It’s Monday, friends and neighbors, and it’s certainly a mad world.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton is calling for an attack on Iran.
Guardian.
John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country.
Well, great googly moogly. It’s a good thing Mr. Bolton no longer speaks for the U.S. government.
Over at Prairie Weather, there’s an interesting post relating to an attack on Iran.
Apparently, the Bush Administration has failed to generate the same level of interest in attacking Iran as was found before invading Iraq. This has caused them to shift the targets and explanation for attacking.
The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.
There’s an ominous quote in the post…One that sends chills down the spine…
“They’re moving everybody to the Iran desk,” one recently retired C.I.A. official said. “They’re dragging in a lot of analysts and ramping up everything. It’s just like the fall of 2002”—the months before the invasion of Iraq, when the Iraqi Operations Group became the most important in the agency. He added, “The guys now running the Iranian program have limited direct experience with Iran. In the event of an attack, how will the Iranians react? They will react, and the Administration has not thought it all the way through.”
General David Petreaus (hero of the Iraqi occupation) says violence in Iraq has increased.
LATimes.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged today that violence had increased since Sunni Arab militants declared an offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The bright spot is that the damage isn’t as bas as last year, so there must be progress.
“Certainly Al Qaeda has had its Ramadan surge,” Petraeus said in his first comments to reporters since he returned from Washington to give lawmakers a status report on the war in Iraq. But he said the level of attacks was “substantially lower” than during the same period last year.
President Bush has signed an Executive Order that will ensure his secrets are hidden and kept from the light of day.
Prairie Weather.
Now, all a president has to do is claim a record is privileged and anyone seeking these presidential records has to prove it is not–even if the president’s claim is completely unfounded.
And, just to make it even harder to find out what’s going on, a President’s heir has the authority to claim privilege. A legislative effort to remove this barricade has been stalled in the Senate by an unnamed member of the Senate.
The bill, which was introduced by Congressman Henry Waxman passed the House by a vote of 333 to 93. Under Senator Lieberman’s sponsorship, it sailed through the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs but then came to a dead stop. Why? Because a Senator or Senators put a secret hold on a bill.
For shame! For shame! Any Senator that maintains the President’s dark curtain should be honorable enough to do it in the light of day.
The Bush Administration has not funded the FBI’s primary function: crime-fighting.
No Quarter.
Somehow this important Seattle P.I. story fell through the cracks of the blogosphere on Sept. 27, but you need to know — you need to know the Democrats are trying to fight this, but are being blockaded by the White House and Congressional Republicans — and you need to know that this obsessive, all-consuming hunt for terrorist boogeymen is harming the American people more than it is helping (because Americans are far more harmed by white-collar crime crooks like sleazy lenders than by terrorists).
The post goes on at length to describe the Seattle P.I. article and links to the P.I.’s special coverage of the FBI’s raping.
Joe McLaughlin sends out Monday Morning Memos. This week, McLaughlin says he should be elected because he’ll be a Republican patsy and will follow the Party line.
He claims that the Congressman Jones, Jr.’s recent vote to expand the Federal Flood Insurance program to include coverage for wind damage is a further sign Jones, Jr.’s liberal bias.
It is yet another example of Walter Jones voting against his Party’s opinion and conservative principles. By continuing to vote with the liberals, he is expanding government and deepening our national debt.
Of course, McLaughlin brings up the fairness issue and suggests that we (residents of Eastern NC) bring upon ourselves the hurricane damage:
However, why should the tax dollars of someone out in Wyoming support you rebuilding your house if you are living in a high risk area for hurricanes?
Indeed, Joe. Indeed. Of course, I have to ask: Who’re you running to represent? Wyoming or Eastern North Carolina?
And that, friends, is my Mad World Monday.
How’s yours?
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