Pentagon

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250196,00.html

This below may be from the Sunday Times, I was unable to trace it back. The Fox link above carries a briefer version.

“WASHINGTON — A prize-winning Iranian nuclear scientist has died in
mysterious circumstances, according to Radio Farda, which is funded
by the U.S. State Department and broadcasts to Iran.
An intelligence source suggested that Ardeshire Hassanpour, 44, a
nuclear physicist, had been assassinated by Mossad, the Israeli
security service.
Hassanpour worked at a plant in Isfahan where uranium hexafluoride
gas is produced. The gas is needed to enrich uranium in another plant
at Natanz which has become the focus of concerns that Iran may be
developing nuclear weapons.
According to Radio Farda, Iranian reports of Hassanpour’s death
emerged on Jan. 21 after a delay of six days, giving the cause as
“gas poisoning”. The Iranian reports did not say how or where
Hassanpour was poisoned but his death was said to have been announced
at a conference on nuclear safety.
Rheva Bhalla of Stratfor, the U.S. intelligence company, claimed on
Friday that Hassanpour had been targeted by Mossad and that there was
“very strong intelligence” to suggest that he had been assassinated
by the Israelis, who have repeatedly threatened to prevent Iran
acquiring the bomb.
Hassanpour won Iran’s leading military research prize in 2004 and was
awarded top prize at the Kharazmi international science festival in
Iran last year.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to announce next Sunday —
the 28th anniversary of the Islamic revolution — that 3,000
centrifuges have been installed at Natanz, enabling Iran to move
closer to industrial scale uranium enrichment.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency say that
hundreds of technicians and laborers have been “working feverishly”
to assemble equipment at the plant.”

Is this not a more civilized way to conduct war? The only way to fight a shadowy opponent is with a shadowyer one and that we have got. Do not draft our 18 year olds to fight the "Red Shadow" by conventional means. Draft Farce and Arabic speaking men and women for the CIA.

The only thing that might be better would be for the respective leaders to, themselves alone, face it off on a circumscribed field of battle. The Fijian Chiefs did something like this hundreds of years ago using 10 warriors for each side. The King of Siam led his forces on the back of his elephant.

Our cold war machine just does not work for today’s challenges. Machiavellian diplomacy should have gone out with the dark ages, and our civilian led Pentagon with Viet Nam. If we cannot turn the Pentagon into a nursing home, perhaps we can turn it into an office building for retired generals, well versed in the strategies of war, their own experience and failures. These field officers know better than to engage in foolish civilian lead military mis-adventures. Only one Commander and Chief is a civilian. He carries the burden of responsibility for the safety of the Nation and the Lives of our youth.

When we delegated the burden of directing a war machine to a Cabinet member, it soon becomes a bureaucracy of civilians without military knowledge but with authority over the military. It is like children with guns, innocents with newfound power to destroy but with neither the knowledge nor, the caution not to exercise that power.

When we created the Secretary of Defense, detracting from the balance of the Secretary of State, we created a monster.(1) We created what is worse than the Military Industrial Complex of Eisenhower’s fears. We created the Pentagon Economy, a war machine feeding on itself with only one purpose and a million excuses for war.(2) These civilians were the source of Neo-conservatism. Did we not reject Neo-conservatism in November’s election? Is not the naïveté of the Neo-conservative conviction well proven in Iraq? We have indeed created the very thing we sought to prevent. When we allow our President to delegate the responsibility for war to any Cabinet member, we loose the very restraint over the Military that the Constitution dictates.

I support my President, and certainly the troops, but I do not think any man would have made these decisions if not for the persuasion of a war prone bureaucracy naive about the culture of the ME .

Let us at least put flower boxes in the windows of the Pentagon and put diplomacy back in the hands of the State Department. Let wars be fought by some one else, and, when necessary, let the cloak and dagger guys deal with the evils of the ME. Let the Mossad deal with Iran. Israel’s Palestinian and Islamic PR is their problem, not ours, but have we not chosen to make it ours as well? Islam is not Totalitarian Communism, but it may be a far more dangerous enemy if we choose to make it one.

This may be a fruitless rant, one man can do naught, but silence is unacceptable, and information recruits opinion.

Further related information:
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/syriablog/2006/09/al-qaida-plans-for-syria.htm
(1) http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/cwr/17603.htm
(2) http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jvforres.htm
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