That supposedly "liberal" newspaper, The New York Times is back at it again, giving another neocon warmonger a platform to push the United States into another war, this time with Iran. The talking heads over on Faux "news" love to pretend that the paper is somehow "left wing," ignoring of course that they were the ones who hired Judith Miller to take stenography from Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney. Or that they hired Bill Kristol. Or that they still employ David Brooks.

This week the editors there thought it was a good idea to give John Bolton a platform to demand that we go bomb Iran, even though as we all know he got things terribly wrong on Iraq and their supposed WMDs.

The Daily Beast's Sally Kohn had one of the better responses to this I've read so far: Stop Listening to John Bolton:

Bolton wrote an op-ed in the New York Times asking for all-out war in Iran as soon as possible. He has no idea what he’s talking about, and it’s scary he was ever in power to begin with.

There’s an old joke, or sort of joke, about how bombing for peace is like f*cking for virginity. In that analogy, John Bolton is trying to f*ck us all over.

Bolton, United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, has written an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, the United States should bomb Iran. This “reasoning” is as reckless and unreliable as its messenger.

It has been reported that “almost the entire senior hierarchy of Israel's military and security establishment is worried about a premature attack on Iran and apprehensive about the possible repercussions,” according to Israel’s former chief of defense forces. Robert Gates, who served as Secretary of Defense under both Bush and Obama, cautioned against military strikes in Iran, warning, “A military solution, as far as I'm concerned ... it will bring together a divided nation. It will make them absolutely committed to obtaining nuclear weapons. And they will just go deeper and more covert.”

Gates said the only long-term solution is convincing Iranians that nuclear weapons capacity is not in their interest—the goal of current diplomatic talks.

Even the director of the CIA under Bush said that the Bush Administration explored but ultimately rejected a military strike on Iran, concluding it would only “guarantee that which we are trying to prevent—an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon and that would build it in secret.”

News reports suggest that the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China are making headway in diplomatic negotiations with Iran that would halt nuclear weapons development in Iran for at least a decade and submit the country to rigorous inspections. But Republicans, so eager to bash President Obama on any count, have not only immorally (and possibly illegally) undermined U.S. diplomacy and credibility in the international community, they have argued President Obama is somehow causing brinksmanship by relying on smart diplomacy to avoid nuclear war.

We are supposed to believe this because John Bolton tells us to. Read on...

It would be nice if all of our corporate media would quit giving all of these chickenhawks a platform to spew their venom as well, but don't expect that to happen any time soon, if ever. They're too worried about keeping their access to politicians who are willing to appear on their shows and their advertising dollars rolling in from the corporations profiting from war.

Here's more from Charlie Pierce who was spot on with his comments on Bolton as well:

In which we learn that John Bolton wants to kill people for freedom.

[...]

Kill for peace, baby.

Rendering inoperable the Natanz and Fordow uranium-enrichment installations and the Arak heavy-water production facility and reactor would be priorities. So, too, would be the little-noticed but critical uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan. An attack need not destroy all of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, but by breaking key links in the nuclear-fuel cycle, it could set back its program by three to five years. The United States could do a thorough job of destruction, but Israel alone can do what's necessary. Such action should be combined with vigorous American support for Iran's opposition, aimed at regime change in Tehran.

Let me see if I understand the subleties here. The United States assists Israel in bombing the living isotopes out of two uranium-enrichment plants and a reactor. Leaving aside the pre-emptive nature of the attack, it unleashes a public health catastrophe with untold ongoing consequences on a country where the public-health system is rudimentary at best. Which results in a population that is so excited about being bombed and sickened that it rises up and overthrows the government and installs one more likely to be friendly to the powers that have bombed and sickened them.

Do these people know any actual...you know...people?