a couple of days ago:

"IMO, what is required vigilance on the "real men bomb Tehran" front is when Bigtime weighs in, crawling from under his rock at the Naval Observatory and start trawling the Sunday blatherfests, and/or "exclusive interviews" with right-wing ranters. Sure, we get the expected tosh from MNF-I people, Junior hyperventilating in front of droopy-dick veterans groups, DC politicos and pro-war thinktank operatives hitting the op/ed pages...but, watch out for Bigtime when he launches his "roll-out"...that's when it's ALL SYSTEMS GO."

Remember, "...we now know that Saddam Hussein...", "...simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein...", "...absolutely sure that Saddam Hussein...".

You bet it's his call.

that there isn't a vast right wing conspiracy? We even know its leader, Dirty Dick Cheney.

Now that we know their schedule and their agenda, it should be interesting to observe which facets of the media align themselves with Cheney's plot to bomb Iran without public support or permission from Congress. What will Keith Olberman say?

It should also be interesting to parse their upcoming rhetoric. Will they whip out a variation of "smoking gun = mushroom cloud?" How exactly will BushCo's propaganda ministers (Roger Ailes, et al) frame Cheney's paranoia this time around? Has anybody in the media noticed that America is bankrupt from Cheney's last pair of warlike fiascoes?

I am convinced that Dick Cheney is insane, driven so by the obvious signs of his own short future. Knowing that, he is ruthlessly exploiting the limited resources of our nation to push forward his own delusional vision of Empire USA, controlled by the chieftains of the major oil corporations. EUSA will bully the countries of the middle east to sell us oil at cut rate prices until it all runs out.

And what then, genius??? Cheney's dark tunnel vision extends not a single day beyond that, nor in any alternate directions. He's a hound dawg with blinders, and he smells oil!

Dick Cheney thinks he is the noble Cardinal Richelieu, the secret power and wisdom behind the throne. Instead, Dick is nothing more than a sneaky, myopic dumbass whose "vision" is a tired delusion regurgitated from egotistical popcorn philosophers like libertarian Ayn Rand and fascist Leo Strauss.

Over the next few weeks we get to witness the unfortunate fireworks produced by putting such freeeks in power. Hold onto your hats.

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing

That might be the last nail in the Repub-Neo con admin.
They may fail and then it's impeachment time, Big Time, Monkey Face,
and for a whole bunch of miscreants.
Iran is not Irak and should the US use nukes, well
I won't elaborate on that.

in the mean time?

The former contractor finally concluded that the model was intended for Iran. This anecdote is also inconclusive, but it is consistent with the depth of planning that went into the reconstruction effort in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here's the point. Even though you might be tempted to snort that there wasn't any depth to the planning. But more importantly, remember even that planning was meant for an invasion. There can be no way these idiots are planning to invade Iran.

So what does this mean? It either casts doubt on the source or....

...strike on camps allegedly being used to train the Jaysh al-Mahdi splinter groups (and maybe something aimed at putting direct pressure on the IRGC), but I'm pretty dubious that we'd see that ramp to initiating something like CONPLAN 8022. It'd be deadly stupid (and hugely counter-productive), but I wouldn't be flabbergasted.

"The spectacle of this great nation which does not know its own mind is as humiliating as it is dangerous." ~ Walter Lippmann

First, the kind of war that this army does best at is during the initial stages. The public tends to rally around a successful attack on an enemy prior to our getting bogged down. The Republican-Neo-Con logic may well be that a carefully timed assault could 1) rally the voters in time for the next election, and 2) obligate the next administration to mop up/continue the aggression (America feels a responsibility to fix what we break). And they may fear that a new administration will sit on their hands and allow Iran to get the bomb. The only way they can force the next president to attack is to initiate it before he or she takes office.

Second, if Iran is reading the same things I'm reading, and remembers the pre-emptive attack on Iraq, it might just figure that it's best shot is to strike first and reduce the number of missiles that will be fired at it. So when they conclude that things are about to explode, they might pull the trigger first. Indeed, either side, using Bush's logic that you don't wait for an enemy to pounce, could initiate a major disaster.