dagblog - Comments for "Panetta: Iran to Enter "Immunity Zone"; Israeli Attack Imminent"

Shit, Dan, now you tell me.

Bruce Levine — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:33:24 +0000

In reply to Bruce, the letters had little

Shit, Dan, now you tell me. I wasted a good friggin' rant. Man am I one challenged dude sometimes. Cheers buddy.

Bruce, the letters had little

Dan Kervick — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:18:35 +0000

In reply to Dan, I'll try to respond to

Bruce, the letters had little to do with my own opinions. They were only meant to describe the message that I believe the administration is trying to send to various different audiences and constituencies. The point is just that they want different people to interpret their statements in different ways.

Drag our Leaf Icon above to

acanuck — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:43:24 +0000

In reply to That is an excellent

Hey, good title. I guess There Will Be Blood was already taken.

And yeah, Caplan's column is pretty good. I like the quote from ex-Mossad director Meir Dagan that an attack on Iran is “the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”

That is an excellent

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:28:52 +0000

In reply to Canada's foreign minister,

That is an excellent article.

Straying somewhat off-topic, but the Superbowl will becoming on soon. Is there any doubt that we will see a strac military unit on the field during opening ceremonies. At some point there will be a fly-over by truly amazing fighter/bomber aircraft, probably timed right after the pledge of allegiance. The camera will pan to members of each branch of our military standing proud in their dress uniforms with hands over their hearts. There Will be Flags. [I'm copywriting that last sentence for the title of my new book]

How about a quick Google of

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:28:09 +0000

In reply to I really don't get what

How about a quick Google of "Joe Lieberman attack Iran" - say inciting military action against Iran since at least 2007.

"We have a choice here: to go to tough economic sanctions to make diplomacy work or we will face the prospect of military action against Iran," Lieberman told the annual Munich Security Conference.

Top U.S. commanders are already working out how such a strike should be conducted, and although "no-one wants this to happen ... unless we together act strongly and do more than talk that is exactly what will happen," Lieberman said.

Pretending this is a movement of Iranians-in-exile trying to save their homeland is rather fantastical. Of course the steady assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists *could* be an inside job by Iranian exiles, but somehow it has all the markings of professional Mossad work.

I fear a nuclear Iran - it's

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:13:03 +0000

In reply to I used the term

I fear a nuclear Iran - it's just that Iran won't likely go nuclear in my lifetime.

While you may fear it, it's another hyped up unrealistic jingoist rallying call - join it if you wish, I'll pass.

And bullshit on "moral equivalence" - it's equivalent actions, not kinda similar things on greatly different magnitudes. But if anything, it seems Iran was more controlled than Egypt for election protests. And then look at Syria - imagine if Ahmadinejad had committed that deliberate bloody crackdown.

Regarding leadership bad for the world and region, I can list dozens. Our fickle picking winners and losers has lost any moral objectivity. We don't mind that East Libyans fill mass graves with Africans, as long as they're not named Qaddafi and they go easy on oil sales.

While I don't claim Iran is progressive or open or benign, they're actually not much of a threat to their neighbors, unlike Iraq was. The Hezbollah stuff is pretty much a joke - curiously Hezbollah actually responds to needs of the people in those regions, versus the rather neutered Lebanese government. And the amount of damage Hezbollah has done to Israel is close to nil. And without Hezbollah, well, Israel would just overrun another territory. (it's easier to bomb Beirut than remove Hezbollah). Guess an occupied North Bank (smiley) would match the occupied West Bank.

Canada's foreign minister,

acanuck — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:44:08 +0000

In reply to Panetta: Iran to Enter "Immunity Zone"; Israeli Attack Imminent

Canada's foreign minister, John Baird, is in Tel Aviv right now, where he just equated the Iranian threat to the Holocaust and Mein Kampf. Literally.

A few days ago, the Israeli deputy prime minister proclaimed that Iran was building a missile with a range of 6,000 miles, capable of hitting the U.S. American officials politely said no, that's total bullshit.

The pro-war hysteria is sickening. There are some voices of sanity, but far too few:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/harper-and-the-us-are-wrong-on-the-iran-threat/article2317799/singlepage/#articlecontent

Speaking of voices of sanity, see the list of Israeli intelligence experts that this column starts with. Do you suppose maybe they understand where the real threat to Israel comes from? It's from its current leadership and its closest "friends."

