Some Need a Cold Shower

By Keith R. Schmitz

In the spirit of "drill baby drill" the right, because they do things because they are political not because they are smart, have been pushing on The President to push on the Iranian government. At least that's Friday's Hot Read.

The question is, have the sweating conservative politicians and pundits asked the protesters? Here's why. Looks like Obama might be ready to swat another fly.

Side note, archetypal southern politician Saxby Chambliss the other day countered an assertion that through we meddled in Iranian politics years ago and risk turning off the Iranians, "nobody today would remember that." Bet you Chambliss is still fighting the Civil War.

Iran -- Fighting Us with Photoshop

By Keith R. Schmitz

Seems that all the lather worked up by the Iran missle tests might have been unwarranted. Comments from a Harry Farid in the Scientific American.

Well, at first glance it looks like the second missile from the left and its trail was possibly copied in the original and then pasted in as the second missile from the right in the edited version. But I'm not so sure it's that simple a story. If we look at the trails from these two missiles, for starters, there's a black dot just under the second-from-right missile that's not there on the other one.

Then there's the smoke plumes rising from the ground. If you look at the smoke plumes underneath two rockets on the right, those folds of smoke on the right-hand side of the trail look pretty similar, too, though. But if you look very closely, they are not identical; the pixels don't line up exactly. This distortion could have happened when the JPEG file [a common kind of digital image] was compressed, so it could just be cloned image. Or, it may be that the same kind of missile can make a very similar-looking plume.

Something else to notice here is that in the edited version, the rockets look a little bigger and thicker. This means that they are closer to the camera or the ground. So, it's a possibility that that so-called edited and the original are actually different shots entirely, taken by two people who took the pictures almost at the same time but from slightly different distances from the launch.
It's a good thing there is not the same mental climate we had in 2002/2003 to go off half cocked for sure when the US chugged off to Iraq.

What is interesting is that it seems the Bush administration and Iranian Revolutionary Guard need each other to play to their respective bases:

"There have been several comments about our missiles' tests, especially by the United States, and all of them are wrong," said Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani at the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran.

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guards test-fired during the last three days several medium- and long-range missiles, including the Shahab-3 missile which is said to have a range of 2000 kilometres and therefore capable of reaching any part of the territory of Israel.

Invading Iran -- Could Bush Be That Dumb?

By Keith Schmitz

The latest speculation from Seymour Hersch that the Bush administration is again pondering an invasion of Iran has left the right wing happy that BushCo is going to "do something" about Iran and fuming that the info was leaked.

How smart would an invasion of Iran be? Not very according to a report in the Australian which counts the ways that this adventure would do damage to all concerned -- even the Bush administration:

First, any strike will prejudice the pivotal US strategic goals in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would expose 150,000 US forces in Iraq to Iranian retaliation. It would threaten progress in Iraq and vastly complicate US force withdrawal. It would trigger Iranian terrorist activity across the region and provoke Shi'ite militia group Hezbollah into strikes. It would represent a complete refusal to absorb the lesson from the 2003 invasion of Iraq: that resort to massive military action unleashes forces beyond the control of the US.

Second, the global economic consequences would be grave. Iranian retaliation would see the world oil price skyrocket from its present high level. Commander-in-chief of Iran's revolutionary guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, has warned that Iran "will definitely act to impose controls on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz". This will take inflation and recession threats to new peaks in the industrialised world. The resentment towards Bush would be even greater.

Third, the Bush administration would implode politically. There is little grasp in Australia of the dramatic power shifts within the administration with Vice-President Dick Cheney's influence on the wane and the diplomatic option in the ascendancy under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates. Witness the diplomatic deal over North Korea's nuclear facilities. Cheney's position on Iran is that there is only one thing worse than military action: Iran being allowed to gain nuclear weapons.

But in the absence of evidence or intelligence justifying a military strike the administration would fracture. High-level resignations would be likely. The intelligence community, blamed for the Iraq war, would not tolerate any distortions from its recent modest assessment of the Iranian threat. Senior US military leaders would be alarmed, with many believing the military option was an unjustified risk.

This highlights the reason for delay: Iran is still several years away from acquiring a nuclear capability. The ultimate decision point for military action will come but that point arrives under Bush's successor. At that stage the US must either accept a nuclear armed Iran or move to thwart it.

Rev. John Hagee Is a Bigoted Whack Whose Endorsement McCain Sought and Received

via mal contends

How can a complete whack like the Rev. John Hagee whose endorsement of and political relationship with John McCain are a matter of public record not dominate the airwaves?

The apocalyptic-minded and anti-Catholic Rev. John Hagee was pursued by John McCain, and Hagee ultimately endorsed McCain in late February when they appeared together in San Antonio. (picture at right)

Hagee is a bigoted nut, but also a major Republican political player whose specific foreign policy prescriptions are seen by him as preparing the way for the Second Coming, and are identical to the controversial policy positions taken by McCain on Iran and Iraq, now.

Turns out that Hagee, of the let’s-bomb-Iran corner of the rightwing, is also a prominent signer of the Forgotten American Coalition's statement proclaiming that we need to stay in Iraq and that the “… Iraq War must be seen in the broader context of Islamo-fascism's war on America and Western Civilization. It is one front in a global conflict fought from Europe and the Middle East to Africa, the Balkans, the Indian Subcontinent and, finally, to the streets of our cities. ...”

