Google “AF 2025” the Pentagon’s vision
for global full spectrum dominance in
the next decades.
It was listed, in it’s 30,000 pages of
mad insanity, at:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/
-and linked at-
http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/2025/index2.htm
If you try to find it today, you get this,
which I should point out is a US military
website giving a 404 in *GERMAN*
“Objekt nicht gefunden!
Der angeforderte URL konnte auf dem Server
nicht gefunden werden. Der Link auf der
verweisenden Seite scheint falsch oder
nicht mehr aktuell zu sein. Bitte informieren
Sie den Autor dieser Seite über den Fehler.
Sofern Sie dies für eine Fehlfunktion des
Servers halten, informieren Sie bitte den
Webmaster hierüber.
Error 404
http://www.au.af.mil
Fri 22 Jul 2005 02:44:22 PM CDT
As I’ve said, many, many times, we are
already living in the Fourth Reich today.
Do I have to draw you a picture of the
Reichstag, the Polish Blitzkreig and
the Lebensraum gambit?
Full-scale WW3 is only a heartbeat away.
I wonder what future newsreels will look
like of Americans cheering the Wehrmacht.

Posted by: lash marks | Jul 22 2005 20:05 utc | 4

(BTW – (Ali) Khomenei is alive and the Grand Ayatollah of Iran’s Supreme Council, while Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has been dead for a while).
Thanks for the correction. Google steered me wrong — again.

Posted by: Billmon | Jul 22 2005 20:39 utc | 6

I have come very late to reading you Billmon. First, I like your writing style, second, your take on any subject and last, because your content is sometimes like a really scary horror movie..except it is real! Keep writing..you’re a ball of fire.

Posted by: paulie | Jul 22 2005 20:55 utc | 8

well nugget the old & very reverend khamenei just looks like an iranian version of dick cheney to me & tho i detest him from the bottom of my heart – if the maericans should touch a hair on his head – i would wish their armies the most bloody retribution
one part of me cannot conceive of the stupidity that would allow any form of military attack on iran let alone a nuclear one yet…. yet….. yet – i could not imagine the madness that passes for policy these days. an attack on iran – even a nuclear attack on iran is consistent with that madness
what has happened in england is small potatoes militarily & strategically yet instinctually – contrary to my otherwise bleak opinion of the capacity of the thousand ‘al qaedas’ – the extreme efficacity & simplicity of those attacks seem to serve as a warning of things that are coming, immediately & i think it will be very grand indeed
u s imperialism needs to turn up the fire a few notches while they are trying to get kim jong il off metamphetamines – & it seems that fire is coming in the direction of iran. even 6 months ago i would have thought it hardly impossible as the imperial armies are losing catastrophically in iraq – their only real option is to extend it into iran. in that case i hope the iranians are not all talk & no action – because this moment in our time, the time of humanity depends on a decisive response to the military force of u s imperialism
that imperialism is being defeated discreetly in latin america – with the full support of the people – that option is not open for either the arab ppeople or the persians. on the contrary if ever those people needed to articulate military necessity – it is now. not only for them but for all of us
at the beginning of all this – i sd i wished a diem bien phu or a stalingrad on the americans – not because i like to see the taking of blood but for an ancient truth – the only thing, the only real thing imperialism understands is force, violence & defeat militarily & otherwise

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 22 2005 21:23 utc | 10

Pretend you’re a neocon and imagine how much better everything would be today if we could have kept our pet Middle Eastern dictator Saddam (who of course whould have been one of those “good” dictators who are our allies against the “evil” freedom-hating dictators) leash trained as a counterbalance to Iran. Even throwing him Kuwait as a bone could have been rationalized (in the same political end-justifies-the-means way as it is now ok to out a covert CIA agent) if the current situation was the least bit forseen.
We could more control of Iraq than we do now occupying it ourselves, probably enough to have made sure that Saddam wouldn’t be able to produce or use WMD’s (on us or our allies at least, which is all that matters). We could get all Iraq’s oil as part of the deal, and have him fight the real terrorists in Iran for us, without spending a single American life.
Haliburton would probably get a lot less money in this scenario, though, so maybe that’s why it never happened.

