In 2002 when neo-cons within the U.S. military and inside the Bush White House worked hard to deceive Congress and the American people into cheering for an unprovoked attack against the non-threatening nation of Iraq, steady and repetitive neo-connish messaging cleared the pathway to aggressive war.

Not only was Saddam Hussein's Iraq not a threat to the U.S. in 2002-2003….after a decade of harsh sanctions mainly affecting non-military Iraqis….but Hussein's military capabilities had never returned to pre-Iraq War I levels. The con by the…umm….neo-cons was to convince Americans who didn't know any better, and were still filled with vengeful hate from 9-11, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were about to devastate the east coast of the U.S., as well as Israel and Europe…or all three simultaneously.

In 21st century America, it's all about the messaging. Veracity has nothing to do with any of it.

The Iraq Sequel.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that sanctions so far had not caused Iran's leaders to change their pursuit of nuclear capabilities.

But he said some Iranian officials appear more willing to conduct an attack in the United States if they feel threatened, citing last year's alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

"The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime," Clapper said in his Senate testimony.

"We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas," he said.

Insert 2002 Bushie claim here. "Smoking gun-mushroom cloud", "grave and gathering danger", "there's no doubt Saddam is reconstituting blah, blah effing blah"…..you know how it works, or should by now. But Americans in the beginning of the 21st century have become a caricature of a "short attention span theater" skit…..can't recall what happened last week, let alone what happened almost a decade ago.

And so the deceptive and duplicitous neo-con message machine cranks up again. This time in order to dupe U.S. citizens into accepting yet another military assault on yet another middle eastern sovereign nation.

How it's done.

In October of 2011, U.S. officials launched a new propaganda message against Iran claiming that Iran planned an assassination attempt of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Why Iran would risk nuclear annihilation at the hands of the U.S. and/or Israel over some cockamamie Mexican drug cartel/Quds Force story of clusterf*ckness…..was never explained.

Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst at the Rand Corporation, found it "difficult" to believe that Khamenei or Suleimani would order such an attack that "would put all of Iran's objectives and strategies at risk".

Reza Sayyah from CNN questioned the plausibility of the claim by asking, "Did an elite branch of Iran's military handpick a divorced, 56-year-old Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas to hire a hitman from a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the ambassador to Saudi Arabia by blowing up a bomb in a crowded restaurant in Washington?"

Sure it's ridiculous…but then Saddam Hussein plotting to spray anthrax down on the eastern seaboard of the U.S….was a ridiculous notion as well…and yet that deceptive and ridiculous story reached the homes of millions of post-9-11, still-feeling-vengeful Americans.

See how DNI Chief James Clapper carefully constructs his misleading message meant to gin up support for a U.S. attack of Iran?

"The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,"

Using the laughable, really, claim that a used car salesman from Texas, allegedly hiring a Mexican drug-cartel hitman, was about to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S…..and that the highest leaders in Iran were behind the laughable story….using that as his springboard of disinformation, Clapper then implies that Iranian leaders are…"probably", "more willing"…to do what?

"conduct an attack in the U.S."

See? Just like Saddam was about to do in 2002.

Of course, when disinformation…like Saddam spraying anthrax over New York using small prop planes…. doesn't carry quite the deceptive punch neo-cons are looking for…any DNI can always fall back on the old American standby….

"We're doing a lot with the Israelis, working together with them. And of course for them, this is, as they have characterized, is an existential threat," Clapper said.

I wonder if Iran considers the 200 nuclear-tipped warheads the Israeli government has pointed in their direction to be, you know, "an existential threat"?

The WTF-ness of this latest propaganda salvo ginning up support for an eventual military attack against Iran is found in this Clapper comment….

"We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so," he said in written testimony. "We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."

Iran does not have a nuclear weapon right now and Clapper admits that he and his smart guys don't know if Iran will "eventually decide" to make one or not, but those wily Iranian leaders are, you know, keeping their "options" open…..so who knows, right?

All I can conclude about this clumsy, juvenile attempt to rah-rah the nation into another act of pre-emptive military aggression….is that the militaristic neo-cons who work so hard to deceive us into slaughtering more Muslims…..are in need of better script writers.

