Here we go again

Jeezus. I sure hope someone with common sense - and the real power to do something in its defense - is paying attention to this. From today's New York Times:

The Bush administration is preparing to declare that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization, senior administration officials said Tuesday.

Maybe it's just me, but those are some of the most frightening words I've heard since our Imbecile in Chief was sworn in as President in 2001.

Look, I'm not going to go through the litany of reasons this Administration's belligerence toward Tehran is unsupported by verifiable facts, based on hyperbole and misinformation, and simply borderline insane. Anyone familiar with this column knows I've written about this idiocy several times in the past. Nor will I waste my time dispelling any accusations that I'm an anti-American supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - my distrust of Iran's petty tyrant is equally well-documented.

But I am compelled to remind those who stumble upon this site that we've seen this movie before. The overstatement of immediate danger. The casual conflation of Tehran and al Qaeda, when any accurate analysis of Middle Eastern history should make us assume these two are natural enemies. The trumpeting of "irrefutable proof" that We the People are nevertheless not allowed to see - you know, for reasons of "national security." The insidious, gradual PR campaign designed to make military action feel, ultimately, inevitable.

The expectation that we must simply trust our White House to do what's best.

What we must also keep in mind as we compare the script written about Iraq with the one under current development (which merely replaces the "q" in the title with an "n"), is that the Administration we have now is not the same one that pitched this fiction between '02 and '03. Oh sure, the mountain of evidence that exists exposing the incompetence and dishonesty of King George and his pals makes the general populace less likely to buy their snake-oil this time around.

But with the help of almost five years of Congressional cowardice and complicity, the current White House finds itself unbound from even the most basic checks and balances, free to operate in secrecy and outside the law, free to apply arbitrary "labels" that now legally grant it authority to wage war at a whim, free to escape scrutiny or accountability when things go terribly wrong.

Free to ignore anyone and everyone this Administration damn well pleases.

As I wrote just a few days ago, the intensifying saber-rattling against Iran should disturb and enrage every citizen. We must raise a loud cry of alarm to any of our elected representatives who will still listen - and voice an even louder tirade against those sycophants who seem poised to enable this madness.

It gets clearer each day that Georgie and Dick and Condi and Alberto have plans to leave the world with one final "gift" before departing in 2009, one last desperate attempt to be seen as noble crusaders in what actually is a megalomaniacal display of callous imperialism. Time is running out, kids, to do everything we can to block this calculated march toward yet another unprovoked war based on lies and exaggeration.

As a wise man once said, "Fool me once..."