Posted by: Philosophy | Jul 22 2005 21:30 utc | 12

Ahhh! The only lesson to be learned from any of this is that intervention in another country’s affairs will guarantee blowback. The way the world is at the moment just the slightest inference that the US is involved in the internal affairs of a country will cause an extremely hostile reaction from within that country.
The New Zealand election season is just getting underway a subject that should only be marginally interesting to kiwis let alone anyone outside. Yet the whole thing took on a whole new frisson when a government minister scored an own goal last week by alleging that the opposition conservatives were being funded by the US. It transpired that the mystery ‘bagman’ had been funding both parties. heheh what a surprise!
Those who have played a board game called Diplomacy can attest like Billmon that geography is supreme in countries relationships with each other. The board is a map of Europe circa 1914, players are alloted a country each and generally find that their behaviour mirrors that of the actual history of that nation. Germany has to create a secure passage to the sea at the same time as it resists threats from East and West, Britain always has a defensive advantage because of it’s island status, France becomes everyone elses battleground, Italy can really only invade North Africa etc.
It is totally frustrating that after thousands of years of evidence to the contrary that careerist diplomats, spies and politicians still think they can exert any long term influence over another nation.
The last para in Billmon’s post is terrifying because it is so absurd yet so believable. The use of nukes anywhere much less the mid east will open the floodgates to allow any of the many psychologically vertically challenged despots around the world who have their ‘finger on the button’ to open their greasy old raincoat and flash the rest of the world with their malformed little nuke.
We have to have more faith in the human condition than that. There’s no doubt that people in the US have been exposed to a culture of unquestioning obedience to executive authority, especially in the military. I don’t believe though that all the necessary humans in the nuke chain of command can be reduced to the automations that nuking Iran with no evidence of an attack on the US would require.
Yes the Nazis found thousands of people prepared to be ‘good germans’. They did that by dehumanising their targets Jews, Gypsies and Commies. This sort of an operation would require the dehumanisation of self along with that of the enemy because the consequence of nuking anywhere in the Middle East is pretty plain for most.
The US military has already lost whatever ‘trust’ it had in this administration and the careerists amongst them will be quite prepared to draw up ‘contingency plans’ but they are very different from the 9 to 5ers who are going to have to implement the plan.
I admit I could be completely wrong on this but if I am I reckon it would be fair to say that humanity deserves what would certainly happen next.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 22 2005 21:43 utc | 14

Billmon is so on the money here…….. except………. what will be the reason to nuke Iran?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 22 2005 21:49 utc | 16

Most of us already know that the neocons, for all their macho swagger, are chumps — like the elementary school nerd who gives a girl a fiver to “let them feel something soft,” and then blinks stupidly when she guides his hand to his own downy cheek.
Brilliant, Billmon, and so true. In fact, if we weren’t talking about something as serious as the future of humanity, all this would be very, very funny. As your headline suggests, this really is becoming like a Mel Brooks movie, with a little Stanley Kubrick thrown in.

Posted by: Phil from New York | Jul 22 2005 22:31 utc | 18

Dick Nixon’s “madman theory” — acting like a genocidal maniac in hopes of convincing the other side that you really might be a genocidal maniac
Well, I guess it’s only a theory, only if you happen not to be Vietnamese…
Good point. I should have said: “genocidal nuclear maniac.”

