I avoid the news on TV, so this is kind of late in getting my attention. It looks like the Pentagon has decided to fully eschew hard evidences and instead rely on insinuation to beat the war drum as revealed in a pair of stories making the rounds in the media today.

According to Reuters article via Yahoo:

Iran has built up its naval forces in the Gulf and prepared boats that could be used in suicide attacks, but the U.S. Navy can prevent it from blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the commander of U.S. naval forces in the region said on Sunday.

A few paragraphs down the article mentions:

… ever since al Qaeda suicide bombers in a small boat killed 17 sailors on board the destroyer U.S.S. Cole in a port in Yemen in 2000, Washington has been wary of the vulnerability of its huge battleships to bomb attacks by small enemy craft.

So, we have an article that relies only on one military source, Vice Admiral Mark Fox, telling us that to be worried about small watercraft from Iran because al Qaeda used them in 2000. Basically, the military source and media, are trying to say “Iran is like al Qaeda so Iran uses terrorism.”

There are thousands of small boats from Canada and Mexico that can be used for the same attacks on naval ships stationed near border waters, shouldn’t we worry about them too? Since, you know, we were constantly told that terrorists could easily cross the border from either country?

Why not raise these concerns with Canada or Mexico? Probably because our politicians and lobbyists aren’t looking for a war with them, even though Mexico’s instability is more likely to damage its neighbors (that includes us) than a stable Iran, which we have at the moment.

Also making the rounds is a story that’s essentially blamed the Iranians for sticky-bomb attacks on Israeli diplomats in Georgia and India.

From Yahoo via ABC News:

In a strike virtually identical to attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists, U.S. sources say a passing motorcyclist attached what appeared to be a shaped charge to an Israeli diplomatic vehicle in New Delhi, India. The driver and the wife of Israel’s deputy defense ministry representative to India were wounded, as were two people in a nearby car.

Aside from the obvious similarities in the attacks, there is no hard evidence linking the Iranians to the attack. Which the story says a few paragraphs later:

No attackers have been identified in either incident. An unconfirmed report says that a third Israeli facility in Amsterdam may also have been targeted.

Apparently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s word is all the authority neccesary:

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly pointed the finger at Iran for the twin attacks in Georgia and India. Both attacks come one day after the fourth anniversary of the assassination of a top Hezbollah leader.

Netanyahu also said that Israel had stopped attacks in other countries, including Thailand and Azerbaijan, in recent months. “In all those cases, the elements behind those attacks were Iran and its protege,” said Netanyahu.”

And yes, he is the only source the story quoted by name. An anonymous Iranian official was the other. For the majority of America, this is good enough as the TV propaganda mills start bringing in “analysts” and “commentators” to work their spin during prime time in order to tell us “what the Iranians are thinking” and what the US ought to do. It’s pretty dull viewing, but our media establishment is now based on commentators making comments about other commentators the next day while people on the various Web forums make comments on those comments until another commentator makes a comment on something else, then it starts over again.

Critical thinking seems to have gone the way of the dodo with the media becoming little more than partisan propaganda factories, which work feverishly to justify the Obama administration’s antagonizing of Iran or condemn the administration for not going to war fast enough.

There doesn’t look to be much hope in that changing and some sort of conflict with Iran that will have a cost of human life seems inevitable. What can those on the outside do though when the “mainstream” in the country has successfully marginalized them? Probably not much when critical thinking is not in fashion.