Imagine members of Hezbollah, recognized by the U.S. and Israel as a "terrorist" group, covertly entering Israel and over time assassinating a half a dozen of Israel's most distinguished science professors, one by one. James Bond movie style assassinations. Assassinations where a "terrorist" rides a motorcycle alongside a car carrying the targeted Israeli science professor and places a bomb with a magnetized base on the side of the car, and then speeds off.

If members of Hezbollah carried out such spy movie activities against Israeli science professors, is there any doubt that Israel and their lone defender in the world, the United States, would be calling those assassinations "terrorist acts?" Further, if Hezbollah extremists did such a thing wouldn't Israel and the United States be calling for reprisal the moment it happened?

According to a story out yesterday, a fourth Iranian scientist involved in Iran's nuclear program was assassinated Wednesday. The fourth. A fifth assassination attempt against the current head of Iran's atomic agency failed in November 2010.

A sixth key figure in Iran’s military program, Maj. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, an Iranian missile expert who was charged with “ensuring self-sufficiency” in armaments, was killed in November in a huge explosion at the Bid Ganeh base outside Tehran.

Liars for hire in both Israel and the United States vehemently denied any complicity in these assassinations.

However, consider these comments by Israeli officials concerning the assassinations….

“Whoever carried out this attack, there is no doubt that it is positive, and should be seen as such,” the official said.

“I don’t know who took revenge on the Iranian scientist, but I am definitely not shedding a tear.”

On Tuesday, Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that 2012 would be a “critical year” for Iran — in part because of “things that happen to it unnaturally.”

“Many bad things have been happening to Iran in the recent period,” said Mickey Segal, a former director of the Israeli military’s Iranian intelligence department. “Iran is in a situation where pressure on it is mounting, and the latest assassination joins the pressure that the Iranian regime is facing.”

Keep in mind here that there is still no evidence that Iran is working towards building nuclear weapons. None. Iran still claims that their pursuit is for energy purposes.

Also keep in mind that Israel, the nation who is most likely responsible for all the Iranian scientist assassinations, has somewhere between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons stockpiled. Iran has none.

In spite of there being no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, rigid sanctions have been placed on the Iranian government and the Iranian people by "non-terrorist" nations. Iranian banks have been hardest hit by these sanctions. Before the U.S. attacked Iraq in 2003, Iraq had suffered under a decade of such harsh economic sanctions. Iraq didn't have nuclear bomb capabilities either….even though many, many bloodthirsty westerners made that claim.

What about the question of whether or not Israel should be considered a "sponsor of terror" or a "terrorist nation" for conducting targeted assassinations against select Iranian nuclear scientists? Is Israel in a declared war with Iran? If not, what should assassinating five important scientists inside Iran be called? Freedom fighting? Self-defense?

Ever since George W. Bush floated his "axis of evil" nonsense, including Iran in the trio of nations marked for invasion and/or regime change, it has only been a matter of when the U.S. and Israel, and any other weak European nations the U.S. can blackmail into helping them, will launch their attack into Tehran.

What seems odd to me is that all of this is considered part and parcel of some fictitious "war on terror."

So I ask….based on the five successful Israeli terrorist assassination attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists….carried out inside Iran……who is the "terrorist nation" or "nations?"

Who was the terrorist nation when Israeli commandos assassinated unarmed, humanitarian volunteers on Turkish flotillas? Who was the terrorist nation when Bebe ordered the slaughter of Gazans in late 2008?

And now, who is the terrorist nation…the state sponsor of terror…in the assassinations of five Iranian nuclear scientists?

Not a trick question.

Many times I've heard Village spokespeople rhetorically ask…why did we go into Iraq? Why the Iraq war? These Village talking heads know the answer to that question, but in typical Village fashion, cannot explain it to the unwashed masses because then people like Bill Kristol, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the rest of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) gang….all respected Villagers themselves…would be embarrassed, put on the spot, perhaps even arrested. Village members simply can't be treated that way.

