The Great Satan's at it again

[sabotabby]

Thanks a lot, frandroid. You sure know how to cheer a girl up.

[Poll #955787]

Comments

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

OK, I'm not usually the optimist in the crowd but...surely not.

[sabotabby]

Be an optimist, yes.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Oh good. I was thinking I'd be labeled naive if I was. Bush certainly is that crazy, but with our military stretched so thin, I just don't think It's logistically possible. Hey, we didn't go to war when our guys were taken hostage, so I don't think we would do so over Britain's. I agree that Bush wants to go, but I think we will likely stand aside like in the Falklands War.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

After all, Ronnie and Maggie were much closer than Tony and George, slash not withstanding.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Then again, Tony could always say, "I did it for YOU!"

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Cause for optimism ...

[sabotabby]

Now, I know I've read Tony/George slash. It's even been published. As a children's picture book.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

...with our military stretched so thin, I just don't think It's logistically possible.

I would tend to agree with you, but I will point out that there's mention of no ground attack being planned. Why send people if you can just press buttons.

Of course, they could be gigantic dicks and send ground troops anyways...

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

It's not going to be much of a sneak attack if that can make the rounds of the internet in under a week. And it's not two otters floating around and holding hands, but STILL.

[sabotabby]

True, though I'm not sure how sneaky they're trying to be anyway, given that they keep loudly announcing their intentions. But hey, they redefined "freedom" to mean "mass killing," so maybe they can redefine "sneak attack" to mean "I read the spoilers back in 2005."

At any rate, I'm in favour of an Otters Not War campaign.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

RAND had a great event on Iran last week. Everyone down to the American Enterprise woman agreed that attacking Iran would be a bad thing diplomatically, and still not prevent Iran from acquiring nukes. The State Dept. #3 guy, Nick Burns, was all about finding diplomatic ways forward. Granted, this was before the issue of the British sailors, but even now, the only truly worrisome possibility to me is something minor and unintentional escalating and then getting blown out of proportion- a real risk, but not one I'm losing sleep over. I would bet money against Iran being attacked in April.

[sabotabby]

I think if they cared about diplomacy, or looking bad in the eyes of the world, or generally trying to avoid getting involved in long, costly, messy wars, that might be more comforting.

[dubaiwalla.livejournal.com]

You don't have to love it, but you do have to live with it.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

That's a comfortably narrow window to bet upon. :]

Maybe Russia doesn't know anything, but they decided to try to think about how the Americans would go about it if they were crazy enough to do it, and float a trial balloon. If it's close enough to the U.S. plan (whether they want to do it or not, there surely is a plan in place), that might freak them out a bit.

"just kidding pal. i was just trying to get under your skin."

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Russian newspapers are damn near 100% untrue most of the time. The rest of the Russian news is made up of shit.

I don't doubt it's *possible*, but then again, it's a Russian newspaper.

Show me a reputable news source, like say, Al Jazeera, and well, maybe I'd change my thoughts on this.

[douglain.livejournal.com]

You forgot to give me the "I don't know" option.

[sabotabby]

No, no. I need uninformed opinions.

[douglain.livejournal.com]

I voted for "please God, give me another few months to live" option then.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Not sure just when, but we will.

[sabotabby]

I am not tasteless enough to include a betting pool. I mean, I am almost tasteless enough. But not quite.

[douglain.livejournal.com]

I'll bet you five dollars that we do it in October.

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

Five dollars US?

[seaya.livejournal.com]

What you were expecting funny money? ;)

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

I voted for #4. Hopefully the neo-cons will be out with Bush before they could ever mount a strike. And even the most idealistic and unrealistic neo-cons realize that using the big stick approach in terms of Iran would be a ineffective if not a disaster to what is left of any coherent middle east policy as a whole.

The Russian government, military and intelligence routinely plants disinformation and rumors in the Russian press (a hold over from the Soviet days). Since Russia is supplying the reactors technicians and technology to Iran, it has a unique position to hold power over the NATO allies. I think Putin's just rattling the chains in light of the British sailors being captured to ratchet up tensions so he can persuade the U.S. to negotiate with Russia as an "honest broker". Of course keeping somekinds of nuke contracts in Iran would be apart of any Russian brokered deal.

[sabotabby]

I don't know if they're afraid of disasters at this point.

[frippy.livejournal.com]

WHERE TICKY-BOX OPTION

[sabotabby]

I ticked it and it blew up. :(

[ironed_orchid]

Well, at least there's an explanation.

[beam-oflight.livejournal.com]

This made me realise how soon april actually is. Here's me going along in my perpetual march, and April is in just a few days!

The pessimist in me is saying that it's not a matter of if, but when. :(

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

I have this weird feeling that they may not go after Iran, despite all that's going on. Don't ask me why. Loigically these neocon loonies should be hot to hit another middle eastern country, but the pressure that's on right now may actually get them to reconsider.

[elgordochico.livejournal.com]

Eh. Who cares? No matter what US does, it can't square the cycle of violence and terror. If the war did come, it would be just a skirmish at top of a garbage heap. The region is in a disastrous shape. Iran is the clear winner, along with their proxies in Iraq, and their political leaders are as ideologically driven as ours. So, if they did face off US, they would truly deserve each other, in the same way that Khomeini deserved Saddam in the 80s. Fuck 'em all.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

Ahmadinejad/Dubwa, OTP?

[elgordochico.livejournal.com]

Lol. Yeah, why isn't there a slash fiction about this already. Good coupling.

[sabotabby]

Isn't that Rule 54? You've thought it, so it exists.

[esizzle.livejournal.com]

What was that saying? Repeat the same lie enough times and an American will believe it?

I vote yes.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

The Russians* just want to sell nukes and they are completely unreliable. Fuck, I mean they poison their own people in a really creepy way.

I guess they will always be the gold standard for thank goodness we aren't like that!

And I don't think they will ever be held accountable for their *own* atrocities, because they don't even claim to be some kind of beacon of freedom, they just fuck shit up and the world shrugs and says, well, that's Russia for you, another shipment of AKs please! There's something to be said as to how much they really don't give a shit about anything but selling weapons and staying in power.

Anyhow, I don't doubt the U.S. wants to attack Iran. But, it's not in the cards at the moment. If I'm wrong, I'll be out in the street with the rest of y'all. What can I do, anyhow.

*The Russian government, mind you.

[misfitina.livejournal.com]

I can see someone actually completely not getting 300 and using it to support a war with Iran. Poor Frank.