I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. Neither should you.

Hands Off Iran
By Chris Hedges

I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran–which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election–will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d’état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic.

Let us hope sanity prevails. But sanity is a rare commodity in a White House that has twisted Trotsky’s concept of permanent revolution into a policy of permanent war with nefarious aims–to intimidate and destroy all those classified as foreign opponents, to create permanent instability and fear and to strip citizens of their constitutional rights.

A war with Iran is doomed. It will be no more successful than the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon in 2006, which failed to break Hezbollah and united most Lebanese behind that militant group. The Israeli bombing did not pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen when we begin to pound a country of 65 million people whose land mass is three times the size of France?

Once you begin an air campaign it is only a matter of time before you have to put troops on the ground or accept defeat, as the Israelis had to do in Lebanon. And if we begin dropping bunker busters and cruise missiles on Iran, this is the choice that must be faced: either send US forces into Iran to fight a protracted and futile guerrilla war, or walk away in humiliation.

But more ominous, an attack on Iran will ignite the Middle East. The loss of Iranian oil, coupled with possible Silkworm missile attacks by Iran against oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, could send the price of oil soaring to somewhere around $200 a barrel. The effect on the domestic and world economy will be devastating, very possibly triggering a global depression. The Middle East has two-thirds of the world’s proven petroleum reserves and nearly half its natural gas. A disruption in the supply will be felt immediately.

This attack will be interpreted by many Shiites in the Middle East as a religious war. The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia (heavily concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern Province), the Shiite majority in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey could turn in rage on us and our dwindling allies. We could see a combination of increased terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and widespread sabotage of oil production in the Persian Gulf. Iraq, as bad as it looks now, will become a death pit for US troops. The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which has so far not joined the insurgency, has strong ties to Iran. It could begin full-scale guerrilla resistance, possibly uniting for the first time with Sunnis against the occupation. Iran, in retaliation, will fire its missiles, some with a range of 1,100 miles, at US installations, including Baghdad’s Green Zone. Expect substantial casualties, especially with Iranian agents and their Iraqi allies calling in precise coordinates. Iranian missiles could be launched at Israel. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, will become treacherous, perhaps unnavigable. Chinese-supplied antiship missiles, mines and coastal artillery, along with speedboats packed with explosives and suicide bombers, will target US shipping, along with Saudi oil production and oil export centers.

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The U.S. has spent about $1 billion on abstinence-only education in the last decade. Here’s how presidential candidates line up on the issue.

Still a Puritan Nation? Most ‘08 Candidates Support Abstinence Education
By Alison Bowen

An end to abstinence-only sex education was at the top of the list when 600 self-described feminists met in New York recently to rally their ranks and craft a platform for U.S. presidential lobbying.

Abstinence-only — for which President Bush proposes a 2008 budget of $204 million — has avid supporters and wary detractors, who want to find a more comprehensive way to present sex education.

In March, three members of Congress introduced a bill to authorize federal funds for states’ comprehensive sex education that offers menu of options from abstinence to contraception and abortion. The Responsible Education About Life Act — or the REAL Act as the bill is known — was sponsored by Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J.; Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.; and Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.

The following month a congressional study found that abstinence-only education — which emphasizes chastity, or abstaining from sex, as the best practice for teens — did not significantly delay their decisions whether to have sex.

Over a dozen states have dodged abstinence-only curricula for their schools by declining the funds that mandate it.

On Nov. 14 Virginia became the latest when Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s proposed budget eliminated the $275,000 matching grant that is part of the federal funding.

Plenty of GOP boosters remain on Capitol Hill, however.

In the wake of President Bush’s Oct. 3 veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — the low-cost health insurance for families who don’t qualify for Medicaid but can’t afford private insurance — some Democratic advocates of SCHIP tried to sweeten it for Republicans by attaching a $28 million increase in abstinence funding. That effort failed, but it showed the extent to which abstinence funding is viewed as a potent bipartisan bargaining.

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Russian Protest Crackdown

Riot police detained more than 200 people at a rally protesting the Kremlin and the Putin government. What do you think?

Sidney Gerber,
Lab Technician
“Can’t those people just settle down and enjoy the iron fist of democracy?”

Violet Klein,
Rug Cleaner
“The thing you have to respect about Putin is that he doesn’t send others to do his dirty work; he went out there, knocked those 200 people around, and arrested them himself.”

Jonas VanDerHeusen,
Information Boot Attendant
“What can be said? They beat them with sticks. Then they drank together, and embraced, and laughed. They talked of sweet Natalya and her sister Yulia with her copper-red hair. They beat them again.”

TheOnion.com

Today’s video of the day is “Yesterday” by Mary Mary. Yep, it’s one of those days….