Joint Chiefs Chairman Says U.S. Preparing Military Options Against Iran

[spanone]

here we go!

~snip~ The nation's top military officer said today that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be "extremely stressing" but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing specifically to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.

"It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," he said at a Pentagon news conference.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/25/AR2008042501480_pf.html

[damntexdem]

1. Preparing potential preemptive unprovoked attacks on Iran.

It would be a mistake to think that we could not get bogged down in another unwinnable conflict.

[spanone]

2. bu$h* has nothing to lose. he has no legacy and he can walk away from whatever he instigates

[NightWatcher]

4. when he starts this war, he's not going anywhere. Makes you wonder why Petraues was promoted?

He needs a flunkie who will do whatever bossman says without thinking. He already lied about and sold his soul for the Iraq war. I bet he'll be a good little do-boy

[lonestarnot]

19. Nazis need dedicated water boys.

[OmahaBlueDog]

47. It makes you wonder if McSame's Veep will be....

Well, I was trying to link th the Cheney sunglasses pic, but that did not work.

[BeHereNow]

39. Yeah, he's going to waltz off to his private fresh water supply in Paraguay

While the rest of us die off in what used to be
called the United States of America.

BHN

[aquart]

3. Define "preparing military options."

Is someone writing a nice paper on what to do?

OR are military contracts being sent out with tight SHIP BY dates? Are soldiers being called back and called in to train for specific missions?

You all get Chicken Little over the least little thing. But I don't see the smallest actual military effort being made. Just talk.

You don't get an invasion by waving a magic wand. There's a whole lotta stuff you have to collect and warehouse first. Anybody seen a single sign of that?

We have an exhausted, suicidal, played-out military. We couldn't invade a kindergarten.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. Air strikes and there is plenty of forces to do that without

changing any forces in the middle east

[aquart]

34. No, sweetie, there aren't.

And air strikes just piss people off, people whose army is young and fresh and fully-equipped.

Or maybe you haven't noticed we can't even control Baghdad. Did you check the size of Iran? Did you google the population?

WHERE DO YOU GET THESE DEMENTED, FEVERISH IDEAS??????

[bushmeister0]

32. It's been going on for a while.

They don't plan on invading. They just want to decapitate the regime in Tehran:

Sy Hirsh from a while back:

"The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer. Much of the focus is on the accumulation of intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, and missile sites, both declared and suspected. The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids. 'The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible,' the government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon told me."

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/01/24/050124fa_fact?currentPage=2

[aquart]

36. We have commandos left? Have you checked?

Three dozen air strikes. Done all at once or in shifts? Where are we storing three dozen bombers complete with bombs and crews? And fuel. And service crews (which I thought we already retrained for Baghdad ground patrol).

And, of course, your first strikes, (one or two or two dozen?) will have to be aimed at taking out the Iran air force and however many bombers they bought with the oil money. Because you don't actually want them to retaliate before you finish the job. You are making sure they can't retaliate, right? And, maybe, you'll want to send a few strikes to the military barracks...although that might trigger instant retaliation, what do you think? So we're already up to how many air strikes and not one nuclear, chemical or missile site touched yet.

I understand that Hirsh is accurately reporting Pentagon delusions. But do YOU have to believe that crap?

By the way, this administration gutted human intelligence operations overseas. Can you tell me upon whom we are relying for these "secret reconnaissance missions"?

[OmahaBlueDog]

48. Can you tell me upon whom we are relying for these "secret reconnaissance missions"?

My guess would be the Mossad

[Tyler Durden]

5. ANY senator or representative who supports ONE PENNY of new "Defense" appropriations NOW....

...is GUILTY of supporting both the illegal Iraq occupation and now the new Iran War.

There is no other moral interpretation possible.

[spanone]

7. i agree 100%. more funding is complicity imo

[warren pease]

37. Better start lining them up now because...

... the majority party in the House, under the relentlessly awful "leadership" of Ms. Nancy of the perpetual botox injection, the Neocons' dream token democrat, are planning to give these murdering bastards another huge lump of borrowed cash to continue screwing up the Middle East.

But it's only $170 billion this time and the brilliant armchair warriors in the pentagon claim that this modest sum will keep things unbearably miserably through 2009.

The House leadership obviously has no desire to piss off the ruling junta by cutting off their allowances.

But they're standing tough against those damn peaceniks. According to one report, "...Pelosi aides and allies have been quick to say that antiwar activists should not believe that because of the two earlier victories, Pelosi will stop a vote on war funding...."

