Real Men Go to Tehran

Those British Marines are still being held, and Blair has warned that negotiations will enter a "new phase" if the hostages aren't released soon. US hawks are stoked as this means that if we go to war with Iran, the UK will be dragged along, despite their best efforts to pull out. Our Navy is conducting a "show of force" in the Gulf right now but insisting that this has nothing to do with Iran. What's really disgusting about all this is that the Iranian actions were far from unprovoked. The US kidnapped five high-ranking Revolutionary Guardsmen in Irbil, Iraq last month. Not only that, we have had our tankers just hanging out in the narrow, hard to maneuver mouth of the Persian Gulf for months, presumably with the hope that we could provoke a Gulf of Tonkin style incident and use it as a pretence for war. I don't believe a word the government says when it comes to Iran. The horrible, inescapable conclusion is that there is going to be another war. Sy Hersh warned us about this last year. The people making the decisions here have no perspective, no empathy. They don't care how many more kids die. They don't care if there are terrorist attacks all over Europe, if oil goes up to $60 a barrel, if the US never recovers from what they do. I'd like to believe that after Iraq, the American people wouldn't let this happen again but at this point I am faithless. The only thing that could make a difference, in my opinion, would be French-style general strikes. Fat chance.