They're Wearing Me Out Today

image credit: The Smithsonian see Note 1



This is yet another reason that the people who are running this country shouldn't be. Here's Cliff Schecter quoting a Seymour Hersh interview on CNN today:

Dana Perino says we're taking diplomatic measures. But they are planning more limited surgical strikes with carefully drawn-up plans for attack. The Brits and Australia are more interested now. Israel wants us to go and go hit hard, to take out the Revolutionary Guard and the nuclear facilities.

Sy Hersh: The sales pitch on Iran has morphed from nukes to terrorism

Here's what Hersh had to say in the article he was referring to:

The revised bombing plan for a possible attack [on Iran], with its tightened focus on counterterrorism, is gathering support among generals and admirals in the Pentagon. The strategy calls for the use of sea-launched cruise missiles and more precisely targeted ground attacks and bombing strikes, including plans to destroy the most important Revolutionary Guard training camps, supply depots, and command and control facilities.

Annals of National Security: Shifting Targets

Here's what the Council on Foreign Relations has to say about the Republican Guards:

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or Pasdaran in Farsi, was formed by former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It was originally created as a “people’s army” similar to the U.S. National Guard; commanders report directly to the supreme leader, Iran’s top decision-maker. Iran’s president appoints military leaders of the guard but has little influence on day-to-day operations. Current forces consist of naval, air, and ground components, and total roughly 125,000 fighters.

Backgrounder: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

[emphasis mine]

How in the world do they expect to take out a loosely-controlled group of "roughly 125,000 fighters" with air strikes? Are they planning on dropping a big block of cheese in the middle of Tehran and hope they all cluster around it? They can bomb every plane, ship, and motor scooter the Guards have in their inventory, and yet not affect the only thing the Guard possesses that can possibly hurt us: the knowledge and ability to support terrorism and insurgency that the Guards are supposed to posses. They can rebuild or replace most of the other stuff.

With the examples of Vietnam and President Clinton's campaign against Al Qaeda, you'd think we'd have learned that trying to stop insurgents and terrorists with air strikes is a fool's errand. Yet here we are, willing to give it another try.

Some days there's so much stupidity in the world you just can't keep up with it all.

(h/t Taylor Marsh, who found this craziness and a whole lot more.)

NOTE1: This is a picture of a gold-plated mousetrap. It's the perfect symbol for this subject. I love Google Images, because it keeps coming up with these gems.