This week:

But Mr Blair, in a BBC interview yesterday, said: “I can’t think that it would be right to take military action against Iran . . . What is important is to pursue the political, diplomatic channel. I think it is the only way that we are going to get a sensible solution to the Iranian issue.”

Last week:

In an admission of the international community’s failure to hold back Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the document – compiled by the staff of Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief – says the atomic programme has been delayed only by technical limitations rather than diplomatic pressure. “Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded,” it states.

Typically European.

Yes, yes it has.

I have no good excuse, really. All I can tell you is, following politics in the United States right now is horribly depressing, upsetting and, often, rage-provoking. I get so disgusted reading about it, that I honestly have a hard time putting fingers on the keyboard and writing about it.

I’m not sure how Jeff Goldstein does it. Then again, he’s been known to take pretty long breaks himself - though he’s had a pretty good excuse.

The stuff I normally take to task is so commonsensical, and yet, that seems to elude so many people in so many positions of influence and/or power. Here’s a few items that have put a twist in my shorts lately.

The BBC: The U.S. is covertly planning to bomb Iran!

“US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country’s military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.”

Well… yeah. This is a scoop?

Even the fainthearted European Union is beginning to admit to itself that, in the case of Iran’s nuclear program, diplomacy isn’t going to work. Reading between the lines like the astute observer I am, I can plainly see this report squirming around the very words our “friends” in Europe are so desperate to avoid: “To cease the Iranian march to a nuclear weapon, force will need to be applied.” After all, if you don’t say it, it must not be true!

Now that the rest of us can assume this is the case (some of us have known this for awhile, now), well, that would require CentCom to have some sort of strategy for applying that force (I know, call me crazy). It also would stand to reason that sound military doctrine would require CentCom to prepare that plan of action early, and revise it often (as new intelligence comes in), to be sure that, when the word to strike goes out, our military is prepared to act. It would at least behoove us to have these plans ready before the first nuke explodes in Tel Aviv; I’m sure even the Marxists at the BBC would agree (those who don’t secretly support the nuclear annihilation of Israel, at any rate). Shit, I’d even be so bold as to guess that CentCom has working plans for war with at least two dozen different countries. If any nation out there poses some sort of strategic threat to U.S. interests, I go so far as to guarantee you that CentCom has some sort of plan for defeating that country militarily, should the need arise.

So, we know we have to strike the Iranian nuclear program, in some fashion (assuming we want to stop it). This fashion would, of course, take the form of an air campaign. A ground invasion, after all, would ensure enormous casualties and essentially commit us to regime overthrow and occupation, which we simply are not prepared to do at this stage (a little matter of the occupation of Iraq, don’t you know). Now, if you’re CentCom, and you’re planning an air campaign over Iran, what’s your first logical step in that planning?

Correct! You will first identify those military emplacements, such as SAM sites, that would hamper America’s ability to strike nuclear-related targets with air power in Iran’s interior. These sites would of course be myriad, because there has to be consideration not only for the aircraft over Iran, but for protection of the carrior groups that would likely be launching many of them. So, we’re also looking for sites that can fire cruise missiles or other types of anti-ship ordinance. Those go into the plans as “kill sites” as well.

Which pretty much means that all of the BBC’s attempted alarmism and stoking of already tense American / Iranian “relations” amounts, in its entirety, to… that’s right… applied common sense. Something that the BBC left by the wayside long ago, I know, but it bears repeating. God forbid they’d miss a chance to fan the flames of anti-Americanism though, right? Whatever pushes subscriptions, baby. Capitalism at work!

Speaking of anti-Americanism, I’m sure that, if you’ve read this post this far, you’re at least marginally aware of John Murtha’s strategy to defund the war in Iraq. If you’re not, well, shame on you. You can find your background here, slacker.

This effort by the Surrender Caucus was no surprise to me, of course. What ended up driving me into (finally) breathing some e-flame, though, was Bill Frist’s pathetic attempt to come back to the well on his “blog“:

I hope Republicans will openly denounce this charade, throw his words back at him about minority rights and the meaning of the Senate, and take aggressive steps to demonstrate that it is Democrats, not Republicans, who are stifling free debate on Iraq. The last part of this is especially important - because in round one, the Mainstream Media (MSM) especially the NY Times and LA Times have helped Leader Reid by spinning headlines that Republicans were obstructing.

We need to be more aggressive and challenge this time and again. 

Bloggers are at the heart of this debate and I encourage every blogger to expose the Democrat hypocrisy for what it is and continue to decry the decline of the MSM and their lack of objectivity.

Given the antics of the Bush Administration and the Republican congress for the last several years, I wasn’t really in the mood to see someone like Frist pontificating about “Democrat hypocrisy”. I left a love note in his comments:

I caught a story on MSNBC this morning that made me cross my eyes a bit. Now, I’ve been reading for over a year about Europe’s encroaching economic problems, relating to both its socialist systems and demographic challenges. So, I was a bit incredulous when the article began with this:

Jan. 22, 2007 issue - By rights, Europe should be celebrating. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding Treaty of Rome in 1957, and the European Union is on a roll. Its economy is outperforming the United States. Unemployment is falling. The Union’s prosperous embrace has taken in post-communist Eastern Europe. Impoverished countries such as Ireland, Portugal and Spain have become comfortably middle class while health care, free education, housing, clean water and decent roads can today be taken for granted by all.

