[Peace-discuss] Fwd: worst idea ever

[Morton K. Brussel]

FYI.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Emanuel Yi Pastreich" <epastreich at aya.yale.edu>
> Date: September 19, 2006 7:18:27 PM CDT
> To: <epast at staff.uiuc.edu>
> Subject: Fw: worst idea ever
> Reply-To: "Emanuel Yi Pastreich" <epastreich at aya.yale.edu>
>
> War Clouds, Plus -- Worst Idea Ever
>
>
> Fred Kaplan wonders if the "prepare to deploy" order that's "been  
> sent out to U.S. Navy submarines, an Aegis-class cruiser, two  
> minesweepers, and two mine-hunting ships" means we're going to war  
> with Iran. Sam Gardiner, former US Air Force Colonel, concludes  
> that we are in a new report ( availble in PDF) for the Century  
> Foundation. Gardiner says the preparations for war "will not be a  
> major CNN event." Instead, they "will involve the quiet deployment  
> of Air Force tankers to staging bases" and "additional Navy assets  
> moved to the region." Gardiner makes the point that while nobody's  
> talking about a land invasion of Iran, significant elements in the  
> government do have more ambitious goals than simple surgical  
> strikes at Iranian nuclear facilities. Such strikes are very  
> unlikely to actually resolve the perceived Iran issue, and there  
> are administration figures who've convinced themselves that a  
> sufficiently wide air target set will prompt regime change in Iran.  
> One should note that the curious thing about air power is that the  
> professionals involved in managing it have a longstanding, cross- 
> national, and incredibly pernicious habit of massively and  
> systematically overstating its efficacy in accomplishing all sorts  
> of implausible things.
>
> At this point, I think I need to bring up what one might call the  
> Craziest Goddamn Thing I've Heard In a Long Time. This story came  
> to me last week from an anonymous individual who I would say is in  
> a position to know about such things. According to this person, the  
> DOD has (naturally) been doing some analysis on airstrikes against  
> Iran. The upshot of the analysis was that conventional bombardment  
> would degrade the Iranian nuclear program by about 50 percent. By  
> contrast, if the arsenal included small nuclear weapons, we could  
> get up to about 80 percent destroying. In response to this, persons  
> inside the Office of the Vice President took the view that we could  
> use the nukes -- in other words,launch an unprovoked nuclear first  
> strike against Iran -- and then simply deny that we'd done so.  
> Detectable radiation in the area of the bombed sites would be  
> attributed to the fact that they were, after all, nuclear  
> facilities we'd just hit.
>
> Now I rather doubt that's going to happen. Typically, Bush dials  
> down the crazy factor a notch or two relative to what comes out of  
> the OVP. Nevertheless, it's a sobering reminder that we have  
> genuine lunatics operating in the highest councils of government at  
> the moment. It's an extremely dangerous situation.
>
> http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/09/ 
> war_clouds_plus_worst_idea_eve/
>
>

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