War as Viagra

It never fails to get to me, just how close we are -- so very close -- to being governed completely by those who simply want to escalate, escalate, escalate. You have your rapture contingent complementing those whose policy is always looking for the boogeyman.

I'm not sucking up to Bush & Cheney by saying this, but they are not quite in either camp.

They are, however, damn close to both -- and with an election in November, and a chance to play the "War President" card to the hilt there is an awful lot of call from those bases -- bases who ALWAYS turn out in elections to unleash the rest of the dogs of war. If I remember right July and August of this year were identified by Sy Hersh as the time to go get Iran. Keeping this escalating until Syria and Iran get involved sure would give an underlying pretext.

And we think being in Iraq sucks for our soldiers now?

Michael Ledeen who has never met an inconvenience (like his pants getting too tight) that is not caused by Iranian Mullahs lets off another loud cry that St. Dominic (Dominic de Guzman) could identify with:

The Timeline [Michael Ledeen]

It was depressing to read Thursday night's press conference with Steve Hadley and Condi Rice, because it was almost all about process, and not about war. Aside from their quite proper insistance that we do want a viable, free Lebanon, it was all about "I've called this one, he's called that one, we're talking, talking, talking all the time, not to worry."

There are harsh parameters on this moment, which is an opportunity waiting to be seized. In another week or so the "international community" (the appeasers and "stability" mavens) will force Israel to stop. At that moment, we should want Hizbollah destroyed in both Lebanon and Syria, Assad under attack from his own people for playing this awful game, and Khamenei humiliated as the artefice of a failed operation. We should be openly calling for regime change in Damascus and Tehran, on the grounds that the civilized world cannot any longer tolerate tyrannical murderers calling the shots in the Middle East and elsewhere.

But we have not heard anything about "seizing the moment." We hear lawyer talk and diplotalk, surrender talk and appeasement talk, and there is no action whatsoever. Is this not the time to go after the terrorist training camps in Syria and Iran? What in the world are we waiting for?

And finally, if we dither through this one, the next one will be worse. Maybe much worse. It's not going away. Stability is a mirage. Chamberlain had a choice between dishonor and war. He chose war and got dishonor. You too, Mr. President. It's the way it works.
Posted at 9:51 AM

Shorter Ledeen:

"KILL THEM ALL, GOD WILL SORT 'EM OUT!"

Naturally, of course, Mr. Ledeen will not fight in the wars he wants to unleash, and or escalate to the point of colorful mushroom clouds. Besides, it's a lot more fun masturbating to those bomb exploding videos than doing it live on the battlefield - safer too.

Oh, and another thing if one more person uses poor old Neville Chamberlain one more time in justifying a war, let him or her have to enter the front ranks as a pennance. The Right, most of whose intellectual ancestors were in "America First" at the time Chamberlain was earning the appeasement moniker, have more than used up their right to the approbation. Being for more war doesn't make you tough, it doesn't make you a man -- it distracts you from the activity you never matured out of, taking a magnifying glass to ants.

I know that the easy way to go through life is to live in a big, fat, rich, country looking at your last 20 years of life and thinking "No real repurcussions for me" -- since then you can enjoy "shit done gettin' blow'd up real good" as if it is some carnival attraction. But some of us, really want to have a world where the latest bunkerbuster isn't the key to the kind of world we want to leave to future generations. I don't want to be governed by Larry the Cable Guy.