Instahoglets 24th April 06

Its been a while since I did one of these. Here's some not-to-miss stuff I really wanted to write screeds about but never did.

Iranian President Imanutjob has announced that direct US-Iran talks are no longer needed now that Iraq has agreed a permanent government. Two things. One - its another opportunity for direct diplomacy wasted by two sides who don't comprehend the other's bargaining style. It has to be admitted, though, the Bush administration has put up more barriers to face-to-face talks than the Iranian regime has. Two - Iran is obviously pretty happy with the new Iraqi PM and sees the new Iraqi government as a certain ally if it comes to war with the US.

As the oil "spike" draws out into "plateau" and the usual rightwing mouthpieces try to spin it as a good thing, let's remind ourselves of what those same mouthpieces said before the invasion of Iraq about how it was going to bring us all cheap gas at the pumps. This post by Invictus of Blah3 is the kind of thing I wish I wrote far more often. Great work.

Norman Solomon on When "Diplomacy" Means War - yet again the Bush administration are doing the old bait and switch, sharpening their war plans while protesting they only want to talk. What's worse, the neocons already know the "talk-talk" line is a sham, same as last time.

"The United States doesn't have enough good intelligence to know whether or not Iran will be capable of producing nuclear weapons in the near future, top congressional intelligence committee members said on Sunday," (Reuters). That will be Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R) and Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, telling the world (on Fox News Sunday, no less) that the neocons are lying sacks of sh*t. Is this the first you've heard about it?

Here's another thing you probably won't have heard - because even though the Bush administration and the neocons MUST know it, they are keeping quiet about it. Dr. Gordon Prather, renowned expert on nuclear weapons, points out that Iran doesn't have anything like the fabled 50,000 centrifuges and won't have for years. Which means if the Bush administration goes to war with Iran in the coming year - something that neocon insiders say is pretty much certain - and goes for the nuclear option, they will be nuking empty bunkers!

Just in case you needed more proof that the neocons are lying sacks of sh*t, Think Progress has the story. Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s Europe division, told 60 Minutes last night that way back in 2002 George Tenet personally told Bush, Rice and Cheney that Iraq’s foreign minister — who agreed to act as a spy for the United States — had reported that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction program. So they kept on saying they had proof, even said they new where the WMD were, and invaded anyway.

Rummie is already planning the next set of wars - which will be fought against anyone Bush decides is a terrorist "over there", whether the countries "over there" are allies or not and whether they like it or not. Even the US Ambassadors are out of the loop - "in a subtle but important shift contained in a classified order last year, the Pentagon gained the leeway to inform -- rather than gain the approval of -- the U.S. ambassador before conducting military operations in a foreign country, according to several administration officials. "We do not need ambassador-level approval," said one defense official familiar with the order."

And in yet more Imperial hubris, the U.S. is demanding that Russia halt all arms sales to villain of the moment, Iran. The sheer hypocricy of this demand can be seen on any day you like by looking at News Nows track of news reports concerning the arms trade. The U.S., which spends as much on its military establishment as the entirety of the rest of the world combined, is also the worlds largest arms dealer and isn't always too fussy about the kind of regime it sells to.

And finally, just as a reminder that the American Empire is run by people so psychologically screwed up and repressed that if you stuck a lump of coal up their asses in a week you would have diamonds...

A Liberal Dose reminds us that "if dildos are outlawed, only outlaws will have dildos."

Maybe what Dubya needs is a good blowjob in the Oval Office, relax him some and give him a reason to keep the world living.