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TechnoratiFearing Escalation, Pentagon Fought Cheney Plan
WASHINGTON - Pentagon officials firmly opposed a proposal by Vice President Dick Cheney last summer for airstrikes against Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) bases by insisting that the administration would have to make clear decisions about how far the United States would go in escalating the conflict with Iran, according to a former George W. Bush administration official.
J. Scott Carpenter, who was then deputy assistant secretary of state in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, recalled in an interview that senior Defence Department (DoD) officials and the Joint Chiefs used the escalation issue as the main argument against the Cheney proposal.
McClatchy newspapers reported last August that Cheney had proposal several weeks earlier "launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iran", citing two officials involved in Iran policy.
According to Carpenter, who is now at the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, a strongly pro-Israel think tank, Pentagon officials argued that no decision should be made about the limited airstrike on Iran without a thorough discussion of the sequence of events that would follow an Iranian retaliation for such an attack. Carpenter said the DoD officials insisted that the Bush administration had to make "a policy decision about how far the administration would go -- what would happen after the Iranians would go after our folks."
The question of escalation posed by DoD officials involved not only the potential of the Mahdi Army in Iraq to attack, Carpenter said, but possible responses by Hezbollah and by Iran itself across the Middle East.
Carpenter suggested that DoD officials were shifting the debate on a limited strike from the Iraq-based rationale, which they were not contesting, to the much bigger issue of the threat of escalation to full-scale war with Iran, knowing that it would be politically easier to thwart the proposal on that basis.
The former State Department official said DoD "knew that it would be difficult to get interagency consensus on that question".
The Joint Chiefs were fully supportive of the position taken by Secretary of Defence Robert Gates on the Cheney proposal, according to Carpenter. "It's clear that the military leadership was being very conservative on this issue," he said.
At least some DoD and military officials suggested that Iran had more and better options for hitting back at the United States than the United States had for hitting Iran, according to one former Bush administration insider.
Former Bush speechwriter and senior policy adviser Michael Gerson, who had left the administration in 2006, wrote a column in the Washington Post Jul. 20, 2007 in which he gave no hint of Cheney's proposal, but referred to "options" for striking Iranian targets based on the Cheney line that Iran "smuggles in the advanced explosive devices that kill and maim American soldiers".
Gerson cited two possibilities: "Engaging in hot pursuit against weapon supply lines over the Iranian border or striking explosives factories and staging areas within Iran." But the Pentagon and the military leadership were opposing such options, he reported, because of the fear that Iran has "escalation dominance" in its conflict with the United States.
That meant, according to Gerson that, "in a broadened conflict, the Iranians could complicate our lives in Iraq and the region more than we complicate theirs."
Carpenter's account of the Pentagon's position on the Cheney proposal suggests, however, that civilian and military opponents were saying that Iran's ability to escalate posed the question of whether the United States was going to go to a full-scale air war against Iran.
Pentagon civilian and military opposition to such a strategic attack on Iran had become well-known during 2007. But this is the first evidence from an insider that Cheney's proposal was perceived as a ploy to provoke Iranian retaliation that could used to justify a strategic attack on Iran.
The option of attacking nuclear sites had been raised by President Bush with the Joint Chiefs at a meeting in "the tank" at the Pentagon on Dec. 13, 2006 and had been opposed by the Joint Chiefs, according a report by Time magazine's Joe Klein last June. After he become head of the Central Command in March 2007, Adm. William Fallon also made his opposition to such a massive attack on Iran known to the White House, according Middle East specialist Hillary Mann, who had developed close working relationships with Pentagon officials when she worked on the National Security Council staff.
It appeared in early 2007, therefore, that a strike at Iran's nuclear programme and military power had been blocked by opposition from the Pentagon. Cheney's proposal for an attack on IRGC bases in June 2007, tied to the alleged Iranian role in providing both weapons -- especially the highly lethal explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) -- and training to Shiite militias appears to have been a strategy for getting around the firm resistance of military leaders to such an unprovoked attack.
Although the Pentagon bottled up the Cheney proposal in inter-agency discussions, Cheney had a strategic asset which could he could use to try to overcome that obstacle: his alliance with Gen. David Petraeus.
As IPS reported earlier this week, Cheney had already used Gen. David Petraeus' takeover as the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq in early February 2007 to do an end run about the Washington national security bureaucracy to establish the propaganda line that Iran was manufacturing EFPs and shipping them to the Mahdi Army militiamen.
