on even after he was reported to have blown our cracking of the Iranian codes to the Iranians.

Today he gets fired.

Too Stupid To Be President

Same as it ever was. (Yeah, I’m your huckleberry CNN)

Updated: (because every good blog deserves an update,)

Obama Gets Triple-Teamed on ‘Appeasement’ Whence the three yo-yos on one string explain what the previous posting was about.

First, George W. Bush takes a swipe:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared:

(
Prescott Bush ? )

His business dealings, which continued until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

One of the things I noted was the standing ovation Bush got for his remarks. not.

Update II: Look a Balloon!

Get Yer War On

Iran: What’s the Game?

The sense of threat here is vivid, it is deeply felt, it is completely comprehensible, and it rises occasionally, or more than occasionally, to a well-nigh hysterical pitch–so much so that the Amerian strategist Edward Luttwak arose Monday night at a banquet at Peres’ house to warn assembled luminaries against fearing annihilation at the hands of an Ahmadinejad who, after all, was not Hitler but Mussolini, and an inept one at that. It is not lost on any Israeli that Ahmadinejad, in his usual delicate manner, last week called Israel a “stinking corpse.”

Weirdly, at a Wednesday afternoon workshop, the selfsame Luttwak declared that Iran’s reformers would actually welcome a sharp outsider’s attack on their nuclear facilities. No other panelist disputed his suggestion, which was greeted with much applause from a largely Israeli audience.

Sure, the reformers will greet you with flowers.

Look! A Bust!

Ancient bust of Caesar found in French river

The dude looks deranged to me.

He was a military leader turned dictator who had such a complex about his receding hairline that he perfected the Roman comb-over and liked laurel crowns that disguised his bald patch.

Anyway, there’s your daily Julius.