That’s almost poetic. No wonder Billmon wants to keep them in the WH.
Drink your juice, Noirette but hang onto your hat.

Posted by: beq | Oct 12 2006 18:28 utc | 4

A hundred NATO/US warships ccould mean a blockade of Iran and to also protect oil production.
Maybe the scenario is Israel attacks Iran, Iran retaliates against USA, and Bush declares “We have been attacked …” …
But I doubt that Israel would unilaterally bomb Iran in the present situation. Just my instinct.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 12 2006 18:54 utc | 6

The guest op-eds in the New York Times are usually laugh-worthy (the recent one about how No Child Left Behind should be applied in colleges is a particularly cringe-worthy example). But a month or two ago, they had one about how the Bush administration had made pessimism, in the political sense that things aren’t generally going to be better, popular again struck me as surprisingly simple and enlightening
With that in mind, Lind’s final line about how “In 2008, I might not be the only monarchist in America.” is both darkly humorous and probably true.

Posted by: Rowan | Oct 12 2006 19:15 utc | 8

Butler Shaffer posted at Lew Rockwell’s blog that the Republicans and Democrats “are two wings of the same bird of prey.”

Posted by: Ensley | Oct 12 2006 19:17 utc | 10

why we fight?
Iraq approves law on autonomous regions
This, in turn, is expected to confirm the de facto self-rule already enjoyed by the Kurdish north and lead to a new Shiite homeland in the oil-rich south.
The law is opposed by some in the minority Sunni community, however, who fear that their group, which once dominated Iraqi government, will be left only with a rump territory in the barren west and centre of the country.
ready set go

Posted by: annie | Oct 12 2006 19:30 utc | 12

@11. Smart *one*.

Posted by: beq | Oct 12 2006 19:33 utc | 14

I’ve been watching the moon wane for the last few days and fearing what the new moon around the 21st will bring. Umbra, meet umbrage.

Posted by: biklett | Oct 12 2006 20:28 utc | 16

biklet, the new moon is officially the 22 at 1 am, which would make the night of the 21st totally black, closer to the new moon than the night of the 22nd.

Posted by: annie | Oct 12 2006 20:57 utc | 18

@b;
The March To War
The Med Armada
Germany Wants Some Action Too

Posted by: Antifa | Oct 12 2006 21:18 utc | 20

Also…
@Annie #19 (and others) re: moon phase, change, etc.
It is part of my life-philosophy that spring and autumn, being seasons of change, are the best times to begin new projects, make adjustments to lifestyle, end bad relationships, whatever. Use the ‘momentum’ of the season…surf into the next new thing.
Yes, pretty dang scary, but there’s also the potential to use the momentum from whatever bad happens to push in a good direction.
Gawd! I sound like a fortune cookie!

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Oct 12 2006 22:38 utc | 22

right on, uncle.

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 13 2006 0:21 utc | 24

For what it is worth, I figured the UNIFIL armada was a consequence of everyone volonteering anything but boots on the ground, making for lots of coordinators on Cyprus and boats of the shore.
Ack – right view- the german ships in the east mediteranian sea don`t have weapons to reach Iran, no cruse missiles, so I doubt they are positioned to do something to Iran. They are useless against hezbullah too. Its just a show for the lobby so far.

Posted by: b | Oct 13 2006 1:54 utc | 26

Army chief declares war on Blair: ‘We must quit Iraq soon’

The head of the Army is calling for British troops to withdraw from Iraq “soon” or risk catastophic consequences for both Iraq and British society.
In a devastating broadside at Tony Blair’s foreign policy, General Sir Richard Dannatt stated explicitly that the continuing presence of British troops “exacerbates the security problems” in Iraq.
…
His views will send shockwaves through Government.
They are a total repudiation of the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly insisted that British presence in Iraq is morally right and has had no effect on our domestic security.
Sir Richard, who took up his post earlier this year, warned that “our presence in Iraq exacerbates” the “difficulties we are facing around the world.”
…

Sounds good? Watch out, the guy is a Christian wing-nut – who should never have been into the position he is in.