Petraeus was also a supporter of Cheney's proposal for striking IRGC targets in Iran, going so far as to hint in an interview with Fox News last September that he had passed on to the White House his desire to do something about alleged Iranian assistance to Shiites that would require U.S. forces beyond his control.
At that point, Adm. Fallon was in a position to deter any effort to go around DoD and military opposition to such a strike because he controlled all military access to the region as a whole. But Fallon's forced resignation in March and the subsequent promotion of Petraeus to become CENTCOM chief later this year gives Cheney a possible option to ignore the position of his opponents in Washington once more in the final months of the administration.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
52 Comments so far
Show Allgood job military boys. nice to see the brass standing up for sanity. i wonder what they will do when obama wants to show america hes not a pussy liberal when it comes to throwin low elbows on the basketball court. he was a community political canvasser after all, the junior senator who passed almost NO significant legislation was.. he wants us to know HE knows war and all.. look towards iran and time will tell sometime during the next administration?
Exactly right kent. There is no other possible explanation of our presence in Iraq. Just think how much cheaper it would have been to buy the oil instead of trying to steal it.
If either Israel or the United States attacks Iran, either or both will find themselves getting a damned good ass-kicking. Then they will go nuclear. All bets will be off at that point. More war. Yeah, thats the ticket. More war. Good for me. Good for you. Killing is good for the bottom line. War is peace.
Part of me thinks this is a fear based strategy to help repubs retain the White House. But then I smack myself and the truth becomes evident: war with Iran--with any country--is very good for business, AND they can still use the fear based strategy.
Fear creates money; money creates power; power creates fear.
The Russians have the most advanced fighter/bomber aircraft on the planet and they are not Migs, they are Sukhoi. An air attack over Iran might very well find itself confronted with waves of Sukhoi fighter bombers that out maneuver, out accelerate, out climb and just generally out fly US aircraft, especially the "stealth" aircraft whose handling is ponderous and whose top speed is limited. We could well see what might look like a bunch of hawks decimating a flock of pigeons. We might well lose a couple pigeon coups as well (aircraft carriers).
We can only hope that the generals and admirals will mutiny when and if Cheney makes the decision to attack Iran. The threat of the military actually refusing to carry out his orders might be the one thing keeping this insanity from happening.
So Cheney is either takng this possiblity seriously, or he's bidding his time until September or October, right before the election.
The fact is that many top military brass are against the idea of attacking Iran; whether they would want to carry out this attack is another question, as the effects on our military in Iraq (and Afghanistan) of such an attack are taken seriously by the Pentagon, but not by Cheney, who could car less if tens of thousands of our troops get attacked and killed by Iranian forces and Iraqi Shiites. And while some in the Pentagon know full well that Iran will strike back, Cheney probably has his "intelligence" from the neocons saying that Iran's pilots don't know how to fly, or some other such bullshit, so it'll be another "cakewalk" and all these Iranians will revolt and let US forces march right in and dismantle their atomic program.
After the coming die off maybe that Great Black Woman in the sky will award 21st century mankind the intergalactic equivalent of the Darwin Award in recognition of our collective stupidity in improving the gene pool. Kind of a shame after all the work we have done.
joneden, evolution is a slow process.
M.S; COME TO THINK OF IT, MAYBE NOT!
MORDECHAI SHIBLIKOF; BUT DON'T YOU THINK BUSHIE WOULD BE SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER?
Bush and Cheney WILL go to war in Iran if they are not stopped. No one in the cabinet will stop them. The Supreme Court will not stop them. Congress passed the Kyl-Lieberman Act that allows Bush and Cheny to attack Iran without further approval from Congress, so not only will Congress not stop them, it has encouraged them and funds them. We ALL know this to be true. So. Who is going to stop them? And how? What if someone had stopped Hitler prior to the 1939 invasion of Poland? Who would have stopped him? And how?
OVERKILL; YOU R DEFINITELY SO RIGHT ON!!! ........FOLLOWED BY THE FRENCH CURE FOR DANDRUFF,,,,,LE GUILLOTINE!!!!
RE Mordechai Shiblikov's remarks:
Sad to say the US does not do lessons. It does ideology, and has just about done us and Iraq into the ground with it. It is a trifecta of failure: white house, congress, and the press.
