Cry Havoc

Despite the strains on the United States military,

The Army has encountered resistance from more than 2,000 former soldiers it has ordered back to military work, complicating its efforts to fill gaps in the regular troops.

Many of these former soldiers - some of whom say they have not trained, held a gun, worn a uniform or even gone for a jog in years - object to being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan now, after they thought they were through with life on active duty.

despite unfinished business in Iraq,

The unrelenting wave of assaults in the Sunni-dominated parts of the country indicate that the attack on Falluja could have inflamed Sunni resentment against the American presence. American and Iraqi officials have found it impossible in the 19 months since the invasion to persuade hostile Sunni Arabs to lay down their arms and engage in the emerging political system.

it seems Our Rulers can't wait to adventure in Iran, even trotting out professional Lame Duck Fig Leaf Colin Powell to lay the groundwork:

``We believe we are on very, very solid ground in pointing to a clandestine effort by Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems,'' Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, told reporters.

The Washington Post cited unidentified U.S. officials as saying the information, made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, was unverified and based on a single ``walk-in'' source. Ereli said he would not discuss intelligence.

The refusal to discuss intelligence has become a sort of shibboleth for Our Rulers, hasn't it? I suppose it's difficult to discuss anything you don't know much about, or have much of, for that matter. Refresh my memory: didn't someone just invade some country on the basis of faulty intelligence? Don't tell me, it's right on the tip of my tongue.

Well, whoever it was, I'm sure it turned out all right.

Now that milquetoast Powell is out, it's clear that the real men have taken over:

One senior British official says: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.” [Newsweek, 8/11/02] Later in the year, Bush's influential advisor Richard Perle states, “No stages. This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq … this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war … our children will sing great songs about us years from now.” [New Statesman, 12/16/02] In February 2003, US Undersecretary of State John Bolton says in meetings with Israeli officials that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterward.

At least we'll have more pictures like these to look forward to, along with all those great songs our dismembered children will be singing about us. Thanks to Rex Saxi for locating the photographs.