War Without End- Amen.

Note:

In the continuing series tentatively labeled “Why it is better to drive ten inch, rusty, dirt encrusted spikes into your eyes instead of voting for John McCain” the present offering is provided.

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Last week Senator Clinton upped her game in the national security field. She came out in full Jane Yell against the Islamic Republic Of Iran and threatened them with annihilation if they even thought of using their non-existent nuclear weapons against their fellow Middle Eastern neighbors. Hillary supporters at No Quarter and other blogs went into paroxysms of joy. Nothing like the pointless slaughter of Seventy Million people to get the peanut gallery excited. Never mind that there is not a shred of evidence that Iran is working on a bomb now. Never mind that it might take up to a decade for Iran to develop a bomb if they were so inclined. Never mind a small little country to their south named Israel has more than enough nuclear devices to turn the entire nation of Iran into a vast irradiated parking lot; lets rattle our sabers at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to appeal to the Holy Joe Lieberman fan club- all three of them.

Even going deeper, Hillary’s logic of Middle Eastern policy of deterrence left even sober critics unimpressed. The proposal to place an American nuclear umbrella over our allies in the Middle East is problematic at best; ignorant at worst. Deterrence barely worked during Soviet Times when rational actors resided in Washington and Moscow. The Soviet Union and the US came perilous close to annihilation more than a few times during the Cold War even with all the rational checks and balances of MAD. Unfortunately the Middle East seems woefully short of rational actors. Exactly how does a nuclear umbrella work if a radical rightist Israel decides to do a first strike against Saudi Arabia? Clinton’s proposal did not even begin to look at that two ton elephant in the room.

Not that Barack has resisted the siren call of Testosterone drenched politics. He got out on a tree limb and let loose a full Tarzan Yell on Pakistan. He claimed to be more than willing to go tearing around the tribal badlands of that nation to get at Osama Bin Laden and his happy bunch of pirates. More to the point he was not about to ask mother may I to the legitimate government. Imagine the president of Mexico claiming the right for his army to go dashing about San Diego, California or El Paso, Texas after members of the Arellano Félix drug cartel; sound like a good idea to you?

But for full Testosterone overload one really need to look at the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party. Remember it was John Sidney McCain who was the first to propose the surge in Iraq. Remember all the pundits claiming how smart the politics of such a proposal was? Remember them solemnly intoning how no one would be stupid enough to actually try the surge? Remember how everyone just knew that the Iraq Study Group proposals were the real way our nation was going to go? Somehow George W. Bush did not get that memo. Shrub grabbed the surge with both hands and ran with it.

McCain then got aboard the Surge train and supported the escalation to point of absurdity and beyond. Not that McCain ever harbored any doubts about the invasion and occupation of Iraq; he was with the PNAC crowd before they were a gleam in Cheney’s eye. The NeoCons wanted McCain in 2000 because they knew he was one of their members. Bush with his proposals for a “humble foreign policy” did not provide the fire in the belly they were looking for. Then came 9/11 and George W’s push for getting Saddam. The NeoCons were besides them selves with joy. McCain especially backed the drive to the Euphrates. McCain has been an utterly reliable voice in Bush’s amen corner when it came to the invasion and the occupation.

Not only has McCain given unquestioning support to every bit of White House Spin and happy talk about improvement, he has joined Holy Joe Lieberman in pimping the next excellent misadventure in Iran. McCain has even had the audacity to put the next war to a tune of Beach Boys tune. Yes my friends, with McCain “there will be other wars.” He has shamelessly put out the lie of Iranian support of Al Qaeda in Iraq. He has consistently conflated Shias with Sunnis and then connected them with OBL. He has been so bad that even Holy Joe Lieberman had to whisper in his ear and set him straight. When you get so far off the reservation that you have to be reeled in by the Likud Senator from Connecticut you are in a very disconnected state from reality.

No one has accused Holy Joe of being soft on Iran; his animosity to the Islamic Republic is there for all to see. No one has banged the war drums against Iran more than Lieberman. No one has lied, pandered, dissembled, spun, distorted, or bashed more than the “independent Democrat” from the Nutmeg State; no one except John McCain. It takes extra special effort to wind up to the right of an ardent Likudnick like Lieberman; it takes a deep seated and dangerous mind set. Quite bluntly it takes a man who is deeply in love with raw power and the use of same.

Such a man will blindly rush into just about any war; his first, second, third and last option is war. Forget the happy talk about conferring with out allies. McCain’s only interest in the allies is getting them to sign on their service men and woman on to his jolly little wars. Somewhere in his demented mind he figures if he just explains the necessity of attacking Iran they will fall in line. He is totally closed off the possibility that war with Iran would not be good idea. He is totally closed off to the possibility that attacking Iran would make the disaster in Iraq look like a polite tea-party dust up.

McCain may be uninformed on these possibilities but you, dear reader, are not. You should know that our military is frayed, exhausted, and perilously close to collapse. You should know that the entire Middle East is in the most unstable condition that it has ever been since at least the Mongol invasion. We are fast becoming the new Mongols in the eyes of people of the region. Note to those who slept through history class in High School; the Mongols were not very popular with the peoples who had contact with them.

The regional and global blow-back from an invasion of Iran would be disastrous. Any trace of sympathy for the American people would vanish in haze of righteous indignation. So far we have been extraordinarily lucky. People around the world still believe in the basic decency of the American people. People around the world still differentiate the Government of the United States and its citizens. Part of this must be the fact that a major party in the United States is going to nominate either the first Woman or the first Black man as a standard bearer. If however we elect an old, grumpy, white guy who just happens to be in love with the idea of war; we will then reap the whirl wind.

The choice is painfully clear, if you have to put a brace of cloths pins on your nose to vote for Hillary in November, do it. If you have to have an air sickness bag ready to pull the lever for Barack, haul that puppy in to the booth. If you really support our brave men and women of the armed services; if you do not want their lives squandered so McCain can re-fight Vietnam in the Plateaus of Persia you must vote for the Democrat. Other wise we will be in 100 year war with the rest of the world. Other wise we will be in a war without end.