So Village media personnel act as if the reason the U.S. attacked the non-threatening nation of Iraq is still a mystery….something better left to future historians. Sure, Villagers will tell us that WMD were not found there, lots of people died, Saddam was killed and so forth….but corporate media, to this very day, still refuses to explain the real reason why we invaded Iraq.

Perhaps corporate media Villagers missed this from General Wesley Clark in 2007…..

After recounting how a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9/11 of the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iraq notwithstanding its non-involvement in 9/11, this is how Clark described the aspirations of the “coup” being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and what he called “a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century”:

Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we still going to attack Iraq?”

He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

Clark went on to relate a conversation he had with Paul Wolfowitz in 1991….

Clark said the aim of this plot was this: “They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: “But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

The answer to the question, why did we attack and occupy Iraq beginning in 2003?…is found in the long wishlist of a handful of hyper-hawks who make up the membership of PNAC, and apparently, much of the leadership of our military-industrial complex.

The following people signed on to PNAC's "statement of principles" in the 90's…..recognize any of the names?

Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
Richard B. Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Norman Podhoretz
J. Danforth Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

After 9-11, with so many PNAC members working for the Bush administration, it doesn't take a Mensa member to figure out what happened. PNAC members took 9-11 as the opportunity they had been praying for….a "new Pearl Harbor event"….and the rest, as they say, is history.

The obvious problem with all of this is that no one bothered to explain to the American people why the PNAC'ers inside the Bush administration were leading us into what they were leading us into. Instead, the Bushies made stuff up to scare us with….WMD, al-Qaeda affiliation, etc. And the reason is obvious. The American people were rightfully exercised over 9-11…..but would the American people agree to accept a "long war" of middle east conquest and domination meant to pre-empt any future enemies from controlling the shipping lanes and valuable resources under the sands of the middle east?

The Bushies decided to make stuff up rather than explain what the PNAC Brotherhood was really up to. They calculated that they would have a better chance of getting what they wanted by tricking the American people and Congress using fear and lies…..and it worked.

This all helps in explaining recent comments by John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman over President Obama's removal of U.S. military forces inside Iraq. To the neo-cons who understand and embrace the principles of U.S. Empire as outlined by PNAC….leaving Iraq is, like W. said, "the only reason we could lose Iraq is if we leave"

The purpose of invading Iraq was to initiate the PNAC middle east policy of endless war. It was to begin with Iraq and spread, as Wolfowitz clearly told Wesley Clark, to at least 7 countries there. According to the PNAC outline, the U.S. was to dismantle regimes, set up U.S. military bases and proceed to project U.S. power throughout the region.

Neo-conservatives still dominate our foreign policy and defense departments. And now they have set their sights on Iran.

President Obama's biggest disappointment, at least to progressives, has been his, I guess, "rebirth", as a neo-conservative.

During Obama's campaign for the presidency, he made political hay out of George and Dick's offshore gulags, torture of detainees, unprovoked military attacks and occupations of countries posing no threat to America, eavesdropping on Americans without warrants, secrecy, and much more. Rightfully so. The Bush years were marked by an expansion of presidential powers in violation of the Constitution….and the worst part is, the Bushies got away with all of it…thus setting a precedent.

But now Obama has made the Bushie doctrine, his doctrine. Now, the lawlessness of the neo-con Bush regime has been made into a bipartisan, and probably permanent, national doctrine.

Obama has continued the neo-conservative and lawless foreign policies of his predecessors. What's more, Obama has expanded those lawless powers….with his shiny new lawlessness theory that the President has the power to order the assassination of U.S. citizens on only his say so.

Indeed, all the ususal-suspect neo-cons,….Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Dick Cheney, many others….have heaped high praise on Obama the Neo-con….especially because Obama ordered the assassination of the U.S. citizen, Awlaki. It's worthy of remark that the only policy with which neo-con renegades from the Bush administration agree with Obama is on Obama's embrace of neo-con lawlessness.

That said….and with the understanding that American neo-cons have long ago targeted Iran for takeover…..it's interesting to see the Obama administration, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, hellbent to make something huge out of the recent allegations of an assassination plot by two Iranians against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

(AG Eric) Holder called the bomb plot a flagrant violation of U.S. and international law. And Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, "We will not let other countries use our soil as their battleground."