And that about half the people in this country want to bring on McCain tells us the fundamental problem--an illiterate, idiotic populace with powerful and dangerous toys.
www.StudentsForTheEarth.org
Let's all be grateful that these denizens of the White House are stupid as well as wicked. Cheney is hated by more than 90% of the people, and George can't help being too goofy to be popular. You would think the PR firms they have on the payroll (at our expense) would have told them to present a more sexy image.
You don't see Rupert Murdock doing his own advertising. Right now they look exactly like what they are, and a few people are still fooled. God help us all when they wise up.
Why did evildoer cheney install a Shiite government in Iraq? So that the ties between the two countries of Iraq and Iran would be strengthened thereby allowing for one Nuclear blast to eliminate the people and everything else in both countries. Then the USA calmly strolls in holding hands with Israel and takes the oil with no objection.
Cheney should be shot by a firing squad after the appropriate term in the inquisition chamber at Guantanamo or Abu Graib.
It is possible that some of the commentators above have missed a key point--or the key point--of Porter's article.
We have known for some time that Dick Cheney is a dangerous sociopath--half-man, half-machine, with a mechanical heart who doesn't "work" like the rest of us.
What is really alarming is the degree to which he has been able to undermine and circumvent the "Chain of Command," so that our elected "Commander-in-Chief" has become an irrelevancy.
Correlatively, and equally alarming, is the way Cheney was able to establish rogue cadres within our Pentagon and military elite structures capable of mounting virtual "coups" against the "reasoned" and highly calibrated policies of our defense establishment. Novels and screenplays will have to be written about the machinations behind Fallon's descent and Petraeus's rise.
We seem to have gotten lucky this time, according to Porter's piece, in that more sober military personnel managed to keep the hounds of an expanded war at bay by posing contingency questions, and trumping Cheney's war-growling with the hard fact that the U.S. actually had an "escalation deficit" in relation to Iran's potential responses. But we must investigate further and inquire of the nature of a military command that can be so vulnerable to subversive forces from within our political system.
Why don't the states just put a referendum on the November ballot and have the voters choose whether or not person or persons should be impeached before the year is over. Take too long? I don't think so. When dirty rotten lawyers want to move fast just get out of the way
Someone should stuff a dirty towel in Cheney's mouth and then tape it shut with that really wide duct tape.
I am beginning to come to the conclusion that The only hope left to avert war with Iran will be a military coup - the first in our history! And if that occurs will Gen. Petraeus then "betray" us, or will he do us the favor of a firing squad to take care of Cheney?
"Pentagon officials argued that no decision should be made about the limited airstrike on Iran without a thorough discussion of the sequence of events that would follow an Iranian retaliation for such an attack."
No, really? Plan an attack without planning for aftermaths?
Every person in this country should write their Congressperson and tell them to impeach (at least) cheney NOW.
Just hope mcsame doesn't pick cheney to lead the search for a vp.
it's globalisation..slowly day by day everything is becoming globalised...with the slow painfull realisation that what happens to "them" also happens to "us"
and that if you barge your way up to the other end of the life boat and punch a hole in the hull...your end of the lifeboats sinks also...
sadly what these crazed lunatics want is for war to be globalised ...still insanely clinging to the ultimate power crazed illusion that it is possible to fight and win a "war to end all wars"
what every body needs needs now is a complete reversal of conceptual thought
what is needed is a "peace to end all wars"
it will require an altogether different sort of heroism, self sacrifice and courage....the sort of heroism ,self sacrifice and courage that hither to has been considered "weak and undesirable" the sort of Heroism self sacrifice and courage that threatens the very foundation of mainstream culture and politics
the heroism, self sacrifice and courage displayed by the victims of war... not the perpetrators..as long as the perpetrators of war are allowed to patronise marginilise and degrade the victims of war claiming moral victory in the process... then the self same disgusting morass of power politics will continue to consume human life, like a dog chewing a bone..or a junkie shooting up his next shot
what is needed is a "peace to end all wars"
we need the heroism ,self sacrifice and courage to finaly hold these truths to be self evident
"According to Carpenter . . . Pentagon officials argued that no decision should be made about the limited airstrike on Iran without a thorough discussion of the sequence of events that would follow an Iranian retaliation for such an attack."
Now there's a novel concept: try to figure out how the enemy (and the world) is likely to respond BEFORE you attack.
Only 7 months and everyone is counting the days:
The Iraqis. Dodging an "agreement" that makes them a US colony.
