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June 20, 2005
Rally Effect
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The question is not if, but what is going to happen when.
An attack in the U.S. has possibly a “Spanish” sideeffect. Who would believe a Sunday dirty bomb attack on a Colorado megachurch which is traced back to the Iranian UN embassy?
A sinking destroyer hit by a (chinese made) ‘Iranian’ silkworm missle might be better but the effect is kind of too small.
Timeframe – mid July when Congress is in recess.
Better ideas?
“The new rules will enable the Special Forces community to set up what it calls “action teams” in the target countries overseas which can be used to find and eliminate terrorist organizations. “Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador?” the former high-level intelligence official asked me, referring to the military-led gangs that committed atrocities in the early nineteen-eighties. “We founded them and we financed them,” he said. “The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren’t going to tell Congress about it.” A former military officer, who has knowledge of the Pentagon’s commando capabilities, said, “We’re going to be riding with the bad boys.”
lovely
Posted by: annie | Jun 20 2005 14:46 utc | 2
“The new rules will enable the Special Forces community to set up what it calls “action teams” in the target countries overseas which can be used to find and eliminate terrorist organizations. “Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador?” the former high-level intelligence official asked me, referring to the military-led gangs that committed atrocities in the early nineteen-eighties. “We founded them and we financed them,” he said. “The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren’t going to tell Congress about it.” A former military officer, who has knowledge of the Pentagon’s commando capabilities, said, “We’re going to be riding with the bad boys.”
lovely
Posted by: annie | Jun 20 2005 14:47 utc | 3
It’s not when. Team Bush is already suspected of high crime for the Iraq fiasco. The nation and the world are aware. Specially tailored events will no longer work. New chutzpah will only create new troubles for the administration.
The M.O. is for action, but new actions will cost the gains made by old actions. New drama will bring even more of the old drama into question.
Posted by: patience | Jun 20 2005 15:18 utc | 4
The idea that America is at permanent war with the rest of the world goes back to at least the 1950s. It was the fundamental item of McCarthy’s Credo. In more recent memory it was particularly noticeable in Oliver North’s testimony during the Iran-Contral Hearings, and I believe that in a modest degree it infiltrated the Democratic foreign policy establishment (Pollack most notably).
Nothing in this reminds me so much as Germany’s pre-war view of itself as a bastion of a particular kind of ‘kultur’. Intellectuals of all stripes and of good faith (i.e. non-Nazis) bought that line, which of course led to the defense of the Fatherland as trumping all other values, because they saw their ‘Kultur’ as a unique value. The bottom line of the Bush administration and those who support this endless war agains the whole world is essentially the same.
Nothing cures that particular mental illness like humiliating defeat in the field.
Posted by: Knut Wicksell | Jun 20 2005 15:35 utc | 5
With Fox News in full blast attack mode and Corporate Media just realizing that President Bush’s ratings are tanking, the White House has a tough decision ahead:
Syria or Iran.
Syria pro invasion:
Between Israel and Iraq
Build oil pipeline to Israel
Stop Sunni Arab infiltrators
Syria con invasion:
No nuclear weapons
No troops*
Iran pro invasion:
Between Afghanistan and Iraq
Nuclear Weapons Program
Stop Shiite infiltrators
Iran con invasion:
No troops*
*Don’t mean nothin’. General Sanchez will invade by himself. All the way, Sir.
Posted by: Jim S | Jun 20 2005 15:42 utc | 6
Knut: add to that the usual claim that this central European nation wanted peace but was always *forced* to action by Evil violent foreign countries – like, say, Poland. Not that this behaviour is only limited to Germany or US.
B: What about an attack on some allied power, some big push in the EU for intance, possibly coupled with a smaller attack on US soil. Or if they’re bold enough, to a similar big attack on US soil. Maybe even coupled to an *unexpectedly* failed big attack in the US – after all, W has to show he takes care of the country, unlike these surrender monkeys.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jun 20 2005 15:45 utc | 7
The Eiffel Tower reduced to melted iron by a dirty bomb. Kills two birds with one stone.
