War with Iran

Fox News has been beating the Iran War Drums for some time now. Yesterday, a B-52 flew from Minot, North Dakota to Barksdale, Louisiana - with six nuclear missiles on board, supposedly a "mistake." How do you make a mistake with nuclear warheads? Um... these things are under pretty tight security. I think the "mistake" was that we heard about it. But why would they go to Barksdale, Louisiana? An ex-CIA agent blogs: "Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations." There is no need for them in Iraq. It must be to attack Iran. So our illustrious Commander in Chief will drag us into yet another war we cannot win and let the nuclear genie out of the bottle while other countries have The Bomb?

Let's follow the logic here: The war in Iraq is failing, and Congress is getting skittish about funding it. Petraeus is scheduled to make his report, and a number of the benchmarks for success of the troop surge have not been met. Things aren't looking good for the Bush/Pentagon/Haliburton administration. How to fix that? Let's see how they've handled disappointment in the past:

"Instead of reaching out to Congress and the courts for support, which would have strengthened its legal hand, the administration asserted what [former head of Justice Department Office of Legal Council Jack] Goldsmith considers an unnecessarily broad, “go-it-alone” view of executive power," reports Jeffrey Rosen in New York Times magazine. (It's an excellent article.) What would happen if they dream up a threat (ala Gulf of Tonkin) in Iran and respond in "self defense?" Instant quagmire, and years more funding for the military-industrial complex.

What would stop this from happening? Bush is a lame duck now. He doesn't need to be re-elected. There has even been talk that impeachment proceedings would carry on to the end of his term if they were undertaken. He's afraid of Iran, sees a threat, and wants to take preemptive action against it. He sees that it is easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

Of course, I'm not the first with the notion of an imminent attack on Iran. The Raw Story outlines preparations for a massive attack on the country.

Abusing our soldiers

Some thoughts for starters:

• The President is abusing our great military by sending them on a fool's errand for cronies.
• The abuse of our military must stop.
• A noble force requires a noble mission.

What nemesis, what evil force would compel a government to war? Genocide against other races and an effort to take over all of Europe was not enough to engage this country in World War 2. It took a direct attack on American soil to engage our forces. Now, we see this country engaged in a battle over an imagined threat in which victory has proven elusive - the mission far from accomplished.

In his farewell address, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of allowing these forces of evil to persuade us that war is a Good Thing:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. [1]

For the military-industrial complex war is a business frenzy. It is government consumerism run amok. We buy, they grow, and their stockholders are happy. People die. Life in Baghdad sucks. Life in Walter Reed Army Hospital sucks. We could spend more money to improve those things, but we're already strapped for cash paying it to those cronies.

The cronies benefiting in this ignoble mission in which our President has most successfully thrust our country are contractors: Blackwater, Haliburton, and the likes. [2] They, and the gun and plane makers, are to blame for this conflict and for the lives lost because of its undertaking.

Go capitalism! Mission accomplished!