Behold the double standard. Or is it simply a total lack of self-awareness?

Since 9-11-2001, the United States government has declared that the entire globe is a "battlefield" where U.S. military forces have the perfect right to wage war just about any way they see fit. In other words, at the same time that DOJ officials are claiming that "other countries" cannot be permitted to "use our soil as a battleground"….U.S. officials have claimed the unique right among all nations…to "use the soil" of any country as our "battlefield."

Chalk it up to "American exceptionalism"….or blindness….or whatever. The point becomes: do as we say, not as we do.

Two weeks ago, the United States assassinated one of its enemies in Yemen, on Yemeni soil. If the U.S. believes it has the right to assassinate enemies like Anwar Awlaki anywhere in the world in the name of a "war on terror" that has no geographical limitation, how can it then argue that other nations don't have a similar right to track down their enemies and kill them wherever they're found?

Other than simply chanting very loudly…U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A…..in order to drown out those objecting to such an obvious double standard….the U.S. really cannot argue convincingly that we, of all nations, are the only ones who are allowed to use the soil of foreign countries to conduct military adventures against our "enemies."

Why is it that the U.S., alone, should have the power to wage war against alleged enemies anywhere we choose to wage that war…..yet other nations shouldn't also have that power?

The L.A. Times editor finishes with a huge understatement…

The world is unlikely to accept that the United States has a right to behave as it wishes without accountability all around the globe and that other nations do not.

Ya' think?

If you really want to find out what this alleged Iranian plot to off a Saudi ambassador is about….read Glenn Greenwald's excellent take. Here's a description by folks who knew the alleged plotter which describes him as hapless….just like many of the others whom U.S. officials have coaxed into staging a plot against the U.S., and then later, announced how safe those officials had kept us by breaking up a domestic plot they, themselves, nurtured into existence.

But the ass-kicker of the day on this story goes to President Obama,…

“There’s a great similarity between how Iran operates and how North Korea operates, a willingness on their part to break international rules, to flout international norms, to not live up to their own commitments. And each time they do that, the United States will join with its partners and allies in making sure that they pay a price,” Obama said.

If the similarity between how N. Korea and Iran operate is….."a willingness…to break international rules, to flout international norms…"….then, the United States of America operates in a similar fashion to N. Korea and Iran.

What else could violating the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment(s) be called? I mean other than operating similarly to Iran or N. Korea?

How about Guantonomo? Our offshore, secret, prisons? Isn't there a "great similarity" between the U.S. and N.Korea and Iran concerning gulags?

How about the American violation of international norms prohibiting attacking a sovereign nation (Iraq) which poses no threat to the U.S? Hell, Iran doesn't even do stuff like that….only the U.S.

Obama may think he is standing strong by talking all Cheney-like over this most recent ginned-up emergency. But the rest of the world's occupants who heard Obama's words yesterday recognize the gargantuan double standard and lack of self-awareness contained in his words.

The most dangerous political movement in America today is not the Village darlings, the Tea Partyers. Not even close. Tea Partyers are like the cheap noisemakers many people use at midnight on New Year's Eve…..they're fun for a few minutes but have no lasting, practical value.

The most dangerous political movement in America today is the same political movement which orchestrated the fraud known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The most dangerous political movement in America today is the one which prompted an incurious George W. Bush to call Iraq, North Korea and Iran the "axis of evil."

The most dangerous political movement in America today is the neo-conservative movement. It is a movement which continually pounds the drums of war.

Neo-conservatives hold dearly to one basic premise.

Now that the U.S. is the world's lone superpower, America should strategically position new military strongholds throughout the fossil fuel-rich nations of the middle east, uprooting political regimes as necessary. The goal of such military positioning is for the purpose of projecting our power throughout the middle east and beyond as we "protect our interests" in the region.

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard and Fox News-That-Isn't is the father of neo-conservatism. Don't ever let Kristol's soft-spokeness fool you…..he is one of the most dangerous Americans alive today. He and his warmongering sidekick, Robert Kagan, founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in 1997. One year later, the neo-cons were pressuring President Bill Clinton to attack Iraq.

