>>>>What is your take? Sanctioned from the highest level or renegade?
>>>>
>>>>http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/18/us.iran/index.html?hpt=T1
>>>>
>>>>This is probably an ink blot test here in partisan land. I am hoping for honest reactions.
>>>
>>>There was an article in the January, 1984 edition of Scientific American, titled "Launch Under Attack" by John Steinbruner. It outlined the activities of US defense analysts, whose job it was to determine the best strategies and tactics to respond to a nuclear attack from the (then) Soviet Union (this was before the end of the Cold War). What opened my eyes was the description of how that group was also tasked to devise scenarios where the US could launch first and achieve victory with minimal, or no, retaliation from the Soviets.
>>>
>>>Compared to that, this Iranian situation is pretty small beer.
>>>
>>>My guess is that every threat or military option that any civilian or conspiracy theorist has ever dreamt up, was previously thought of and analyzed by one or more defense analysts. I imagine this has been "sanctioned from the highest level" from at least WWII, if not earlier. GOP or Dems - take your pick.
>>>
>>>"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." -- attributed to George Orwell
>>
>>That is one of Charles's favorite quotations as well.
>>
>>I mention only in passing that Orwell was a socialist, a real one.
>
>Also mention that Orwell, while a socialist, was excoriated by the Left for his complete disenchantment with totalitarianism at a time when the American Left was doing ethical gymnastics to justify Stalinism and march lock-step with Moscow over the Hitler-Stalin pact.

From this weekends Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/17/christopher-hitchens-re-reads-animal-farm