Laughter May Be the Best Medicine...

But too much uncontrollable laughter might be dangerous. These guys are just killing me. We tramp around the Middle East for decades, toppling a government or two here, killing unforgivably large numbers of people there, and then we tell the governments of countries actually in the Middle East that they should stop meddling in their neighbors' affairs.

Acts that are virtuous and admirable when we commit them are criminal and to be condemned when others conduct themselves in precisely the same manner, usually in reaction to what we've already done. And then we wonder "why they hate us," and proceed to lie about the purported explanation. Our government contends they hate us for our "freedom" and our "values." Of course, that's not true at all. That's pure state propaganda, designed to prevent Americans from discovering the truth. They hate us because we won't leave them the hell alone, and because we won't stop killing them.

Now we occupy a country that never threatened us and commit genocide, and we say that anyone who dares to protest our actions is being unjustifiably aggressive and provocative. Sweet.

It is indisputably clear that the Bush administration is doing everything it can short of an outright attack on Iran to provoke a wider regional war. No serious, principled opposition from the Democrats will be forthcoming, because they agree on the overall objective: global domination through military supremacy. Hoyer is on board, as is Edwards, as is Hillary Clinton and every other prominent Democrat.

Today we learn the following:

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.

Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran's regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing.

...

Advocates of the new policy -- some of whom are in the NSC, the vice president's office, the Pentagon and the State Department -- said that only direct and aggressive efforts can shatter Iran's growing influence. A less confident Iran, with fewer cards, may be more willing to cut the kind of deal the Bush administration is hoping for on its nuclear program. "The Iranians respond to the international community only when they are under pressure, not when they are feeling strong," one official said.

With aspects of the plan also targeting Iran's influence in Lebanon, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, the policy goes beyond the threats Bush issued earlier this month to "interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria" into Iraq. It also marks a departure from years past when diplomacy appeared to be the sole method of pressuring Iran to reverse course on its nuclear program.

Do keep in mind that we have no right whatsoever to be in Iraq. Our war is one of naked aggression.

But this is the passage in the article that truly slayed me:

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq "has been quite striking." [Or not.]

"Iran seems to be conducting a foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism," Hayden said.

Honest to God. I mean, Jesus Christ.

Bush tells Iraq that we have done it an immense favor, by invading and occupying that nation and murdering more than half a million innocent Iraqis, and that the surviving Iraqis should be profoundly grateful to us. We told Mexico the same thing, and the Philippines. Beginning with our completely unnecessary and enormously destructive entrance into World War I, we tell the entire world the same thing.

But Iran, which entirely legitimately and understandably fears that it is the next target in the crosshairs of the United States, is guilty of "dangerous triumphalism."

On many days, I think either I'm insane or almost the entire rest of the world is. Nothing will stop the United States, short of catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. Our governing elites seem absolutely determined to bring about that eventuality.

And on that note, I wish you a very pleasant day.