Bravo! Excellent analysis.

You’re so far ahead of the curve, I’m surprised they don’t call you to be on with Tim Russert on Meet the Press.

Re: Russert:

Heh. Wouldn’t that be a riot?

Re: Ass from ground hole:

No.

These folks really have an enormous amount of contempt for the intelligence of the American people.
Why such feeble lies!…….They have every intention of taking the fight into Iran and yet they don’t even have the courage to be straightfoward…….

Chuck,

You have it absolutely right. I thought of that same analogy earlier today, but was too busy doing something else/lazy to write it down myself.

Thanks!

Osama is living in Iran? I thought he was buried there…

In Gordon’s NY Times article, which has 42 paragraphs, I counted 30 uses of “government officials said” or “according to intelligence reports” or the like. I counted five times that something was actually attributed to a specific person. Try it yourself!

Bob: “In Gordon’s NY Times article, which has 42 paragraphs, I counted 30 uses of “government officials said” or “according to intelligence reports” or the like. I counted five times that something was actually attributed to a specific person. Try it yourself!”

From Jonathan Schwarz:

“U.S. Says…United States intelligence asserts…reflects broad agreement among American intelligence agencies…civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies provided…military officials say…The officials said…The assessment was described in interviews over the past several weeks with American officials…Administration officials said…according to the intelligence…According to American intelligence…Some American intelligence experts believe…they assert…notes a still-classified American intelligence report…a senior administration official said…according to Western officials…Officials said…An American intelligence assessment described to The New York Times said…Other officials believe…American military officers say…American officials say…According to American intelligence agencies…Assessments by American intelligence agencies say…Marine officials say…American intelligence agencies are concerned…Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week.”

In 1962 and 63, United States Special Forces teams trained Iranian, Iraqi, Saudi Arabian, Pakistani, Jordanian, Lebanese, Turkish, Greek and other “indigenous” forces in the middle east in the techniques and disciplines of guerrilla warfare including field expedient demolitions. We taught them very well. Our students are today making roadside bombs, suicide bombs, letter bombs, field expedient penetrating bombs using wine bottles that are designed to blast through seven inches of homogeneous steel.

Upon returning to Europe, one of our Special Forces members wrote to his father, who was then the Army Chief of Staff at the Pentagon describing the training and the countries visited. His father, General Goodpaster took this letter to the next meeting of the Joint Chief’s of Staff and stated: “I didn’t know we had our forces in these countries!”

Three days later a letter arrived at the 10th Special Forces Group Headquarters in Bad Toelz, Germany from SOTFE,
Special Operations Task Force Europe, the Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, directing the Commanding Officer of the 10th SF to order Billy Goodpasture not to write any more letters to his father about Special Forces Operations in Europe, North Africa or the Middle East.

This same scenario was repeated during the Vietnam War.

Are we supposed to be surprised when things go wrong in the Middle East today for our transgressions of years ago? Who’s in charge, anyway?

then it should come as no shock they’ve been and continue operating by the same method within and without Iran

how nice of them to print on their munitions in english so we don’t have to translate, huh?

Of course, as this is a sloppy neocon ruse, as per usual, there is a problem here. Can you guess what it is?

If you guessed the date, you win a Cupie doll. For some reason the geniuses at the Pentagon have failed to explain why the Iranians used a date from the Christian Gregorian calendar and not one from the Islamic Persian calendar. According to the Muslim calendar, the date stenciled on this mortar shell should read 1427, not 2006. And why did Iran, a country speaking and writing in Persian, a language written in a version of the Arabic script, decide to label their shells in English? Maybe they thought it would fool the infidels?

…Mud, you never cease to impress me…Joe, Iran’s been dumping weapons to their Shia-Persian co-religionists and partisans in Iraq for at least 20 to 30 years not to mention the 8 year war they prosecuted against them…Then, weren’t US Forces supposed to secure those weapons and munitions dumps post invasion? I recall one GI referring to Iraq as “An arms dump with a Government that’s now an arms dump without a Government”…All this, and many other realities conveniently ignored previous to The Decider’s landing on that carrier in his G-Suit and Helmet, to “Mission Accomplished” banners…Seems to me like at least attempting to secure all those arms depots and munitions bunkers, before you embark on a Military occupation of an Islamic Country wherein you are for the most part detested, would’ve been a good idea…Or: Maybe Don Guantanamo Rumsfeld, for reasons best known to himself; did try to do it on the cheap? I don’t know Gentlemen, but in my opinion: The Clean Break blue print for War, and the joint US Israeli Secret Policy in Iraq, was to create a power vacuum and subsequent Civil War. They were wildly successful. Now they are searching for a Casus Belli in the form of photos of homemade HE Shape Charges and a ration of white House mendacity, to pull much the same thing in Iran, which they consider Politically unstable and ripe for future internecine warfare. I also have the opinion that most of the casualties inflicted on US Forces come from Sunni Militias, former Ba’athists, ex-Iraqi Army, Fedayeen Saddam, Al Qaeda, (who prior to the invasion did not operate in Iraq) other Sunni Jihadi elements etc.,etc…While the Shia militias, superior in numbers, are militarily lacking in skill, training, organization and thus effectiveness…Oh yeah one more thing: Tony Snow just said we have to knock off this self styled Political Journalism off. Uh huh, Well Fuck you Tony, cause I’m just gittin’ warmed up…I’m out.

