Same song, second verse

McClatchey newspapers reported last week that the neo-con wing of the administration, led by Darth Cheney himself, are ardently agitating for an airstrike against alleged terrorist training camps inside Iran.

Just what we need - open hostilities with another Islamic nation. What, two isn't enough? For all the shouts of "jihadists" coming from some quarters, it almost seems like some elements of our government are determined on creating a crusade of their own.

This all ties in with the recent chorus of claims that Iran is providing material support to Iraqi insurgents. Of course, this creates an odd catch-22 for the administration - all this supposed aid from Iran is directed to Shiite factions, and attacks from Shiite organizations are on the uprise. Shiite factions are most assuredly not associated with al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, the administration has been busily trying to conflate all insurgent attacks in Iraq with al-Qaeda in Iraq, which itself is supposedly "the same people from 9/11". Except for the fact al-Qaeda in Iraq never existed prior to 9/11.

But what's a few blatant logical inconsistencies between friends ...

What makes this article especially worrisome to me are two items:

1. Warren Strobel, one of the authors of the McClatchy piece, was one of the few journalists who consistently got things right in the run up to the Iraq war, challenging administration claims about WMDs in Iraq, alleged nuclear programs, etc. On every matter, Strobel (and his co-author on many of those pieces, Jonathan Landy, was eventually shown to be right.

There is nothing new about neo-cons such as Cheney, Norman Podhoretz and others of their ilk pushing for new and better wars. However, the fact Strobel put his name to this recent article just makes it all the more credible that, even though Cheney hasn't had his way on the issue yet, he may in the near future.

2. The military is pushing the whole "these devices must have come from Iran" angle, despite having found a factory in Iraq making them as far back as last February. This is exactly the type of misinformation and propaganda used to stampede us into invading Iraq in the first place.

When in trouble, people revert back to what they know ... and apparently what certain significant portions of this administration know is "nuke em til they glow".

I can't believe I am saying this, but I am desperately hoping Condi prevails in this matter. Even as our troops continue to die in Iraq while the Iraqi government teeters on the edge of collapse, Cheney continues doing his damnedest to prove yet again he can always make things worse.