Posted by: billmon | Jul 22 2005 22:49 utc | 20

The administration is telling Iran to go easy on any deals with al-Jafari’s government, I guess.
At any rate, it’s a little fishy that it’s Cheney’s name that is fronted here. They’re pretty good at setting up the Preznit on initiatives, and with all the criticism of Bush not being in charge, this doesn’t look that good, to begin with.
Then there’s the fact that the Pentagon has contingency attack “books” dealing with any kind of event and enemy. They probably started working on the Iran book before they put the Shah in to place as the ruler of Iran, and it must have gotten a solid revision during the Carter presidency.
After the toppling of the Saddam statue, the Neo-Cons were swinging their balls in the wind and wanted to go for Teheran, so the book must have been updated solidly, and regularly.
Attacking Iran, at any rate, is truly for the madhouse. The place is twice as large as Alaska, mountainous and inaccessible, and they’ve had time to prepare.
Who knows, maybe the Neo-Cons are going for 1000 dollar oil barrels? Now that they have Texas online and profitable again, with oil over 50USD, we’ll could soon see old Oklahoma oil wells coming back on stream, I guess.
I’m not saying this is a canard. Plans for attacking Iran have been in the works since Khomeini threw out the Shah.
I’d advise that any Americans living outside the USA be given time to move home before the attack. The rest of the world will be furious, and there will be collateral damage, to use one of the favorite phrases of the idiots in the White House.

Posted by: SteinL | Jul 22 2005 23:09 utc | 22

Standin’ here in Dick Cheney’s mind, just lookin’ out at reality. It looks hard, through his eyes. An it’s hard in here. Real hard. There are voices.
These goddamm sissy Americans wanna drive around in their super-size-me’s takin’ their whiny snot-nosed kids to soccer and movies and the mall wanna eat beef at every meal wanna drive to Disneyland every summer wanna refi and move up to somethin with two bathrooms this time where the hell they think it all comes from what’s this cryin’ outta their assholes tellin’ me about $2.50 a gallon those ungrateful peons in their cubicles and cars making endless demands on me for their lifestyles after all those years slaving away in this town and in Texas to get them the oil that makes their world possible they wanna gimme the hairy eyeball now do they wanna be for peace and love and you-mon rights and give away our food to all those fly-covered skinny little — whatta bunch of shitheads half of ’em don’t even vote when they have the chance they still wanna tell old Dick Cheney where he went wrong they wanna impeach him for playin’ hardball with the Russian-Iranians well Mister Dick is still on the job and they’re gonna remember me for a goddamned long time when I get through with those towelheads an their slanty-eyed friends if I’ve said it once I’ve said it thousand times if I can’t have that oil no one can by God I’ll make those Persian fields so goddamn radioactive they’ll be drillin’ in sideways from behind the pyramids forevermore those lousy yellow Chinese bastards think they can buy what’s mine there ain’t now way cuz it’s all in my hands at last it’s mine to Dick with it’s just me makin’ history after 9/11 I’m Mister History from here on out for as long as this world lasts they’ll be talkin’ how Mister Dick took no guff from the slopes and sand monkeys when the shootin’ started he just pulled out his Big Hammer an took America to the next level
. . .

Posted by: Antifa | Jul 22 2005 23:43 utc | 24

Antifa channels r’giap?
so debs, Geography is Destiny? but how does that explain the EU today?
This sort of an operation would require the dehumanisation of self along with that of the enemy because the consequence of nuking anywhere in the Middle East is pretty plain for most.
Have a read and a shudder — dehumanisation is already well along in some sectors of US society, cf the murderous anti-Arab bumperstickers and t shirts available online and in storefronts. I have not read Hatzfeld’s book and am not sure I can bear to, but:

By taking a backseat to the firsthand accounts, Hatzfeld allows the killers to explain just how and why average Hutus calmly followed orders and willingly trekked into the swamps in search of their Tutsi prey. They admit that they killed reluctantly at first, but soon it became routine work, no different than the hacking of weeds and plants on their plots of land. A sense of camaraderie and teamwork existed among those who hunted in the swamps, and everyone was allowed to kill at his own pace, so long as he killed.
[…]
Scouring the swamps and killing Tutsis was hard work and soon became rather tedious, but the prospect of looting the dead drove them on. The killers found themselves living in an anarchic utopia where they no longer tended to their fields or even operated within a recognizable market economy. Rather, the entire society sustained itself by simply stealing everything of value from those it had killed.
Amid the carnage of their own making, the Hutus maintained a festive atmosphere. “Anybody who once had eaten meat only at weddings, he found himself stuffed with it day after day,” explain one killer. “When we got back from the marshes … we snapped up roast chicken, haunches of cow, and drinks to remedy our fatigue.” The others shared similar memories: “We got up rich, we went to bed with full bellies, we lived a life of plenty. Pillaging is more worthwhile than harvesting, because it profits everyone equally.”

