Sunday Times: “The Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert. Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for ‘pinprick strikes’ against Iran’s nuclear facilities. ‘They’re about taking out the entire Iranian military,’ he said.”
Christ
– September 2, 2007Posted in: War
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
We must assure that Christ’s love takes the form of a mushroom cloud!
We also have plans for taking out China, Russia, and the UK, among others. The practice of planning for hypothetical wars against major powers dates back to the 1920′s, when the War Department knew the World War would have a sequel. I believe the US even showed Britain its plans for a theoretical US-UK conflict when the smart money went on Germany starting another war.
That said, while the hardliners are fleeing the Titanic that is the Bush 43 administration, I still worry that Li’l Bush is just spiteful enough to start a war with Iran in the final year of his presidency just to screw over the next guy.
They should impeach both Bush and Cheney for the simple fact that he makes me pine for Nixon. Even the ghost of Nixon is squicked by that idea.
Agressions against Iran will signal the end for the US in much the same way that the war against Afghanistan signalled the end for the USSR.
Is the “grand plan” to turn Iran into another Iraq? (An anarchy with weapons of mass destruction, for a change…)
It’s almost enough to make me miss the Cold War.
Almost.
Unfortuantely, I’ve been reading similar rumblings all week, and I’m getting a very bad feeling.
You know how screwed up things are? A couple weeks ago I read that Rice wanted to designate the entire Iranian Republican Guard as a terrorist organization. Why would anyone do something so crazy as this? Apparently, it was an attempt to pacify Cheney, who is agitating for straight-out war.
That, my friend, is fucked.
England? Jim, they’re Double A minor league.
Now Canada; those are the bastards to watch out for. They sent us Celine Deion so they’re already beyond the pale.
But rest assured we have a plan to take them out as well.