The Three Scariest Things I Read Today

First off, two blood curdling posts on Iran in two days by Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque. They're long, but I think they're essential reading at this moment in time:

I hadn't discovered Floyd until one of my favorite blogs, , provided the pointer. I'll certainly be reading Empire Burlesque regularly from now on though. Excerpt:

The cowardice of the Democrats is one possible reason why the Bushists’ lies are growing more open, more cynical. (And let us not lay the flattering unction to ourselves that this is because the Bush Faction is getting more desperate. It would be very nice to think so, but as noted above, they already know nothing bad is going to happen to them personally; so what would they be desperate about?) But there is one other possible reason for their brazenness: because they know that something is brewing, something is coming that will wipe away the memory of their present lies — or else make it more dangerous to point them out. Juan Cole detects some tantalizing hints in the notable absence of many of Iraq’s main political players from the scene: Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the most powerful Shiite party, has left Iraq, going first to the United States and now to Iran for cancer treatment. Mahdi Army leader Moqtada al-Sadr is still in hiding. And now Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, is going to a fat farm in the United States for three weeks to try to lose some weight. That’s right; Iraq’s head of state has left his nation in the midst of a life-and-death struggle in order to drop a few pounds in a pricey Stateside resort. […]

How soon then before we find out at last how transparent these lies have been as well? Is this the big thing brewing, a strike on Iran, a new and even more horrible war certain to provoke even more horrible responses, even on American soil — thus solidifying the tyranny of the Bush Faction, sweeping away all the “petty carping” about the law and the Constitution as the Leader does “whatever it takes” to keep us safe? [Just by the by, Bush giving himself the sole power to constitute the entire federal government in the event of a broad range of “national emergencies.”]As Cole noted in his piece on Talabani, these are just speculations. But consider: every single lie told by the Bush Faction has masked a reality more sinister than most American citizens could have imagined. “Compassionate conservatism” really was a cynical scam for ruthless corporate predation, callous disregard and a savage, ideological assault on the very notion of a “common good” — all exemplified in the Katrina disaster.

The Bushists really did lie about “weapons of mass destruction” and al Qaeda ties in order to launch a war of aggression against Iraq. Bush really did lie, knowingly and repeatedly and publicly, about the mass surveillance he is conducting upon the American people, as Greenwald has shown so clearly.

Thus we are fully justified in asking this question: What sinister reality lies in wait behind the relentless barrage of lies about Iran? The answer to that question seems transparently clear — and unfathomably evil.

Now add this morsel to deepen your sense of impending doom. From Bush Authorizes New Covert Action Against Iran at ABC News:

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

Backed against the wall on Iraq, it's totally in character for Bush et al. to reach for more chaos, not less. Fear, lies, unilateral provocation, constant widening war -- the trademarks of this blood-lusting bunch. Who can or will stop them?