It wasn't until George W. Bush became president that Bill Kristol and his warmongering imperialists got their way.

The internationally illegal act of attacking a sovereign country without self-defense-cause was the WMD-lipsticked pig-in-a-poke sold to Americans in 2002-2003……but it was the efforts of neo-cons, like Kristol and Kagan, that set the stage for the Bushies to defraud the nation.

I bring this up today because the neo-cons are still at it. Just as the Village kept the unwashed masses busy fretting about a president's fibbing about consensual sex in 1998 as neo-cons were preparing to coerce an attack on Iraq……so today, the Village is ever-so-busy spreading the word about the sparkly and mesmerizing Tea Partys while neo-cons are quietly preparing to attack another sovereign nation which doesn't threaten America….Iran.

Huckleberry…..

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Monday that the United States must be prepared to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon — and added that the last-resort step should be taken with the goal of overthrowing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Graham, a military lawyer and a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, became the first senator to support direct U.S. military intervention in Iran, saying it should not involve ground troops but be launched by U.S. warplanes and ships.

"If you use military force against Iran, you've opened up Pandora's box," Graham told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "If you allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon, you've emptied Pandora's box. I'd rather open up Pandora's box than empty it".

…..

"From my point of view, if we engage in military operations as a last resort, the United States should have in mind the goal of changing the regime," Graham said. "Not by invading (Iran), but by launching a military strike by air and sea."
Such an attack would be aimed not only at eliminating Iran's nuclear capabilities, Graham said, but at rendering Ahmadinejad's government powerless.

Lindsey Graham has a way with words, doesn't he? Notice the "goal..of regime change?" Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Huckleberry is also mostly a soft spoken man, just like Bill Kristol. And just like Kristol, it's WHAT he says that is so dangerous.

"launching a military strike by air and sea"……which means that tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iranian men, women and children would be slaughtered. Millions more displaced as refugees. Slaughtered and displaced in an effort to change a regime which, some say (but without any evidence), is building a nuclear weapon. This no-evidence-WMD talk is also very familiar.

It's bad enough that the Democratic Party has a few neo-conservatives in their midst and that Barack Obama, regrettably, has endorsed a few of the doctrines of the neo-cons….but to give political power back to a modern Republican Party which knows only two things…..cutting taxes and starting wars……now that would be disastrous.

It came as no surprise following the Israeli terror attack on the Turkish flotilla a week ago, which included the point-blank, 5 shot murder of a 19 year old American by Israeli commandos, that the United States President would timidly parse every word of his response to the act of violence.

Why? Because in this case, the needless violence was perpetrated by Israelis.

So, dutifully, President Obama, still refusing to condemn Israel's obvious unilateral lawlessness as seen in this most recent cold-blooded act of mass murder, appeared on Larry King Live Thursday night to reinforce his non-condemnation of Israel……

KING: A couple of other things. Former President Carter has condemned the Israeli raid against those ships in the — the flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza.

Where do you stand on that?

A former American president has condemned it.

OBAMA: Well, you know, the United States, with the other members of the U.N. Security Council, said very clearly that we condemned all the acts that led up to this violence. It was a tragic situation. You've got loss of life that was unnecessary. And so we are calling for an effective investigation of everything that happened.

Witness how carefully the American President chose his words. Obama simply could not condemn Israel in any way…..just as Israel was not condemned in December, 2008 when they massacred some 600 defenseless and caged Gazan women and children. Instead, Obama stated that the U.S., along with other members of the U.N. Security Council…"condemned all the acts that led up to this violence."

Condemning all the acts that led up to this violence…..is condemning no one in particular…..and that was exactly why Obama chose the words he did.

However, President Obama dared to call the loss of flotilla passenger lives "tragic" and "unnecessary." The word "unnecessary" can be interpreted as a suggestion that Israel had done something which shouldn't have been done. The word "tragic" can be interpreted as a suggestion that Israel's murdering of unarmed activists seeking the end of a crippling blockade of Gazans….is a bad thing, even a terrible thing.