Once again, democrats in Congress stumble all over themselves to show the American people, and those meanies at Fux Nudes who talk bad about them, that they still support our troops -- particularly their right to get killed or maimed for those patriotic scalpers now selling gas at $4 per gallon... at least until they raise it to $5.

Patriotism's one thing, but the shareholders demand revenue increases and the execs need a new fleet of high-end Mercedes. Somebody's got to pay for all this and it sure as hell isn't going to be the companies.

But with Iran in the bomb sights, it's important to remember that using nukes is making war on the cheap. Stage a few B-52s at Diego Garcia, load 'em up with "smart" cruise missiles and send them off to create a brand new hell on earth. No ground troops to feed and provision. No gas or diesel for troop carriers and tanks. No Blackwater $1000 a day mercenaries. Just a nice clean "surgical" strike.

The Hiroshima bomb's yield was estimated at about 12 kilotons. If they use those "dial a body count" cruise missiles like the ones Cheney stole from Minot last August, one single warhead could be set to yield 150 kilotons -- equivalent to 12.5 Hiroshima nukes. And each B-52 can carry up to 12 of the fucking things. And it's not going to be just one plane on this mission. Do the math, solve for X number of planes on the mission and begin drinking heavily.

History will never forgive the Bushies for this one. Unfortunately, I doubt history will be very kind to us "good Germans" either. We who pissed and moaned and typed our fingers to the bone -- but never quite made it out into the streets to do the dirty work that must be done when all other means fail.

And they have, in fact, failed completely, the final straw being a complicit democratic majority in the House that absolutely refuses to do the right thing no matter the consequences, preferring to take the advice of their imbecile consultants who tell them the way to win in November is to appear as weak, unprincipled, cowardly, amoral, conscienceless and inept as possible.

Yup... Sounds like a winning strategy to me. I've always thought that going full tilt for the candy ass wimp vote was the democrats' best shot.

If times were a little less tense, they'd be fun to watch with all the dancing they have to do to keep their constituents from burning their houses down while still sucking up to the worst people in the world every time Cheney curls his infamous lip. Unfortunately, most of us are a little short on humor these days, having been sickened their uniformly craven behavior since January 2007 when the promises turned into lies and the war-profiteering corporate agenda took over.

I sincerely hope that none of them sleeps well for the rest of their lives, and that their deaths are as protracted and painful as are those of the Iranian people who will die miserably of radiation poisoning -- a direct result of House democrats' latest multi-billion-dollar give-away to the same war profits machine that funds their sorry assed campaigns and whose bribes bought their complicity a long, long time ago.

Rotten fuckers, every last one of them who votes aye on this one. And because they are, in fact, rotten fuckers, I'm sure there'll be plenty of ayes.


wp

[Tyler Durden]

44. 100% agreement, as usual.

[kenny blankenship]

8. They have used new wars and escalations of war in all the previous elections

2006 didn't come off right presumably b/c Iran didn't take the bait, but 2004 worked a miracle for them and so did the 2002 midterms.

War is their goto tactic. Nothing else works for them. Just because Bushler is leaving doesn't mean they won't open a new chapter to gain advantage in November, and to saddle the incoming Democratic President Barack Obama with even more US committments to war that he wants none of.

[The Call Up]

9. It's like a car crash happening in slow motion

We're all the passengers and can do nothing, but watch.

I guess Hillary's vote on Kyl-Lieberman will be front and center again. Actually, I take that back. The media will probably do exactly what they did with Iraq: ask no tough questions, cover up for the politicians, and assist the neo-cons in misleading the American public again.

The fact that Hillary announced, unprovoked last week, that she'd obliterate Iran sort of suggests that she knows what's about to happen and she's already positioning herself as the "war hawk" again.

[BeHereNow]

40. Welcome to DU Call Up...

Dismal days, eh?

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=11116
BHN

[The Call Up]

45. Thanks

Good article.

[Supersedeas]

10. nothing to see here -- feed them more Wesley Snipes distraction

[bdamomma]

11. Mullen another bush enabler.

we must stop this.

[spanone]

12. another headline:Joint Chiefs Chairman Assails Iran’s Role in Iraq

boom boom boom boom boom war drums pounding louder & louder

WASHINGTON — The government of Iran continues to supply weapons and other support to extremists in Iraq, despite repeated promises to the contrary, and is increasingly complicit in the death of American soldiers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Friday in a stark new assessment of Iranian influence.

The chairman, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, said he was “extremely concerned” about “the increasingly lethal and malign influence” by the government of Iran and the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, a special force that aids and encourages Islamic militants around the world. The Quds Forces in Iran were created during the bloody Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and report directly to the leadership of Iran’s theocratic government.