This seemed a bit incongruous with… well, with everything I’d read about Europe in the last year. Ireland and Great Britain had done fairly well, having mostly eschewed “communism-lite” for a more American-style capitalism, but most of the economies of “Old Europe” were said to be fairly well battered. Ah, but reading on, we get closer to the apparent truth in paragraph 5:

Berlin’s attitude is sweet music in France. Both candidates for the Elysée in May adopt a hawkish protectionist tone on trade and reject reform of the EU’s wasteful agricultural subsidies. Each seeks scapegoats for high unemployment and low growth by railing at the European Commission in Brussels or the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

So, Europe’s economy is a worker’s paradise based on… high unemployment and low growth.

Hmm. Where have I heard this before?

You’d think so, but no, that’s not the case… this time. I was surprised to find an honest, candid and responsible piece on Social Security at MSNBC.com. Worth a read.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Tuesday a horrific terrorist act on the United States that will result in “mass killing” late in 2007. “I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”

You know, I’m not even sure what to say anymore. Even the crunchy booger can only ponder Robertson’s latest stupidity in a shocked silence.

Courtesy of Strategypage:

Most of the mountainous back country villages have been terrorized, and “cleansed” of infidels (non-Moslems) to such an extent, that the terrorists can move about openly in daytime. The terrorists are also getting nastier, as in today’s attack, where two teachers were shot, then burned to death on a road.

There’s a transcript of a lecture given by the infamous Salman Rushdie going around the interweb today. It’s long but interesting, dealing with the western world and how it’s (not) coping with Islamic Facism. A snip from the end of the lecture:

But the point about the freeze-frame is to suggest that we don’t know the ending. That we live in a moment of enormous conflict and we don’t know the ending. And the ending will be determined by which side has the greater will. And you have to say that the will of Islamic radicalism, at the moment, is extremely powerful. The question is whether our will to defend ourselves against it—and I’m not talking about armies and invasions. I’m talking about how to defend the world and the culture that we value against people who despise all those things. Do we have the will to defend it? Because if we don’t, we will lose it.

That had me recalling my own discussion a couple of weeks ago with a young lady at a party, which I later blogged about.

[…] I began having a discussion with my friend Ed about Islamism and the need for westerners to begin standing up in defense of their culture, before it’s overrun and lost.

[…]

American culture, Americanism, was unique in the world when laid down by the founders over two hundred years ago. It has provided the framework for the most powerful, prosperous society of the modern age, and been the idea by which most other clasically liberal, modern societies have been formed. While occasionally tarnished, bruised and beaten down, it still exists as that “shining city on the hill”. We must protect it against all odds, at all costs, lest it be lost to history under a wave of encroaching illiberalism and, dare I say the word… barbarism. We face nothing less than a return to Dark Ages thought, and the death of true intellectualism.

The meme is spreading fast. Will people finally start listening in time to avoid disaster?

From MSNBC.com:

Without more money, Democrats will face “a real struggle for which wins out: the political promises or the fiscal-responsibility promise,” said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that opposes deficits. “If the public perceives that they’re making real choices and cutting back on some things they want to do politically because they’re trying to be fiscally responsible, then they can declare victory.” But if people perceive that they’re honoring fiscal restraint in word but not in deed, then they’ll look pretty silly, Bixby said.

So far, Bixby said, he has been impressed by Democratic leaders’ commitment to deficit reduction, calling the elimination of earmarks “rather stunning.” Another Blue Dog leader, Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), said the Democrats’ conservative wing will block any effort in the House to backslide on those promises.“Yes, there’s going to be tough medicine,” Cardoza said. “But we are incredibly united behind these goals. And they need us to do anything.” 

I suppose I’d be lying if I told you I thought this amounted to anything more then pre-election bloviating, at this point. However, there’s a kernel of hope for solid governance from the Democrats, here.

I think that’s worth mentioning.

I’d continually wondered why, given the obvious hostility of the Iranian government to anything remotely American, we’ve been failing to call Iran out on the world stage for its murderous activity all over the Middle East. Virtually every major anti-US operation of the last decade had Iranian fingerprints on it, whether in the forum of logistical aid, financing or  even more direct involvement. In the face of that… James Baker tells us we should make Iran a constructive partner for stability in Iraq. Huh?

It just didn’t make sense… until I read this article.

Go.

A crunchy booger (now a shrivelled, dessicated thing) stuck to the inside of my trashcan provided me with a friendly reminder of a post I made several months ago. Quoth the Patster:

“If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms,” Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, “There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest.”

With 10 days left to the year 2006, it would appear that

a) Jesus is a goddamned liar, or

b) Pat needs a new Jesus-to-moron dictionary

Hey, he’s the Son of Man. He never claimed to be the Son of Weatherman.

Oh, and Pat: You’re still a fucking twat.