Of course, amongst American facist-minded neo-conservatives, the murder of anyone protesting Israel's apartheid actions is anything but "tragic."

Cue Cruella-de-Neo-Conservative……The Dick's offspring….Liz Cheney……

Yesterday, President Obama said the Israeli action to stop the flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip was "tragic." What is truly tragic is that President Obama is perpetuating Israel's enemies' version of events. The Israeli government has imposed a blockade around Gaza because Hamas remains committed to Israel's destruction…

President Obama is contributing to the isolation of Israel, and sending a clear signal to the Turkish-Syrian-Iranian axis that their methods for ostracizing Israel will succeed, and will be met by no resistance from America.

There is no middle ground here. Either the United States stands with the people of Israel in the war against radical Islamic terrorism or we are providing encouragement to Israel's enemies — and our own. Keep America Safe calls on President Obama to reverse his present course and support the state of Israel immediately and unequivocally.

As Ezra Klein says in his analysis of Ms. Cheney's response…..Obama did not call Israel's ACTIONS "tragic"….he called the loss of life tragic. So, firstoff, not that it comes as any surprise…..the Dick's Daughter is making sh*t up.

Also note how Ms. Cheney, as predicted would happen by progressives the moment this Israeli action of bloody aggression took place on Turkish vessels,….throws Turkey in with Syria and Iran now as kind of a new axis of evil amassed against Israel.

The facts, naturally, don't call for such over-the-top, Dickian bellicosity….

Uniquely among Muslim countries in the region, Turkey has strong trading ties with Israel.

The Turkish military buys weapons from Israel and trains with its armed forces, and in 2008 Turkey played host to more than half a million Israeli tourists, making it their favourite overseas holiday destination.

But I think the worst part of The Dick's Daughter's comment was her call for Obama to "reverse his present course."

You see….to many neo-conservatives in America…..the needless murders of unarmed protesters who hold a different view of the Israeli apartheid in Gaza than they do…..is anything but tragic. It is desired.

Therefore, Obama, according to Cheney, should reverse his course of calling those murders "tragic" and "unnecessary."

Depending on your point of view…..this is either a new low for neo-con defenders of all things Israeli…..or a vindication.

From the NY Times…..

The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents.

The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.

While the Bush administration had approved some clandestine military activities far from designated war zones, the new order is intended to make such efforts more systematic and long term, officials said.

I'm not sure what to make of all this, but one thing is for sure….the "war on terror" begun by the Terror Twins in 2001…..the war which first started against, perhaps, 500-1000 Islamic radicals…..is now being expanded by President Obama to it's broadest levels ever.

We've already seen the results of expanding the ridiculously named war on terror into Iraq (based on fraud and deception), and Pakistan (with unmanned drone rocket attacks slaughtering civilians).

How could anything possibly go wrong by sending American Special Ops into Iran, Saudi Arabia or Somalia?

How many middle eastern countries should we be at war in? All of them?

Thoughts?

I caught a piece of the Dylan Ratigan show yesterday afternoon on MSNBC. He played a classified-but-leaked video from Iraq taken in 2007. Kudos to Ratigan for having the testicular fortitude to air such a controversial video. The video was originally leaked to the website, Wikileaks.org.

The video is disturbing. Fair warning and all that.

Wikileaks.org description…..

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I continue to read bits and pieces from the usual suspect neo-con assh*les, the same assh*les who cheerled (and helped the Bushies lie) about the Glorious Liberation of Iraq's Oil…..and those assh*les want the U.S. to attack yet another country, Iran.

What the neo-cons, and their enabling (or is it embedded?), assh*les in media don't want Americans to witness is the cost of those Glorious War Adventures. So…we don't see the cost. What we don't know, you know, can't hurt us. Right?

Barack Obama has endorsed this dynamic, reversing his original decision last year to release photographs of Americans torturing detainees. His excuse for not releasing them was that it would endanger the troops. The real reason for not releasing those photographs was that those pictures might enrage Americans….thus threatening Obama's escalation plans for Our Glorious Wars in the Middle East to Liberate and Protect the Distribution of Our Natural Resources.