Pentagon concerns about Iranian influence in neighboring Iraq is nothing new, but the content and tone of Admiral Mullen’s remarks left the impression that far from abating, the worries about Iran have intensified in recent months.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/world/middleeast/25cnd-military.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[Junkdrawer]

13. Rattle that Saber..Rattle that Saber...Harder...Harder...

Dubya was a cheerleader, right?

[Fireweed247]

14. I guess the CIA report saying Iran was not a threat is meaningless?

It's been a few months now, who remembers these things with the corporate media lying to us 24/7?

[spanone]

15. facts never got in the way in iraq, why should they now?

[dkofos]

16. Is it time to IMPEACH the moron in chief YET??

[nichomachus]

17. Damn those Iranians for brokering a ceasefire. How dare they? How dare they!

[fascisthunter]

18. Can We Please Put a Lid on the Crazy Neo-cons

I swear... these whack jobs belong in a mental institution.

[KoKo]

20. Nancy...Harry.....Do you hear that? How about Obama and Hillary? Do you Hear That???

:shrug:

[spanone]

25. i sure wish to hell they would get ahead of this...they will steamroll this war in a heartbeat

every democrat should be alarmed and raising hell

[earthboundmisfit]

21. BushCo is going to do as much damage as (in)humanly possible

before they leave(?) power - God damn these motherf*ckers to hell :grr:

[Career Prole]

22. My daughter always tells me "Hate's a strong word, Dad."

She also scolds me over my occasional cussing.
I'm glad she isn't listening right now because
I hate these fucking assholes!!!

They want to start a new fuckin' war with Iran because they claim they present an "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq?!?!

Dumbshit Mullen, what the holy fuck is OUR influence there?!?!

How about everyone fucking goes HOME instead?!?!

'Scuse me while I go out back and bang my head on a tree stump or somethin' until it fuckin' bleeds. Tree stump...head...at this point I don't give a fuck which.

:banghead:

[KillCapitalism]

23. So what happens to gas prices if we attack them?

$20/gallon? $25???:scared:

[BeHereNow]

38. Are you sure you want to know?

Blood soaked streets are never a pleasant thought...
Remember Katrina?
Now multiply it by a million and make it nation wide.
BHN

[Aristus]

24. This just in: George W. Bush: Only President ever to lose THREE wars.

Some legacy, dubya...

[dixiegrrrrl]

26. I used to think Dr. Strangelove was fiction.

they are all certifiable :crazy: :crazy:


:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[crimsonblue]

27. Hmmm, lethal as in helped-negotiate- peace-b/t-Maliki-and-Al Sadr lethal?

Or lethal as in, they-have-no-nukes legal? Or better yet, lethal as in, they-are-a-sovereign-and-stable-country lethal? Or, my favorite, lethal as in, warmly-and-openly-greeted-by-Iraq-with-minimal-need-for-security-protection lethal? I am sooo glad that we have Dickhead Cheney and his boy king in charge.... sigh.

[spanone]

28. lethal, as in it's an election year

[spanone]

29. here's a pic of adm mullen

[magellan]

30. If "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq is the criteria

...then why are the WH and Congress still standing?

[bushmeister0]

31. It would be a mistake to think we aren't, Mike.

[bushmeister0]

33. The very fact that Petreaus is taking Fallon's job tells you all you need to know

about what's coming down the pike.

[aquart]

35. Or not.

[lovuian]

41. Get ready people WWIII is in progress

I just can't wait to see our military men and women who are exhausted go to war with Iran also

and are told their tour duties will be 2 years who needs the surge when you get WWIII

and then the Republicans can all start the draft with the help of Democrats

and I don't think we are going to have a new President for 2009 looks like Civil War is coming

I don't know about anybody else I'm fed up

[BeHereNow]

42. Here you go darlin'

http://www.escapeartist.com

It makes me feel better to visit that site and plan my escape.
I don't want to be a part of the US any more.

Enjoy!

BHN

[TheWatcher]

49. I've been visitng that Site daily since you posted it BHN

And I Thank You for doing so, because I never even knew about it until you did.

I think it's about time for a lot of us.

Hope you are hanging in there.

[BeHereNow]

51. It's important to keep some hope, eh?

I've got NONE for this country, but visiting
that site gives me hope about living somewhere
else... I've got my sights on NZ.
BHN

[spanone]

43. leaving the democrats the ungodly clusterfuck of iraq, iran and god knows what else ensues

[Rex]

46. Wow, guess they will let any old idiot run the military.

Nowadays.

[Elspeth]

50. They are really trying to irretrievably destroy the US

No other reason for a 3rd "front" in this godforsaken "war on terror".