The Dems: Don't want to impeach Pinky and the Brain.
The Pentagon: Dodging an attack on Iran that could escalate into huge American losses, and the US basically having to destroy the country.
Environmentalists: Way past time to get started on GW.
Us: End the madness!
Sorry if you lose some tax cuts, rich old geezers, but you're burning it on Dubya's war and deficit inflation anyway.
I remember when the U.S. was told that Russian people didn't know what was going on in the world because they were fed "propaganda" by their government. I grew up believing this. I felt so sorry for the Russian people. Well, now look whose fed propaganda! We have become what we fear and what we hate. Why? Because we have allowed ourselves to be led down this thorny path by gold rings in our noses. We have been fed "stuff." We Americans like our "stuff." We are fat and bloated and saturated like cows for the slaughter....and that is just what the world powers will do! Don't believe for a minute that the Bush Administration is going it alone on this treacherous journey. I believe a number of world leaders are conspiring to create a single government whereby all people will become laborers for the economic benefit of the ruling class. They MUST eliminate the middle class. It is the middle class who still has the brains and the power to thwart them. They are dumbing us down for a reason.
Try to stop them.....and see where we will end up. The thousands of prisons and secret locations being built right now by the military industrial complex....will house the political desenters of this criminal coup.
I agree with the idea of persuading other nations to boycott and sanction the U.S. How can we get this point across? Write letters? E-mail? I've thought of sending Congress a particular movie: "Elizabeth." Elizabeth had a very effective remedy for traitors in her midst. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't seen the movie....watch it and see how easily all this trouble could be snuffed out in a few hours. The problem is....who would do it? And when?
funeocons, that's a very useful strategy.
The world should boycott the US to help halt the US export of dangerous, destructive ideas, methods, and systems, particularly in food, medicine, energy, mining, building and transport, telecom, information tech, military, and in political, commercial, industrial management, public policy, law, finance, education, entertainment, press/media, etc, etc, etc.
The world should also boycott the US to send a message to ignorant Americans that they need to attend to their civic responsibilities.
The world should also boycott the US to help weaken it and force it to close its 700+ military bases worldwide, and stop coercing governments, murdering people, and polluting the environment.
skippyagogo - you don't say where you are from, but I understand how hard it is for folks outside the US to imagine that such a powerful, "free" country could elect such dense, self-destructive leaders. Well, we do (not). We have elections, we vote, and the other guy becomes president. But that aside, I am very interested to hear more from our foreign friends if they really do think "the world" would actually ever do something to stop these maniacs. Americans are basically in denial or, if they have tried to do something about this, recognize that democratic forces are not at play here. THIS IS a DICTATORSHIP. There is no cure for this from the inside. They have taken over all mechanisms - Supreme Court, Justice Department, law enforcement, media, and apparently, there is no opposition party OR through their covert spying ops they now literally have something on everyone. We have had MANY conscientious whistleblowers, but to no avail. I think our only hope is to encourage international boycott against our country. It will hurt, but in the long run, it could end this whole miserable experience and save a lot of lives and treasure. Then we might be able to go on with the real business of the people of the world -- focusing on making life liveable and sustainable for all, in peace.
Messianic if you ask me, not that anyone did. The men in the white coats should come and lock all these people up with all the other nutjobs who think they are JC or Napoleon.
Speaking purely clinically from a Freudian point of view, no wonder Darth Vader's daughter is a Lesbian. She didn't want to succumb to his world view, which is that of a sociopath.
I mean, for example, compare and contrast Cheney's globalism with Eleanor Roosevelt's globalism. The latter sought to ameliorate conflicts among states while the former escalates them. The position of the latter enobled and strengthened the United States while the position of the former has brought chaos and death to millions.
One other important point... 99.8 percent of American voters have no concept of the difference between Uranium 235 and U-238 and the technology required to create nuclear electric "power" versus a nuclear "bomb." This Administration is banking on this ignorance to sell its case that Iran seeks a bomb. The MainStreamMedia is the enabler here. They ought to be pounding EDUCATION on the distinctions here. Instead, they sensationalize the pronouncements of the evil powers-that-be.
One wonders if, for example, NBC's millionaire evening broadcaster Williams, slave to General Electric (which is a nuclear power in its own right!), knows the difference. How about "impeaching" the evening "news"? The airwaves are PUBLIC PROPERTY.