Pillaging is more worthwhile than harvesting — as Halliburton, Blackwater and the rest can testify. And mass murder is hard work and soon becomes rather tedious, as the Einsatzgruppen members told us only a few decades ago. Nuking Iran would require dehumanisation of self and the other — the horrible truth is that the dehumanisation is not that hard to achieve. It’s been done again and again. Hate-propaganda, plus opportunities galore to loot and rape, plus absence of consequences = instant Redi-Mix genocide.

Posted by: DeAnander | Jul 23 2005 0:05 utc | 26

dea
can you imagine what it must belike to be a neurone in cheneys head that is if there are any neurones left. it would be a most troublesome space & i’ve been to many bad places but i imagine dick cheney’ cerebral cortex not even dante in delirium could imagine
i’d do a riff about what’s going on in bush’s skull but there its quite, quite empty
bolton – that would be this schoolboy nietzschean mixed up with marcus welby mixed up wiith sgt schultz run through leo strauss – i’d be far too fucking scared to even go near that skull
negroponte – i imagine cadaver after cadaver after cadaver – & some drinks down georgetown way
rove – ayn rand fucking with gary cooper fucking with ayn rand fucking with gary cooper
rumsfield – well its all in his prick, that prick

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 23 2005 0:30 utc | 28

DeAnander

so debs, Geography is Destiny? but how does that explain the EU today?t

To that I cop out and reply that Diplomacy is set in the geography and conditions of 1914 which aren’t that dissimilar to today’s geography (excluding austria-hungarian and ottoman empires) whereas the EU developed from the post ww2 map of Europe where the geography was different and the circumstances vastly different ie mid to late 20th century was the closest yet to the rule of the ordinary man as opposed to kings/presidents. Perhaps the recent turbulence in the EU can be attributed to geographic re-alignment mixed with shifts in power concentration. But alla this is drawing far too much from a relatively simple board game which tends to steer people to follow existing historical/geographic imperative.
As far as dehumanisation goes I have no doubt that the people in the US have had Arabs sufficiently dehumanised to remove that obstacle to nuking the ME, but the real question is have they dehumanised themselves to the point where the otherwise ordered and conventional people that inhabit the military are capable of no longer caring about the effects of their actions on themselves. Once people have been trained to think consequentially is it possible to ‘untrain’ that behaviour?
I don’t know if you remember the news stories that were around in the ’70s about full dress rehersal of the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) strategy that was all the rage in the cold war. Although the grunts could be relied upon to ‘press the button’ if they knew they were playing a war game, if they thought the situation was genuine compliance fell off considerably. Even in situations where one grunt was meant to pull out his piece and force the other to comply, the human relationship which had developed between people meant that these routines weren’t adhered to.
Of course a heap of work will have been done to reduce the human element since then. I suspect though that no-one could countenance a completely automatic nuke system, so human ‘safeguards’ will still be in the procedural chains. Now it is also certain that a mob of psychological work will have been put into determining what type of individual is most likely to follow orders without question but also not be so rabid that they do an independent nuke. My scepticism about reliance on using generalised data to predict specific behaviour tells me to paraphrase the raygun “that although the evidence tells me that this thing will happen my heart tells me it won’t.”
These threats against Iran just don’t have the feel of the big stick approach to me. I mean alla these types are paid up NRA flunkies so they should know that threatening someone with a gun simply encourages that person to go out and buy a bigger gun.
But what do I know Cheney has been right about everything else so far. lol

