Welcome to SayItSayItSayIt. You can read the news in at least a million different places. Wouldn't it be nice if you could still get news on television so you could lie on the sofa and not have to sit in a chair, reading a computer monitor? Don't give up the dream!
I've been so thoroughly amused with the way that just when I thought the Bush administration had gone as far afield as I thought it could go, yet another ridiculous extreme emerges. Did they grow up with the ambition of going down in history as the worst people who ever lived? No, they had and still have the idea they can own and rule the world.
If the planned attack on Iran is any indication, they still believe it's realistic. And, they're willing to kill as many people as it takes, including everyone in the United States. I've talked about this at great length. It's been an interesting experience. For the most part, people tell me: (1) they don't believe it will happen; (2) if we attack Iran, the biggest threat to the U.S. will be terrorist blowback; (3) the war will unleash political turmoil among socio-politico-religious factions in Iran; (4) we won't use nuclear weapons; (5) Iran has been thumbing its nose at us for years and we should kill as many of them as we can; (6) Iran is the biggest threat facing the United States today; (7) that I'm irresponsible, impolite, incorrect, breaking the law or crazy. They tell me a lot of other things, and imply things that go unsaid, mainly the suggestion nuclear weapons are clean, and all you get with a nuclear device is an explosion.
None of these perceptions is correct. I'm amazed that people are as uninformed as that, and lacking in curiosity. And where is Congress? Only concerned with their re-electability, and unwilling to make a strong statement of opposition, that's where, and may I add, unable to extrapolate. Their fates are in it, too.
We don't hear much about the state of war preparedness these days, but the last we heard, three aircraft carrier groups are planned for the operation. It emphasizes air strikes. There are approximately 80 fighter planes on each carrier, for a total of 240. Striking 1,500 targets and hitting them with ballistic missiles armed with five megaton nuclear warheads in a maneuver called "over the shoulder bombing" is planned. That's six or seven targets per plane, assuming none are shot down. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran possesses a world-class air defense system, so the attack force should expect heavy losses. I expect Iran is able to sink aircraft carriers, although it's just my opinion.
But, assuming we are able to hit all those targets, or more, what will happen? Each warhead contains firepower equal to approximately 335 times the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Times 1,500, you can expect the initial attack to kill almost everyone in Iran. Then, about a billion people to the east and southeast of the attack will be showered with radioactive fallout, and a lot of it. Those in Iran who aren't killed in the initial attack will succomb to the residual gamma radiation. The infrastructure will be completely destroyed. Iran's oil will be radiated and rendered unusable. Nothing like this has been done before, so we can't really know how the world will react.
But you can expect that Russia and China, countries which have in recent years invested hundreds of billions of dollars in energy deals with Iran, won't sit back and let bygones be bygones. In fact, if ever there were a good reason to launch a nuclear strike on a country, they will have one and will launch tactical nuclear warheads yielding 20-50 megatons against the United States, as too very likely will India, the recipient of so much of the fallout from the attack on Iran. We won't stand still for that, and our submarines will retaliate. By the time two or three dozen major cities have been destroyed, enough radiated dust will be injected into the atmosphere that the sky will be nothing but dense, black soot which will blot out the sun for years and poison every living thing on the surface, except perhaps for a few hearty weeds and some species of cockroaches.
The Bush administration knows all of this, yet still believes it's the thing to do, and that the destruction of the earth and the deaths of billions and most likely the entire biosphere is not too large a price to pay for American global hegemony and a permanent, republican lock on power!
These people need to be fired. Further, they belong in a state hospital or prison. They may be willing to commit suicide for the sake of their loyalty to George W. Bush, but I am not.
