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While NBC Nightly News was prattling on tonight about “new wars in Iraq” and how well Americans care for their aging parents – oh, and don’t forget the “significant new findings on heart attacks in women” that turned out to be just a rehash of factors already known and well publicized – they completely forgot to inform Americans that their government has now finalized battle plans for the attack on Iran.

Fortunately, the BBC was able to broadcast the details to the rest of the world half an hour before NBC Nightly News came on air.

A US assault on Iran could be triggered, the BBC has learned, by any perceived nuclear threat from Iran, or a major attack on US forces in Iraq that could be traced back to Tehran. Strikes would not be limited to the country’s nuclear facilities, but would include most of its military infrastructure.

There are already thirty US warships stationed in the Gulf region and a second carrier group is on its way.

According to the BBC report:

“The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment. The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions. But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.”

All now required is for the President of the United States to give the word.

But, we all know peace-loving, caring, born-again Christian, George W Bush would never do that.

Don’t we?

Perhaps, after all, NBC just didn’t want Americans to know?

Read the BBC report and watch the video HERE.

As a postscript, the BBC reporter on the video is Frank Gardner, who was shot six times while reporting from a suburb of Riyadh, Saudia Arabia in 2004. His cameraman was killed in the attack. One of the bullets pierced Gardner’s spine rendering him paralyzed from the waist down.

Filed under: Cheering news

There’s a new war in Iraq, according to NBC. Tonight Brian Williams and Richard Engel – NBC’s “man in Iraq” – agreed it was a whole new war.

They should try telling that to the Iraqis.

This new war has come about because Sunni insurgents (colloquially referred to as “Al Qaeda”) have begun targeting American soldiers whose commanders have, in their wisdom, decided to barrack in Iraqi police stations. Today, two suicide car bombers blew their vehicles up outside one such establishment, killing two Americans and wounding seventeen others.

Perhaps Admiral Fallon and General Petraeus might have considered the possibility of such an occurrence, given that Iraqi police stations have long been popular targets of suicide bombers. It might also have occurred to them that insurgents suppressed by US troop levels in Baghdad could possibility shift their theater of operations to other areas.

After all, it’s what insurgents do. It’s called guerrilla warfare. Isn’t General Petraeus America’s foremost expert on guerrilla warfare?

This latest incident occurred in Tarmiya, a small Arab Sunni town about twenty-five miles north of Baghdad.

It is not a new war, at all. It’s a four year old war that will get a great deal older and bloodier before it is through.

Filed under: Media drivel

If the earth was composed of motor cars, rather than countries, America would be a beat-up Model T Ford. Admittedly, there would be a few modern ‘accessories’ – a supercharged, ten-liter gas guzzling engine to assist in poisoning the planet; a global positioning system to pinpoint the areas of resource where waging war is economically viable; a well-stocked bar for George W Bush – and that not quite so modern, but equally vital asset – a leather-bound, large-print-so nothing-can-be-overlooked, copy of the Holy Bible.

Most other industrial nations would be symbolized by more up-to-date, sleeker, and people-friendlier vehicles, not necessarily environment-friendly, but certainly a cut above the overpowered, under-developed, rust-bucket that is the United States.

However, the most significant difference between them would have little to do with automobile evolution. The one piece of equipment missing from those motor cars that comprise the rest of the industrialized world, would be the part America considers most vital to the smooth running of its old Model T.

That ‘part’ is, of course, the Bible.

Nowhere among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – those motor cars considered most industrially and economically advanced – is there a hint of the mental-slavery devoted to this book by Model T America. While other motor cars pay lip service to the minority of their populace still loosely adhering to its tenets, the Book itself is never allowed to interfere in the smooth running of their engines.

Without a staunchly broadcast belief in the Bible, no US citizen can hope to gain access to the Model T’s workings. All of its not inconsiderable power is derived from those sworn to uphold “the Book”.

Unfortunately, the constraints imposed on its design and evolution by this book are causing it to rot away, even as it continues to voraciously gobble up those mopeds and bicycles on the planet not yet evolved to motor car status.

Unless America catches on, and chucks “the Book” out through the cavity that once was its windshield, all that will remain of the old Model T will be its supercharged, ten liter engine lying roaring in the dirt but going nowhere.

Its only remaining ability, to watch other more up-to-date, sleeker, and people-friendlier vehicles, purr smoothly past it.

Filed under: Scrapyard fodder