I really don't get what

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:05:19 +0000

In reply to Lulu, I really don't get what

I really don't get what audience you are trying to address here!

Duh...uh...I was thinkin' 'bout dem that might read it.

It just seems to me you are working yourself up into a frenzy over a scenario that isn't there. If you want to get angry about something, get some understanding of what is going on first; don't get angry about imaginary things based upon what happened in other places at other times with other governments.

Your seemingly casual, comfortable condescension does not bother me. It is so common in your discourse that I take it as just part of the territory when you respond and with the knowledge that amidst it is quite often something of value and insight. Not this time, though.
So, I just “want to get angry" and so I am just "working myself into a frenzy" over "imaginary things" and the simple solution is for me to “get some understanding” rather than thinking that seeing the same thing happen that has happened so many times before might lead to the same result as we have seen so many times before. Or maybe you know better than to think that a buildup to war has always included preparing the population to at least accept the necessity of war against the Evil Empire. Or maybe you think that the "news" we hear contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me God, I don't know where you are coming from if you believe that.

You are presuming a demonization that doesn't exist except for knuckle draggers who talk about towel heads and mooslims like they claim President Obama is.

Perhaps I need to define my terms. The demonizer is the one putting out the propaganda. At the upper levels where it is important, they are usually not considered to be "knuckle draggers". The ones who come to the mind-set that the demonizers want them to hold are the knuckle draggers plus all those that would have thought differently if they had been influenced by a more honest message. The "demonized" are the ones who will get bombed while the second group supports the attack at levels ranging from acceptance of necessity to outright glee.

Do you really believe that a process of attempting to convince the American people that an attack on Iran is both justified and necessary is not going on? Skim the headlines in this piece. None of them stand out as unusual. They fit what we have been seeing for a long time. As is mentioned somewhere in the article, they don't even respect us enough to offer a fresh plot.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/03/iran_is_the_root_of_all_evil/singleton/

“Can you please point me to an actual example of someone in power anywhere that is threatening to incinerate them?”

What in the hell do you think is meant by the statement, “All options are on the table.”, if not a threat. The hawks, and then the wise level headed pundits, say that the threat cannot be hollow, Iran must know that an attack is a real option. We must have the fortitude to follow through on our threats. It is the American way. But incinerate is really too narrow a term. I used it as a shortcut rather than go into a long gory list of the many other rather obvious results of being in the vicinity of a tremendous explosion. A grenade with an ounce of explosive makes a tremendous explosion. A five-hundred pound bomb is a small weapon in the plan for an initial attack on Iran.

You say about the Israeli strike on the facility in Syria:

...and everyone would really do well to read the whole thing, or re-read it, as it does give a very good set up for what is going on now There were zero casualties reported by the Syrian government (or anyone else) as regards that event, and few complaints, and the Syrians scrubbed the area, whatever happened to be there. Seymour Hersh can only find evidence of the incineration of a building, that's it, nothing else.

Is this an example of your best reasoning? Is this statement actually meant to be a strong argument? You emphasized that there were zero casualties reported. Do you think a secret facility dedicated to nuclear research and possible development of a bomb is locked up at five and everyone goes home? Do you think that because the Syrians "scrubbed" the area and Hersh could not find any evidence of bodies that we can conclude with any confidence at all that nobody was killed. If not coming to ridiculous conclusions has any meaning for you I suggest you rethink that one.

"You are presuming a demonization that doesn't exist except for knuckle draggers who talk about towel heads and mooslims like they claim President Obama is."

I guess you know that you just called a very large percentage of America's finest, our proud heroic soldiers, "knuckle draggers". They call "mooslums" ragheqads and towelheads and hadgis[sp?]

Furthermore, if you really check up on who is behind the loudest drumbeat for military intervention by the West in Iran, really do your homework, you will often find that it is not Americans but Iranian exiles in the United States, the UK and France, who are at the base of that movement They are the old, well connected in political and media power circles, and the young, knowing how to use cyberspace.

So, the Iranians have their equivalent of Chalabi. Gosh, if some politically connected Iranian ex patriot who ran away from what was happening in his ex-country now wants us to bomb that country into submission then who am I to disagree? Besides, did Chalabi's lies and the war monger's vouching for him really make any difference? Well, somebody, some group, apparently thought so. Do you recall how his views were pushed?