Do you think if Americans saw the truth regularly….the butchering and the murdering and the clusterf*ckness that waging war entails…..do you think we would be so quick to embrace it anytime some Codpieced Commander Guy play-acted being president?

Remember all the noise from neo-conservatives over the thought of President Obama sitting down with….gasp….Iranian leaders?

Remember all those ignorant Villager gotcha questions Obama fielded during the presidential election campaign over…gasp….sitting down with Iranian leaders?

Would pre-conditions have to be met before an American president could….gasp…talk to Iranian leaders? Shouldn't Iranian leaders first meltdown all their nuclear fuel and hand it over to the IAEA before Obama should even consider….gasp….talking to Iranian leaders?

Good times.

Now the pre-conditions for meetings of detente with "foreign" leaders are being set by Congressional Republicans. The "foreign" leader this time…..is the U.S. President. The "meetings of detente" are the proposed bipartisan talks Obama has offered to hold with Congressional members over health care reform.

And here are the Republicans' pre-conditions before they will sit down to….gasp…talks with the U.S. "foreign" leader……

Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people?
….
Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan way, does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation?
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If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand?

Having been beaten worse than a rented mule by President Obama recently when House Republicans met with America's "foreign" leader for a Q & A session……John Boehner(R-OH) and Eric Cantor(R-VA) have now insisted, in a letter to Rahm, that Obama must meet certain pre-conditions before they step into the ring again with this dangerous, incalcitrant "foreign" leader.

Obama, as most "foreign" leaders do, responded to the Republicans through his diplomat, Robert Gibbs….

The President looks forward to reviewing Republican proposals that meet the goals he laid out at the beginning of this process, and as recently as the State of the Union Address. He’s open to including any good ideas that stand up to objective scrutiny. What he will not do, however, is walk away from reform and the millions of American families and small business counting on it.

Change a few words around……and you have the same discussion that neo-conservatives nuts tried to force on us over talks with Iran's Ahmadinajab. It's uncanny.

But that's where we are now in the U.S. political process. One political party's objective is regime change. Isn't that so? From the beginning of 2009, hasn't the Republican's only goal been the same as Rushbo's…….regime change in the U.S?

Now, with an obstructionistic war-like strategy that places demands on it's political opponent before direct communications can even be opened…….aren't the Republicans telling Americans, just as they did with Ahmadinajab, that the U.S. "foreign" leader can't be trusted?

Boehner and Cantor, through a communique to the U.S. "foreign" leader's diplomat, are telling voters, that America's "foreign" leader is not just dangerous…..but SO dangerous and untrustworthy that a groundfloor of pre-conditions must be met before diplomatic talks can begin.

What else can Republicans do at this point?

GOP'ers have spent over a year trying to diminish Obama's popularity, delegitimize him as they did with the evil fellatio recipient, William Clinton. GOP'ers have done everything imaginable to brand Obama as an "enemy of America." Obama is a "socialist", "Muslim", "coddles Islamic extremists", is "not a U.S. citizen", and "wants to pull the plug on your grandma."

Hell, you can't blame the Republicans for setting pre-conditions before sitting down with such an obviously evil "foreign" leader.

Finally….just think what could happen if America's "foreign" leader doesn't meet those GOP pre-conditions over health care reform. Obama's rogue "mullahs" in Congress just might pass reform with the….gasp…..reconciliation process, requiring only 51 Senate votes. And wouldn't that be just like Ahmadinajab handing out nukes to Bin Laden?

No question….to Republicans, there's little distinction between Ahmadinajab and Obama. Both are dangerous "foreign" leaders where the only solution is regime change. Both are untrustworthy enemies of America who must meet certain pre-conditions before talks of negotiation can be opened. While Republicans claimed that Ahmandinajab's largest threat was the chance he might Fed-Ex a truck full of nuclear fuel to Bin Laden's cave…..the 'foreign" leader, Obama, just might give health insurance to all Americans.

And that's something we should really be afraid of.

The 2016 Olympics went to Rio, Brazil……conservatives celebrate America's loss.

Consider the glee by America's new enemies…..

