And it isn't exactly scandalous to call into question the capabilities of those who have authored the greatest military disaster in our country's history.

Scott,

Thirty years ago I worked as an urban planner reporting to a retired colonel who had been head of strategic planning for SAC during the Vietnam War. He told me that each morning the general staff in Vietnam would stand by waiting for bombing orders from Washington. In a number of cases, the B-52s would knowingly fly over enemy positions to drop bombs on uninhabited areas. They military officers located in Vietnam knew it was being done in error, but they also knew that the military served under the command of the executive branch of government.

On the other hand, he also told me that an officer had a responsibility to inform his superiors if he thought their policies or orders were wrong. He laughed and said that was why, for the most part, the best officers never made four stars, because sooner or later they would disagree with a superior officer.

The military in charge today has a responsibility to inform the President and the Secretary of Defense if they do not have enough troops, supplies or equipment, or if the information they are using to make decisions is wrong.

They are obviously not doing that.

No one faults the soldiers on the ground. They do their job. It is the "go along to get along" officers at the top who should resign rather than continue to go along with what they know to be dangerous and unnecessary mistakes in judgment on the parts of their superiors (even if it costs them their promotions).

I KNEW that about you.

I could tell. You remind me so much of my father and uncles who came back wounded from WWII and the Korean War with cigar boxes full of medals that they gave their grandchildren to play with. (You and I are probably about the same age.)

They never bragged. They never complained. They lived their lives in peace and saw war for what it was -- murder and suffering. They were great men. Brave men. Sane men.

I wish we had some of those now.

One of the early bellwethers for a war that is certain, though not yet declared, appears to be small munitions manufacturing.

In the year before the First Gulf War, I heard a program on NPR that included an opinion piece on Saddam Hussein and a brief interview with a day worker in a small munitions plant. They asked the woman if she thought there would be a war with Iraq and she said, definitely. She had no doubt of it. When they asked how she knew, she said they always make a lot of bullets before they go to war. She was insistent, saying that she had worked that job all the way back to Vietnam and that it was always the case that increased munitions manufacture always preceded any media discussion of major military action. She was asked if they had ever made a lot of bullets and that had not happened. Her answer was, no.

It was fascinating to me, because it reminded me exactly of standard corporate product strategy. To my mind, that is what the Times article is about -- product strategy. The product? War.

The fact that John Bolton and Norman Podhoretz are even mentioned by name in that article says it all.

We will go to war with Iran. The decision has already been made.

Yes...but how are they going to top "shock and awe"

The one we've all been waiting for:

War of the Worlds

(We're the Martians by the way. Only in this movie we've supposedly had our vaccinations before we attack.)

They don't think of themselves as stupid. They think of themselves as smart.

They think of US as stupid.

They already robbed the bank, mortgaged the ranch, sold the kids and there's not a policeman in sight to arrest them. As a matter of fact, the police are giving them an escort to the next bank.

They also think of themselves as historical. They expect their names to top the list of the 100 Greatest Leaders Of All Time for at least ten thousand years. Bush is Octavius, Rumsfeld is Agrippa, Cheney is Octavius (he only lets Bush think that he, George Bush Augustus, is Octavius, but Cheney knows Bush is actually Antony), where was I? oh, yeah, and Kristol, Kagan and their ilk are vying for the role of Cicero, only this time around they hope Cicero doesn't get assassinated.

At the same time, they also don't care what happens, because, as Bush is the first to point out, "Why should I care? I'll be dead."

My guess is it's all saber rattling and we will never progress past the Cold War model of low intensity conflict by proxy. -- LWM

I really hope you are right. I want so much to be wrong on this. Psychodrama is the last thing anyone should be participating in or encouraging at this point.

On the other hand, I know these guys. I really do. They are capable of ANYTHING. They want a proto-fascist, monopoly capitalist state. It is their stated goal. I believe them.

Have you ever read Don DeLillo? All of his books are eye-opening. The man is prescient. White Noise, first published in 1985, says nearly everything there is to say about contemporary American middle-class "Mall" culture and the role of the MSM in American politics. You would think you were reading today's NY Times or watching Fox or CNN.