For that matter, "impeach" the Federal Communications Commission for letting these lies go on and on, and depose every member of the Congress who supported the War on Iraq. Iran is no threat to America's Middle Class. Bush and Cheney are.
-30-
Why do they not impeach? Simple. They (Democratic politicans currently in office) fear that if impeachment proceedings move forward, Bush/Cheney will launch an attack on Iran and declare martial law.
There's good reason for that fear. One thing this administration has proven countless times : they WILL have their way, even if it's illegal.
The most basic and fundamental lesson of the 8 ruinous, disastrous, catastrophic years of the reign of George Wanker Bush is that no nation as powerful and aggressive as this one can afford to have a moron as president. Bush is so stupid, so incapable of making even the most basic kinds of critical judgments that you would expect of a 12th grader in an average American high school, that he has concluded in his "gut" (certainly not his mind) that an attack on Iran will 1) maintain the presidency for the Republicans by sweeping the nation with patriotic fervor (see JH above) and 2) give the finger to all those piling on him in these last amputated duck days of his rule. Take that!, Scott McClellan. Take that!, Ricardo Sanchez. Take that!, Barack Obama. And I think the second reason is more important to his battered yet still gargantuan ego than the first. I think he will most certainly attack Iran and then swagger from military base to military base yelling "Oooo Rah" and making the same kind of looney and preposterous statements that will remind anyone with a handful of brains of Hitler proclaiming victory as the Soviets closed in on his bunker.
If Congress continues to refuse to impeach those bastards, then we the people should arrest and try them.
I absolutely believe that it was Pentagon brass which has stopped President Bush from attacking Iran in the past and only for the perceived preservation of our armed forces. Always remember, the only folks that President Bush trusts are uniformed people, preferably at the rank of general.
I would be very afraid that Bush/Cheney will launch an attack on Iran before the election this year. It's what they want. It would throw the idiot electorate into a tizz and they'll vote for McCain out of fear of "changing ships" in the middle of a "war" (really another invasion). Oh, and that tiny technicality of needing Congressional approval to go to war? That little gem of a check hasn't been applied since WWII. Think about that.
I'm no expert, but Dickbrain's body language in the picture tells me I have already heard more than I am going to believe.
"Pentagon officials argued that no decision should be made about the limited airstrike on Iran without a thorough discussion of the sequence of events that would follow an Iranian retaliation for such an attack."
How many four star generals did it take to think up that pearl of wisdom?
I mean to be kind so I use gentle words and the words are that the slimeball, Dick Cheney is a world class war criminal. He will use any made up lie to justify the most horrible actions that a nation could do. If he were just a petty dictator of a minor nation, we might merely despair of the dark nature of some persons, but as the number two blowhard of the most powerful nation ever, some action of retribution should be used. But, it won't. The Dick does any evil he wants. Democracy is asleep in America.
the military does not want to go in Iran,Admiral Fallon just said fuck Bush, and let me remind you folks that the Russians have troops in Iran right now protecting their nuclear plant. Fighting the Russians back by Chinese money could be a very bad mistake.Peace
Isn't this just indicative of the Bush/Cheney admin thought process... it goes something like this.
Bush/Cheney "Wahhh wahh, we won't to bomb xxxxxx"
Military Advisors "But Mr. President, there is going to be long term consequences for these actions."
Bush/Cheney "WHY!?"
Military Advisors "Because Mr. President, here's a globe and a map of the world - 6 billion of them are not American... you live here, in the US - on an island, completely disconnected from reality. Plus you've never experienced war - we, for the most part, have."
Bush/Cheney "SO!?"
Keep poking that hornets nest and see what happens! We may as well all start running now, cause there aint nothing quite as mean as a nest of angry hornets!
Or Impeach the assholes NOW!
Cheney looks like Dr. Evil in that photo..
"Und I vill CRUSH dem in mine own two hands..."
Looking at Cheney holding up his hands in this photo, I can almost see the blood dripping from them.
"George Bush will face protests and demands that he be charged as a war criminal over the Iraq conflict when he makes his final visit to Britain as US President next weekend.
Mr Bush and the first lady, Laura Bush, will be entertained by the Queen at Windsor Castle during the state visit and will have dinner at Downing Street with Gordon Brown.
But leading voices in the worlds of the arts and politics, including the novelist Iain Banks, the artist David Gentleman and the human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger, have now joined forces to call for Mr Bush to face a war crimes trial in the Hague."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/whos-the-last-visitor-brown-needed-at-a-time-like-this-s...
