War Talk

Bush is starting to make his case for a strike on Iran.

Fri Jan 26, 12:46 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian agents active inside Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the plan.

The move, approved last fall, is aimed at weakening Iran's influence in the region and forcing Tehran to abandon its nuclear program that the West believes is for nuclear weapons and not energy, the newspaper said, citing the unidentified officials.

For more than a year, U.S. forces have held dozens of Iranians for a few days, taking DNA samples from some as well as photographs and fingerprints from all those captured, the report said.

Several Iranian officials have been detained in three U.S. raids over the last month. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters on Wednesday that details of accusations against them would be made public in the coming days.

He said they were "going after networks" of security agents, which he said were a mainstay of Iran's involvement in Iraq. The United States has accused Iran of helping arm, train and fund Iraqi militants, notably fellow Shi'ite Muslims.

I discussed in An Act Of War how the USA was starting to provoke Iran. Little insults like the taking of an Iranian Embassy in Iraq and six people from that embassy. Cutting off bank transfers with Iran. That one really hurts. I think they are going to be poked until they do something rash or lose face. Of course Iran is using Hizballah in Lebanon to show they can make trouble too.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

On Terrorism

Men who use terrorism as a means to power, rule by terror once they are in power. --Helen Macinnes

H/T Forbes Magazine

Euston We Have a Problem

There has been quite a bit of talk lately about the Euston Manifesto and what it means to be a principled leftist in time of war. Jeff Jarvis is covering it (with a link to Austin Bay included). Harry's Place covers it in a number of posts. Go here and here to start. Norm Geras also has a bit on it.

Here is something I sent to Norm:

Nice bit of work.

Still the adherence to socialism seems to me similar to Einstein's rejection of quantum mechanics. True socialism is a much prettier economic theory than
capitalism. The problem is it doesn't work.

Marx understood the problem well. Capitalism is necessary to create the capital that socialism intends to re-distribute. Full socialism will only be possible when capitalism is no longer profitable.

In the mean time the greater the inequality the faster the progress to socialism.

In other words all real socialists should be as much
as possible free market capitalists. The less capitalism is hindered by socialist policies the more wealth there will be at some future point.

It is very difficult to sacrifice today for tomorrow. Especially for socialists.

BTW if you really want to make poverty history read DeSoto. He says that the problem is government not money. I have a short introduction to DeSoto with links here:

Property.

As you know DeSoto is from Peru. His basic premise is that poor people are poor because they are shut out of the property system. It is not property that is bad
but the lack of it.

M. Simon

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Euston Manifesto, Progressive Politics, Principled Left, Socialism, Property, Iraq War, Property, DeSoto, Poverty, Iran, Liberation, Wealth,