Short term memory is not a real strong point in America. Does anyone remember when those two Brits dressed like Arabs were caught with explosives in S. Iraq? It was never clearly explained what they were actually up to… British “Undercover Soldiers” Caught driving Booby Trapped Car http://www.globalresearch.ca:80/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050920&articleId=972 Judging from the rescue effort the Brits mounted to spring them from jail one would conclude that whatever it was it was something not fit for public consumption.

Fast forward: Iranian parts are found in Iraqi bombs. If one follows Bushlogic this automatically means that Tehran is “supplying” bombs to the insurgents. Has it not dawned on any of our media super sleuths that the CIA is buying the parts on the black market and selling them to the insurgents so as to create another bogus reason for war? To his credit, Gen. Pace is dropping a hint when he says that he cannot be sure that the Iranian govt. is complicit. Remember those mobile chem. labs that Colon Powell swore Saddam had? Fool me twice and shame on…

People need to wake up and realize that in Bushco they are dealing with some of the most ruthless and underhanded characters to come upon the American scene in a long time. They have already approved the use of torture, unwarranted abduction and sanctioned killing to achieve their goals. Why not plant some Iranian bomb parts in Iraqi IED’s to make a case for your next war?

Anybody have a sensible take on this…

The “evidence” presented to the world for Iran’s involvement shows weapons marked in ENGLISH with western dates… http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6353025.stm (look at picture 6).

Now, in Iran, the year is not 2007 (ie 2007 years after the birth of christ) but 1385 as determined by the Persian Calendar. Why would Islamic radicals, willing to arm Iraqis against America, use America’s language and calendar?

Seem manufactured to me.

the 2 British soldiers were obviously intending to bomb something without making it look like the crusaders had done it.

i’m not so sure. i think cole and i discussed it right after it happened and i think it had been blown out of proportion.

…I have maintained from the start of this nightmare that an internecine conflict; the Classic Strategy of Divide and Conquer, then establish co-operative Kuwaiti-Jordanian like regimes is what our Likud bosses have had in mind all along. In this have the neo-Cons been partially successful. At the hemmorging expense of US lives, body parts and money, Iraq has effectively ceased to exist as a Political, and economic entity. Now, they have an eye towards the same plan in Iran. What I hope will help to to reinforce the veracity of these convictions is that the only place you hear are likely to hear and read about their argument is at Stress, AWC, and Anti-war radio; as you’re sure as hell not going to hear them out of Charlie Gibson, Katy Couric and Brian Williams

…CC, sapient as always…Far from taking exception to your, and Mr. Leverett’s respective observations by way of S. Hersh. The Realpolitick driving the 2003 implementation of Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm—The realm being Israel—is permanent, reinforced US Military Presence-Political Dominion in the greater Middle East. This must include an eventual netralizing of Iranian nuclear assets in a joint Political operation commonly known as “Regime change.” I predict this will now come to pass sooner than later. The only effective means of curtailing of such Foreign Policy; i.e. War and Occupation, one Constitutionally, and thus legally made by The Executive Branch would be a Political mandate issued by the US electorate at large, which in turn would be to actuate an unparalleled, overt State Repression to ensure such Policy’s continuance at public expense; the myriad legal and technical instruments [CARNIVORE, TIAA, Patriot Act, Torture, Domestic Surveillance etc.] of which are well in place, and need only be activated. Disturbing as I find the potential of these exeunt realities, I seriously doubt that this will occur, but for one abiding reason. Public apathy, indifference, a realization in effect, that they are powerless to stop that which they’ve been lead to believe they cannot comprehend. It would then follow that these same convictions have been over the course of this debacle, purposely synthesised by the same Ruling and Political Class that has determined their intent and outcome…Thus, the dissent to be found at electronic venues such as this, are the last resort…and in that sense we may be considered dangerous only to ourselves…While it sickens me with fear to say certain things, I remember thinking upon reading the Presses sense of the inevitable as “Crossing The Rubicon.” 4 years later their use of such idiom portends consequences much deeper and severe, than they originally knew…I am far from a significant Political Journalist, but am probably thus guilty of this naivety as well.

Because the mission of the US forces is to protect the Sunnis they’re fighting from the majority Shia and Kurds they’ve installed in power.

Imbeciles may be an understatement. see: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16346787.htm
A former career diplomat quits her job and says that the plans to win over the Iraqi people are not going to work.

Yup, invade a country for bogus reasons, blow up most of its infrastructure, kill & torture a lot of their people and then expect them to listen to you when you tell them that you are going to “help” them… Definitely a “McFly” moment… hellooo Bush, anybody home?

And of course there is the closing comment by the Bushco partisan: “this is not something we will achieve overnight…” How about never?