Okay, Impeachment. Whom 1st? All or none or you should know what will most certainly occur. I prefer Article.III.Section.3. But who the F$$K knows. I would love them hung high by their throats, let the noose slip a bit allowing a slow death. Perhaps then a useful dialogue on what constitutes TORTURE can begin, off topic.
Not only Pelosi and Dems, this is not a Partisan issue it is an entire issue to have been started by the ENTIRE Congress, regardless of Party. We have Media complicity as well.[I take exception with Kucinich and Helen Thomas]I have been writing letters to the Editor[so the F$$K what, right]for 2 years accusing the Executive Branch of doing end runs around the Legislative and Judicial Branches, that the Sociopath in Chief led by decption, lies, this Nation to illegally invade a Sovereign Nation and have been illegally occupying said Nation and that the Everyday Media is Complicit. They call we want to print your letter, they never do. They lie to me on a personal level, simple for these unethical, deceitful gang of four. Bye Posse Comitatus, Hi john Warner Defense Act of 2007, Martial Law and suspension of the Constitution. Only a matter of time after Olmerts latest threats.
I most surely do think it is high time to demand that Impeachment be put back out in the sunlight and ON THE TABLE!
Once again--Pelosi and the Democrats must be held accountable for this. Who among us did not know that Bush would try to attack Iran before leaving office? By letting him off the hook for all his past war crimes, the Democrats and their phony hearings have just emboldened him to commit more war crimes. If Israel pre-emptively attacks Iran, Bush will use that as an excuse to aid Israel, and the Democrats will not oppose him. They are all war criminals.
Yep, I'm a fool. But then again, Pandora did release hope from the box she opened. Things might work out for the best in the end, I hope anyhow.
Watching Cheney's aticulate manner at the microphone is a lesson in today's perverted norms. Him and his kind are granted a big stage; their voice is a loud shout. How this cult has ever been granted a platform is a lesson in social degedation. Their case for a winnable nuclear first strike is actually given credibility by the mass media. This propaganda is passed off as acceptable and sane, even worthy of thoughtful consideration.
Included in this inane lineup of movers and shakers are the leading "opposition" party that everyone has labeled as "change", "historic", before they've ever proven an act or deed to inspire their unholy worship. I fear my neighbors are conceptually challenged to the point of annihilation.
Wanna 'splain again, just how evolution is so god damned grand!?
> consequences of yet another war will not give the neocons the outcome they desire.
Unless they desire a permanent war, which they likely do. From their standpoint, every one else in the world is crazy and only they can can clearly see and protect us from the dangers. Bush's most steadfast defenders in the local paper's blog/letter site believe we've been in a war against Muslims for the last 1400 years. Since that is a given, it's a given we'll be at war for centuries more.
What some neocons see is a Manifest Destiny of the US to be at war with Muslim countries.
In their eyes, no outcome will disprove this.
So sorry skippy, but it is a hope of a fool to think that they can't really be thinking of attacking without a plan. Iraq is a big 'success' and they didn't plan. Why would they need to plan the next time? Plans are for Presidents who read. We got ourselves a War President. Yeehaw.
If impeachment is off the table then what about impalement?
I see your point Locust, but another war would force the rest of the world to finally recognize the usa as a rogue nation. We would have to do something about it, and the options are not good for anyone. A dictatorship forming in the usa would not be acceptable to anyone, inside or outside of the usa.
At best there would only be a need to boycott anything produced in the states, and ban sales to your country. But that proposal is a blockade, an act of war, and no one's done that to the usa since 41. We all know what you did to that country; nukes.
If cheney and bush want to spark armageddon, and obliterate all life on earth, than another war is the way for them to do it. But relying on a god to sort out the mess they wish to cause is stupid. There is no such god, we're on our own.
"yet another war will not give the neocons the outcome they desire."
I'm not so sure about this.
What if Cheney wants to create absolute mayhem, bedlam, insanity, so that he has an excuse to declare martial law?
It may be his goal just to unleash the dogs of war. Whomever they kill is not his concern.
Impeach Cheney and save the world.
I really hope this is just the rattling of sabres, and no one is really thinking of letting more dogs of war slip from their leashes. The hope of a fool maybe, but the consequences of yet another war will not give the neocons the outcome they desire.
Cheney sucks.