But is it enough to create the sentiment for a draft in the US? That is the key, the only question. What kind of casus belli is enough to swing conscription in the US? I don’t know if Paris Burning is enough. After all, they don’t call them Freedom Fries for nothing.
Posted by: arbogast | Jun 20 2005 16:00 utc | 8
arbogast: The wingnuts on LGF cheering on the attack on Paris……….. Team America…….. Fuck Yeah!
Posted by: Friendly Fire | Jun 20 2005 16:14 utc | 9
Bellaciao has a vague round up of legal accusations against BushCo.
Are Bush & Co. War Criminals?
Some lawyers claim the U.S. is guilty of crimes against humanity…
Link
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 20 2005 16:17 utc | 10
Successive attacks on US soil point a clear finger at incompetenct of Team Bush. Successful false flag operations point a clear finger at Team Bush for malicious and criminal intent. It’s a lose lose. Speculation on the lunatic plans of the right are foolish. Much better return on investment involves catch them attempting them.
Posted by: patience | Jun 20 2005 16:17 utc | 11
arbogast: that’s why I came up with the bold option. The conservative one would be to mess with EU and keep everything safely away from US, but that may not be enough. Now, gamble like real men, and set up similar attacks, one on EU and one on US, to show people that these Evil terrorists are after all of us. But make sure to foil the US attempt, lest Bush looks like the incompetent moron he is. Of course, this would rise a lot of questions – why was it stopped here and not there, is it inside job? – but a successful hit by “terrorists” would also make people wonder about W’s abilities and inside job, so better not go too far. But then, you’d have to consider W’s past record on how to fuck up the best-laid plans to see that trying such tricks to push war on Iran would be insane on its face. And considering W’s past record, as Billmon and others would say, you’d have to say that “insane on its face” is what they seem to like.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Jun 20 2005 16:23 utc | 12
The Iraq War is a grand revisit to the Vietnam Era. The far right beliefs and ideology dictate that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Besides Walter Cronkite and Jane Fonda stabbing the USA in the back, the LBJ and the Democrats were Wussies for not using atomic bombs on the rice field dikes and invading the remnants of North Vietnam. No matter the consequences like being a Pariah or the Chinese counter-attack. Iran with its nuclear weapon program and all that oil awaits.
Juan Cole has posted a reasoned article The United Nations Strategy as a Resolution of the Iraq Crisis. It is all whistling in the wind. Iran is next.
It is not too far fetched that the following conversation occurs in the West Wing:
Draft. Screw the draft. The USA has the greatest Air Force in the world. General Dick Myers said strategic nuclear bombing will win WWIV.
Posted by: Jim S | Jun 20 2005 16:33 utc | 13
Not only do they need a crisis to survive, their very existence indicates a crisis of US politics.
And a far bigger one than all the ones they conjured up.
Not that they couldn’t care less.
Posted by: teuton | Jun 20 2005 16:51 utc | 14
Does anybody here know the su doc # for the “Iran Freedom Support Act”, whose bill number is H.R. 282 in the House and S.333 in the Senate. Id’d like to look it up while on Campus today or tommorow…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2005 16:56 utc | 15
Don’t get your panties in a wad folks. I, too was afraid of some cooked-up catastrophe before the presidential election, but nothing happened.
Ole Dick won’t let anything happen to his grand money-making scheme in Iraq.
Posted by: Relax | Jun 20 2005 17:09 utc | 16
i have a copy of it saved but am not sure what the su doc # is. if you email me i can send you what i have.
