great danger from cornered neocon animals

* emptywheel:

"The Neocons aren't even pretending their program is about anything but naked aggression. But Bush's actions are still motivated--as his open mike comments make clear--by a naive belief that this violence will somehow result in democracy.

To some degree it doesn't matter. If Dick can get Bush to go along with the attacks, even if he has to lie to do so, so be it. That still means that Dick, and his now openly-bloodthirsty Neocons, are driving the decisions of the administration.

But the distinction is important, I think, because it explains why the Neocons have revealed their true motivations. The Neocons recognize that the Iraq failure absolutely discredits them. They know they will increasingly be blamed for incompetence and outed as the radicals they are. They very nearly saw Condi pre-empt through diplomacy all their carefully laid plans.

The Neocon warmongering now comes not from a position of strength, a confidence that their influence in both the administration and the nation will remain strong. No. It's the desperate act of a compulsive gambler, who after losing big, puts all his remaining chips on the table."

* mamyaga:

"The left blogosphere has been nervously saying for some time that we're in great danger from these cornered neo-con animals, and it's true. To mix metaphors, they're willing to ride the warhead down to ground zero and quite happy to take us all with them. I never thought in all my lefty peacenik life I'd be hoping for the armed services to face down their civilian bosses, but here we are. I think the rational parts of our military may be the only parties with the power to put the brakes on -- they probably already did, seeing that this turned out to be (so far) a proxy war instead of the direct attack we'd all expected."