I was listening to Faux Newz on the radio a few months back and they had one of those round table "discussions" going on. They posited to the group:

If an attack on Iran caused gasoline prices to go to $5/gallon, would it be worth it?

The answers: Yes! Hell Yes! and HELL Yes!

Christ on a crutch, Fixed Noise can't even ask the right question. The right question is "Is $5 per gallon heating oil a fair trade for an attack on Iran?" Or, even better, "How many people are you willing to see freeze to death in the winter for an attack on Iran?" The vampires have clearly taken over at Fixed Noise, more than willing to batten on human flesh and suffering.

Is that it doesn't make any sense unless you've actually got a credible threat. At this point, a US attack on Iran is so spectacularly foolish, that it's hard to see even Bushco doing it.

Remember the line from Forest Gump: "Stupid is as Stupid does."

Bush takes his orders from a higher source than us reality based folks doncha know.

but the problem is I'm not sure Cheney sees the world the way you do.

But, Cheney and Bush love to hurt people.

"There are two types of folk music:
quiet folk music and loud folk music.
I play both."

Dave Alvin

has helped prevent them attacking Iran because of the cognitive dissonance it injects into the "sell".

They know they need poll numbers of "X" to get away with it. They use propaganda to achieve those numbers. But as this study demonstrates, the greatest success for propaganda comes when it's deployed against unskeptical targets.

The results showed there were far fewer sceptics in the US than in Germany and Australia. And that such sceptics were less likely to believe statements that they knew had been retracted than those people classified as non-sceptical.
"The main finding about suspicion is confirming what we have known for quite a while from laboratory studies," says Lewandowsky.
"People do not discount corrected information unless they are suspicious about it or unless they are given some other hypothesis with which to interpret the information."
(...)
False memories
The study also supports certain theories about the formation of false memories, says Lewandowsky.
"The constant hinting at WMDs was sufficient to make some people believe that they have been found," he says.
Lewandowsky says the study confirmed previous findings that around 30% of US respondents say weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq since the war started.
By contrast, he says, only 17% of Australians and only 5% of Germans believe this was the case.
"Given that that is in fact not true, given that none has ever been discovered, we would classify those responses as a false memory," says Lewandowsky.
He can't explain why this is the case but thinks that scepticism may also play a role.

( ... xlink ... )

The "calling wolf" has kept people skeptical - a mindset that was remarkable for its absence in 2002.

One person's "calling wolf" may be another person's "inoculation" - the injection of non-viable virus particles to provoke the immune system to defend itself.

_{Turn back to the Constitution - and READ it.}

Oh, sometimes I don't have one. Thanks for pointing it out. Sometimes I should just be ignored.

post it as news. I posted my analysis of it, which I didn't do on the weekend because I try and take the weekend off.

I'd delete my posts if I could - where's my thinking cap when I need it?

I didn't intend my comment to come off as a chastisement (means) but as an attempt to prod you into expanding your observation (ends). I have too much respect for you to assume that you were trying to stifle discussion on Yesterday's News.

_{Turn back to the Constitution - and READ it.}

:D I need expansion senor Rick

Good ole Persia has a few millenias of "diplomatic" experience.
Just ask the read the greek classics. They can be quite masterfull at that game of course like any human being they could also be very reactive. But where talking here about a country that ruled part of the known world a few centuries ago and they also know that doing nothing and letting the suspense bring you to a cliffhanger can be more devastating than a war.
As someone pointed out, $5.00 for heating fuel is like saying "let those damm occidentals freeze in the dark".
Air strike may do the job in the extremely short term but "boots on the ground" in Iran, BushCo's god must be crazy if he think that it'll work.

Do you see any evidence to date that indicates that BushCo's god is NOT crazy?

lol

Personanly, I don't think those at the top, Bush and co, the money people, corps, Skull and Bones, movers and shakers, etc, really give much of a toss about the effect their policies and actions have on the small people. Call it collateral damage if you like, economic collateral damage instead of 'opps, sorry we bombed you' collateral damage, though I am sure it has much the same effect on many people around the world.
Cheney, Bush, Blackwater, Halliburton, and all the others of their ilk are not really concerned about the future of the US or even the world, they are out to make money and lets face it, if you got lots of money you have a better chance to survive and stay on top of whatever future there is.

They know they only have 15 or so months left, they also know they will continue to rake it in for a long while after, reaping the seeds sown you might say.

Caribdude

Iran Revolutionary Guards' role growing - The drums in the deep!

...that link makes obvious one possible connection. Two apparently different interests, but both share that bamboozling / threatening a populace into supporting perpetual (near) war is good for profits and power.

Dude, that would be so cool if you called us terrorists! We can play old tapes of our glory days of the fall of the Shah and get everyone whipped up! And you can use the same tapes (with different sound track) to do it, too!

Will buy most if not all of Iranian oil and probably India too.
As for the Dems, it probably fits the neo-con's plans to have the Democrats win and be stuck with the politico-economic quagmire.
Then as you say they will reap from the incapabilities of the dems to resolve all the problems left by the repugnents.
But the question in the long run will be: Will the populations on all the sides, remember at their respective elections cycles?? We have to remember that all these coubtries are "democratic".

When the U.S. launches the in and out air raids, and Iran chooses to shut down the Straights, coupled with the probability of the U.S. Navy loosing a few capital ships, how will the average U.S. citizen react to loosing several billion dollars worth of naval tonnage, not to mention lives all around. One thing military types just hate, is to loose, for good reason. One possible reaction of U.S. Commanders is to use nukes in response to those dug in Iranian positions. BushCo is just chomping at the bit to set a tactical nuke or two off.