Posted by: annie | Jun 20 2005 17:09 utc | 17
Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005 (Introduced in Senate)[S.333.IS]
Iran Freedom Support Act (Introduced in House)[H.R.282.IH]
You don’t need to go to campus, just go to thomas.loc.gov
Posted by: tee | Jun 20 2005 17:10 utc | 18
It’s not at all unexpected Bush will address the people soon to inform them osama has been harbored by Iran. He needs to provide support for this accusation beyond what was provided for wmd in Iraq. But, bam, that’d do the trick, comrades.
Lacking the ubl in Iran rhetorical score, I think it’s possible for Bush to yet again roll out some variation of the teary-eyed straightshooter talk. “We must perservere in the face of evil…” in order to buy more public will.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 20 2005 17:11 utc | 19
house, iran freedom support act
does this help S.333 for senate
Posted by: annie | Jun 20 2005 17:17 utc | 20
I agree with patience – difficult to pull off another 9/11 without awakening the credulous, but arguably just as difficult to drum up support for another preemptive strike given the troop levels, the public doubt of administration rationales, the world-wide opprobium for the Iraq fiasco.
Unfortunately, even given all this, our remaining enemies are qualitatively different enough from Iraq that a preemptive strike rationale might still be successful. Both Iran and North Korea are genuine threats with genuine nukes (or close to it). So the WH doesn’t have to fake it, ala 9/11 or Iraq. They can do exactly what they did for Iraq, only this time the Rice UN report will be true, and the inspectors will actually be objected to, and there will be no need to trump up a causus belli. There will be a rogue regime with WMD thumbing its nose, and a US administration incabable of dealing with a situation toward a rational longterm goal, seeing every situation as a means to short term (2006 elections) emotional/political gain. Bad combo. I shudder to imagine the Cuban Blockade taking place under those conditions.
A war with Iraq or North Korea carries some risks that would be prohibitive under a sane leadership — slight potential for a devestating blow to US soil, grave toll on regional allies. However such a war also carries some odds which might be irresistable to the political machine. Distraction from sinking polls, electoral gains under the “circle round the president” mentality, change of circumstance allowing a renegging on the no-draft promise, excuse to move muscularly (which is the only way these guys are willing to move) to recreate the american political landscape to their own wet dream (uniparty, social-darwinist, aristocracy-police state).
Of course, perhaps their ambitions aren’t so drastic, and the proto-facist leanings aren’t indicative of a longterm aim but are merely reflective of the fact that the repubs shortterm aims (mostly toward laisez faire deregulation, and stripping of consumer protections, along with law and order pro police and military traditional patriarchal urges) are not achievable in the modern american landscape and therefore only through increased authoritarianism can the agenda be achieved. If this were an accurate analysis, then maybe there would remain enough of a conscience left in the WH not to pull the trigger. Ultimately, given the refusal of the other branches (including the press) to effectively counter the WH will, it will be up to those twisted poseurs in the administration to check themselves.
Posted by: There is still good in you father I can feel it | Jun 20 2005 17:23 utc | 21
I recently watched “13 Days” a movie documenting 13 days during the cuban missile crisis. Historical inaccuracies aside, the movie showed what an intelligent president would do when faced with a crisis and an option of military retaliation. Rather than begin bombing and invading Cuba, JFK held out for a more diplomatic strategy. He seemed to actually give mind to what would happen AFTERWARDS, which I guess is something that doesn’t really matter anymore.
Bomb them and God will sort them all out, right?
It doesn’t really matter what Bush does, or even who the next president is. There are several generations of desperate, war-shattered people who will gladly give their lives to topple the US. It is fundamentalism that will focus that hatred on America and within the next 10-15 years the Superpower will be a war zone.
So the housing bubble, peak oil, and the Iranian invasion don’t really scare me. We(americans) are already in the cross hairs.
Happy Days. Anyone need a drink?
Posted by: Greg | Jun 20 2005 17:24 utc | 22
I recently watched “13 Days” a movie documenting 13 days during the cuban missile crisis. Historical inaccuracies aside, the movie showed what an intelligent president would do when faced with a crisis and an option of military retaliation. Rather than begin bombing and invading Cuba, JFK held out for a more diplomatic strategy. He seemed to actually give mind to what would happen AFTERWARDS, which I guess is something that doesn’t really matter anymore.