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 23 2005 0:48 utc | 30

And speaking of Ghorbanifar, here’s and excellent diary on Ghorbanifar, Ledeen, Italy, Niger, and that first pack of lies. Here’s one bit I found really interesting:
Rocco Martino, Michael Ledeen, Francesco Pazienza, Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolo Pollari are all members of P-2. P-2 is found out to have been running a parallel intelligence network that recruited SISMI agents. Pollari authorized the abduction of Abu Omar. The abduction was allegedly coordinated by Robert Lady. An unknown SISMI agent contacts Martino and puts him in touch with a “lady” who can get him documents about Niger. The Niger Embassy is broken into. The unknown SISMI agent gives the “lady” real Niger documents along with the forgeries. This “lady” gives them to Martino.
And now the road takes us to the office of Panorama.
Panorama is owned by Silvio Berlusconi.
Elisabetta Burba, a journalist for Panorama, receives a telephone call from Rocco Martoni telling her about the Niger documents, offering to sell them to here for ten thousand dollars.  She meets with him and he gives her photocopies.  She asks how they could be authenticated and he shows her a photocopy of the codebook from the Niger Embassy.
Italian authorities believe the codebook was obtained in the breakin of the Niger Embassy in 2001.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 23 2005 1:22 utc | 32

Alright alright despite my previously stated reservations I’ll be scared by this nuke Iran business. I’ve followed a couple of links out of here to other blogs and one contains the following gem of an exchange:

Just a thought… Would it be that bad for the Iranians to at least WORRY that we might seriously be committed to nuking them if they sponsored a terrorist attack?
Posted by: Will Wilkinson | July 22, 2005 04:17 PM
Will:
Absolutely not. In fact, I think there ought to be no confusion about our having a very short fuse when it comes to such matters.

Now who can see the flaw in this thinking? “That a terrorist attack on innocents in our country is so bad that it is OK for us to nuke innocents from their country.” And Iran’s next move would be? So it seems there are people in the US even those who hang on the left side of things who can suspend disbelief in massacres of ordinary people for long enough to ‘get our own back’.
The next glaring flaw in this strategy is the one that Leopold 2 seeks to exploit. That is that none of us, not even the terrorists can be really sure who was behind a terrorist action. The recent debate in these pages about who was responsible for the world trade centre murders is proof of that. Surely even the average Joe Blow in the US is getting pretty jaded by spin now. Would it really be possibe to convince them that there was sufficient evidence to warrant nuking. The spanish conservatives’ failed attempt to blame ETA for the Madrid murders tells us that the sheeple can’t always be relied upon to swallow sweet bullshit when grieving and scared.
The truly scary thing of the publicity for this ‘strategy’ is that it hands a really powerful weapon to anyone that finds Iran a fly in their ointment. Apart from the obvious candidates like Israel, who have the motive, the means and the opportunity to stage a terrorist attack in the US and sheet the blame onto Iran, just about anyone with a grudge against Iran could consider this an opportunity too good to miss.
Imagine you are a former middle management member of Saddam’s old military. You’re probably going to be Sunni as well as unemployed and trying to come to terms with the fact that the undermensch are going to rule your country assisted by Iran, for the forseeable future. On the other hand a well planned and executed attack on the US would pretty much guarantee that Iran and shia in general are going to become the next members of the Axis of Evil for the US to ‘take out’. This also means that the US will want to get onside with the sunnis in Iraq and make the whole strategy as failsafe as possible. So the ex-Ba’athist sunni decides to stage a terror attack on the US. Even if the plan blows up in his face things couldn’t get much worse than they already are, but if it succeeds the Sunnis will end up back in control of Iraq with a weakened Iran as a neighbour. A definite can’t lose scenario. Yet this is meant to make the US safer against terrorist attack?
Is it just I’m a particularly twisted thinker or are the repugs really that stoopid?

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 23 2005 2:19 utc | 34

Does anyone know of a single Democrat, holding elective position in Washington, who has firmly denounced, unequivocally and in principle, the use of atomic weapons against Iran? I’m hardly an expert on the subject, and if such a person exists, I’d be grateful to know who he or she might be. And if no such person exists, I’d like to know why. And until I learned that such a person exists, I’d take it as the height of folly to suppose that the idea of using atomic weapons against Iran–or the appeal of such an idea–is restricted to neo-cons, Republicans, or the military offspring of General Curtis Le May ( the usual suspects, in a word). Oh, and one other thing, while I’m at it: if Fitzgerald really does the business of bringing AIPAC’s activities to the attention of all and sundry, then I suspect that many an elected Democrat will be most unhappy with the man. Biden, Pelosi, Lieberman–I think their praise for Fitzgerald is (and will continue to be) very faint indeed. They may, at some point, actually find occasions to speak of him in slighting and dismissive terms–as a man of narrow vision, if not as a Republcan.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 23 2005 3:00 utc | 36

It’s starting to look like we may get an answer to the question “Will the survivors envy the dead?”