If those words sound familiar, it’s because McCain had been repeating them in substance in his stump speech for months.

What has not been repeated for months is Hagee's venom coming from the Founder and National Chairman of the religious right's Christians United for Israel.

As Frank Rich writes this morning of Hagee:

Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is 'the Great Whore,' Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking 'the blood of the Jewish people.' That’s because the Great Whore represents 'the Roman Church,' which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

Have a look at this video and you'll get the picture; I bet former State Senator Tom Reynolds is even blushing.

Hillary Clinton Supports Resolution Prohibiting Funding for Military Action Against Iran

by Michael A. Leon

Hillary has taken a stand against the crazies on Iran, like that looney Lieberman neocon.

From Steve Clemons:

There is breaking news via Taylor Marsh that Hillary Clinton will support Senator Webb's Resolution demanding that the President seek Congressional approval before any military action against Iran and prohibiting the use of funds for military operations in Iran. This is significant news because while Hillary Clinton did support the Kyl-Lieberman Resolution calling for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be formally labeled a terrorist organization -- and thus providing the President with a potential back door Congressional authorization for yet another war in the Middle East -- her opposition to White House military action against Iran without Congress's sign off cuts a different and healthy direction.

Good for you, Hillary. [On a personal note, I just got done blasting you on the issue elsewhere, and am incorrect in my assessment.]

Below are links to a sample of pieces around the world on various aspects of the war president's next catastrophe.

- The Independent: US plan for air strikes on Iran 'backed by Brown'

- The Telegraph: Neocons seek to justify action against Teheran

- The Mail: I hate all Iranians, US aide tells MPs

- The Guardian: Bolton calls for bombing of Iran

- The New Yorker: Shifting Targets, The Administration’s plan for Iran

- Der Spiegel: 'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'

- The Boston Globe: History and the drumbeat of war

Update: Madison, Oct. 20, Saturday, 11:00 AM-Noon; Peace Vigils At the Malls: West Towne Mall
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McIlheran Watch: Lies that won't die

The conservative half of the blogeteria was in hysterics over the weekend based on a report out of Canada stating that Iran, bugaboo du jour of the martial right, had passed a law requiring Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims to wear colored tags identifying them as such.

Trouble is, no such law was ever passed.

But the conservative Cheddarspherians are not backing down from their stories. Owen was in Appleton all weekend at Woodstock or something, which may explain why he hasn't taken down his post. Peter claims that he doesn't "see anything in the denials that convinces me the original story is inaccurate." He goes on to say that "just because someone in Iran says it isn't true doesn't mean it isn't true."

Had he read the links I and mr. mxp provided him in his comments, Peter would have seen that it wasn't just "someone in Iran" saying that the law in question never existed. it was, in fact, a Jewish representative from Iran's Parliament (plus plenty of other poeple in positions to know). Peter thinks he can get away with not retracting the story by saying "to me, this fits the evil that is eminating from these nutjobs." In other words, because this is the sort of thing Iran might do, I will believe it even if it is clearly false.

This is where our good friend Patrick McIlheran comes in:

It was my honor to be one of the panelists Sunday on “Sunday Insight with Charles Sykes.” On it, I mentioned the report from Canada’s national newspaper, the National Post, that Iran passed a law requiring non-Muslims to wear colored badges identifying them as Jews, Christians or Zoroastrians.

The day after the show was taped, National Post reported that Iran denied such a law was passed. A spokesman for the U.S.-based Iranian-American Jewish Federation also said that Jews in Iran said that no such measure was in place--though the spokesman, Sam Kermanian, “added that Jews in Iran still face widespread, systematic discrimination,” according to National Post.

You'd think that here, P-Mac would say "my bad" and move on. But the title of his post is "Retraction. Well, OK, not a retraction." And he quotes the parts of the National Post citing others who doubt the falsity of the story.

In particular is this line from Bush-buddy and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who must read Peter's blog: "Unfortunately," Harper said, "we’ve seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action."

I'm not saying Iran is all lollipops and roses for everyone living there, but we should not try to prop up lies when there are plenty of truths to tell. We've been down that road before--and it turns out to be very expensive. But Iran is the story suddenly being thrust into our consciousness, hawks apparently being bored with Iraq. And so any story that can be spun will be spun, and for many months now, no doubt, some people on the internet and perhaps even in real life, will defend a (potential?) decision to attack Iran by citing the law that never was. In the meantime, real tragedies--like the horror show in Darfur--will go unremarked.

For example, Daily Kos front-pager SusanG suggests we look closer to home:

As a long haul suggestion then, I would offer this advice to the coming-late-to-the-party faux feminists on the right: Forget Iran. Begin with Saudi Arabia. Yes, Iran is oppressive to women. But at least there women can vote, run for office and drive. In Saudi Arabia, they can do none of these things, and just last week word came down from their king that women are no longer to be allowed to have their pictures in newspapers.

Since we are (temporarily) on better terms with the Saudis, perhaps we can get our country's hand-holding president to whisper in a sheik's ear that public erasure of half its population is just ... not quite playing well in Peoria. My guess is, we'll have to wait for a Democratic president to play even the politest game of hard ball with the Saudis--and even then, only once we're on the road to energy independence.

So, add another one to the list of lies that won't die--like Al Gore's having claimed to invent the internet, or that cutting taxes raises revenue, or that Bush speaks Spanish.

(Update: Casper points out in the comments that his blogmate Cantankerous covered this on Saturday. I didn't see it.)