If you think Paul Ryan's recent sabre-rattling over Iran echoes that of Cheney over Iraq, you are to be commended for your acumen.

It turns out that none other than Dan Senor, the neo-conservative who advised members of the Bush II administration has been harnessed up again to guide the Republican Vice-Presidential hopeful.

Senor was the advisor to Paul Bremer who was effectively the post-invasion governor of Iraq and decided it would be a good idea not only to "de-Baathify" the Iraqi government but, in one of the most boneheaded decisions of the war, to peremptorily release the million-man Iraqi army without notice and to send them into the countryside without jobs and looking for something to do.

According to a recent article by Maureen Dowd,

Senor is emblematic of how much trouble America blundered into in the Middle East — trillions wasted, so many lives and limbs lost — because of how little we fathom the culture and sectarian politics. We’re still stumbling in the dark. We not only don’t know who our allies and enemies are, we don’t know who our allies’ and enemies’ allies and enemies are.

As the spokesman for Paul Bremer during the Iraq occupation, Senor helped perpetrate one of the biggest foreign policy bungles in American history. The clueless desert viceroys summarily disbanded the Iraqi Army, forced de-Baathification, stood frozen in denial as thugs looted ministries and museums, deluded themselves about the growing insurgency, and misled reporters with their Panglossian scenarios of progress.

And this is the guy the Republicans have chosen to build up their foreign policy chops. Let's hope their economic advisors aren't also the ones who convinced Bush that a trillion-dollar war wouldn't require any new taxes and wouldn't increase the deficit.

This week's NY Times and Wash Post had some interesting Op-Ed pieces. Besides the strong stuff from Maureen Dowd. However, with the release of the new tapes with Romney "unchained", I think that the Republican campaign has, more or less, blown itself to smithereens. If the media chooses to cover it. The debates might be interesting to watch. As far as the polls go for the next week, who knows?

Politicizing serious issues like lran and Israel is something that needs to be reprimanded but that is part of politics.. Who can blame them? Politicians need to win and get elected so they have to do that to bring down opponents. I guess they accept that as a natural process to survive in the jungle.. Lookin says its Deja Vu but I see it as normal a thing as eating meals and going to gentlemen's room.. The same thing will happen again and again...

Politicizing serious issues like lran and Israel is something that needs to be reprimanded but that is part of politics.. Who can blame them? Politicians need to win and get elected so they have to do that to bring down opponents. I guess they accept that as a natural process to survive in the jungle.. Lookin says its Deja Vu but I see it as normal a thing as eating meals and going to gentlemen's room.. The same thing will happen again and again...

Except that eating meals and going to the gentleman's room don't usually lead to the inept and ill-advised prosecution of wars and loss of life.

We already know the results of letting the wrong folks get in the position to make war and, if we allow it to happen again and again, we will have only ourselves to blame.