Letters to the Editor
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terminology problem
Interesting article. However, I wish that writers for Salon would not use the term al_Qaida in Iraq, which was a blanket-term created by the Bush administration to keep the public confused and thinking that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Using the term promotes the agenda of the neo-cons.
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Wow, it's 1984!
Where's Emmanuel Goldstein when you need him?
If McCain pulls this off I think I will be ready to move to antarctica. I'm rapidly losing patience with the American people's stunning inability to figure things out.
"God Bless Antarctica"
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Idle chatter?
Those who say "liberals" are SOOO gauche for imagining there can ever be a war with Iran need to answer one simple question: why McCain's gaffes (or, as the case may be, non-gaffes)? What possible purpose could he or any other neo-con activist have for constantly stoking the war machine if not to use it? Maybe McCain thinks he's better poised to get elected if he implies going to war with Iran? Is that his strategy? And, if it is, he must assume the American people would stand behind him. And, if that's what he thinks; and if he's elected; why would it be unthinkable that he would go to war with Iran? Because of what the military cautions? Please, he'd be the commander guy. Why should he listen to the generals?
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geodude
"Iran also knows its expansinist desires are over..."
What expansionist desires? I don't recall the Iranian president talking about a desire to expand the borders or territory of Iran. Can you back that up with specifics?
"...there will be many craters throughout the country should they launch a nuke at Israel or some other country in range."
Don't know if you heard, but: THEY...DON'T...HAVE...ANY...NUCLEAR...WEAPONS!
Kind of hard to launch something you don't have, isn't it?
I know it sucks to actually have to back up your talking points- I mean- arguments with facts. But they tend to hold up better when you do.
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"...his hard-line allies..."
Is this Neocon-speak for "Israel"? The US is occupying Iraq at the behest of Israel. That fact will remain stark as history is slowly written.
How is it that US foreign policy and the US military is whoring itself to another country, to a foreign country?
I'm sure that John McCain doesn't want his "fealty" to Israel questioned, as was Barrack Obama's the other day. His fealty to Israel.
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Republican nostalgia for presidential senility
Republicans are so nostalgic for Ronald Reagan, and McCain is so eager to shamelessly pander for their support, that he's willing to assume the Reagan-esque mantle of presidential senility.
That, or McCain really is too impaired to keep his Iran/Iraq delusions coherent -- but we should never expect our corporate media to be so "impolite" as to report that fact about the Sainted Maverick War Hero & Serious Foreign Policy Expert Untainted by Corruption Who Will Be Tough on Terror.
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Who's going to fight this war?
Everyone I know of a liberal bent is so sure we're going to go to war with Iran (either at Bush's command before he leaves office, or if the candidate they support isn't elected), completely ignoring the fact that we haven't got the military might to do it. We can't even maintain our current troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan; where are the hundreds of thousands of soldiers needed for a war with Iran going to come from? A draft? Does anyone think a draft bill would make it through Congress?
The mythical war with Iran is just fearmongering on both sides.
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Why bother winning one war before starting another?
Just wave the flag in our faces and with all those stripes and stars we'll be hypnotized into doing what ever they say. What need have we of evidence? Certainly our president wouldn't lie to us. We'd be happy to send our sons and daughters, for whom we've sacrificed a better part of our lives and wealth, to die for our freedom from... uh... did any of you see who won on american idol last night?
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@skunkeye...you are forgetting something
The mythical war with Iran is just fearmongering on both sides.
While we do not have the ground forces to meddle with Iran, we DO have a Navy and Air Force that is far from "taxed". The Navy can launch aircraft and cruise missiles without batting an eye. The Air Force can send in B-1s and B-2s, and even B-52s if they get ambitious. There are, no doubt, morons in the Air Force (of which I am a member) that actually believe that they can "win" with air power alone. Air Force brass almost always believe that they can win wars with air power alone. They've believed that shit since the war criminal Billy Mitchell made essentially that claim. Not only are there Air Force brass who believe that shit, there are, no doubt, a number of them just itching to "prove it" by bombing the crap out of Iran.
There can be no doubt as well that Bush and especially Cheney believe the crap too...and are eager to give it a go. They do NOT learn from the mistakes of the past ("Shock and Awe" was a failure). They, no doubt, believe that ground forces in Iraq are safe from retribution by Iranian agents and assorted Iraqi Shia should they give a go to an attack on Iran. These are hardened war criminals and idiots, afterall. They don't give a flying f*ck how many civilians they kill, how many US soldiers get killed. Those are just numbers of no import to Bush and Cheney (and Hadley and Kristol and the other assorted nutcases).
You are underestimating our continued ability, regardless of the Army and Marines being stretched to breaking, to create murder and mayhem on a massive scale by other means.
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Is McCain Suffering From Dementia?
What seems to have gone unnoticed is that fact that McCain "misspoke" on the Iran/Al Qaeda connection not just once, but several times on the same day.
Is it possible that McCain is already suffering from dementia? I'd be interested in hearing from brain scientists regarding the connection, if any, between repeated misstatements versus an isolated, singular mistake.
Either that, or as Conason suggests, he's just itching to get in there and, having seen the success of the bushies in hoodwinking the press and the public through the repetition of false info, thinks he can get away with it too.