The latest Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker is frightening, even as I try to convince myself that dday is right at Hullabaloo, that it's less a fait accompli than a media shot across the bow, a warning designed to make an attack on Iran less likely.

I'm agnostic on the subject of Iranian weapons - I'd rather no one had weapons of mass destruction but I'm no more afraid of the Iranians than I am, say, the Pakistanis or, for that matter, the Bush regime. What I don't understand is how Americans can let themselves be known, the world over, as cowards.

How many children should we kill to reduce the already minuscule chance of of our own death by terror? Seriously - help me out here.

In today's WaPo David Ignatius wrote an important column. Ignatius is probably the best-connected commentator on the subject of the Middle East and reflects official thinking in Washington. When the Neocons were in their glory he wrote admiringly of them; recently he has distanced himself considerably.

"So it’s sort of like the end of democracy, in a way. We don’t know what the government is doing. People inside the government don’t know what the government is doing." —Seymour Hersh yesterday, June 30,2008, on Democracy Now! Talking about the current covert operations against Iran

Color me low on hope, but the diaries on the Bush administration's secret doings in Iran yesterday (here and here and here and here) cycled through with little comment, and no REC list or Rescue. It’s unlikely my missive will fair better, but it should: Hersh is talking some serious shit that could impact the election, including a possible October Surprise designed to throw the electorate in to chaos and patriotic hysteria.  

I admit this weekend I haven't been available here at the Kos. I have an upper and lower respiratory track infection (in nonmedical terms a friggin bad summer cold) along with last night's gift of an ear ache (in other words I really can't hear my wife's honey do list). So if this brief diary has been published before my apologises and I will take it down.

Sunday I wrote about Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker and suggested that George Bush was an evangelical radical trying to spark Armagedon and the rapture. The evidence is there but, many perfer to deny reality in hopes it will fade away. It hasn't and I missed something very important.

More after the fold.

According to what Seymour Hersh told us during Fresh Air on NPR today, the war with Iran has already begun.  Our democratic leadership has funded it.  Meanwhile, life goes on as usual.  I'm not really able to comprehend people any more.  Does everyone think it is not happening?  Do they not understand the magnitude of what is going on?  Hersh made it clear that the caving in by North Korea was the final step in paving the way for Bush to go ahead.  Why are we just going about business as usual?  Will it matter who wins the election (IF there is one)?  Maybe I have lost my sense of perspective.  I think not.  Here is Hersh's New Yorker article: Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.  Hersh is reasonbly sure that the operations are already being carried out and that the funding is flowing for them.  Look below the break for more.

As others have noted here, Sy Hersh's new piece in the New Yorker is enough to scare the s**t out of anyone who has followed the rumors about a potential attack on Iran.  Hersh is now giving interviews further sounding the alarm.  

It has been obvious for months that the Cheneyites want to bomb Iran.  The Olmert govt has made its plans equally clear.  The US buildup in the Gulf and the recent Israeli exercises all demonstrate the fragility of this moment.

I didn't believe it at first, but after several people I know have voiced their concerns, I am now unable to ignore the possibility.

Bush will attack Iran before the end of his term.

All of this distraction over Barack has allowed the MSM to ignore the biggest story in the country right now . . .

I love listening to Seymour Hersh.  His voice is calm and reasonable.  But the things he says, and the people who clearly are talking to him, make him absolutely riveting, just like Al Gore at his most involving (I learn things from him when he talks).  

He is talking today about his article in the New Yorker about the US covert operations in Iran.  His implication is the US Congress has rolled over and played dead (or almost dead) to allow Cheney (whom someone in Congress -- don't know if he gave the name or not) called "Out of Control."

Sy Hersh’s New Yorker piece has been diaried.  Nothing new.  Yawn.  So what if the Gang of Eight is in bipartisan pursuit of further war crimes.  Should they ever find their way to the gallows, I will not object in the least.  My general objections to the death penalty would be puny standing next to their colossal crimes.  Money for covert terrorist operations against Iran was essentially appropriated last year by the following reprehensible, two-faced colossally stupid maggots on the Gang of Eight:

Our Republic, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, was intended to prevent us from being in the situation we find ourselves in. If everything worked as intended, Bush would never have been selected in 2000, re-elected in 2004, or would have been impeached by the end of 2007.

But everything has failed us. Our economy is declining. We're deep in debt. Our troops are bogged down in the Middle East. Our dependence on oil and fossil fuels threatens to cripple us further. (Ironic how the price of oil is hurting our economy so much, when steps to move away from it are often cast aside as likely to 'hurt our economy.')

And now, the venerable Seymour Hersh, who has been right about so many things these past eight years, brings us this: Preparing the Battlefield, a report on how the Bush Administration, with the consent of the so-called "Gang of Eight" have been stepping up covert activities inside Iran.

War with Iran?

This started out as a comment... But I felt it is too important, and I needed to say it somewhere more visible.

So here I go.

We need to do everything we can to make sure Obama is the next President.

Join many others online, or if in New York city at the event, tomorrow evening:

On Tuesday, June 3, join the Center for Constitutional Rights for an exciting live webcast of the event "True Crimes: The Untold Story Behind the Devastation of Iraq."

It would appear that the events that have been hinted at darkly for over a year are beginning to come to fruition. Move over,front paged story about "Arrak". If the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Michael Mullen is to be believed,

"the Pentagon is planning "potential" military actions against Iran", reports The Washington Post.

Mullen criticized Iran's "'increasingly lethal and malign influence' in Iraq," writes Ann Scott Tyson for the Post.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled candidate war diaries with the following breaking news: It turns out that the facility that was bombed by the Israelis in Syria was not a nuclear facility as Israel, the Bush administration, the media, and virtually everyone else claimed at the time. It turns out that it was not even a chemical weapons facility, but that it was merely a conventional facility.

Other tapes that the WH wants to destroy, if they haven't been already

(See update at the bottom)

Do you remember Abu Ghraib?

Do you remember the pictures?

...do you recall what you never did see, but the existence of which was confirmed?

"...those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."

[via Gryn]

Shut down the Bush Administration now.

It is apparently true that in 2003, Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear program ... but in our estimation, since then it is apparently continuing with its program.... I met with all the relevant, most senior officials in the administration and have raised the matter with the Russians and the Europeans. There is a continuous, dynamic exchange of information and assessments on the subject of Iran. The matter remains at the center of international attention and importance because of the risks it presents.... It does not speak of Iran having abandoned its nuclear efforts; the attempts at enrichment are carrying on. We are talking about a specific track connected with the Iranian weapons building program, to which the American connection, and maybe that of others, was severed. There are real differences of assessment around the world regarding this matter. Only time will tell who is right.

But we cannot allow ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence report from the other side of the earth, even if it is from our greatest friend.

Ehud Barak, Israeli defense minister in an interview Tuesday with Israeli Army Radio:
http://www.nytimes.com/...

This is a choice Democratic primary voters will have starting on January 3, 2008.  

Who do we want representing the US?  Who will show the world that the way of doing business under Bush is over?

Just in case you think I'm kidding, check below the fold for the details.