Once again, I don't get who you are trying to lecture here about the Iranian people.

Seems kind of ironically funny that you are accusing me of giving a lecture in my original comment.What I did was to say,"Anyone reading this is invited to consider a few things about their views of Iran and the threat it poses to the United States, to Israel, and by extension, the rest of the world." During the course of our recent wars one of the controversies has revolved around whether pictures should be shown of the casualties, or in some cases of the remaining pieces of those casualties. I just felt like showing some pictures of what could very easily devolve into the target before they become casualties.

I used the term

Bruce Levine — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:45:33 +0000

In reply to It's all about regime change

I used the term "totalitarian" Peracles, because that's what I believe the Iranian regime to be. That's my choice, and I'm not trying to demonize anyone, except for the Ayatollah Khamenei and his underlings to the extent that they are building a nuclear weapon and supply missiles to Hizbullah and thereby ensuring the kind of war you claim to be trying to avoid. It is what I believe, it is what I observe, and it is based on nothing that any neo-conservative or warmonger or bigoted American idiot has drilled into me. I have no interest in pursuing regime change in Iran.

I have no problem believing that the Iranian leadership is bad for the world and the region. But that, standing alone, has nothing at all to do with my thoughts on the the issue at hand, to wit, what if anything should be done to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. The whole totalitarian thing was simply my response to lulu's focus on the friendly Iranian people in Rick Steves video, and it is a diversion that you have chosen to focus on for your own reasons. But your reasons are not my reasons.

I understand that you appear to have a huge investment into the whole moral equivalence line of thinking. Unlike your apparent presumption with respect to how I have acquired my views, I will try not to presume that you have arrived at the whole moral equivalence thing on the basis of some garden-variety, one-side fits all faux lefty mindset on the way the world works, where America and its allies are always wrong. Instead, I will try to presume that you have arrived at your position that everyone is equally good and bad--except for evil Israel--on the basis of good faith considerations of the material facts and circumstances.

Heck Peracles, I'm not getting any younger, and I've been around the block and then some on matters relating to all kinds of things political. I would have made you look like a Likudnik back in the day. Respectfully, I haven't arrived at my views on matters pertaining to the Middle East and world peace based upon on what some idiot on Fox News is spewing.

I understand that your position would have much more credibility if you could simply place everyone who fears a nuclear Iran into the category of neo-con, war-mongering, regime change showroom dummy. Sorry I can't help you.

It's all about regime change

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 09:18:36 +0000

In reply to I think we can't know how

It's all about regime change and access to oil ad keeping the Hormuz Straits open.

All these crazed ramblings from people like Steven Harper that Ira is fanatical and unpredictable - pretty strange, considering Iran hasn't been attacking its neighbors like typically unhinged states (say Iraq? North Korean missile launches over Japan and sinking others' boats?)

Even with the famed 2009 elections, the West conveniently forgot Ahmadinejad's popularity with his home Azeri base - instead pleading wonder at how he could survive against the obvious merits of reform & democracy (if that's exactly what the opposition brought) - the conclusion? it all must have been corrupt.

The west has been making a big deal out of uranium processing for a decade, as if 20% purity achieved now is anywhere close enough to produce a bomb. But it's been 1 minute to midnight for a decade - doesn't someone realize the shepherd boy has been crying wolf out his ass all this time?

Instead we've surrounded Iran - north, east, west, with our friendly nuke-laden boats to the south - what do they have to worry? If you just cooperate, like Hussein opening the doors to inspectors, it will all work out.

There's nothing terribly fanatical about the Iranians at this stage - their foreign policy has been pretty straight forward for a long time, and while there are some missteps, evey other country in the world makes those missteps too.

We'd all be better off by trying to pull Iran into the EU satellite where it wants to be, rather than this mass wagging of fingers by countries with pathetic track records on fighting real battles.

As for "totalitarian", that well-worn word comes out whenever we need to demonize the opposition. Whether the absence of a free press exists, the Iranian internet is full of holes to the outside, and even on-line cafés and blogs aren't monitored that successfully - this is not a Chinese operation. But many people like to pretend Iran is a huge Gulag - servers our long-term designs on the country.

(things actually were going pretty well before Bush - even though missteps and disappointments among the reformers, the opening was great. But Ahmadinejad serves the purposes of the neo-cons: eternal vigilance and proxy war against Iran)