Posted by: R.L. | Jul 23 2005 3:28 utc | 38

Reading this bit of Billmon’s post-

Given the risks… many on the right are expressing a not-so-secret hope that the Israelis will take care of the problem …like they took care of Saddam’s nuclear reactor … may be beyond even the Israeli Air Force’s capabilities ….

According to military experts in Israel and elsewhere, the Israel Air Force does not have the strength that is needed to destroy the sites in Iran in a preemptive strike that will make it impossible for Iran to manufacture nuclear weapons . . .

– makes me wonder: why should we think the Israelis would act alone? In the “fog” of an attack, who would notice the involvement of US stealth fighters and bombers. Who, for that matter would be able to tell that damage was inflicted not by an Israeli strike force, but an American cruise missile? A bona fide Israeli strike could, perhaps, hide an American participation if done right, I think. Plausible deniability.
I can see where some in this administration must envision this scenario as a win/win. Iran’s nuclear ambitions get taken out while our efforts in Iraq suffer no negative backlash. Not that I think we wouldn’t suffer severe destabalization in Iraq.

Posted by: Vello | Jul 23 2005 4:31 utc | 40

Good points, small coke. I keep waiting to see Eminent Republicans forming a committee to help out – Republicans for Impeachment/Good Government..whatever – Kevin Phillips, John Dean, guys everyone has to listen to should step forward to move the ball along quickly & provide cover. A huge group of them stepping forward together, barnstorming the country, simply ripping these guys to shreds would help embolden the Repugs in Congress & the MSM. Where the hell are they? These guys are mostly retired & enough of them couldn’t be picked off.
Given what these assholes have done, I don’t see why this should fall to “Dems”, or Congress. They’ve Bankrupted the Nation & on-the-record did Zero when warned of impending attacks. What else do you need to know? There should be a bi-partisan movement demanding that they Get Out Now. We’ll deal w/Treason Trials later.
Someone posted that since the CIA is carrying the ball on this – as they probably did w/Nixon – something which I find Extremely Disturbing, if things get too bad, much dirty laundry will start dripping out. (I keep waiting for tales of their homosexual escapades to splash across the pages, but I realize we’re not there yet.)
I’m not sure I agree w/your Mossad bit. I expect that the CIA will want the next Admin. to remove their authorization altogether. Also, Israel – or significant figures therein – really want the Iran attack, so I’m concerned.

Posted by: jj | Jul 23 2005 5:11 utc | 42

drip drip
Meanwhile, a parallel investigation is under way into who forged the Niger documents. They are known to have been passed to an Italian journalist by a former Italian defence intelligence officer, Rocco Martino, in October 2002, but their origins have remained a mystery. Mr Martino has insisted to the Italian press that he was “a tool used by someone for games much bigger than me”, but has not specified who that might be.
A source familiar with the inquiry said investigators were examining whether former US intelligence agents may have been involved in possible collaboration with Iraqi exiles determined to prove that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear programme.

