The article below is disturbing because Petraeus talks of the Iranian connection with the same dead certainty that Colin Powell did to the U.N. ("We know that Iran is arming the insuregency because blahblahblah and we have learned of a vast network of shadowy operatives, ammo caches and safehouses essentially stretching from Baghdad to Tehran and financed by blahblahblah. British intelligence has revealed a previously unknown network of blahblahblah operating west, north, east, and south of Baghdad and all points in between there and here.") And, like Powell's speech, you know it's bullshit. He doesn't have enough data to make the assumptions that he is. He's trying to build a case for the U.S. to attack Iran and we've been through this once already, thank you.

What has happened to us? Do we no longer have anybody left in the upper echelons of the brass who can do no better to assess a situation but to jump to the same wild conclusions of the Bush administration? Do any of them understand why we gather data? Why we analyze it? Why we draw conclusions based on that data? What a strategy is? Do they understand that people with extensive experience in various areas and spheres have to see that data and give input on it and that it must then be painstakingly correlated? That its conclusions must be responsible? Who is telling Petraeus that Iran has this huge, elaborate terrorist network pulling the strings behind Iran?

John McCain is doing the same thing with that goddamn idiotic "Bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran" thing he pulled last week or so. Then he tells everybody, "Hey, it was just a joke! Lighten up alright?" Ohhhh, a joke!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Boy that was funny Senator McCain. I though because you said it deliberately in a speech in front of a crowd that desperately wants to do the very thing you joked about in the retarded belief that it will change the situation in Iraq that you might have been pandering to them and only pretending it was a joke. Sort of like a lawyer who introduces evidence illegally to the jury who is then told to disregard it. A kind of, "Whoops! Did I say that? Tee-hee! Silly me. I'm such a joker!" For a minute there, senator, I got the impression that you intend to carry this administration's policy to the next level should you get into office and that next step would be to "Bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran!"

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1615020,00.html