Bomb them and God will sort them all out, right?
It doesn’t really matter what Bush does, or even who the next president is. There are several generations of desperate, war-shattered people who will gladly give their lives to topple the US. It is fundamentalism that will focus that hatred on America and within the next 10-15 years the Superpower will be a war zone.
So the housing bubble, peak oil, and the Iranian invasion don’t really scare me. We(americans) are already in the cross hairs.
Happy Days. Anyone need a drink?
Posted by: Greg | Jun 20 2005 17:25 utc | 23
You don’t need to go to campus, just go to thomas.loc.gov
Forgive me tee, but if you only rely on the internet for your information you are missing 3/4 of the equation in research w/regards to Gov docs. The su doc # the statutes at large and the corresponding debates (if any), tell you things you can not possibally glean from (controled)government webpages; “Real” research still takes some walking as aposed to finger clicking sorry to say.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2005 17:31 utc | 24
International Emergency Economic Powers Act
this is the one that funds the special operations forces. check out short title
Posted by: annie | Jun 20 2005 17:31 utc | 25
Scott Ritter has said that we are already sending drones into Iran and bombing there…..http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m12776&l=i&size=1&hd=0 <http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m12776&l=i&size=1&hd=0>
Posted by: acurtis | Jun 20 2005 17:33 utc | 26
Thanks for your willingness to help annie, but I prefer to do it the old fashion way 😉
see my above post to tee.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2005 17:34 utc | 27
Beckett’s Happy Days:
googly quotes:
Winnie’s predicament could be a metaphor for a number of conditions: the helplessness of disability, or of old age; the isolation of the human condition; the mystery of existence itself. Like all of us, she has no idea how she came to be where she is. She only knows there’s nothing she can do about it.
(elsewhere)
Winnie with her material obsessions and Willy with his newspaper and dirty postcards represent the easy target of a boring, conventional marriage in which a henpecked husband submits to a strong but sentimental wife who prays, preens, and prattles endlessly. But Beckett will not stoop to simple satiric irony. No, even Winnie has moments of acuity:
“Don’t squander all your words for the day,” she tells herself, “stop talking and do something for a change, will you?”
I’ll have a glass of rosé, than you.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 20 2005 17:38 utc | 28
Beckett’s Happy Days:
googly quotes:
Winnie’s predicament could be a metaphor for a number of conditions: the helplessness of disability, or of old age; the isolation of the human condition; the mystery of existence itself. Like all of us, she has no idea how she came to be where she is. She only knows there’s nothing she can do about it.
(elsewhere)
Winnie with her material obsessions and Willy with his newspaper and dirty postcards represent the easy target of a boring, conventional marriage in which a henpecked husband submits to a strong but sentimental wife who prays, preens, and prattles endlessly. But Beckett will not stoop to simple satiric irony. No, even Winnie has moments of acuity:
“Don’t squander all your words for the day,” she tells herself, “stop talking and do something for a change, will you?”
—-
I’ll have a glass of rosé, thank you.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 20 2005 17:39 utc | 29
The good thing about Iran is that it even rhymes with Vietnam – case in point by Country Joe:
And it’s one two three
what are we fighting for
don’t ask me I don’t give a damn
next stop is Teheran
And it’s five six seven
open up the pearly gate
Ain’t no time to wonder why
whoopee we’re all gonna die.
come on all of you big strong men
uncle Rummie needs your help again
got himself in a terrible jam
way down yonder in old Iran
———-
Posted by: citizen k | Jun 20 2005 18:23 utc | 31
Forgive me tee, but if you only rely on the internet for your information you are missing 3/4 of the equation in research w/regards to Gov docs. The su doc # the statutes at large and the corresponding debates (if any), tell you things you can not possibally glean from (controled)government webpages; “Real” research still takes some walking as aposed to finger clicking sorry to say.
