Drumbeats category archive
They’re Doing It Again 0
Attacking the messenger. It’s sure sign that truth is not on their side. Dan Froomkin analyzes the evasions:
All Perino would say was that President Bush is seeking a diplomatic solution — precisely what the White House claimed as it set the Iraq war in motion in late 2002 and early 2003.
Hersh, who has a history of well-sourced, groundbreaking reporting (he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his uncovering of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam), writes that Bush is seriously considering limited strikes against Iran, ostensibly in defense of American troops in Iraq. The real attraction of such an approach, Hersh writes, is that Bush and Cheney believe it could be readily sold to the American people.
Plans for broad bombing targeting Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities are being replaced with plans for a more limited attack, Hersh writes, after Bush and his aides “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.”
Criswell predicts that, when all is said and done, Hersh will have another Pulitzer and the rest of us will have another war.
Drumbeats (Updated and Kicked to the Top) 1
They want more war. Seymour Hirsch:
The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical†strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.
We are led by warmongers.
God help us all.
Via Dan Froomkin.
Addendum, 10/2/2007:
Hear Mr. Hersh interviewed on today’s Fresh Air. From the website:
Hersh exposed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and covers the administration closely. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the recipient of five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards and a dozen other prizes. His most recent book, Chain of Command, is a detailed analysis of events at Abu Ghraib.
Drumbeats 0
They think war is good.
They think it is a first, not a last resort.
They are too old to fight. They leave it to the children of others.
They are, in short, disgusting excuses for humanity.
They want war.
For its own sake.
Words fail me.
Via Atrios.
Drumbeats 0
Listen to the beat at Delaware Watch.
Drumbeats 0
Bang the drum slowly, sing the song lowly:
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.â€
(snip)
Postscript: Barnett Rubin just called me. His source spoke with a neocon think-tanker who corroborated the story of the propaganda campaign and had this to say about it: “I am a Republican. I am a conservative. But I’m not a raging lunatic. This is lunatic.â€
Via Will Bunch.