Did you think the Bush administration had given up thoughts of another military intervention in the Middle East? Guess again:
WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) – The Pentagon is planning a major buildup of U.S. naval forces in and around the Gulf as a warning to Iran, CBS News reported on Monday. […]
Citing unidentified military officers, CBS said the plan called for the deployment of a second U.S. aircraft carrier to join the one already in the region.
The network said the buildup, which would begin in January, wad not aimed at an attack on Iran but to discourage what U.S. officials view as increasingly provocative acts by Tehran.
The report said Iranian naval exercises in the Gulf, its support for Shi’ite militias in Iraq and Iran’s nuclear program were causes for concern among U.S. officials.
Hey, what are war planes, bombs and missiles for if you can’t take them out of the Presidential toy chest every once in a while to rattle around? Of course, the “senior Defense Department officials” anonymously quoted by Reuters about the CBS story call it “premature” and “speculative” but they didn’t exactly deny the CBs report either. Which means someone lower on the totem pole leaked this information much earlier than the Bush administration desired. I’m sure they would have preferred to have announced this build up in the Persian Gulf after it was already a fait accompli, perhaps sometime early next year. Too bad for them, eh? Just another sign that not all the Generals and Colonels at the Pentagon are fully on board with Dick Cheney’s plan for a “Greater Middle East Co-Prosperity Sphere.”
The exact degree to which the Iraq invasion was intended to advance Israeli interests is a matter of heated controversy …
The Neocon/Israeli plan included an attack on Iran of course, with full backing from the Saudi Royal Family. Unfortunately, body count and $$ 100 billions were spend without meeting the primary goals. Search for military victory in Iraq today is only part of a mindset of fools. Too bad fools run this government in Washington DC.
With Naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, perhaps you get lucky with another Tonkin incident.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
CBS News: U.S. Plans Military Buildup To Warn Iran
Pentagon Officials Consider Sending Message To Defiant Tehran
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."and especially not with Iran, since their oil terminal on the Persian Gulf would be ground zero. But hey! What do I know?
Oct 30 was supposed to be the week that US led a series of War Games in the Gulf, just before elections here.
If we could just switch to ethanol like Brasil did, then what happen in the middle east would not be of economic vital importance. But more of a humanitarian vital importance.
It takes ten calories of oil to grow one calorie of corn. One calorie of corn gives something like a half calorie of ethanol.
This is a dead loss all the way.
Eat or gas up your SUV. Which are you gonna choose?
Then explain Brasil??
There is this idea that you can grow crops to produce ethanol where human food crops won’t grow. That’s right, as far as it goes, but the amount of ethanol you can produce that way is very limited. If ethanol proves successful, there will be tremendous pressure to expand your ethanol plantage, because there is not enough energy per year from the sun in total to substitute for oil usage, though you will try, and eventually you will be expanding into food growing areas.
Some people will be starved (genocided) so that others can drive their cars.
Or the targets of genocide will successfully resist and bring the whole scheme down.
Neither fork of the scenerio strikes me as the right approach to running a country.
I suppose that they’ll be raising the age for military service again. Just think about all those potential candidates sitting around in Shady Pines palying Shuffleboard.
Oh shit. I’ve tried three times to say something coherent about this, but “oh shit” is the best I can come up with.
I’m glad there are deeper thinkers around here. ; )
“Oh shit!” sums it up very nicely I think.
The US show of force is more an acknowledgement of Iran’s presence in Iraq, no more than a reminder not to go too far. Iran will become the key stabilizing force in the area. The Saudis would much prefer an Iran dominated Southern Iraq to a power vacuum with civil war. There’s not much of a choice.
Iran has been very realistic. The coalition of the “willing” did all the work for them. And they’ve been raking in the benefits all along.