As a Law Librarian with over a quarter century of experience, I agree with you. I doubt that anyone could out do me in manual research into legislative history. But if all you need is a copy of the bill thomas works fine. I am not yet paranoid enough to think that the Library of Congress is putting up inaccurate or misleading copies of bills.
Posted by: tee | Jun 20 2005 18:24 utc | 32
about country joe: problem is, no “half million fuckers” out there to sing along.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 20 2005 18:38 utc | 33
Bills and testimonies, legislative histories, etc., are still available via lexis congressional.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 20 2005 18:42 utc | 34
sorry…forgot lexis is hardly free…but available at your local lib.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 20 2005 18:45 utc | 35
I am not yet paranoid enough to think that the Library of Congress is putting up inaccurate or misleading copies of bills.
Nor am I, but I was wanting to do a little more indepth looking. Thanks.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2005 18:48 utc | 36
One caveat though tee, the new Bush ideology goes around the system as you likely know, hence, things such as this:
Archivist of the U.S.: Questionable Bush appointment slips under the radar
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 20 2005 18:55 utc | 37
Not just a crisis of US politics, teuton, but the entire US kultur (Just learned that word today in this thread but if fits perfectly.)
And it is far bigger than all the ones we patriots even conceive.
But the good news is that some of us do indeed care more.
Posted by: Juannie | Jun 21 2005 0:02 utc | 38
Any conceivable significant US attack on Iran will bring on a global depression because of the oil supply disruptions. The US doesn’t have sufficient ground troops to go into Iran, so any attack will be an air attack against high-value targets like the Iranian nuclear facilities and other potential WMD sites. Dubya and the posse may or may not include oil refineries and chemical plants in this target mix depending on which contributors pony up the big bucks. After the attack the world faces the question of how to prevent the Iranians from sinking one or more tankers in the Straits of Hormuz and blocking the channel. Such an even will prevent most of the oil in the Gulf from getting out to the rest of the world.
My advice is buy interests in Venezuelan, Mexican and Indonesian oil operations for a quick buck or two when crude spikes over $100 per barrel. It won’t last long because the global economy will grind to a standstill. The US just topped off the strategic petroleum reserve, but even that wouldn’t last long for the military given its operational tempo. It’ll be a long cold winter.
Posted by: PrahaPartizan | Jun 21 2005 0:16 utc | 39
PrahaPartizan : ‘…Such an even will prevent most of the oil in the Gulf from getting out to the rest of the world. ‘
And then will the Iranian dividions rush over the border in hot pursuit of their attackers?
And then will the Likudnikons, drooling mad and spitefully rejoicing at their latest “catastropic catalyst” nuke the Middle East?
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jun 21 2005 3:23 utc | 40
My husband just told me one big truth. What will it take for Americans to accept draft and endless wars…???
“ If petrol price runs up trough the roof and they can’t afford to drive their SUVs…” my husband rightly said. Is there anything to make Americans more furious?
Can you imagine collapse of “American way of life?” Can you imagine anything (and I mean ANYTHING) that Americans will NOT do to stop that collapse?
Posted by: vbo | Jun 21 2005 3:46 utc | 41
Hello, towelhead in the sand,
is this place at your command?
Popped into my head today.
Posted by: x | Jun 21 2005 4:25 utc | 42
can i stay here for awhile
can i tell you sweet sweet lies
Posted by: annie | Jun 21 2005 7:06 utc | 43
OT The following question should probably be in an open thread, but arises from comments in this thread.
Could someone explain searching via the “su doc #”?
Just what is su? Senate ?????
More generally, I’d be happy to learn any on-line search techniques
beyond “Googling”. I don’t have (easy) access to Lexis-Nexus, but would love to get a list of “my favorite
on line data bases” and how to access them effectively.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 21 2005 8:23 utc | 44