Sir Richard warned that the consequences will be felt at home, where failure to support Christian values is allowing a predatory Islamist vision to take hold.
He said: “When I see the Islamist threat in this country I hope it doesn’t make undue progress because there is a moral and spiritual vacuum in this country.”
“Our society has always been embedded in Christian values; once you have pulled the anchor up there is a danger that our society moves with the prevailing wind.”
“There is an element of the moral compass spinning. I think it is up to society to realise that is the situation we are in.”
“We can’t wish the Islamist challenge to our society away and I believe that the army both in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably wherever we go next, is fighting the foreign dimension of the challenge to our accepted way of life.”
…
“It is not acceptable for our casualties to be in mixed wards with civilians. I was outraged at the story of someone saying ‘take your uniform off’. Our people need the privacy of recovering in a military environment – a soldier manning a machine gun in Basra loses consciousness when he is hit by a missile and next recovers consciousness in a hospital in the UK.”
“He wants to wake up to familiar sights and sounds, he wants to see people in uniform. He doesn’t want to be in a civilian environment.”

Posted by: b | Oct 13 2006 2:05 utc | 28

re my #27 i should have been clearer
If Iran strikes USA first (after being attacked by the Israelis but that does not count),
i have heard this floated in passing more than once. why is there an assumption that if israel starts the offense by attacking iran, iran will engage US fleet first? why not go for israel immediately?

Posted by: annie | Oct 13 2006 2:53 utc | 30

From billmon
The moral of the story, I guess, is that you don’t need to be an inhuman monster to cause an inhuman amount of death, destruction and suffering. You don’t even need evil — ignorance and arrogance and incompetence can manage the job quite nicely.
Our deeds define us, not some pre-existing “essential” characteristics, “good” or “evil”.
Causing an “inhuman” amount of death, destruction and suffering makes us the “inhuman”, everyday monsters that we are.
Our ignorance and arrogance and incompetence are what routinely give rise to the evil results of our actions.
Ignorance, arrogance, and incompetence seem widespread enough both spatially and temporally to be regarded as characteristic of human actions, so perhaps we ought to drop the “inhuman” before the death, destruction and monsters?
Or would it perhaps be more instructive to drop just the “in” :
The moral of the story, I guess, is that you don’t need to be a monstrous human to cause an appalingly human amount of death, destruction and suffering. You don’t even need evil — ignorance and arrogance and incompetence manage the job quite nicely.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Oct 13 2006 3:44 utc | 32

Sorry I posted the preceding here, I thought I was in OT6-96.
I just read the article at the link at the top of the thread.

Would they let thousands more young Americans get killed or wounded just so George W. does not have to face the consequences of his own folly? In a heartbeat.
There is even a somewhat graceful way out of Iraq, if the Dems will ask themselves my favorite foreign policy question, WWBD – What Would Bismarck Do? He would transfer sufficient Swiss francs to interested parties so that the current government of Iraq asks us to leave. They, not we, would then hold the world’s ugliest baby, even though it was America’s indiscretion that gave the bastard birth.

The truth from the lips of cynics.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Oct 13 2006 4:03 utc | 34

unexpected resignations by some top millitary brass would constitute a strong indication that an attack on Iran is imminent.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 13 2006 13:27 utc | 36

More from monarchist Lind: The Alternative to Empire

And now three years later, this PNAC Democrat, asked by The American Prospect to review my book The American Way of Strategy, derides and dismisses it.
He would, wouldn’t he? After all, The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life is, among other things, an argument for the contemporary relevance of the tough-minded liberal internationalism of Franklin Roosevelt and his Cold War liberal successors. Lindsay rejects this great tradition in favor of the rival and now-dying 1990s school of neoliberalism, which he calls “Clintonian liberal internationalism,” but which is more accurately described as the ideology of the Democratic Party’s neocon-friendly Lieberman wing.

Posted by: b | Oct 13 2006 15:16 utc | 38

@beq – not that I know – but the folks at the New America Foundation, Michael Lind, Steve Clemens, often give me the impression that they are monarchists – the British, a bit snobby kind. William Lind of the Free Congress Foundation is a comitted monarchist, but of the Prussian variant.

Posted by: b | Oct 13 2006 15:58 utc | 40