Beck: "Oh, it's so sweet" that Chicago's bid failed; "savor this moment."

Breitbart website: "It is kind of like the world community saying to President Obama, 'Not only no, but Hell No.' "

Limbaugh: For those "upset that I sound gleeful — I am. I don't deny it. I'm happy."

Drudge: "The ego has landed. World rejects Obama: Chicago out in first round."

RedState.com's Erickson: "World rejects Barack Obama. … Hahahahaha."

Soon after news broke that the International Olympic Committee had rejected Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics, which President Obama had personally lobbied for, Weekly Standard blogger John McCormack published a celebratory post on the magazine's blog, titled "Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!." McCormack wrote that "Cheers erupt at WEEKLY STANDARD world headquarters"

Malkin: "Goodbye, 'Yes We Can.' Hello, 'No, You Can't.' "

Honestly, I've never seen anything like this before. Cheering when America loses. Delighting in national defeat.

Take a moment to view the now-confirmed new enemies of America celebrating President Obama's failure to land the 2016 Olympic Games……share with me your feelings at what you see at the 1:20 mark…..

For those who would suggest that it's only the fake-news "entertainers", like the deranged Beck or the drug addict Rush who celebrated in America's loss……go read the Village's Jennifer Loven from the highly respected Associated Press.

Despite Obama's fabled charm and powers of persuasion, his in-person plea for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Games fell flat. It was a hugely embarrassing defeat. And taxpayers shelled out probably $1 million or more for the president, his wife and others to fly to Copenhagen and back to woo members of the International Olympic Committee.
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The defeat could soon be a distant memory, and may never be more than a quixotic-blip trip. But if, for whatever reason, bigger losses start piling up in Obama's corner, his performance in this case could be regarded as emblematic.

That is Village-speak for Beck's, "Oh, it's so sweet."

To make matters worse, the Knee Padded Loven ( I've written about her before) goes on in this morning's article to tell readers that losing out on this very legitimate attempt by an American president lobbying for what surely would be a jobs and income producer for the United States of America during a very stingy recession, "recalls a strain of criticism that has been gaining ground on him."

What "strain of criticism"?

Un-f*cking-believably…."He's trying to do too much at once." " He doesn't have what it takes to close a deal." "He is a celebrity, for sure, but is that always a good thing?…some perceive Obama as arrogantly relying too much on his celebrity status and not enough on the nitty-gritty work of winning votes." "He's too casual with the use of his own time." "He's junior varsity-league, still learning on the job. Will Obama do as poorly predicting how health-care votes are leaning in Congress, and make similarly ill-fated strategic decisions?"

Truly…..this bizarre rendering by wingnuts and Villagers alike is a national WTF moment. We've entered brand new bizarro territory. A media so corrupt and rotted, so challenged by an intelligent and articulate president who doesn't spend most of his time on vacation choking on pretzels while watching footall, or pretending to clear brush in pathetically staged photo-op sessions for the rubes……is now, just like Limbaugh and Beck and the TeaBagging nuts…..celebrating American losses.

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out the other day…..in one f*cking day Obama made more progress with the troubling national leaders of Iran than George W. Bush made in 8 years of "axis-of-evil" threats. But no celebrations by KneePadding KnobPolishers over such monumental feats in U.S.-Iranian relations. Hardly a mention.

About a third of voting America, those who are ardent fans of Bill-o, Sean, Rush, Glenny and the rest of America's modern-day Our Gang Comedy Clowns, have now been born-again into full-fledged enemies of America. Outrageously, these new American enemies have blurred the lines between Obama failing and America failing….and are now rooting openly for both.

It didn't have to be this way.

Those who are now celebrating America's loss, America's defeat, used to screech about wearing lapel flag pins and placing one's hand over one's heart when singing the National Anthem. These same moronically stupid screechers used to raise oh-so-serious questions whether or not a black man with an odd name was "patriotic enough."

Now those same simple-minded, dumbasses are celebrating American defeat.

P.S. If you don't think the conservative rubes are being manipulated, take a look at how our nation's self-declared Enemy-in-Chief, Glenn Beck, produces all those crocodile tears….