With the neocon's goals for owning Iraq and Iran not faring so well, it's time to double down on the Al Qaeda bogeyman...

The Rand Corporation goes where Michael Levitt won't: "What's needed, the report suggests, is a "fundamental rethinking of U.S. strategy" to focus on MINIMIZING OVERT MILITARY ACTION and increasing intelligence collection and partnerships with law enforcement agencies around the world."

Why is it that neocons believe that there is a military solution to every problem, and it is usually the solution of choice? Could it be that they are largely underwritten by merchants of death?

Frankly, its disappointing to see Levitt allowed such unfettered access to a Clemons' supplied soap box. Today I'll spend over $75.00 just getting to and from my jobsite, and will have to swing by a cabinet shop that is in Lamont, CA. When in Lamont, one dares not park where you can't see your rig, and excursions onto the sidestreets is actually dangerous for a gringo and legal citizen of the US.

This scam, the GWOT, is diverting attention from the huge issues that are adversely affecting all but the upper income elite. The EPA, the DOJ, both shown to be working against the best interests opf the American people, and nothing more than ass suckin' lap dogs for these criminals in the White House AND CONGRESS. Exxon shows record profits, and jobs are getting shipped overseas at an exponential rate. 'Scuse me if I'm just a bit pissed at the fear mongering natter of these neocon jackasses like Levitt, but it isn't as though their "thinking" has exactly improved the lot of Middle America. These deep thinking apologists for eight years of unmittigated disaster got us into this mess. Sorry if I don't have much faith in their ability to get us out of it.

While this Levitt mouthpiece screams how endangered I am by some Islamic wackjob, I'll be dodging meth addicted gangbangers while consuming $4.25 a gallon gas, and wondering how the hell I'm going to afford the medical tests my physician recommends. Levitt's job is to scare me into not thinking about it.

Mr Levitt,

Would you consider this a "local cell"?

"Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker — revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.

In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources.

During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected:

HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up."

see --
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/31/cheney-proposal-for-iran-war/

According to Seymour Hersh, they rejected the idea because it
would require a setting where Americans were shooting at
Americans.

If Hersh is correct and that meeting actually took place, I would
suggest that this scenario was too close to the Gulf of Tonkin
incident in 1964 as well. Dick Cheney is old enough to
remember that event – and was involved in all the trouble when
the lies were revealed ("The Pentagon Papers").

An improved variation of the incident that led to an escalation
of the Vietnam war...I`m sure Hersh saw that parallel too.

For very young people, the Vietnam era seem like some ancient
wars they`ve read about in history books. For current foreign
policy players and reporters, like Cheney, Hersh, Woodward,
Rumsfeld, Powell, Baker, Scowcroft, Kissinger, Brzezinski and
McCain, the current crisis is connected to the Vietnam and
Watergate crisis. There is no way for outsiders to really
understand if these players are trying to solve a conflict from
the 1970`s or a current crisis. Or even if that distinction make
any sense for the players or reporters who were young at that
time.