Posted by: annie | Jul 23 2005 7:16 utc | 44

We can’t ‘win’ in Iraq. And I recall posting previously why the Iranians won … starting with the farce of the IGC and ‘our man’ Chalabi … the Sunnis have always been the only possible US allies in Iraq re strongmanning(?) the country … and we’ve been deftly maneuvred into making them our heartily committed generational enemies … way to go Iran …
Following is arepost from the previous thred, just as relevant …
We effectively lost the counter-insurgency war within the first three months following the 2003 invasion … a combination of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah I & II were the final nails in the coffin of a now inevitable US strategic defeat … Jeez, we’re even having trouble ‘winning’ in Afghanistan, for Chrissakes!
I’ve posted the relevant War College studies and the military summaries of Iran previously … so, short version … we go into Iran and our already soon to collapse US Army and Marines (12-24 months) can be kissed goodbye … they’ll be irrevocably crippled and won’t be able to recover for more than a decade … cruise missiles and aircraft can cause devastating destruction, yippeeh !(sarcasm), yet they can’t ‘win’ alone against a determined and nationalistic foe, and Iran is certainly that, and they can’t sieze or hold ‘ground’ …
We go to war with Iran and we will have lit a geopolitical powderkeg, a 21st century version of the 1914 ‘Guns of August’ … economically, politically, and re legitimacy in world affairs … kiss the shreds that are left goodbye … and oh yeah, the Iranians have been FORMALLY specializing in preparing for a REAL insurgency war if invaded by the ‘Great Satan’ for more than a decade … a guerilla war in Iran would make the current Iraq look like Grenada by comparison … and oh, yeah, if terrorism re the nebulous ‘ideology’ of Al-Qaeda and offshoots is a problem now, watch it turn into a worldwide bonfire among the 1 billion+ Muslims, especially the Shia, of the world when we unilaterally invade the THIRD Islamic country in a row !!!
We are entering a very dark stage in world affairs and the current Bush cabal are sowing the seeds of serious geopolitical conflict and turmoil … the NPT treaty has been effectively sundered re recent policies changes re India and Pakistan … the lessons to be learnt by the non G8 nations of the world are that terrorism, guerilla warfare and most especially possession of WMDs, including Nukes, is your only defense/deterrent against the potential rampages of an out of control, unilateral, western Democratic cabal led by the militarily overpowering US … sanctions in the short term, but only posessing WMDs can deter the ‘Empire’ for sure … Bush via Rummies China threat brief has now effectively declared China our future Cold War enemy, the modern USSR’, a self-fulfilling process has commenced … yet the economic power of China paired with the natural resources and technology of Russia is a whole different ball game indeed … 🙁
The threat of World War and Nuclear conflict during the Cold War was bad enough, but now we’ve created a playing field for 21st century warfare where there are now NO RULES, none whatsoever !
The Laws of War and the Geneva Conventions have been demonstrably rendered ‘quaint’, future conflicts will be progressively more vicious and inhumane, the precedents and ‘interpretations’ have been set …
Unless some modern form of enlightenment occurs soon, a dismally faint hope, a 21st century ‘Dark Ages’ of diverse, virtually continuous military conflict may be upon us relatively soon, bloc against bloc, threatening to erupt into regional or even global conflict …
The quote from the Air Force planners in an earlier post is not a joke and not to be taken lightly … many military and intelligence planner/analyst vets, pragmatic and realistic people of all beliefs and backgrounds, have been getting progressively more ‘concerned’, and that’s stating the case ‘lightly’, for some time since the Afghanistan ‘adventure’ …
Sorry to be so, dark …

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 23 2005 10:36 utc | 46

Nice post, small coke. scary as hell, but nice.
From Outraged:
they just require special authorization to launch … we’re not talking silos with ICBMs here … regionally positioned tac nukes from nuclear subs, surface ships, strike aircraft (AF & Navy)and cruise/tomahawk misslles would be more than sufficient for thier insane aims …
As I said in another thread, it’s not the tenuous occupations on both sides of Iran that are the issue. Rather, it’s the Navy, Air Force, etc. in the Persian Gulf.
A previous rumor, again, was that Israel would provide the cover for a larger U.S. strike from the Gulf. Not with the intention to invade, but to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities and other war-making objects.
And as everyone knows, smart bombs aren’t really. As if, as you say, Outraged, a THIRD invasion or strike would be seen as “limited.” –as if a nuclear option does not send the clear message that “the other” has been dehumanized by the crazies with their fingers too close to the triggers.
If this goes forward, yes, I think all hell is about to break loose.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 23 2005 15:39 utc | 48