New Product

Here's your daily dose of armageddon. Barnett Rubin is a pretty credible source, and he pieces together a few threads along with his own dire warning and sums up that we're about to declare war on yet another country. He looks at the similarities between the war-fever days of 2002 and now. Then, a September 11 speech made the case for war. This year, a September 11 report will almost certainly blame Iran for Iraq's troubles, at least in part. Then, a late-August speech by Dick Cheney raised the spectre of nuclear weapons. This year, a late-August speech by George Bush raised the spectre of nuclear holocaust, only from Iran. Then there's this, which may make you puke, so get the barf bags ready.

But this apparently is just test marketing, like Cheney's 2002 speech. After all "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:

They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."

Hey, when's September 11, again? Oh yeah, the week after Labor Day.

Another piece of this is the fact that Bob Gates knew nothing about the extra $50 billion dollars being requested for Iraq. You would think the Secretary of Defense would have some input into the money needed for war. Maybe that money isn't needed for Iraq; maybe it's earmarked for Iran.

I don't think there's anything more dangerous going on right now than this. The Democrats have been completely inattentive to the prospect of attacking Iran, and yet Fourthbranch and his minions have plowed ahead with their plans. I hope somebody in Washington is paying attention to this.