As We Wait for the Other Shoe to Drop...

I wrote yesterday that I was puzzled and scared because of the conflation of two recent developments: the Senate's resolution further ripening the option for an attack on Iran; and the "leak" of a secret(?!) report that Al-Qube was not only back -- but back with redoubled strength(!?).

I can understand if my reader(!) thinks me out to lunch because of how I made delicious use of this opportunity for snide and snark. However, more serious and sanguine commentators with greater penchant for documenting their views and formulating their arguments more clearly than I, have similar misgivings.

True, as the Dover Bitch and Digby pointed out, there was an amendment to the resolution:

d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of Armed Forces against Iran

This is but a fig leaf to hide the shame of some of the 97 Senators who voted for the resolution. I say some because most of the Repugnant Senators and certainly not the fellow who put the bill on the table, "Holy" Joe Lieberman, are capable of such a quaint and old-fashion emotion as shame ! That would require not only a conscience, but memory of what they did only six years ago!

Meanwhile, almost unheeded, the military buildup in and around Iraq/Iran continues. Carrier groups are moving in out of the Persian Gulf and near by areas in a sort of shell game -- the sources I frequent are confused as to what is actually going on here with all the firepower capability even one of these flotillas controls.

Meanwhile, an air power buildup, and use of it, in Iraq continues. To put it in context: the number of bombing raids the first half of 2007 is six times of what it was the first half of 2006 and three times what it was the second half of 2006. This is really no surprise -- an ever more extravagant use of air power has long been expected.

However, even B1 bombers are being flown in. This is a strategic machine, designed and built to be able to deliver nuclear bombs and/or cruise missiles into the heart of the then Soviet Union. That a top-line strategic bomber is now being used for tactical sorties -- that smacks of desperation. Or, they could be there for another purpose? Iran? That is quite disturbing -- so, I won't mention Pakistan...