"There are two types of folk music:
quiet folk music and loud folk music.
I play both."

Dave Alvin

The link to a description of the Millenium Challenge wargames should be:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020906-iraq1.htm

for the military to refuse the order to attack Iran

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

The Millennium Challenge 2002 war games focused on a hypothetical conflict between the US and Iraq, not Iran. Iraq had virtually no navy and not much of an air force either. And, with those assets Ripper was able to defang the American forces. Plus, Iraq has virtually no decent geographic positioning to bedevil the US Navy in the Gulf.

Iran is about three or four orders of magnitude better situated. It has better weapons and more of them as you cite. It has a better command structure. It has a better socialized military than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And, it has spectacular geographic assets - a long coastline which the US Navy must run as a gauntlet and the ability to seize the global crown-jewel choke point, the Strait of Hormuz. If the Iranians display any unorthodoz thinking at all in defending against American attacks they'll sweep these dunderheads in the Oval Office, the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom away.

Briefly: Wikipedia says Israel (???). The Guardian says "unnamed Middle Eastern state - which bore a strong re semblance to Iraq, but could have been Iran." Slate says "fictitiously named Persian Gulf country that resembled Iraq." The Guardian in another article says "Arguably, when the exercises were first planned back in 2000, Red could have been Iran. But by July this year, when the game kicked off, it is unlikely that anyone involved had any doubts as to which country beginning with "I" Blue was up against." Joe Galloway in a post at Military.Com says "Though fictional names were applied, it involved a crisis moving toward war in the Persian Gulf and in actuality was a barely veiled test of an invasion of Iran."

Internal logic says Iran. A flotilla of warships to threaten Baghdad? Marine amphibious warfare units fpr a landing on the Iraqi coast? We were going to go into Iraq like we did the first time, plus Turkey, perhaps.

No, Iraq got the billing because of the year, but the enemy was Iran.

I think I had looked at a reference from Global Security, but the concept is still butt stupid no matter how you look at it. If the Pentagon brass had their heads handed to them in 2002, they'll be handed other body parts as well now given the decrease in threat differential between 2002 and 2007/2008. Plus, the global energy situation is even more precarious, placing even more burden on requiring a perfect 100% operation. Anytime I've heard or read that a military command expected to achieve 100% perfection in an operation, I've usually been reviewing a resulting disaster. I agree with you that any such strike proposal reflects a national decision team which is even more bereft of ideas than anybody had possibly imagined.

Iran attack

SNIP

Can President Bush Attack Iran?

In April 2006 I interviewed Scott Ritter, the former chief UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998, in a piece for Alternet.org. At the time I asked him about whether he felt the Bush administration would attack Iran, and if they did, whether they would consult Congress, which at the time was in Republican hands. In light of recent rumors that the Bush administration may decide to attack Iran before leaving office, I decided to take another look at the interview and found a section I find particularly relevant today:

Davis: Even if we had a Democratic majority, a lot has been talked about how Bush believes in the "unitary executive theory," where he can basically go on and just authorize [military action] himself. Do you think he will even consult Congress if we start a bombing campaign on Iran?

Ritter: No, unless the Democrats are able to take over the House and compel him to do this, then no, Bush has no intention. [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice has already let the cat out of the bag where she said she will say nothing that ties the hands of the chief executive, commander-in-chief to do that which he feels is necessary for the security of the United States of America.

Davis: All options are on the table.

Ritter: Yeah, except consulting Congress.

Since I spoke to Ritter, Democrats have taken over both houses of Congress. But they haven't done anything to challenge the Bush administration's authority to preemptively attack Iran. Earlier this year Democrats did include a measure in an Iraq war funding bill that would have required the administration to seek Congress' approval for an attack. But that language was removed after intense lobbying from the pro-Israel group AIPAC. And despite promises that the issue would be voted on separately in a standalone bill, more that six months later, that hasn't happened. Now some may think that's not important. After all, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states in no uncertain terms that Congress reserves the sole power to declare war. But that neglects the fact that the United States hasn't declared war since World War II. All military action taken since then, from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq, has been considered to be a "police action," or has taken place under the auspices of the United Nations. So the idea that President Bush could attack Iran without Congress declaring war, or even consenting in some other manner, isn't just fear mongering coming from the outer limits of the blogosphere. In fact, as I learned this week, it's apparently a view shared by the Democratic leadership in Congress.

Come on, when the heck has Shrub ever worried about legal? Get real. If he wants to attack, he will attack.

The Guardian, Stephen Bates, October 6

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has criticised the neoconservatives of the Bush administration and accused them of "potentially murderous folly" for suggesting military action against Syria and Iran.

Dr Williams has just returned from Syria where he met Iraqi Christian refugees,. He warned of a problem of almost unprecedented scale as up to 1.5 million Iraqis have fled to neighbouring countries.

Speaking to the BBC, the archbishop, who opposed the invasion of Iraq from the outset, said: "When people talk about further destabilisation of the region - and you read some American political advisers speaking of action against Syria and Iran - I can only say that I regard that as criminal, ignorant and potentially murderous folly.

"We do hear talk from some quarters of action against Syria and Iran. I can't understand what planet such persons are living on, when you see the conditions that are already there."