The White House on Dick Cheney & the Iran Deal

Missed this before now somehow.  The music sucks, and I kinda hate conceptually posting something from the White House itself, but the point still needs to be made apparently about the undead corpse of Darth Cheney, and other warmongering neo-con assholes like him, whether they be fellow Ford-admin. revanchists, radicals of the Newt Gingrich 'revolution' in the 'nineties, or latter-day hangers-on like Sarah Palin, that they have been consistently wrong on foreign policy, over and over and again, at the expense not just of the American pocket-book, and thousands of dead US soldiers, but at the expense of millions of civilian lives destroyed, damaged, or displaced, as one society after another is wrecked in their real-life game of Risk.*


* And no, the Obama administration is far, far from blameless, with say its similar reckless destabilisation in Libya & Syria.

What a Surprise

The Chilcot report has taken six years and cost £10m but is “unlikely to be published for another year at least”, according to sources close to the inquiry.

The Independent on Sunday understands the inquiry is still asking the Cabinet Office to declassify documents, suggesting that the report into the Iraq war is still being written.

David Cameron is now under pressure to scrap the inquiry.

...

It's never coming out, is it ?

Sir John was appointed by prime minister Gordon Brown to examine British involvement in Iraq, and “to identify lessons that can be learned” in July 2009, when British combat operations in Iraq ended.

Originally expected to report before the 2010 election, the inquiry found itself engaged in a huge task of surveying British foreign policy between 2001 and 2009. It took evidence from witnesses from November 2009 to July 2010, and then in a second round in January and February 2011. Although it has seen all the papers for which it has asked, it was drawn into long negotiations with Sir Gus O’Donnell and his successor as Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, over what documents it could publish. Agreement on editing letters and transcripts of conversations between Mr Blair and George W Bush was only reached less than a year ago.

By the end of this year, the inquiry will have been sitting for longer than British combat troops were deployed to Iraq.

Photo Op by kennardphillipps at Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War exhibition at IWM North Photograph: kennardphillipps/Reuters

A Perfect Circle: Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums

This one could/should maybe be saved for the next insane war, but, at this point, 'the war' is...every day.  And the need for reminders is perpetual.  So, given that it came up in the mix, why the hell not ?

Replacing the face in the last frames of the video isn't that difficult whether you replace them with that of Barry or that of Sir Plasticface.  Ever and ever as it was.

Tariq Aziz

Not a fan, but thought this was worth remembering: That within recent living memory, one of the leading figures in a majority-Arab, majority-Muslim government in the Middle East was a Christian.  Today, the few remaining Christians in many countries in that part of the world are being murdered en masse.  Including and perhaps especially in Iraq...

RIP

Persepolis

Couple clips from the film-version of Marjane Satrapi's brilliant graphic novels about her life growing up in Iran through the revolution and the war with Iraq.  Strange how ones willingness to just bomb a people consistently portrayed as two-dimensional cartoon villains can change when one gets a sense of the actual flesh-and-blood humans behind the propaganda.

Apparently, the film is available to watch for a fee on YouTube, if one wanted.  I don't know what the form-factor or quality would be like, or whether one would have a choice in English-speaking regions between the subtitled French soundtrack (watch that one unless you really really hate subtitles) or the 'celebrity' American soundtrack.  I'm assuming it's still available to buy on DVD or Blu-ray, and the original graphic novels are cool as well.

That 'mushroom cloud somewhere near Tehran'

So I guess this...'article' from Politico 'clarifies' that quote I'd heard from Senator Mark Kirk.

Sen. Mark Kirk blasted the nuclear deal with Iran on Thursday, saying the Obama administration’s diplomacy was worse than Britain’s attempts to appease Nazi Germany and predicting Israel would soon be pulled into a war with Iran.

The Illinois Republican trashed a deal struck by global powers with Tehran, concluding in a phone interview “that Neville Chamberlain got a lot of more out of Hitler than Wendy Sherman got out of Iran,” a reference to a top State Department negotiator on the deal.

But Kirk wasn’t done, forecasting that lifting any more sanctions on Iran “dooms the Middle East to yet another war,” one that Israel will have to clean up, perhaps in a nuclear fashion.

“We should be a reviewing presence to see how this unfolds,” Kirk said of Congress’ role, adding: “Which we all know is going to end with a mushroom cloud somewhere near Tehran.”

I'd assumed that it most likely referred to the only possible US (or Israeli) military alternative to 'the Bad Deal' (disregarding fictional magical 'Good' deals whereby the Iranians give us everything we might possibly desire for nothing in return), short of total invasion and occupation of Iran, i.e. requiring tactical nuclear strikes on Iran's heavily hardened & bunkered nuclear facilities.   Do we really think that the BushCheney administration would have held back in their war against 'The Axis of Evil' if a 'Daisy-Cutter' would do it, let alone lesser ordnance ?  That the Israelis held back under the present Netanyahu government because of...what...this absurd idea that the Americans would actually shoot down IDF jets ?  Because of fears about flight-times....under an...existential threat ?  And under the previous Sharon government and earlier Netanyahu government because...something ?

If there were truly a military solution to Iran's nuclear programme short of actual nuclear war and/or all-out invasion and occupation, I suspect a lot of even the most lefty-of-lefty Western politicians would welcome it (not that they'd admit it, granted) if Israel took out Iran's nuclear facilities as it did Iraq's back in the eighties.  But that ain't gonna happen.  Not even when President Ted Cruz takes office...

But, the 'article'...I'm forgetting..,

Kirk’s office called to clarify that Kirk was referring to a nuclear test in Iran.

Yah, that's what Kirk meant: an above-ground nuclear test by Iran near the largest and most important city in Iran.  That totally makes sense...

Well, the 'Good Deal' is a joke, the Republicans will do their damndest to torpedo any efforts of any kind made by the Marxist Kenyan Anti-Christ Obama, and there's no way we'll see a non-nuclear military solution anytime soon.

So I guess it's mushroom clouds somewhere near Tehran sometime soon...Anyone care to guess which other cities might follow ?

Melys: Achilles Heel

So in recent news, people's perception of colour varies (and many people's monitors are incorrectly calibrated), and some llamas escaped.  Oh, and the Federal Communications Commission had some trivial ruling or other.  Oh and those naughty naughty tricksters ISIS engaged in an act of minor vandalism in Iraq.  Oh, and surprisingly Russia still has an opposition, given that an opposition leader was gunned down near the Kremlin.  But don't worry, the Russian government has assured us that Vladimir Putin (the er, chief suspect in most people's mind) is going to personally head the investigation, after a few months of which some Chechen separatist or Ukrainian fascist will presumbably be charged with the crime (and die in custody days or weeks later), unless relations with the West deteriorate even further in which case, it will turn out to be a plot by SIS or the CIA.