Whoops Apocalypse!

Many media and bloggy pages are being filled today with comment on a forthcoming Seymour Hersh article that says the Bush administration is fixated on war with Iran - including the possible use of bunker-busting nukes.

The article, as it is being quoted, reports that planning is "enormous," "hectic" and "operational" and includes a timeline:

"Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium."

Bush is back on his messianic crusade with a vengeance, believing that only he would have the courage to launch an attack - no successor of either party would do so - and that regime change in Iran will be his legacy, according to Hersh.

Hersh also reports that several Pentagon officers are talking about resigning if the plan to use nukes isn't pulled. "There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," one insider told Hersh.

John at AmericaBlog says:

America cannot afford this man as president any longer. He is, quite literally, going to get us all killed.

We cannot afford having George Bush think that America is in the business of launching pre-emptive nuclear wars.

A sentiment that I am certain Ron Paul, a member of Bush's own party, would echo. On April 5th he gave a long statement before the House of Representatives which is well worth reading or listening to in its entirety. Here's a small sample:

This time there will be a greater pretense of an international effort sanctioned by the UN before the bombs are dropped. But even without support from the international community, we should expect the plan for regime change to continue. We have been forewarned that “all options” remain on the table. And there’s little reason to expect much resistance from Congress. So far there’s less resistance expressed in Congress for taking on Iran than there was prior to going into Iraq. It’s astonishing that after three years of bad results and tremendous expense there’s little indication we will reconsider our traditional non-interventionist foreign policy. Unfortunately, regime change, nation building, policing the world, and protecting “our oil” still constitute an acceptable policy by the leaders of both major parties.

Mr. Paul sounds pretty sceptical about Congress, be it Demlican or Republicrat run, stopping Bush's mad dreams. I'm personally no less sceptical about the media doing its duty as the peoples' watchdog. Editor & Publisher describes Hersh's article describing the Bush plan as a "new challenge" for the press. You might take that as hinting there's a chance the mainstream media will finally wake up to this administrations sociopathic dysfunction. Don't hold your breath. They would risk losing their precious access and off-record briefings from "anonymous officials".

Finally, then, I am going to quote the entirety of a post by The Liberal Avenger which gives the biggest possible view of what Bush and the neocons are trying so hard to get us all involved in:

If we were to attack Iran, the three major US wars would be merged into one (Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are contiguous) and the US military would then be responsible for securing a war theatre of approximately 2.7 million square kilometers.

That’s similar to the combined area of Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Bosnia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Demnark, Belguim, Netherlands, and a couple other European countries thrown in there as well.

So, even shorter version - World War III.

Get it now?